Reverb 11, December Tenth

What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

I'm trying to think of things I've learned in this year, rather than things I've known for a while and only recently decided to confront.  I think the best, most instructive thing I've learned about myself is just how foundational my Sickle Cell is.

It's the root of almost every insecurity I have. I started drinking at eighteen because I was socially awkward, particularly when it came to females.  I was particularly socially awkward because my ongoing social development was impeded by two things: frequent hospitalizations that both took me out of school and set me apart from my peers in a fundamental way, and social anxiety prompted (in part) by my fear that people would reject me for my difference.  I also let myself get talked into that first Corona lime because I thought it was a normal thing for high school seniors (and, more importantly, college freshmen) to do, and I so badly wanted to be normal - I wanted others to see me that way, but mostly I wanted to see myself that way.

I've already mentioned that I'm afraid to take on too much, due in part to my Sickle Cell.  The other part is due to my depression, which was caused (in the depths of my youth) in part by Sickle Cell.  It's not just the obvious cognitive-behavioral implications of a childhood riddled with physical pain and interrupted social development; the neurological ramifications of repeated cycles of debilitating pain -> opiate pain medication -> recovery -> debilitating pain also played a role.

My body has been my most unreliable asset for my entire life.  I spent my adolescence and about 51% of my twenties in denial.   Not so much of that singular fact; what I denied was that the singular fact was a big deal, psychologically speaking.  I tried to handle the typical crises of adolescence without paying attention to my Sickle Cell - hard, in retrospect, because one criterion of friendship was "Would s/he visit me in the hospital?"  And because few people passed that particular check.

Dating is, and has always been, difficult; not just because of Sickle Cell, but if I listed all of the reasons dating was difficult, each individual reason would connect back to Sickle Cell.  This is what I mean by foundational.

Sickle Cell sets me apart from my sober friends. I cannot completely abstain from mood-altering substances, and most of my sober buddies absolutely must so abstain.  I can avoid the drugs every healthy day - but when the fecal matter collides with the cooling device, "No, sorry, I'm sober" is not an option.  I've never been able to describe the pain adequately to someone who hasn't experienced its like; basically, I'd rather take the morphine and the accusations that I'm not really sober than try to live with the pain.  As prideful as I am, that's not even an internal debate; it's a certainty. I do set a fairly high threshold for when I head into the hospital, and here's the pride: I basically torture myself with pain, hoping that it'll pass, before I give in.  Sometimes, it does pass.  Not always.

I could go on - interminably - but you get the point.  This is the first year I have thrown off the denial completely.  Some of you know how the denial thing works - you get these little windows of insight sometimes, but they're painful, so you close the window, shut the blinds and hang a blanket over them.  This year, I tossed out the blanket and the blinds and nailed open the window.  If I'm going to make any progress socially - if I'm ever going to be less afraid of rejection, for example - I have to accept this part of myself without reservation.

How do I plan to apply this lesson? Achieving greater self-acceptance will translate into greater self-confidence, which I hope will help me take more social risks.  In general, of course, greater self-knowledge is never a bad thing.  Challenging, but never bad.