becoming uncovered

I saw this quote today and I held my breath!

It has so much meaning in many different ways, but to me the meaning meant everything to what I have gone through this past year. The quote:

“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep”

For me, the quote says – you can’t cover what is there and pretend it’s not there just because you can’t see it.

You can’t let in connection and support if you don’t show what is underneath –  and that is what I have done in the past year.

I spent over a year covering pain, emotions, anger and parts of my past hoping that not only I wouldn’t see it, but praying and hoping that others couldn’t see it either; so much that I isolated from everyone making sure it stayed hidden.

It’s been 10 days since I have come off the “cover” – the pain meds, and I am sleeping. I am not waking up to nightmares or visions trying to escape through my sleep. I am not waking up with doom or the feeling as if life is pulling me further and further away.

I am eating. I am seeing things that were pent-up under a cover for a year now, and that can also come with its blessings and its curses.

The blessing is: I am not covered and suffering under a small confined space alone. The Curse: I am not covered and suffering under a small confined space alone.

Now that I can see everything, I need to find a way to talk about it. I can’t ignore the elephant in the room, and I have no more covers and that is scary.

I am also feeling some moments of joy, maybe even little moments of feeling content; also something I haven’t felt in over a year.

When you cover and hide the hard emotions, you also cover joy and happiness. You can’t selectively cover emotions, you cover one, you cover them all, including the good ones. You hide from yourself, you hide from others.

The quote just hit me when I saw it and I’ll say it again “you can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep”.

I have been pretending to be asleep for a year now. Pulling the covers over all the pain and unsureness making it impossible for those around me to help, because if I can’t see it, no one else can either. I guess that is why they call it “isolation”.

I isolated from everyone this year, I pulled the covers over life and pretended that nothing was there, and now that the covers are off, things are unveiling themselves and that can be both scary and hopeful at the same time.

I have had support, connection, love, and care by my side from my family, friends, my therapist who has really helped me to see some of what i was covering, but no one could do it but me, and that is what I did 10 days ago.

I can’t say it’s been easy, not even close! I am still feeling the effects even though the covers are almost completely off, because with that comes the reality of why, and facing the reasons of why I spent a whole year covering and isolating.

It’s been a hard 10 days, and it’s still hard, but when you let people see what you have been covering, it’s a lot easier for them to wake you and help you up, because now your really letting others see what is there, and not just others, but I myself am finally seeing and feeling what was there all along.

I am sure it will take a lot of healing and a process to really sit with what has been here, but I have faith and hope that what it is we reveal in ourselves is a lot easier to mend than something that is covered and hidden by fear.

I don’t know what the days ahead will look like. I am sure they will be both hard and good, sad and happy, frustrating and maybe even days filled with anger, but whatever is here, at least they are not covered.

Even writing this blog is vulnerable, because I am holding myself accountable for the truth that is right here

– the covers are off, and here I am, emotions and all.