Target Audience: Survivors of Abuse, Christians

Intro

I am not a health care professional. I am not trained as a counselor. I do not give people advice. I try my best not to fix others. I am, though, someone who has battled chronic depression and anxiety for most of my life. This article does not have any outside research, because this is like a journal entry that I am posting on this blog. I believe that problems can get lighter when we bring them to a community as opposed to suffering in silence. I believe that silence intensifies the pain and often prolongs the suffering.

What Happened

Wednesday was a glorious summer day and I couldn’t resist the temptation to go out grocery shopping. I do not have a vehicle any longer and am quite happy taking public transit. As I am a disabled senior, I qualify for a special bus service, so I can schedule to be picked up and dropped off at my apartment building. I went into the grocery store and they were kind enough to watch my walker for me while I used the scooter they provided. I did my shopping, then decided to get a coffee at a coffee shop located in the parking lot of the plaza. I bought the coffee, had the server put it in a tray for me, then walked back to the grocery store where I was going to sit and wait for my bus.

I carefully lifted the walker off over the curb, although there was a cutaway a short distance to my right, but I didn’t see it at the time. I lifted my bag of groceries off the walker and flipped the coffee on the ground. What a dumb mistake, right? I was so angry at myself because it was so careless.

When something like that happens I have for most of my life spent time beating myself up because I was careless, which of course we all are from time to time. It didn’t matter that the same accident could have happened to anyone. It happened to me and I felt intense anger at myself. I can trace this back to my childhood where my father would accept nothing less than perfection. My mother was much more relaxed and I am not sure why her attitudes and messages did not take root as deeply as the negative messages that I got from my father. Now, in fairness to my father, I don’t think he intended to plant the anger and the negativity in me. I think he merely wanted me to strive to do better.

I sat on the sidewalk for probably 10 or 15 minutes muttering to myself about how stupid I felt. Then I finally decided to go across the parking lot to the same coffee shop (there is also a McDonalds in the parking lot as well), and get another coffee. I walked back, but I only had 35 minutes before my bus would be there. I was really tense. Muttering to myself in the coffee shop (yup, muttering to myself in line at the coffee shop), I bought the second cup of coffee, walked back to the grocery store, used the cutaway this time, then decided to sample some of the cherries I bought earlier. Trying to balance the coffee, I splashed some of the scalding hot coffee on my hand, and immediately tossed the cup on the ground. Mercifully, I was alone on the sidewalk. Had there been anyone else there, I could have burned someone else. It was bad enough that I got burned myself.

As I look back, this particular coffee shop has never had good coffee cups. They are too thin and when I used to order from them I would always them to double cup the coffee. I am not sure if that would have helped, but I have decided that unless I have somewhere to put the cup down, I am NEVER going to try to balance coffee while sitting on my walker again. In the province of Ontario, I am not sure coffee shops can fill a thermal cup — COVID restrictions.

I was still rather angry at myself when I got home. I bought two chocolate chip cookies, which I inhaled when I got home, then I realized I didn’t have much prepared for supper, so I ordered a pizza. I am trying to lose weight, but lately I have had my troubles.

Today I am fine. I am scheduled to meet a friend at a local McDonalds and I am hoping that we can sit on the patio and drink our drinks without having to flip our masks up after each sip. Here’s to moving beyond COVID.

Comments

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