Humility

You don’t know what you don’t know. About people–other people, that is. We all have our own journey. Our own trials and tribulations. Our own ups and our own downs. I was reminded of that quite recently.

The other day, as I was finishing up watching the final episodes of one of my favourite shows I noticed that I was being really judgy about a guest that came on. This is one of those people, who for some reason, just drives me crazy. The funny thing is, I don’t even know this person. Not really anyway. She’s a celebrity. Not someone I have passed on the street or dealt with in my community, just someone I see on TV from time to time. For some reason she has always driven me absolutely crazy. I mean to the point that when I see her I can feel my body tense up.

Then I Googled her.

This poor woman who I have always judged and not liked while knowing nothing about her has been suffering for years. She is in so much pain that it is unbearable most days and her medication makes her shake.

That led me to Google another celebrity who has always driven me crazy.

What did I find?

She had been isolating herself her whole life due to being embarrassed about mental health issues and only spoke out in the last few years.

How humbling.

I can relate so much to both of these women, which I am guessing is why they both drove me crazy. Let me explain that. One of the lessons I have learned about myself throughout my journey is that if something about another person bugs me, it usually has more to do with me than them. In other words, if there is something that drives me crazy about someone or I don’t like someone for some reason, it is most likely because there is something that reminds me about myself that I don’t like.

You see, I have struggled with severe asthma my entire life. At times, my medication has been so strong that my entire body would shake. I mean a shake that I could feel from the inside out. A shake so bad that I couldn’t hold a glass of water or a cup of coffee without fear of spilling it. So I didn’t. In public that is. The only way you would see me with any beverage in public is if it was in a cup with a lid or a water bottle. I was embarrassed to hold things, for fear that you would see it shake in my hands. I would drop things because the shaking would be so bad sometimes.

So I can totally understand someone being self-conscious about shaking for any reason. Yet I was holding it against someone who I didn’t even know.

I also struggled with knowing that there was something off my whole life. Of course, a lot had to do with all of the medication I was on but there was something else. I could never quite put my finger on it though. I had this feeling in my stomach every minute of every day, like a knot that was being pulled so tight it was extremely painful at times. It was always there for as long as I could remember, so after a while I just assumed it was normal. You know, that everyone had it. Sometimes that knot would travel up to my throat, where it was painful as well but I could never really describe it or understand why it was there. I never talked about either of these knots. Like I said, I thought it was normal, so I just moved on like they were nothing, each and every day.

Another thing I never understood was how I could go at a thousand miles an hour non-stop, every single day, until I couldn’t. I would literally come to a complete halt! And then I could do nothing, and I mean nothing! To the point where sometimes I couldn’t even get out of bed. For the longest time, I assumed it was due to my asthma and thought that I had pushed myself too much and it was my body saying, okay, it’s time to rest. But this paralysis, I guess I could call it, would go on and on and on. I couldn’t explain how I felt. I just didn’t feel good. I felt exhausted and sad and just awful. I would stay in bed. I would stay home. I would cancel plans and appointments.

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that I suffer from anxiety, depression and CPTSD. Now that I know this, I totally understand my past behaviour, but boy, I didn’t understand it then. All I knew was that I felt ashamed, embarrassed, guilty, tired—exhausted tired—like a fatigue that felt like a bag of rocks on your back tired. I could never really fully explain to anyone how I felt. I just knew I felt awful and didn’t—or rather, couldn’t—do anything. So, I had two speeds: full throttle ahead and zero. Actually, less than zero.

I was 48 when I was finally diagnosed with anxiety. That is a lot of faking it until you make it. And that was just the beginning. I totally understand why I was so judgy about the second person that drove me crazy. I could see myself in her. And that part of myself, I did not like at all.

What a lesson in humility. I have come so far in my journey already and for that I am extremely grateful. What I am also grateful for is the fact that I learn something new each and every day and today that lesson was humility with a capital H!

I am so grateful to be reminded that you don’t know what you don’t know.