I must make a breakthrough this year. I feel like all the things that I am struggling with right now are interrelated. I am unable to see myself nor my own Buddha nature. It’s like I am invisible to myself. Not being able to see myself, may have been a form of protection in the past, but it is no longer needed. I have not resolved trauma that I had experienced as a child. I’m sure that it is affecting me in some way that I am unable to see. I shared with a Trauma Specialist that I had experienced trauma as a child, and that I felt like I was okay. She responded, “Until you are not!”
Now, I am ready to face this issue head on. I do have a therapist that I trust. She is a woman of color. All my previous therapists had been Caucasian. I didn’t know how nice it would be to work with a woman who was brown like me, until I started working with her. It does make sense that if we work with providers who look similar to us, that it would feel comfortable.
I have been chanting lately to treasure the person in front of me like Ikeda Sensei does. I do feel very hopeful. I do believe that if I keep chanting about this, that it will lead to a breakthrough for me. I have also been chanting to heal myself. There is a hurt little girl inside of me that needs to move on. I don’t want to be stuck anymore.
I am loving my job. This afternoon I did outreach at the Frank E. Merriweather Library. I talked to 18 people about the Mental Health Peer Connection and Western New York Independent Living. I don’t know why, but it still amazes me that so many people say that they don’t know anyone who struggles with mental health and/or addiction. People say, “It doesn’t apply to me.” “I don’t know anyone.” As they are saying those words, I am thinking to myself “Mentiroso!”
One in four people struggle with mental health and one in seven suffer from addiction and of course there are some people who suffer from both. The chances are that we all do know someone who lives with mental health issues and/or addiction. Mentiroso means liar by the way. Why are so many people in denial about this? “Oh, I don’t know anyone!” The statistics say otherwise. It’s merely a question of working out the math. I wish I could call people out, but of course I can’t.
I did outreach at the Belle Center tonight. I went to my district meeting immediately afterwards. I got there just before 7pm. There were two guests at our meeting. There were also many members present. It felt good to be in a full room. We had a wonderful meeting. The meeting started at 7pm and the district house was opened at 6:30pm for chanting. I couldn’t get there early because I was still at work. Usually, I would have been.
When I woke up this morning, I thought it was Friday. As I was driving towards work, I realized that it wasn’t Friday and that it was in fact Wednesday. I think I know why I thought it was Friday. Our district meeting was today and our meetings used to be on Friday nights for many years. Even though it has been on Wednesday for many months, I am still not used to it. Earlier tonight, I lapsed into thinking it was Friday again. I had to remind myself that I must go to work tomorrow.
After I returned from my district meeting, I ate dinner. I was surprised that I wasn’t starving because it was almost 9pm by the time I got home. I ate lunch around 1:30pm. Even while I was doing outreach, I didn’t feel hungry at all. There was pizza there that I could have had, but I didn’t want any. I am taking a lower dose of olanzapine. I know that if I had been on my previous dosage, I would have come home ravenous. I am taking both abilify and olanzapine right now, but I will eventually ween off the olanzapine and take abilify instead. I just want to get down to a healthy BMI. I must change this. I should chant about this, but I have only done so once or twice.