Is It Passion (or Trauma)?

For a long time, I've been chomping at the bit (or vomiting, or bleeding, or dying--or all of the above) to speak out against something that has, quite literally, driven me mad over the last almost forty years of my life. 

I've created entire blogs about it. Commented under posts on social media. Made my own posts (only to delete them). Filmed videos that never made it to YouTube. 

Up until today, I didn't know why I couldn't just talk openly about this subject, without any fear or shame creeping in. 

It's not that I'm scared of offending anyone, not really. I've said plenty about my thoughts to plenty of people. 

And I wouldn't say I'm ashamed of my beliefs now, either. Why should I be? I'm a rational thinking and feeling human being, capable of making my own decisions. We all are. 

I guess it's that for my whole childhood, I grew up in a home where anxiety around the very subject I'd like to call out permeated our home. 

Literally every single thing that was said or done within the walls of our home--everything that was read or watched too--had something to do with this subject, a subject that left me bitter, resentful, and confused. 

Today I was reading a fantastic book (Everything Is F*cked, a Book about Hope, by Mark Manson--SO GOOD--highly suggest it), and this nugget of gold hit me, thanks to Mark's style of writing. He writes as if the two of you are sitting across from one another, having a cup of coffee and laughing about the dumpster fire surrounded by flowers that is called being human. 

Anyway, the thought occurred to me that it was entirely possible that I was so interested in speaking out about this subject because holding on to it was actually like holding a crutch, keeping me in a similar state of feeling that I'd been in for forty years--toxic, but known. 

It's a twisted thing we humans do to maintain control, this belief that if we know what's coming, we can somehow control it. 

For the first time I questioned if the beliefs I'd held forever about this certain subject were helping or hurting me, and, if the answer was hurting (spoiler alert: it was), then why was I so committed to keeping this at the forefront of my mind? Why not just let it go? 

Fear. I was afraid that if I let this subject go, then people won't know about it, and the world will fall apart. 

Did you hear me? Apparently, my lizard brain believes it controls the world. THE ENTIRE WORLD. 

I didn't know that sometimes our passions are actually our traumas, refusing to let go. With this new information (and a whole lotta gratitude to Mark for such an awesome book), I decided this afternoon to lay my fears at the feet of my creator, then let this subject go. 

Because anything that's holding me in chains can't be good for me. 

And I don't want to waste another second of my life living as a slave to fear.