Falling From The Tree – Part 4

Published on by Susi Bocks
pxhere.com

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I inhaled deeply to smell the rich aroma of spices in the air. It made me smile and gave me something to look forward to this evening. It’d been a while since I’d made my favorite crockpot recipe, well, actually my husband’s. He adored anything pasta and mushrooms. Super easy to prepare and guaranteed not to have any leftovers. I could almost taste it already. Soon my husband would be home from work, and we would eat our supper with great enjoyment. Ahhhh.

While sipping my tea, my thoughts once again turned back to my past and the fallout of my upbringing. I wondered why I couldn’t redirect to something different. Maybe I should read a book and relax? So, I did but couldn’t concentrate on the pages. I gave in and resumed letting my mind take me wherever it needed to wander.

I pondered on the direction my life had taken once I’d left my house. It was exhilarating to be independent, but I was going from one dysfunctional situation to another with my first boyfriend. Talk about a co-dependent situation. He was an alcoholic, just like his father, and mine was. I was repeating history. Although the odds were against me to rise above the dysfunction, sanity did prevail. It took five years before I finally ended it to move out on my own. I made some better choices, all the while learning anew and relearning the old.

Shortly after that, I reconnected with my first love, the one who slept with my sister. We eventually married but then separated about a year and a half into the marriage. Getting hitched may not have been the best decision, but I did gain a wonderful son, for whom I will forever be grateful. He is a spot of sunshine for my heart and added so much to my well-being. Parenting is not an easy task or for the faint-hearted, but he helped me understand what it meant to be a loving parent, something my mother never gave me. Although I think I also made mistakes, they were never intentionally inflicted to harm my son.

I’m not ashamed to say moving on to better things involved counseling, quite a bit of it when necessary. I’ve never understood why some people wouldn’t reach out for help when it was required. There is certainly a stigma surrounding mental illness, but it is beyond time to let go of it. People enduring emotional situations or trauma needing healing should be supported, not denigrated. And actually, it should be applauded when people do reach out for help. They are choosing to feel better about themselves, making necessary decisions to move on. Those are worthy efforts, in my opinion.

Since life is always challenging us, even when the world is relatively normal, I’m very thankful to have benefitted from the perspective of someone who was emotionally distant from the situations I had dealt with in my youth. They were able to see things that I otherwise wouldn’t because I was too close to it, nor had I been provided the tools to resolve what I had been ‘gifted’ during childhood.

I could hear the door opening. Here comes some of that normalcy I attained. And I smile a little to myself. Here’s to getting stronger and, hopefully, saner.

TO BE CONTINUED ON FRIDAY…

Dear Readers, everything in this story up until this point has been based on my real history, and one of the ending choices is actually how it all turns out. But if you don’t pick it, it’ll have to be an ending from my imagination. 🙂 Here are your choices:

Game-changing
Happy
Sad

I look forward to writing how the story will end! Here’s hoping you enjoy it!
And yes, I will let you know if it’s the real ending or fiction.🙂

34 thoughts on “Falling From The Tree – Part 4”

  1. I got it from the first chapter that somewhere the story is close to you as the emotions you have poured in are touching. Rightly said, the choice is yours. I loved the story. It has really made me confident. 🙂

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  2. Some people believe that when someone seeks psychological help, that there’s something wrong with that. We must never forget that the mind is part of the body. So, if one part of the body needs a certain type of therapy to recover from diseases or infections, the mind needs to be opened and ventilated, by expressing the emotions that the person is going through. Each body part has it’s own process to heal.

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  3. Pingback: Falling From The Tree – Part 5 – I Write Her

  12. Let’s have a game-changing ending please Susi. Again, your story resonates with me. After my younger son died, I too went for counselling. I have had four lots up to now and found it very cathartic and healing.
    I agree totally with you that there should be no stigma to asking for and getting the help you need when your mental health is at stake!
    Thank you so much for sharing your story, it really helps to know I am not alone! 🙂🌻🧡👩‍🦰🍁

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    1. I’ve got it down, but it really depends on how the votes fall. So sorry for the loss of your son, but so glad you were able to heal after it. ❤ As I mentioned earlier in the story, sometimes things just surface and it's time to talk more about them. That's always healing for me. You are definitely not alone, Carolyn! ((hugs))

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