Landslide

"Well, I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you..."

I'm sure that Stevie Nicks wasn't thinking about her father when she wrote the lyrics to this song, but I think she was talking about the place I'm at right now... She wrote the song before she hit it big with Fleetwood Mac and was working to figure out where she was going with her life. While she viewed the Colorado mountains and contemplated an avalanche, I've experienced a landslide all my own.

Each time I've heard this specific line of the song lyrics, it has struck a chord with me. It wasn't until very recently, and with the help of my therapist, that I really began to understand what it means to me.

I'm at a point where I marvel at the amount of work my brain did to create a set of rigid "rules" about my Dad and his death for me to believe in. Things like: being happy is an affront to Daddy's memory; being sad is the only feeling I can have about Daddy's death; if only I had been good enough Daddy wouldn't have died; don't share your feelings with anyone because they won't understand; don't have feelings because you don't understand them; my anger caused Daddy to die, etc...

My landslide was the recent avalanche of feelings that would overwhelm me at the most inopportune (i.e. whenever I wasn't ready to deal with them) moments. When I noticed that the sum total of my feelings consisted of rage, anger, frustration, and the accompanying bewilderment of where this was all coming from, I realized I was in another deep depression. It took me a while to realize that I was depressed again, because these feelings weren't my usual clue that I was depressed. As a matter of fact, it was these feelings that made me wonder what the heck was going on.

I'd never (well, very rarely) let myself feel anger and rage, and now I couldn't stop feeling these emotions. I've discovered that the anger I was feeling is in direct conflict with one of my heretofore inviolable rules and I believe that caused my crisis resulting in depression. What could I do now??? I was caught in a landslide of feelings I didn't understand and I couldn't fight my way out. Fortunately, I have learned some depression survival skills and I contacted my therapist.

I've realized that I have been afraid of changing how I feel about Daddy's death, and I've discovered that I need to rebuild the beliefs that I built around Daddy's death. I'm afraid because I don't know any other way to behave--I have 32 years of unusual coping skills to evaluate and change. The need to let go of these coping skills that are no longer working and to honor Daddy in a healthy way is so compelling that I can't continue to live like I did.

I am taking baby steps and the first ones are to be able to identify what I'm feeling and then to just feel them. I guess my slogan should echo Nike's: Just Feel It. So, that's what I'm doing and I'm grateful that hearing the Dixie Chicks sing "Landslide" tonight reminded me that I am changing even though I'm still afraid.