Day 116- All By Myself

Tonight is the first night in almost two years that I will spend it away from my parents. Every since I got sick and put into the hospital, one of my biggest issues I've had to deal with is being by myself. My parents have been my safety blanket and security for these past years while I've been dealing with my issues. I think a main reason why I have a hard being alone is because on the first day that I started having symptoms for my bowel obstruction, I was by myself. My entire family was at work. I remember sitting there in the worst pain of my life, dry heaving every few seconds, and there was no one there to help.

If I'm being honest though, my issues with being alone started much earlier than this. All my life my mom has been my security blanket and I feel safe knowing she is there. In my entire 28 years of life, I have truly ever spent one night completely by myself (Note: This night was before Tyson, so I really was all alone). I think that night I maybe slept for an hour or so. Now I don't have a problem with being home alone during the day. Since I grew up with siblings and a stay at home mom I will probably always prefer having someone home with me, but daytime I can manage. It is being alone at night that I have a hard time with.

I think a lot of it has to do with watching scary slasher movies at a young age. When I was in junior high/high school movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer were huge. I probably saw them each 100 times. In all those movies it is the nice, sweet, small, white girls who are alone at night that are always being attacked. I guess the idea of bad things happening when people are alone at night has been embedded in my brain. Now I don't think that if I'm alone at night some psycho killer is certainly going to get me. I do worry though that if something major happens, like I get sick, a fire breaks out, or someone tries to break in, I  won't have anyone to help me.

I think the best way to get comfortable with being alone is the same way I got over being alone at all when I first got sick. After I came out of the hospital, I couldn't be alone at all. I wouldn't even go to the bathroom without someone waiting outside the door for me. I was paranoid that if I was alone, something would absolutely happen. I wouldn't even sleep alone. I set up a mattress on my parents floor and Tyson and I slept there for awhile. Slowly though, I started to test things because I knew that behavior was not normal for me and I had to get back to my normal. I would be alone for 30 minutes, then an hour, then I slept back in my room, etc. The more I pushed it a little and nothing "bad" happened, I would slowly get reassured it was okay to be alone again. I eventually got more comfortable with it and set up goals for myself like spend an entire day alone, drive by myself to meet friends for dinner, and close my door at night when I go to bed.

These were all steps to gaining some of my independence back. Now, I have to work on it for nighttime. This is definitely something I'm going to have to work on if I plan on moving out before I'm married or if I don't have other friends who can move in with me. Tonight is the first step. My parents have gone to the beach about an hour and a half away. They are just spending the night and will return home tomorrow. Both Tyson and my brother will be home to sleep tonight, so I won't be alone, but my security blanks of my parents will not be here. It's the first steps in this new goal of spending a night alone.

Day 116- Words of Wisdom.... "Learn how to stand on your own." AND "Think a hopeful thought every day." AND "Set aside time each day to be with yourself."