I recently discovered a very important lesson and realization. Unresolved issues can bite you in the butt at any time without any distinct warning. They can cause anywhere from a little hiccup to complete devastation no matter where you are on the recovery trail. This came as should I say at best an irritating surprise. 

I personally have a 100lb chest of buried emotions, experiences, and thoughts inside of me from childhood through now (at age 27). They don’t just stem from one occasion but rather multiple events and I was never good at expressing emotion or my thoughts when it came to something related to me or someone else. Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few months after turning 18 was a result of a traumatic event which enables my chest or buried worms to come out. Alcohol, smoking, bulimia, self-injury, reckless behavior, suicidal ideation, skipping classes was all my way of coping with my past. The funny thing is my unique reaction to being on medication actually closed the box. It was great in the sense that I could work on building my life back together. I actually did achieve success being on medication and now being almost a year without medication. Some of these successes were I managed to graduate with my B.S in Psychology with high honors, I was holding a part-time job and now a full-time job, I made it through a destructive short marriage and then a long divorce, I lost over 60 lbs., and more while working on my recovery. However, just because the box was closed and forgotten about, didn’t mean all within it had been resolved or that it forgot about me. 

Unresolved issues of any kind, especially trauma, have the ability to turn stability into instability and to turn recovery into a relapse. You can’t ignore it and you know the way you chose to deal with it determines whether it causes a hiccup or complete devastation. It is knowledge learned from the past that you hoped was exiled from affecting your future. I thought this and even though I knew these lessons, their importance and logic. My emotions have a great way of overriding my logic. That is a big reason why my self-destructive habits are difficult to abstain from in times of high emotional & mental turmoil. I know the habit is bad, I lived through the consequences of it multiple times before. But, unfortunately, when my emotions are screaming they tone out the logic and wisdom gained before. 

I came up with this a few days ago and would love to share it as it is really prevalent. 

“Every decision involves a choice. Every choice has the possibility of reward and consequence”

My logic and wisdom battle with my intense emotions when it comes to making the decision. The logic and wisdom usually always follows with reward of some kind; and the intense emotions follow with consequence of every kind with lasting effects.

With unresolved issues there is always the decision one has to make to process through the issues or not. The choice is whether you decide to or not. I can honestly say that for me personally if I can’t process through my 100lb chest or begin to then the cycle that has always existed within the background will continue to exist. It will also always at some point or another and in a different way every time cause disturbance in my functioning and recovery.