Self-inquiry - How I asked for truth and something unexpected happened
I feel the need to share a somewhat unusual perspective on practice.
A month ago, I started the practice of Self-inquiry.
I was already going trough a long period of various practices, some breath meditation/insight, some metta, some open awareness...I've had regular practice since 2022.
I've always known myself as moody and I had recurrent depressive episodes and anger. Definition of Dukka, right?
One of the reasons I've eventually picked up meditation was to 'fix myself', to deal with this suffering I was carrying around for so long.
Suffering ramped up a bit in postpartum period.
My mood's were all over the place, but I was quite functional still. Due to this practice, I was able to not identify with all the thoughts that were going trough my head and I avoided many arguments or bad moments at home and at work. I was relating to my son in a lovely manner still but I kept feeling worse and worse, feeling less motivation to do my stuff. I kept up with inquiry.
Memories from my life kept washing over, I was shown all the things I lived trough. Then something happened: The mind broke a years long resistance pattern.
When I was 21 (now I'm 33) I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 disorder after I asked for professional help due to the suffering. I started taking medication and I was feeling better, but my family at the time was not supportive of the fact that I'm sick. They were not able to see it, nor was I able to carry this truth at the time.
So I quit the medication and I continued to self medicate with alcohol, relationships and overall terrible behavior. I had a really rough youth. I didn't share all the details with anyone, ever.
I was blessed with grace and somehow managed to build a life for myself even with the suffering and all the issues. I hid the idea of the disorder in my mind and lived on, and continued with my management strategies. I simply accepted I can't really drink alcohol, be exposed to a lot of social intensity and events or do rough sports. I had a couple of crisis here and there and reached out for medication but always dropped right back into denial.
Until now.
I asked, and observed myself over a long period of time, and then, I saw. All the patterns of behavior, all the management strategies, the shame, the nerves, the highs and the lows. It all fell into a pattern. Add some family history.
All this work I had to do to 'manage myself'.
The self-restraint, the control, I was afraid of my own anger and the fear was running the practice, the fear of the psyche. I broke out of denial and finally asked for external help. I admitted to myself that I've been in the second depressive episode this year that was interrupted by a period of 'feeling amazing'.
I'm actually sick. This is 'not me'. I have no control over this. It's my body. I can build the skills but I can't control what comes and goes.
How this truth feels: heavy, silent, equanimous and difficult. I am still grieving. I wrote it down for myself, I saw everything, and finally, trough practice I was able to face the facts fully. I built the foundation of safety in my own body, the stability, the Awareness that can hold even the most painful of truths.
The prayer I did was: "Show me the truth, regardless of how it feels.".
I am so grateful to the practice. It has been the solace.
It has also been the tool to bypass the actual reality of how things feel in this mind and body. Still, slowly and with love, It took me by the hand and showed me. The compassion is here. It's noone's fault. Things happened.