Little Control Over Our Lives

by Patty E. Fleener M.S.W.

I remember listening to a sermon in church once where the pastor talked about how little control we had over our lives. He said no matter what we had planned for our lives, and no matter how much we tried to control our lives, life seemed to have it's own plans.

I was as old as my late twenties when I heard that and that was news to me. I truly couldn't figure out why my life was a mess. I didn't know at that time that I had any mental health disorders. I had just figured I had made some mistakes but if I hadn't have made those mistakes my life would have been fine.

I shouldn't have married my ex-husband so if I had married "the right one" I would have been fine, felt fine inside, not felt any misery whatsoever and would experience complete inner happiness and peace. I truly felt that way.

So of course the answer was in "meeting the right man." Well, after one leaves college, meeting single people is a whole different story. People are not fresh anymore and in fact people like myself have been hurt and become more complex. 

I met a lot of "wrong men" and of course it was by "mistake" that I met these wrong men. It had nothing to do with me because I was fine. It was just bad luck. After all, I was becoming a social worker and I was becoming healthier and healthier just by what I was learning. (snicker)

So in a nutshell the only reason my life was a mess was because I was not in a "good" relationship with a man and the way to fix that was to find one. Happiness was to be found outside of myself because inside of myself was void and empty.

Years later, now at the age of 47, I am finally, due to much recovery, in a good relationship with a man. I am happy. I am happy due to this relationship but not solely because of this relationship. I am happy with my own self - with my achievements, with who I am and the life I created for myself. I experience inner happiness unrelated to my marriage though the marriage contributes to this happiness. Happiness is within, not outside of one self.

One must also remember that being in a relationship brings forth it's own set of problems and it is necessary to work hard on a relationship to keep it going and there are still no guarantees in life.

Maybe this happiness I feel is what normal feels like as I've felt so much misery from mental health disorders for so long that normal feels ecstatic. LOL

I don't like problems that life brings and the problems do not stop coming. Why do I feel so surprised when they come? Life is problems and our attitude about this and our coping skills make all the difference.

Work on getting healthy and staying healthy as much as you can and perhaps we can "weather" life's storms better.