Nor So Bad?*

Some of us need a community in order to grow sane.  Why?  Some of us, have this thinking: “Things aren’t or weren’t so bad.”  We go on our feelings.  I feel physically better than when I thought things were bad.  I don’t feel the pain, or misery that I felt last...whatever time it was.  Things really are bad, but we don’t know it, and when some discomfort comes up we will respond in the same bad manner as we always did.  Then we will know a new low level of “bad.”  We need a community of other people to remind us or tell us that things are way worse than our feelings tell us.  We are damaged goods who are trying to put on a label that says, “I am OK.”  Some of us have a very low level of what we think is OK.  That is because we have seen it way worse.  But for some of us, our “better” is still a dangerous place to spend time.  So I have a community that keeps me in the really real.  I want better than better.