i know why the two are mutually exclusive

because one is who i was and one is who i am now, and i dont know which is really me, or which id rather be.

the journalist is who i wanted to be, who i became- independent, smart, capable, caustic, cold. jd robb's eve with a slightly different career. just like her, i locked it down. all of it. i felt accomplished, because i'd succeeded in functioning.

helping survivors.....thats acknowledging i AM one. everything i tried so hard to shut down - its embodying it. its shedding everything i did to cope, to survive - its completely changing who i became. my personality WAS my coping strategy. giving up coping is giving up who i was, and i loved who i was. but this way, id feel worthwhile, for helping other people. for acknowledging that it, too, was a gift - or making it one, anyway. but feeling things, depending on other people.......it isnt the person i loved, the person i wanted to be, the person i looked up to, the person i was supposed to be. but i cant be that person and function emotionally. it isnt picking between two careers, its picking between two sides of me. between two different lives.