Tag: #anxiety

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Shame, Disease, and Dad: Grand Canyon Ponderings

I’m a little homesick this morning, so it makes sense that I am going to turn to my constant companion that is with me everywhere: my safe haven of the written word. Somehow I always feel better after I have bled my experience on the page, and someone hears it. I think we are all like that. I am sitting in a cute little coffee shop called Brewed Awakenings on Route 66 in Arizona, just a few minutes shy of the Grand Canyon. We are supposed to have a Pink Jeep Tour at 2:30 today, but on the Groupon it says “pending” and I am not sure what kind of weather these guys operate in. I am also not sure if we have the appropriate gear. We somehow assumed that Arizona would be warm. We rented a convertible car LOL! It just so happens that it is snowing this morning, and rainy and wet, and is supposed to be this way all day. “You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.

It is however a great day for the permission to write. I have several things on my mind this morning, it’s exciting to see what I will untangle from them. The most prominent thing, much to my frustration is my Crohn’s Disease, and it’s close companions are shame, a certain level of confusion about validating my own experience with it (and in general of course), and this brought up feelings of my Dad, and about how I “lost” him again. Though you can’t lose something you never had, and that isn’t the correct narrative. I chose to eliminate any source that would shame me without looking or investing in me.

So Courtney and I went to a little restaurant last night, it was an interesting experience. There was one cook, and one waitress and they became slammed. The Yelp information made it look like an established and popular establishment. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience, though I would not get food there again. The beer was delicious and probably because we didn’t eat much with it, I ended up squared up with my disease again.

Over the years I have really tailored any drinking because I can tell my body has a very hard time processing it. I essentially got to the point where if I have even a few drinks I get a very bad experience with heart palpitations and tachycardia, and sometimes even atrial fibrillation. However I have been rolling pretty smooth in the land of disease, until I got bronchitis over a month ago now, and had to skip an injection. I’ve been struggling since then, in ways that I haven’t in 6 years. I dread the possibility of another difficult round with this disease or having to change my medication and play that “game.” And at the same time what did I think was going to happen. That I would just take Humira and never have an issue again.

I struggle particularly after being at the International Women’s Summit, where there is lots of talk of sickness in our bodies being a symptom of repressed feelings, un-lived potential, etc. I have always struggled with feeling I’m injecting myself with poison, that is experimental, and doesn’t my body know what to do to heal itself. And on the other hand my GI tells me that this thinking is unrealistic, and that staying on top of this disease in a top down fashion can give me a much better quality of life. Confusion.

How do you know what is intuition and what is superstition?

This is a very important question. We human beings have very superstitious ways of thinking, the way we connect the dots in our experiences. And this isn’t limited to “unhealthy” things, most people think in these ways.

So anyway I woke up last night shortly after falling asleep with my heart beating so hard it felt like it was going to shake me out of the bed. My beats per minute on my Fitbit were over 100. TERROR. I could hear and feel my heart beating in my ears. Seven years ago when this would happen I would go to the emergency room, only to be told I had anxiety. So I gave up doing that long ago, though now I have to be nervous I won’t get help if I need it. I’ve worked that one through with a therapist as well. I’ve tried to cultivate a sense of faith in myself that if it continued to get worse in a variety of ways I would seek help. Except who knows what kind of medical care is available here. I mean people live here right, there must be something. But I’ve been spoiled living only 20 minutes from Yale Hospital. Where bad doctors can exist as well, arrogance can be as dangerous as anything. But that discussion will lead us off topic, as if I ever stay on topic, HA.

So my episode. I take .25 of Xanax to head off any panic attack this can cause, and because I am superstitious of course I believe it will lower my heart rate. I mean relaxing a little can’t hurt in that department right? And then the bathroom things happen, sweating, erratic heart rate bad bad things is what we will leave it at. When that is over I am left shaking and sweaty and cold and aching. Pain radiating up my back. So many symptoms that they tell you to watch out for in a heart attack, because that isn’t stressful. I sit up vigilant lest I pass away in my sleep. I don’t wake up my wife, because that makes it more real, if she gets afraid I’ll read her fear and then really get anxious. So I work my way through it. Eventually I get it down to 90 ish, and I’m doing deep breathing, and making my trips back and forth to the bathroom.

EXHAUSTED.

I wake up this morning feeling like I was hit by a truck, pain radiating up through my kidneys, bags under my eyes. Here I am at the Grand Canyon, and I want to BE fun. Notice what we do? I’m not worried about how I am feeling, and that I deserve to feel better. I am worried I will ruin someone else’s time. Because I know she will be disappointed if we stay in. I know the disease deserves our anger here, hers and mine. Not me. And I never know if I really have to or not. I never know when to push myself to just keep going, or when to validate this thing I don’t want in the first place. My dark passenger, Crohn’s Disease. When I put it like that I am grateful it is not the urge to murder anyone. This was a Dexter reference if you didn’t know.

So when I am grappling with shame and doubting my own experience, this time I am looking to the origin of it. When I got diagnosed with my disease I was so unseen in so many ways. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. After all I didn’t know what to do either. A dear friend of mine had rekindled a relationship with her father and I was wondering if that couldn’t be the same for me. My father stopped talking to me around the age of 12. There was no explanation he just disappeared. I suspect a complicated relationship with my mother and my grandparents, and a lot of confusion to blame, but it was never my fault, and yet I am the one who paid the ultimate price. He made a choice. There is still so much I’ll never know about that choice, so many unanswered questions.

So when I found my 1/2 brother on facebook and was able to look him up and we began corresponding via e-mail I was overjoyed. It felt like falling in love. He of course became romanticized even more so than the average parent in such a situation would because anything was better than the situation I grew up in. He always got the hero role by default almost. Because his energy felt more sane from what I remembered, it felt more normal than what I was going through at home. But as it turns out he was intellectual, and quite pragmatic to a fault. At first I appreciated these things, but as we moved further and further there was no empathy for my experience there. He stated he did not want to re-hash anything of the past only to move forward in relationship, this clearly had nothing to do with my needs, but then again it never did, did it? That was the first flag. But then I thought ok well I can work with that as long as I get to know him. I would do anything you know to have a relationship with a parent. Plus he was so smart and so worldly and doing such neat things. He was living in Xico Mexico at the time and writing a blog about life there.

We struck up a writing relationship. I was smitten. I couldn’t wait for an e-mail from him, and what was even better his take on me being gay was that evolutionarily this was the more intelligent thing to do. He said men were assholes mainly, so he was glad that I was with women. Another interesting perspective. Not one I expected, but I was so hungry for acceptance at this time. He even posted a picture of my daughters on his blog. We belonged! He was willing to own us as family is how it felt at that moment. I felt a taste of acceptance and belonging, one I had yearned my whole life for. He didn’t post a picture of my son, or of me, or anything else. I recall hearing about him that he was a womanizer etc, he appreciated beautiful things, cars, women etc. But I don’t know how much deeper his integrity or his heart went than that. He did stay with his wife (my step-mom when I was little) Anita, for the whole rest of his life. So that’s a sign of health one would think, but then again, people stay together all the time and are not necessarily healthy.

Here is what I do know. When I was lost and scared, riddled with physical symptoms and diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, and in a relationship that didn’t feel particularly loving in the ways I was needing at the time (due to my behaviors as well)…. he said to me “daughter your posts as of late tend to exhibit some frightening mental states not unlike your mother”, and our relationship was over at that point. I cut it clean. I felt no warmth or empathy from him. I just thought I might find it there. It was like a mirage of an oasis in the middle of the desert, and to realize I was sucking in dry sand rather than water. My heart had to break again. The loss of him, or perhaps only the idea of him, to have a father, and then to lose him again. I then vented at him all the things that were hurting me. All the unanswered questions that burned at me my whole life, that I had to carry around. His responses were scathing and only burned more.

Then I got an e-mail from the brother I told you about that he died (this is 2 Decembers ago now). He was 72. I was only vaguely regarded with any information of his passing, even when I asked if perhaps I could attend the services for my own closure. I think his parents didn’t even know about me, and much of the rest of his family. I know I wasn’t given any empathy. There was only shame. SHAME SHAME SHAME.

This morning I saw a post from a friend reaching out on Facebook, and it made me think of people’s statements about whether people should or should not post about their lives on there. What an arrogant statement. Who is someone to know what another person needs. Perhaps in that moment facebook is all they have in terms of nurturance, and one person saying they are there for them may make the difference between life and death. How do you know? Is it really so shameful for someone to vent their sufferings in a public space? I think we need more of this, not less. We need less of the shaming.

Anyway I am going to add an additional post with my final letter to my father that he never read because I knew I was writing it for me, and I knew it wouldn’t be appreciated or received by him, and would only give another opportunity for me to be harmed. So I wrote it for me. It was a huge part in my growth. The decision, MY DECISION that I didn’t choose a relationship with him, rather than feeling abandoned or not chosen.

My letter on the next post….

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A Sunday Untangling….

The yarn is multi-colored and vivid….this above is a live capture of my brain. When I can get one thread undone and use it properly, the feeling is pure bliss.

Blog from the bath on a Sunday afternoon. I decided to attempt to restart my day as I have been cranky. A combination of my period, waking up with a migraine, and existential questioning is contributing to this.

Days never seem to go as planned have you noticed this? I once told a client the song lyric, “you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather” (an OutKast lyric) though I am sure the phrase has been around long before they have, and they tattooed it on themselves. Not a bad choice considering how relevant a phrase. This happens in my life all the time.

My health is what most often derails my plans, and rather than accept and nurture myself for this, I am usually hard on myself. Today is no exception. If I could just push through and create one account (for Vivint). The biggest problem with this job, while there is many good aspects, is the constant self imposed pressure. There are group chats, and a leaderboard, and it activates every competitive drive in me, which is obviously the point.

The challenge? I suppose is to trust myself more, give myself more permission and space, to not determine my worth by that scoreboard, and to find balance within, versus seeking external acceptance.

This is all well and good except…. that I can’t keep thoughts like, “if I just worked a little harder that’s 5,000 more to help my kids with college with”, and “I need to be less selfish and self indulgent.” But I just can’t drive as hard as I used to in any aspect. I can’t because I won’t allow myself to not rest, to not validate my disease.

I think I’d appear more successful to others if I could just keep up this grind and pace I have my whole life.

There it is, there is the epiphany I was writing towards….. the truth is I’ve had “grit” my whole life: it’s what has made me so successful, and also so deeply bone soul searingly tired. I am both of these things.

The truth is my spiritual self is already at retirement age. There is our chronological age, and then there is our life experience age. No one sees or recognizes the latter. In God years, Dog years, and warrior years I am 137. I just guessed at that number. I think it’s really like Methuselah (can’t believe I still remember this Bible crap), who was rumored to have died at 969 years of age. Yeah like him. Also small disclaimer I’m not actually anti anything to do with anyone’s faith or belief system. I have some deep wounds that were inflicted by the devout Christians in my life, and that’s my cross to bear. No pun intended :p Wah wah

With sales and money it only gets more seductive, all of it. The competitions, the numbers. The more money you have, the more you need to keep up. I will have to beat this system, but I catch myself already doing what all the humans do which is strive for the nicer things to validate their existence of course, as soon as they begin to get a taste of success.

I was perusing a commonality among these Vivint DMs this am, that’s district manager. Most are men, and most are tall, handsome, tattooed, and have a bombshell on their arms, and or a gorgeous family. I caught myself being envious of their trips to Fiji and fancy cars, and how their life looks.

And then I’m wise enough to know that pictures may tell a thousand words, but so often they can also tell a thousand lies. You just don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Money may not buy happiness, but it for sure can buy a certain amount of peace of mind, which is what I crave most lately, if you know you can pay your bills, you’re much more sound emotionally than when you can’t. I know that from my vast life experiences. But it is hard to notice when in the midst if you’ve crossed over to the dark side of this equation: seduction, greed, production at the cost of your health, etc.

I’m so grateful I can usually head off most destructive processes at the pass now, by doing just this. Reflecting, thinking, using an open mind and heart. Not getting too conclusive, and also not getting too careless with my emotions or behaviors. At least their is some silver lining to just a torturously analytical mind 😉

Guys I’m almost there. I’m on the brink, of teaching, talking, training hopefully. I don’t know whether this will be the product of an article I submit to Psychology Today or Counseling Today, or whether it will be down the road during or after getting a PhD, if that’s what I do.

I’m craving a change I know that. I’m always craving a change, because there’s more opportunities for learning and growth. I just don’t know yet what that change looks like. If it will be brought on by us having a baby (embarking on that journey again), or by moving to a different home, or a different state which I’m really craving. I’ve been thinking of Oregon lots lately. It’s calling me. But that would require so many logistics. So it is likely long down the ride, though I’m not sure if it has to be….?!

With only one life (perhaps I should get more into the idea of multiple ones so I can cultivate a sense of peace that everything will happen that needs to). One lifetime hardly seems enough to fulfill all one’s dreams, not this one’s anyway 😉 they are too big.

And then I’m right at gratitude again. Thank goodness for this enthusiasm for living. Even when I’m afraid my gigantic feelings could swallow me, or grief will end me, I’m so much more resilient than my feelings would lend me to believe. We all are I think.

Sometimes our resilience works against us for along while after it has protected us from great trauma. The same mechanisms that are meant to protect, also harm in ways the subconscious won’t even let us be aware of without that magical observant impartial party: the therapist.

I want to write so much more about trauma, what I have learned about my own and others. I want to trust that I have something to contribute that hasn’t been said or done in the way I will say and do it.

This is where life finds me today. In my 38th year, often wondering how long I have left, because this is how my mind is wired. Because I am desperate to share my gifts with the world. It finds me in love with myself, my children, my partner, my work. It finds me being someone others seek for solace and wisdom, a position I’m so honored with. It finds me the parent of children who are wise beyond their years, and driven, and brave, and intelligent, and determined.

My son is in love for his first time. And it’s interesting to see how much like me he is in his thinking, and depth of feeling. I’m both elated and terrified by this realization. He faces many difficult decisions, young love is not for the faint of heart, and does not favor the weak of constitution.

My daughters continue to learn and grow and navigate this world as a second sex, their birthright affording them no mercy with regard to how fiercely they will need to love themselves to suit up in this society. They will need all the strength I have bestowed them with, and all the resilience life with me has required them to develop.

My wife is grieving more gracefully than any human I’ve ever encountered. So many changes she has had since we have fallen in love. What a bad ass!

And me… I am here just learning to play and to be gentle with myself and others. How does one ask a freight train or a tornado to be gentle, after they have had such a need to develop into those things?

I’ll be here trying to figure this out…

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Travel

cravetravelblog

Why do we travel? What makes it so interesting? I am sitting in Crave restaurant, it is a local hangout in Ansonia Connecticut, the most upscale and only choice in my mind. Not because of the upscale part, but because the food is consistently good no matter what, and it just feels good. Not sure what about it accomplishes this, but it does. 

Anyway I am sitting in a new and different perspective. I am by myself facing the street. I can see the antique shop across the street, some very interesting looking industrial buildings (see picture), and a sign that says Bennet & Walsh Attorney’s at law. There is a 103 on the door, the numbers are horizontal, large black font laid on gold or silver background. The doorway is rounded and the building is of stone. So cool. 

Have I ever seen this before? The answer is yes and no. I have seen it many times I am sure, but if I never attended to it then it won’t be encoded and won’t really mean anything. 

When we travel because we have added this expectation, parameters are set for experiencing the new then our brains are more likely to acquiesce. People are going outside to smoke. Interesting enough this no longer creates a craving in me. That is a realization in and of itself. I remember years where I had a single track mind of obtaining a cigarette and being afforded the reprieve of avoiding whatever social interaction was making me anxious, but escaping into the cool air and polluting my lungs. It wasn’t even the cigarette it was belonging to a group that made me less intimidated, and the escape of it all, and it gave me something to focus intently on, that was not tearing at myself. Hmmm. 

I am just thinking of how we don’t need to travel ever to see new things. We can see new things, or through new eyes anywhere and at anytime. Be exploring with our curiosity versus drowning in conclusion and despair. This is a choice we have at our fingertips at anytime, but it never feels that way. This is a lie. I think anyway. 

Magic is the fact that I used to not know where my next bill was going to get paid from, to being able to indulge myself in simple pleasures that I give myself permission for. To enjoy the moment, a moment. 3 years ago I would have felt guilty for anything I spent on myself, that it should have been going for this or that, or to savings. And now I have created the ability to both take care of my responsibilities and also to be able o experience joy in a cup of a coffee and a flan in a restaurant. Small sips, Savor. 

I have created so many of my dreams already, and yet my human brain rarely registers this. It tells me “Christina we are dissatisfied with your performance, we know you could be doing more.” Maybe I could, but do I want to be? Isn’t that as important a question as any?

Soon (in March) my wife and I will be traveling to the International Women’s Summit in Arizona. I have never been to Arizona, and within the US there aren’t too many places I can say I haven’t been, so this will be cool. It’s going to be warmer, we will need to adjust for this. I am tempted to pack nothing, and to make part of our adventure buying some new things while we are there, but then we will need to bring back luggage, hmmm. 

What does one see in Arizona anyway? What are the famous things to do or visit? I guess we will have to do some research. 

I think I have spent most of my life thinking something has to be grand to experience it to the fullest. It must be a grand gesture or trip of a lifetime, but the possibility for magic moments are held within the everyday also. We can go to an area we never have been before even where we already live, and look around, be alert. 

Anyway back to my notes about writing my memoirs. My beautiful wife got me this pencil set for Christmas, and it IS marvelous. She has infused them with her belief in my capability to do the things I set out to do, and if that isn’t magic I don’t know what is. 

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Hamilton: What will our play be called ?!

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

The image suggests perhaps a playful post about our experience in the city. Wouldn’t that be a more pleasant read ? Perhaps it would, but it wouldn’t be written by me then, at least not tonight. 😉

This blog post is a letter I wrote to my wife tonight. Whether or not all things are meant to be shared I think there is always a power in it for someone. This letter bled straight from my fingertips, it fell onto the page in waves of truth that couldn’t make their way out fast enough. A catharsis. Isn’t it always. If someone else has a different experience with those words who am I to stop them.

Clicking publish has always been an act of bravery…. one I never gave myself much credit for. Warning it begins with graphic Crohn’s Disease material exactly as I experienced it.

I had a stomach episode tonight unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I thought I was going to have you have to call 911. I almost screamed for you. Literally. I had visions of me passing out and dying on the toilet. I woke up doubled over completely, and I mean completely. I hobbled to the toilet. I didn’t know if I would vomit or faint. I felt like all 3. I felt like I was going to have to poop but didn’t know what thing would come first. It felt like I was being ripped in half. My shirt was completely soaked, completely, and contrary to the scary fast heart rate I will have usually during an attack my heart felt like it couldn’t even beat, it was low 50’s. 

I just held on and tried to breathe deep as I could through the waves of pain and head swimming until finally I pooped literally probably 3 toilet bowls full. It wasn’t all at once. First was getting the hard part out, and then a ton came. 

By the time I was done I was left shaking and freezing and now I’m more wiped out than you can ever imagine. I just can’t even quite describe the pain.

A couple of things happened. One, I felt a tremendous wave of compassion for V and guilt at not feeling more present. It’s like I can’t weather watching her suffer and I must because I’m mom. What a confusing thing. And two, intense fear that having not taken my injection even for a week has thrown things into some terrible state with my health. What if?! And what if V is in for a lifetime of chronic suffering with her tummy that impedes so much of her adventurous self. My god that will break my heart. And then that I really do love my kids moment. Well of course I fucking do?! How could I ever be so unkind to myself, ?’ To not give myself this benefit of the doubt. 

And then I think of the good thing that I’ll make sure she is safe and supported forever. Never scared she won’t be able to support herself. And then the realization that I’m a steadfast supporter and provider and that I’m creating / have created that from scratch. 

And this is literally what a profound RE frame in thinking looks like. I’m strong and proud and safe and I’ll keep my family safe, not some impulsive person hanging by a thread.

I’m creating something beautiful in myself and for others and it’s my story. My legacy. What I want people to say about me, when they tell my story like Eliza did for Hamilton. What will they say?! We all wonder what people will say.

This makes me think of you: do you know all anybody says is nice things about you?! I always wanted to be that person, but I make too many waves, take too many risks, and don’t think enough about how I’ll make someone feel. You think too much, and I not enough. If you take us both you have the perfect person 😉 boastful? Perhaps. 

I make people uncomfortable, but do it with good intentions lol. Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions;) I make people uncomfortable by pointing out what is so readily visible to me, that for others it takes them a lifetime if at all to notice. A gift and a curse. 

I wonder if V felt a fraction of how I felt just now. If she did I feel terrible for her. I’m gonna root around in your magic bag of goodies, the bag leftover from our dead dreams (to be dramatic and truthful) and see if I can find some life giving electrolytes in the form of Gatorade to settle this tummy. It’s feeling like knives are raking it currently and I can’t be out of commission this long. 

If anything happens to me babe please tell my story. I need my story told. The need is getting fiercer now. I need people to know how hard I fought just to be ok on a daily basis and my kids to know how strong their love makes me. They are the fuel to my fire, and everything that makes me the person that I am.

Every person I’ve ever helped has them to thank. 

And I have you to thank. You’re such a source of comfort to me. Speaking of…. I’ll need to restock our sick supplies. We were so fortunate to have all these. Though the reason we do and they are unused is still excruciating. 

Babe I know your process is different but please know that if this didn’t happen I might not in some really profound way have truly known how much I want it. How I want to enjoy the tiny new life that we create rather than ever viewing him or her as a burden. And my life has already been so heavy so long, any small thing sometimes does feel this way. But in part due to experiencing this loss with you, I know even more profoundly how much each second even is worth. 

I do in a fucked up way feel it is meant to be this way. This sense that everything does happen for a reason, and not that that’s just something we say to make sense of things when they are too fucked up. It makes me believe in destiny and magic. 

Does that mean we couldn’t have done without this toll to our hearts, this wound, and these scars… of course not. 

But life would not hold as much meaning without the whole picture, the whole journey, and my life now is beyond filled with meaning. 

While I don’t plan on going anywhere soon, I am satisfied with my life right now. I need you to know that. I don’t regret for me or be sad for the rest of my unloved life ever, because I have lived it to my fullest already. I do want more of course, immense amounts more. But if it wasn’t in my cards I didn’t miss a thing. I knew exactly what I was doing. 

I want you to find the same feeling, but in whatever way Or path that’s meant for you. That’s my dream for you, never give in to self defeating thoughts, ones that lack compassion for your full journey. 

If you did ever lose me I want you to live on for me in the way I would have. Carry my legacy and be for my kids what I would have been for them. You are up to that task. No one is as well as you or I wouldn’t have picked you. They will need you forever. 

I don’t plan on going anywhere, but we never plan for that so I want these words down. I don’t care what laws or rules or fears or whatever. We have something very special here and blood relation has nothing to do with it. We must trust that. You are an irreplaceable part of the kids healing now. You’re already written into the story. And I would never want to let you be snuffed out in the event of my demise. And anyone who would try would do so out of ego or pride etc, finally able to have their kids back from my evil clutches you know 😉 but you know better. 

You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Yes little ol you, it’s true. That’s a truth. And it couldn’t be without you being so much more than you see when you look in the mirror. That distorted perception is your only enemy, it kills more dreams than a semi-automatic with unlimited rounds. 

I hope my kids will delight in my letters someday when they are old enough to read how my mind worked. Find, keep, and appreciate them all, because they are who I always really was inside and kids know so little about that.

I’ll never know much about who my parents really were inside, so much is a mystery, especially my dads side, and my mother’s, a tragedy. So for them to have this insight. To know my mind intimately. Incredible.

Wow so all this feels like a product of a near death experience. Listen honestly. It may sound dramatic, but this episode was no joke. And all this sweating and gross (being on prednisone and scared) the past couple of weeks has been really humbling.

There is a level of acceptance I am at, that wasn’t there before. 

My disease has carried a large piece of denial for the longest. I wasn’t willing. I’ve been in as much denial of it as I have how damaging my childhood was to me. I am reaching a stage of acceptance now, and it’s making me so much stronger. So much more at peace and strong. Someone that you will feel proud and safe to have a baby with. Someone stable that will enjoy that adventure with, not resent it, or fear it, or feel guilty about it because I already have kids.

That is at least the take home I’m recognizing from this tragedy. 

I will get to move forward without a doubt in my mind, and for me, that’s like having rebuilt an entire nation after its downfall. I’ve been a shaky entity bordering on panic for as long as I can remember, to be emerging this strong, still, solid force of love and compassion is unbelievable even to myself. 

I am surprising myself a lot lately. The strong I always identified as prior was a sort of forced kind of strong, a necessary one. This strong now is the accumulation of weathering storms with a sense of grace rather than a frenzy or a panic. 

It’s a strong I am satisfied and proud of, not one thrust upon me without my consent. It’s a soft kind of strong, and I can’t wait to hold our baby in these new arms made of this.

Every time you grace me with your vision of seeing the loving child inside of me. I can see when you see her, I can see her too, and it brings powerful healing. You bring that to me. 

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

What if someone else could find this place (when they couldn’t before) because of our story? Or was able to believe in their dreams?! 

Bliss. 

My tummy has burning remnants of the suffering I just went through and I can’t even be bothered to focus on that. I’ve too much shit to do with my one life. Thank goodness because otherwise I’d crumble into a little ball of stress and worry and take days to recover. 

I don’t have days anymore to spend in that way, there’s too much work to be done.

Every word on every page for every day of my life…. are for you….

Now I am going to curl up as close to you as I can and let your breath lull me into a deep relaxation, and help the pain melt away. 

All the love in my heart 

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Love heals all wounds

Slowly very slowly I am becoming myself again. Grief takes you away from everything you are and everything you know. That’s what I have learned recently. As the storm clears however, what I am finding is a new appreciation for all that I have and all that I am.

This year I do feel as if January was the lost month. And that’s a lot of time to lose for someone who doesn’t want to miss a second. But was it really lost? Or did we only stand to gain?

Gain?! How can I possibly suggest watching our dreams crumble could result in a gain? I can hardly believe what I’m typing! But yes you gain something. Perspective and Presence with capital P’s.

Now I am here finally able to wipe the tears that kept smudging the blueprint of our lives and begin to draft again. This 2 months has felt like a single lifetime.

Recently I had my kids write me a letter (to lift their grounding from the dog peeing on the couch). They were to write an essay on their experience with me as a mother. At some point I may share them in their entirety, but to summarize for now. They love me, they really love me. It’s unthinkable they wouldn’t right?!

But often times I don’t feel loved like the humans do, it’s part of what I come with.

Recently someone told me at the end of the day we are who we are. Seemingly simple advice right ? Why is it that it’s the most simple of advice executed at the proper time that is the most profound?!

I’ve spent a lifetime fighting what I thought I could become, because of the things I saw and experienced when I was little. If there was any chance I could be that, I wasn’t going to take it. I was a vicious slave master over myself, and I did not use kindness to meet my goals.

I found as a mother I could keep the same viciousness I treated myself with away from my children, but that meant I had to keep a large portion of me distant as well. I replaced me with more warm and safe characters. Until later in life I began to realize they had their own dark sides as well, and maybe I wasn’t so terrible after all. I grew and I grew.

I have always done it backwards. Their love saved me, when it was “supposed” (such a nasty word) to be my love nurturing them. I loved better and more than my memory allows me. Again that terrible slave master who was constantly whipping me when I would come even close to the behavior of my mother. It was exhausting to be that vigilant over myself and much of their young lives they have seen me tired and stressed.

Until finally I put the whip down and began to give myself nurturing and affection.

Again seemingly selfish in the world of society’s view of the mother. But society never knew my beginning, and kindness was the medicine I required all along. I could never be warm, gentle, and kind with my children when I couldn’t be with my own child. It was always incongruous and disconnected. And I was always aware that I was. Not a fun combination. That shit needs to stay in your subconscious so you can survive. I’m an odd breed. Always aware when I constantly wished not to be. My gift and my curse.

Thoughts like, “it’s too late”, or “you did this the wrong way”, only harm my soft new self. Like a baby from the womb my new self isn’t ready to take care of itself yet. I needed nurturing, and I found that in my love in my 36th year, and the rest as they say is history.

Not co-dependent love, despite my sometimes fear of bordering on that 😉 not all consuming love, not burning love, not scathing or scarring love,

Generous love. Benefit of the doubt love, trusting love, gentle love, infinite love, graceful love, warm and available at all times love. Patient, oh so patient love.

Love heals all wounds. And I hope to love my children and family with this healed self for the rest of my days, and I hope to tell my story so they can know how hard I had to work to be available to them. So that they know I fashioned a self out of scraps. And what it takes to do that in the way that I did.

My gratitude continues to grow by leaps and bounds and perhaps this new self that is growing and being raised with all this love will have the courage to write books and talk you the world about her experiences.

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The couch of mixed emotions….

I’ve been going through the ringer lately. Personally. Professionally. Motherly. Wifely.

Is there some kind of unwritten rule after your 100th post you fall apart?

How does one come back from a dream over a year in the making, financially and emotionally expensive, crashing down around them? I guess I’m figuring that out right now.

Breaking and trying to rebuild only to be so fragile the whole structure just breaks again, and you get even more discouraged and start having a tantrum.

I’ll grasp at any other dream right now to try and calm the pain. That’s how I work. I move forward while suffering, and the forward movement becomes my saving grace somehow, even when I can’t see it or feel it yet.

A dear friend of mine was recently talking about presence. So not surprisingly it has come up for me this morning. My wife and I had an argument yesterday. A fight really and honestly in two years we haven’t had much of one. We got into that space where neither of us could hear the other over our own feelings, and both felt justified, but all the while missing each other and wanting to find our way back. But every time we would try to come back, it would flare again. My wife is much softer on the outside than I am. When any kind of intense or overwhelming situation occurs for me I can go to a very cold and dark place, and I’m not accessible or pleasant when I’m in there. I am seeing that I will not escape talking about trauma as my legacy. I’ve tried for a long time. After all I’d like to be one of the “normal” people, that does not become filled with terror at the slightest hint of someone’s upset with me. It feels wriggly to admit that 🙁 even in this sage space with those who love me. They are deep inside feelings.

Anyway more in trauma later I promise. For now a quick summary of the argument includes the couch story. Have I ever told you guys this story? Well Courtney (my wife) came with this god forsaken piece of her history. Her and her ex partner had purchased a very very expensive designer, custom made couch. It is fabric and had plush down cushions and should only be washed by the hands of the Gods. Basset furniture professionals.

Anyway we saw a therapist for a few sessions to transition and blend her into our family. One thing I remember distinctly this woman saying was do not bring that couch into your home with kids and dogs. We kind of knew she was right. However the problem is she had just used a giant chunk of her savings to pay the thing off and we couldn’t have gotten 1/4 of the cost of it. What a loss! We decided we would rather have this nice piece of furniture while agreeing we understood the risks. Never in the history of the world has a therapist been more correct.

My Frenchie Sigmund Freud has a bad habit of peeing on anything fabric if he isn’t taking out just about every hour of the day. We have tried everything about this. Sprays, trainings, quarantine. Another problem is he is such a love bug that if he’s not on you at all times he will cry. He’s extremely high maintenance.

So he has christened the couch no less than several too many times, and trying to fix the problem is a whole production. To the point I am nervous that damn couch will become my children’s trauma. As any good mother knows washable pleather is the only reasonable choice for one’s sanity in the realm of children. This is why we can’t have nice things is a phrase often tossed around in our home.

Teens will be teens, and I think if they wandered around anxiously terrified something will become dirty I would be so much more concerned than them being careless. Is this bad ?! I see what pressure does. I see what people who can’t relax end up like, body wise and heart wise. Given the choice more mess, less stress would always be my credo. But the average person who has never lived with children, never mind navigating the complications of cohabitation in general, likes to have order and cleanliness. And don’t get me wrong I like those too. But for me it came down to that or my sanity. Sanity won out and I had to battle what everyone would think, the possibility of feeling like bad mom, etc.

So this is what happens. My wife and I try to go away to get some time to revive an us, to not get lost in the shuffle and our current grief pit. But whenever we do all hell breaks loose at home. The kids are too old to need a babysitter for one night, when the neighbor across the street is there and vigilant, and too young to be expected to have the weight of the world on their shoulders while trying to do well in school, and have their own things going on.

So we got to Vivint’s annual conference in MA, and whilst there get a barrage of texts about the state of affairs at home. The bulldog has claimed the couch his with his signature marking, a gift to us I’m guessing he thinks. And the kids are scrambling in terror to blame whoever is responsible, and we are a state away and now our presence is taken from the conference and stress ensues. The kids are stressed, we are stressed, and that boils over into a few trauma triggers for me. This will be continued as I said because I think it’s really important to speak openly about.

After a few hours of anxious albeit blessed rest I have to clean up the mess I caused the day before any a fury. Threatening to get rid of our dogs, almost sleeping on the couch, and this is a land I haven’t lived in for oh so long. And clearly not helping the kids figure out how to be better while also letting them know they are always loved and safe. I withdraw because I don’t know I’m loved and safe so often. My mind goes elsewhere seemingly no matter how hard I try. It swims to me being a burden, and I cause a partner stress, and all of this chaos.

Anyway this morning. Argument resolved with my wife, though both drained and sad by the interaction, and me trying not to blame myself for being so intense about such things…. and now will come clean up with the kids. So much shrapnel can be left from only a minor interaction such as this. 🙁

So my takeaway was this: I ended up looking at the bulldog this morning and thinking how much I love him and could never give him up, and then stop and picture my kids and how proud and grateful I am, and my life. I am present fully awake, not frenzied by this or that fear or thought, and I feel love and compassion for all of us on this crazy adventure that is my creation. When you create a big life and have big dreams, it’s also a big responsibility, and mine is never to resent it, and always to cherish it, and to continue to learn to stay in my heart.

I want to stay in my heart. I want to be nurturing and not just furiously driven. I beg for the strength to calm my wounds and do this.

I want my wife to know this couch is something we are grateful for. We have had amazing memories on it. The teenagers hang with their friends, we snuggle on it. It isn’t perfect but it means so much to us to be loved, and for her to take a risk on coming so much out of her comfort zones. Does she know she has saved several lives, and is our personal hero? I hope so!

So this was what I wrote this am regarding this:

You know the kids and the dogs are the same concept. Pause and look at them and slow down to take care of them and appreciate what they bring to life (that isn’t just stress) and you’ll smile and feel happy thoughts. Rush through things in a frenzy, don’t stop and look, be running on a healthy dose of stress, and want them to just function independently

and well without any nurturing, and you’re in for a nightmare !

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Trauma never dies…learning to walk again

It only fades further into the rear view as the years roll on, but it’s legacy lasts forever in the wiring, in the very bones of the survivor.

Let’s talk about trauma for a minute (let’s not and say we did my brain yells). By the way “let’s not and say we did”, is a phrase my mom often said. Not surprising that upon the immediate mention of trauma she comes to mind even subconsciously in the phrase I used. The opposite of that phrase as she continued on was, “let’s do and say we didn’t.” This one more her credo in life I’d say.

Let’s talk about other people’s trauma like I’m the expert my brain tells me, because I’ve worked on mine. I am the healer and the healed is much more comfortable than I am the quivering curled up ball on the floor crying because a trigger happened.

Do you want to know what I think has been holding me back from writing my memoir? Shame, yes of course. And also as long as I can be the therapist and use what I can recognize so effortlessly to help others, then maybe I can just keep moving forward and not realizing and recognizing what an intense effect trauma has had on my life.

It is in all of me, and yet I walk around so assured and so confident. People praise me for this all the time. Only the very closest to me see the physical ailments I often struggle with, the bouts of insecurity and intense anxiety ridden discomfort. The lashing out and responses that are way more than necessary when “disagreed with.” My ex husband will attest to that.

Though it’s not about me not being able to handle someone not agreeing with me. It is always always the suggestion I may be some hideously selfish breed of person or emotionally unstable. That’s my hot button and anyone that’s ever been close enough to me to know it, and disappointed in our outcome, seems to use it. Against all their other knowledge of my many positive attributes and giant soft parts, this will take over.

Ego really is larger than awareness almost always.

We become what we were bathed in, no matter how hard we try, unless we are hyper vigilant to not become it, all the days of our lives.

Do you know how hard I’ve worked to beat my crazy? The things I saw and lived through. I deny that they were even true. Even as a child I took all the responsibility into myself for all the goings on.

I was never a child, there was never a childhood.

I think tenderly of Dexter here. Yes of Dexter, the boy born in blood who wants to be a good person, the one who struggles with his dark passenger because of something he never asked for. Because someone saw the human inside of him he had found a channel to work out his feelings with, that was the most right he could get to given his circumstances. “I’m a very neat monster”, he says. Only later to realize through the power of loving and being loved that he was more human than he ever gave himself credit for. Only to lose his wife and step kids, then his sister, a woman he later fell in love with, and his very own son. The season ends with him having condemned himself in a purgatory of physical labor and isolation. Not the stuff of Disney movies is it?

Thankfully feeling dead inside or the urge to harm anyone was never my burden. Interesting that should even have to cross my mind to be grateful about, but it does and I am. Others are not so lucky as to have whatever this fierce enthusiasm to believe endlessly in the good of human beings, even in the face of such the opposite.

A way I have been unkind to myself is to believe that I suffer from anxiety and chronic illness. Pain, migraines, stomach issues, flushing, extreme fatigue, etc, separately from the trauma that created that.

My spirit fights my body every step of the way. I’ve been fighting for life/light for as long as I can remember. So when a setback touches me, it feels like the entire world I have built will come shattering down. I can know logically this isn’t how it works, and I’ve been my own electrician attempting to re-wire, and build a safe and secure home in my body.

But I’ve been trying to do this largely myself using my will. My will was no longer enough anymore. I needed to find how to allow myself to be loved. I needed to thaw. And now I might need some of my own help with some of this trauma wiring, but I am seeing first hand how difficult it is to find someone to have a full spectrum of knowledge on the topic.

I need trauma body work and yoga and relaxation therapy probably often and probably for the rest of my life. I deserve those things. I deserve to speak about my experience without worrying about wrath coming down on me, not being loyal, or that it will kill me to RE experience this in full color without the careful separation I’ve created for myself from those experiences.

But when we separate ourselves into fragments to survive, piecing the whole thing back together while trying to also do life in the ways it demands is its own purgatory. And these wounds aren’t visible to anyone, but a rare rare chosen few, if ever.

And what if I don’t want to write about trauma? Well there goes my memoir. What if I can’t figure out that careful balance of giving attention to the reader versus feeling sorry for myself. No one wants pity, especially a trauma survivor, it only creates more shame.

How is one to proceed from here?

This is my 100th blog post, it has taken 100 delvings into myself to get to this next peak. Where to from here ? I don’t yet know. But I do know that I will keep going, I have to keep going. But I don’t want to run anymore. I am tired.

I think I’ll need to learn how to walk without fearing being eaten or chased.

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How sales is changing me or how is sales changing me.

The new insights that are coming from solar slaying are fascinating. It’s learning people from a whole other angle. In their homes and directly in their lives. A couple is making cream of chicken soup over a beautiful stove, they share warmth and hospitality with me. A man who smokes Newport’s and drinks Budweiser in his pajamas during the day, shares with me that his wife has been cranky lately because he has lung cancer.

New couples trying to afford to live and make it in this world, financially and emotionally. Being out on the doors as we call it and talking to people is also much like doing therapy. But I can see even more of their lives, and therefore learn more is the idea there maybe. But then I am only with them a brief time and the temptation to drop by with flowers or to stop in for a coffee is always present. I closed a deal last night and the woman seemed so sad I wanted to reach out and comfort her. I can still see her grief filled eyes and I want to do something.

Should I, shouldn’t I!? The answer is you always should when you can. Perhaps I’ll bring her flowers. The resilience of people astounds me. Recently I am included once again in this category but in a new way. We have suffered a great loss and are currently waiting for a new equilibrium as a result.

I’ve had many blog posts bouncing around in my brain like many a brightly colored rubber ball, but then the energy dwindles as fast as it comes and my pursuits are demanded elsewhere.

Some things I’ve noticed so far on the doors is that my brain moves even more frantically and settles in to write less. Produce produce produce. There is always some incentive and always the want for more. I already know ahead of the curve that once the money starts coming in, the desire for more will pique. What was once unheard of will become normalized and you’ll need more to be excited.

Life normalizes invisibly and we don’t realize it until often our behaviors have caused us issue. Many a change we never saw coming. My gift is seeing ahead by the way if intuition and much life experience to draw off of, and a deep understanding of human behavior.

This is yet again when I have to put some work on knowing my boundaries and what my priorities are, otherwise I will be swept up in the hustle. The glitz and glamor of it all. The streets that are paved with cheese. Notice I said cheese and not gold. Any small sentence can give you a clue into a human beings deepest desires.

The promise of more… there can always be more. But more is not always more of what you really want. So it’s sort of ironic that I’m working more and more on (not to be confused with moron;) ), to get to a peace filled existence of writing, reading, and being present with those I love. Is it the way? Or is this just another learning curve on the way to the way. As if there was just one way.

Will this cabin on this sacred space be an answer to my writer’s heart? A spiritual healing. Will the idea turn out as I imagine it to be ? Or will it be sinking a 50,000 (ish) ship and that being yet another lesson. Oh the woes of being a whimsical risk taking dreamer, versus a pragmatic, careful, financially minded planner.

Could I become a “salesman” that becomes more and more hungry and just keep telling myself it’s for my family. So many do you know ?! Probably the smartest course of direction would be to pay off my student loans and invest. Who else can pay off their student loans in the span of one year? That is the promise here. That’s always the smartest course of action. In the real dream scenario I will be able to do both, but that will require time and sacrifice.

If you asked my kids they would probably tell you they just want even five minutes of true presence from me over all the riches in the world. If only I had ever loved myself enough to know that when they needed it even more. But that as usual is the harshest possible version. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. And I forgot the long ago truths such as how I didn’t have to balance work and motherhood in the early years.

It was me who held them every single time and I looked down on them with a love burning with the power of a thousand suns. I remember that in moments, but the trick is they can’t. Their logical memories can’t anyway, perhaps their feeling ones can. Perhaps that’s why they do so well now, but because I pushed them so hard, but because I loved them better than I give myself credit for.

There are many ways to love. For me as a mother my love was shown primarily by working on my self so carefully so I didn’t cause them some of the damage that was bestowed upon me. Somethings with that plan worked really well, and others left something to be desired for.

But either way my every though in every breathing moment of my life all comes down to them. It doesn’t matter how caught up in dreams of love I was and then they crashed and burned. What I saw as my motivation and my dreams always had them in mind. This is something I rarely gave myself credit for when I listened too much to the critic(s).

Isn’t it interesting how different the idea of what I will write is compared to what I actually do? The post I thought I had inside was much reflection on the past year, and how I want to use that in this new one. It will probably still come, but this is what was on the presses today.

Hot off the presses of my mind. A life lived quite uniquely, or perhaps not at all. I just am not privy to the many other minds like mine out there.

Happy New Year everyone! I can’t wait to see what adventures 2019 brings all of us!

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There is no recipe for this

I’m all thrown out of whack, and I am trying to figure out what to do. I used to thrive on chaos so well. I used to separate myself from my feelings in order to survive and it became a way of living that served me for so long. I am finding through this that I’m not wired like that anymore and it has me completely thrown off. My heart is all thawed out which means that currently I am immobilized by grief in so many moments. And when I am not I am helping my wife who is having her moments.

Even when I am numb it is because my heart feels it almost can’t feel such suffering for one more second, it is no longer a disconnected numb. It’s a feeling numb, a raw one.

I was off to such a great start with working for Vivint and now I feel like I’ve lost my mojo. I was enthusiastic and excited and a self that loves to talk to people and right now I am just raw hamburger. I think if I see a baby right now I will just crumble into tears, if it catches me at the right moment and outside of my careful boundaries as a counselor.

I think I feel worried that I didn’t know how much I cared about this whole thing, not really fully knowing, until this happened and now it hurts. Hurting is an easier model for me than safely having faith everything will turn out ok. Or maybe I did have faith because if I didn’t I wouldn’t have been so on top of the world with excitement, an energy that seeped into everything that I did. Now I just have sad energy. And that doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful about the future, but right now I am just neck deep in these feelings and I can’t do anything to speed up this process or control it in any way.

There it is, the problem right there. The truth. I can’t just work hard and make this different. I even convinced myself that it was my steel mind that prevented me from losing my twins all those times I almost did. I’ve been in control of my own destiny for so long I’ve been living under the illusion that I have more control over things than I really do.

I couldn’t stop this.

And the tears come.

I couldn’t stop the bleeding or the things my wife is feeling right now. I just have to sit here and feel things and wait. So many fears are biting at my ankles like many a rabid dog, tearing at the corners of my mind. I can’t stop the war between feeling and knowing we already have so much to be grateful for, and truly acknowledging how this feels in its entirety for us right now. The desire to minimize and just keep moving foward quickly as a means to avoid suffering. It’s what I have always done.

I can’t outrun things anymore. No amount of staying busy will fix this. No amount of financial success etc. No cottage or new thing, or any other kind of comfort. There is nothing to do but just feel the feelings until they get less sad.

Will that happen?

The things I normally love aren’t able to bring me comfort right now either. My writing, my reading and my bounding enthusiasm all seem tasteless right now. I am eating food to satiate a bottomless well of pain. I am not eating to taste the food. I know this because I can’t taste anything. This is why I’m eating worse things lately because it has to be deliciously sweet or painfully salty to feel anything at all. And even then it’s just a temporary distraction and then right back to the darkness.

Any next step feels so completely daunting. And taking the next step even when it’s hard or I don’t know if my foot will have something secure under it… well that’s what I do. And right now even that isn’t working. I’m a doer and even picking up the phone to call a new clinic and figuring out how to have our eggs transferred etc feels too difficult. Sometimes getting dressed feels too difficult. And it definitely feels too difficult to do anything about all of this, and that’s all I got. I’m a one trick pony.

Moving foward through suffering is my trick. I’m afraid right now it will swallow me.

I think I really had convinced myself that I’m a robot incapable of the kind of suffering that has taken me over right now. The evil voice says “yes you still are”, of course your’re upset about this you didn’t get your way. And all sorts of other things that criminalize my intentions and my heart. The thing that threatens me to think badly about myself, one of my only main constants. That process to make sure I do no bad thing, the kinds that were done to me. To make sure that I watch myself carefully for flaws and ill intentions and at any single sign of one I pull the kill switch.

I’m supposed to think about what I’m supposed to think and feel and to decide, and this process falls so far outside of that I am lost in the dark wood right now.

Except this is a whole new dark wood, one I have never experienced before.

This is why defense mechanims are such powerful forces, because some of the depths of suffering we are just not meant to feel. I see they are definitely there for a reason. Everything is there for a reason, and so they say it happens that way as well. And I’m supposed to believe my suffering right now has another purpose right? Everything happens for a reason just isn’t cutting it for me to give me any sense of comfort. I am not there yet.

Why can’t I just skip to acceptance? Why do I have to feel every fucking thing so fucking much?

I’ve been in control even of my grief it has felt for all these years. I have stayed ahead of it. Can’t catch me! But this time and this thing has me in quick sand. Even my will cannot carry me through right now.

Is this where I am meant to find faith?

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Ritual

I turn 38 on Saturday. In so many ways I never could have imagined my life would be where it is right now. I couldn’t have even dreamed this.

Today I am turning to my blog again as a healing medium. I don’t have well organized thoughts. I just know I need to write.

I could never have imagined being so sad and so grateful and blessed all at the same time. A blanket of numb sadness has set in this morning. I’m just trying to feel something. Anything.

I needed to renew my drivers license this morning so I came to Hamden DMV before my Vivint meeting. It was shockingly fast. I had anticipated a 2 hour wait, and running into my meeting late. But I was in and out.

If there was a Guinness Book of World Records for bad drivers license photos I would be a strong contender. The cameras are way beneath you. Why do they do that?! Is it the only satisfaction they have in their lives? Don’t they know women need a steep downward angle as they near their 40’s and grow softer under the chin and more robust around the middle?

So I did a thing!!! A nearing 40 thing… and I’m sitting here trying to process what it means to me on the deeper spectrum.

It means to not be seeking acceptance anymore. To not be shaking in my shoes that someone won’t like me for how I look, a long held legacy stemming of course, back to childhood. It means to play with life a little and try new things without it being so serious. So yesterday my wife and I set out on an adventure. We went to a local barbershop and had a great old time. It will now be filed away in memories I hold dear to my heart.

The barber was amazing! Goodfellas Barbershop Ansonia CT. Fary Palacios. All the guys in there had a blast watching me get my very thick and long locks shorn off. It was a hoot.

Then we went to a local tattoo shop and got matching birds on our wrists to commemorate our twins and loss. To honor this pain and this process. This one hurt. Not worse than many moments in each day lately, but certainly was intense.

Food doesn’t really taste like anything. My brain can’t grasp on anything to focus. We have a 2 o’clock appointment today to find out what we are going to do and I know more waves of grief are imminent. My eyes look sad and dark, they have bags under them. I don’t want this to be my reality.

I don’t feel anything holiday like or like celebrating anything. My heart is breaking over and over each day in moments. One of the deepest cuts I have ever experienced. I’m trying to hold it shut myself, and clearly I need medical intervention. Irrigation, anti-biotics, and stitches. But I have become to not feel like I can trust those institutions to be careful with us.

Like a cornered wild wounded animal. Protective. Angry. Sad. Scared. Flayed open. Raw.

I am writhing with pain on the inside, and just trying to keep it together on the outside .

Help me please I just need some peace. It’s too in between.