Tag: #cptsd

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Trauma and my Heroes

What no one tells you is that trauma is a lifelong sentence, you didn’t commit the crime for. An invisible dark passenger that makes living and loving an entirely different thing. No matter how hard you try love will never feel like it does for those wired with it.

They just seem to be able to manage better. They don’t need to live going over and over every detail of something looking for threat for a crumb of safety. To add insult to injury the sufferer worries they are crazy, less than, and can be hijacked at any time.

And with trauma comes the many addictions and vulnerabilities the person will blame themselves for: unhealthy love, food, sex, substance, work, busy, isolation, television, scrolling, and on and on.

More evidence to prove their fatal flaw.

Jail is peaceful compared to the bars and cell of your own mind. Your own worst enemy is your constant companion. And everyone expects that you’re a free man.

To all my survivors right now during the Covoid-19 Pandemic. We will be ok. You are not alone. I am right here with you. Never has there been a more triggered time for us my loves. In the words of Glennon Doyle, “We can do hard things”, and we don’t have to do them alone.

So in this 39th year of my life I’ve found myself with something in common with my heroes. The survivors. I’ve found myself at rock bottom. They tell me this is what happens before the ascent. If I could feel anything right now I might believe that. I can’t even feel the water on my skin.

I’m on the bathroom floor with Liz (praying….. like to God), on the Trail with Cheryl, Expecting Adam with Martha, in the Arena with Brené, underneath with Glennon, lost with Abby, and in my late father’s house lonely and facing myself each day.

Last March I attended the International Women’s Summit, a life changing experience. Elizabeth Gilbert spoke, and sometimes I wonder if our exchange, the hug she gave me, changed the talk she gave that night. If my bravery and tears inspired her. She had made a comment she decided to talk about something else.

She told the story of her late love Rayya. One of the themes of the conference was Mercy. And she described Rayya, since she had been an addict, as having mercy, but also radical boundaries.

Liz spoke of how during her cancer she vowed to take the best care of her, and then how when her stomach lining ripped and she was given pain patches that Liz was putting them on her and she wasn’t getting any relief. She sat and watched her love writhing for several days not understanding and aching herself. She was failing caring for her.

Then she realized days later she hadn’t taken off the thin film of the pain patch to adhere it. So her love had suffered because her own incompetence after vowing to do the best by her. When they realized what had happened Rayya looked at her like she wanted to rescue Liz from her own self hatred that she had done that. She gave her compassion even in all her suffering. The way she describes the look in Rayya’s eyes…. there wasn’t a dry eye in the venue. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone’s breath and their tears.

She was trying to protect Liz from her own pain and herself. Mercy. This is how Liz describes her love with Rayya.

She said she went into the bathroom and got on the floor and she cried like a baby, wracked with sobs. Then she said she thought of her friend who had not been attentive to her toddler and the child ended up injuring themselves and dying. And she thought if her friend could live through that she could forgive herself.

So she said, “I kissed my tiny hand and forgave myself.”

Mercy

She then described the rest of Rayya’s journey which included relapse after all that time clean and how Liz tried to give her what she needed and the money spent, and the drug dealers and how her beloved became lost to her to addiction again in those final days.

And how could she set boundaries, how could she abandon the monster she had created, but her life was a dumpster fire.

So she had to ask for help from Rayya’s drug dealer ex. She had to concede she couldn’t be her angel and hero. So she turned the stash and the monster over to people who had loved her previously.

Left with a crater in her home and her life. She had to move and she was decimated.

Rayya got clean again. One last time. During pancreatic cancer.

She returned to Liz and she said, love if we had time I know this would take years to heal, the pain I’ve caused you. I know who I am as an addict. I will listen to every hurt I’ve caused you. But then could you forgive me?

And they returned to love for her final days…..

And Liz had another bathroom floor moment in her life after Eat Pray Love.

She said that Rayya’s return to and from drugs again during their time together and the pain patch and lessons in mercy was how she downloaded Rayya into her forever.

This is how we keep people, by the most valuable lessons they teach us.

So Mercy on Me right now…..

I am on the bathroom floor and I need to kiss my tiny hand.

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Capital T trauma

I am going to be talking more about my trauma in the coming weeks. How very much it has impacted every corner of my life. My decision making. The way that I live and love. The choices and the way that I make them.

People my whole life have told me how strong I am. They admire what I do and how I do it. But the thing so often missed in all of that is who I am at my core and what I carry around each day.

How can someone be nearing 40 and only doing this work now? How can they not? Most people never do it. It’s almost impossible. I’m still determined to crack the code.

Right now I am researching the freeze aspect of trauma. How when I am overwhelmed I literally can’t move. I have to have a smelling salts wake up, and then I can mechanically make that call or open that piece of mail, but when I’m consumed it’s almost impossible.

I freeze all the time. I freeze when emotions are too overwhelming. And then I berate myself when I don’t reach out warmly and hug my children.

And adult is not supposed to be so scared. But when you carry a hurting child with you….. you can be either at any given time depending on the circumstances.

I present well.

On the inside I’m a tangle of coping mechanisms.

Please love me anyway. When I can’t love myself.

My way of handling my trauma was to give to everyone I’ve ever loved all the love I never was. I thought I had done journey after journey with self love. But truly I’ve done journey after journey of loving someone else so I can even feel the reflection.

Because that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to love.

And I want to love my kids will all I didn’t have, and I have in so many ways, but connection. I still struggle with that. Because I get overwhelmed so easily.

Because I’m still a scared little girl.

I’m still a scared little girl…..

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Unexpected Journeys

The only thing you get when you fall in love with someone else when you’re married is two broken hearts.

And as a matter of fact exponentially more than two in this case.

People you used to love that you can no longer look in the eye anymore, and then you can no longer look at yourself. And you still love them, and you know if they looked at you they will want to throw up.

A total lack of trust in everything. The worst thing for someone with C-PTSD.

A desolate boneyard where dreams used to be. And you no longer have access to yourself anymore either…. that is the most crippling part. Literally, figuratively all of it.

This is what happens in the realm of fear and shame anyway. There are other options, but since most people run their lives on a healthy dose of fear and shame all the time it’s easier to join than to feel alone one more second. I’ll join anyone in any state they are in as long as I never have to be alone again. And yes yes I know I never am. I truly never am I have an amazing support system. But it’s a different kind of love I speak of.

And as someone I care for very much says you can’t un-know. But sometimes you still have to move forward with all your knowing because you just do. Because life moves forward with or without you. The seasons will change no matter what you do.

So in true Christina fashion I tried to science the shit out of it. Like Matt Damon stranded on Mars, and this is appropriate because I feel about like I’d imagine he did. Faced with imminent death, with shrapnel he had to pull out of his side and staple himself up, and then figure out how to survive. Yep, we are there. Here we are.

As it turns out, according to my extensive research, this sort of thing either happens because of destiny or unmet needs not acknowledged in the relationship until it turns blue with the need for oxygen. Then a smelling salts wake up. Sharp.

I feel exactly like him (Matt on Mars). Every small victory seemed to yield a larger set-back and he was constantly faced with giving up hope. Spoiler alert. He didn’t. And I don’t either because I’m not wired that way. But since I’m not stranded on Mars hope is not substantial food for the work I’ve done to create my life.

I’m a big girl with choices, hard ones, but I won’t subsist on crumbs. I never deserved that beginning and for sure I won’t return to there now.

If we do return to our beginnings there is always a lesson.

I wish I knew now what I will in a year or so. But why do I wish to not be in the lesson, if I always appreciate the fruit it bears. But you have to ride out the storm and the winter if you want more moments of calm and sunshine.

How did we get here you might ask. Oh a variety of things. Things so complicated it feels almost impossible to get anyone else to understand, and with all the responsibilities on top there isn’t even room to try.

So you lose all normalcy. The compass is broken.

There is no True North, only a spinning dial that matches your brain. Round and round in circles trying to grasp onto a story that creates the least possible shame and suffering all while trying to feel the feelings, and everyone else’s, and maintain.

I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. And the doers, the ones who fell in love, they are the bad guy. The shameful, naughty, dirty thing. The immoral. The ones without values. The creep.

But in real life there is so much more to understand than what meets the eye.

My original post was about letters. I have a lot of letters, and not a single one of them makes me know any more how to be in the face of this. Because my heart is invested here. I am not an objective bystander. I try to use my objectivity to endure, and every other tool in my belt.

They have fallen short so I will sit in the decay of my broken dreams, and not be able to distract by already creating new ones.

I will be still.

My letters are AS, BS (yes that is about right), MS, NCC, LPC, ADHD, C-PTSD, PTSD, HSP, and there are probably more I’m forgetting. None of these letters have in any way shape or form prepared me for this. We can have all the education, street or in the classroom and life can still surprise us.

Life has me on my knees. It’s made me it’s you know right now. And as I believe I’ve said recently I guess I’ll need to learn to pray.

But to who? Goddess ? The Universe ? The great philosophers ? To myself? To Buddha, the Genie…..

Praying is so passive. It implies faith in another versus faith in self. I believe you do need both. Because if you’re going to ask for help, you need to know what you’re asking for and why. And where you want to go?

You need to know what you want and where you want to go. Otherwise any work is empty.

You will always need to know these things on a journey. If you don’t know them you aren’t on the journey.

What journey do I want to be on??

I know I want to be on a journey and not a ride that’s for sure.

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All by myself

“This far away look. She is somewhere else. In another time and space, one devoid of any warmth and comfort. Who would ever venture back to that to collect themselves ? Isn’t it unnecessary ? If you want healthy love, you must be able to bring your whole self to the table. If you want healthy love the way I do anyway.”

It’s been a day. I’m just sitting here thinking about the difference between transparency and vulnerability.

I realized today I’ve been going through life preaching all about vulnerability, and I’ve never truly been vulnerable. I utilized transparency to battle the narcissist dynamics from whence I came. But true vulnerability is much more terrifying. I thought what I was doing was being vulnerable. It’s more than startling to realize that isn’t the case.

I spoke it but I wasn’t living it.

So I’m sitting with that. I’m sitting with lots of things right now. But they aren’t on top of me any longer. I can sift through them while safety is in place. Pick one thing up as I’m ready, turn it over in my hands, and put it down when I need. There’s no overwhelming frenzy. I am no longer held at gun point. Who will I be when I’m no longer there?

The unknown whispers at me, again no longer screams, only gentle whispers. And my software is trying to catch up.

When did the screaming stop? When did I stop being afraid?

I think the real answer is I didn’t. Wow, and that line brought more tears. It never stopped because it has all been locked up inside of me and carried along the whole time. I have never unpacked it with anyone truly, and I’m always surprised when people don’t put it together themselves by looking at me. It’s such a disconnect.

So recently I’ve been taking several journeys into vulnerability. I am doing EMDR with a therapist, I am seeing a trainer so I can simultaneously strengthen the house I live in while going through this hell, and I am RE-examining every inch of love. The way I love, why I love, what I need, who I am in my relationships.

The view in the mirror is interesting. It’s standing with all sorts of scars and imperfections and not cringing, walking away, but also not picking apart every flaw. I am looking at me lovingly as is: and it’s waves and waves of feelings. They crash over me and I try not to do anything with them, but feel them.

That’s vulnerability.

To feel something but not do anything with it is vulnerability. No flight, no freeze, no fawn, no fight. No intellectualizing. I’m on a battlefield and I’ve been stripped of all my weapons and armor. Now is when I close my eyes and see if the terrain was an illusion all along, and I’ll open them and the war will have been over so long, and I won’t have realized.

My song for my trauma All by myself

Because this is what I found while trying to describe my childhood. The loneliness was more profound than the chaos. I thought all this time it was the many fearful things having the deepest effect on me. But I think it was the loneliness.

And currently I’ve manifested a similar situation to simulate this while doing EMDR. So I am all by myself in this. I have support, lots of it actually. Genuine people who love me. But no one sits in those flames with me and currently there is no comfort after either.

There’s a kaleidoscope image of all the people who have ever held me and believed in who I am that scrolls through my mind, that gets me through lately. The good morning text that is consistent from a father like figure who I was blessed with. Whether I respond or not. That love is unconditional. I am hoping to cultivate it for myself and the experiences I have been through that no one else can see with me.

Right now however I have two new players who are my safest places. They are my therapist and my trainer. I knew during my session yesterday that my therapist would have to feel every inch of what she watched me re-experience and what emotions that opened in me. It did in fact work. I thought it wouldn’t work on me, but of course I did.

And by the time I got to my trainer for the day I was already shaking. I had to stop twice for nausea. Yesterday was injection day. And she was so warm and so kind to me. Every single one of these people fill the holes that parent roles never did. I just keep patching them up. It has felt like it will never amount to anything at times, all my work. But this time I have visions of the vessel staying afloat, and not being lost at sea.

It’s the rawest thing I have ever been through. “We cannot ask clients to travel further than we have ourselves”

I am on my knees and maybe now I’ll learn how to pray, and find something to believe in that isn’t just my capabilities. Ironic as the story my trauma left me was that I had none, that anyone else must be more capable than me; where is that adult that will show or tell me how to do this thing, but all I’ve been my whole life is more than capable of finding ways to meet my needs.

I’d like more from here on out. I’d like a clear picture of what my needs and wants are. And I’m not even sure how to find those things out.

For now it looks like 50 “I am” statements, weekly therapy, and facing the body I have avoided and neglected that I just expect to keep carrying me through.

For now it’s one day at a time in the fire….

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Addicted to Love

“Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough
You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love” – Robert Palmer

Hi my name is Christina and I’m an addict.

I didn’t realize this until recently as a matter of fact, because it seems natural to be allowed to pursue love. Look at how many articles, books, workshops, movies. So this isn’t a strange affliction unless you look a little closer at how I do love.

Recently I’ve been going to therapy. I finally found a therapist who is seeing me well, or I was finally ready to receive the lessons and my defense mechanisms didn’t block it, however you want to look at it. So I’ve been talking about the woman who brought me into this world.

She drove a 68 Pontiac Firebird. I still remember the window crank handles, silver and polished. The vinyl black interior that my long tan legs stuck to in the summer. The unsticking sound and painful sensation when I got up after a long drive (which was rare). At that time I thought my mother was so cool. She smoked, swore, dressed cool, listened to rock music, and she was beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes and a smattering of brown freckles across her nose that were more in summer.

I still remember how many times we listened to Robert Palmer addicted to love in her car. What a foreshadowing that was for my life. Funny of the few memories that one stands out so much and those lyrics. It would be a huge part of my whole life. And very few from the outside will understand it. Only those who take the time and effort to truly ask because they care, not just to be in the know.

Having been primarily raised by her very fundamentalist Christian parents, even the fact she would take me out to eat meat was a novelty, and the good music was probably my main draw. I wouldn’t discover til later why Melissa Etheridge caught my spirits so much. My mom was a fan too I wonder what that means 😉

My Mom was addicted to love too. She was addicted to the exciting kind. The kind with bad men. So my addiction became mixed with not wanting to be like her, so mine was to find “a good person”. Why I thought a good person would be the answer to all of whatever it was I’m not quite sure. But what I didn’t know at the time this all started is how love should have been for me, and how much of a deficit I had.

I was so deficient in love that as an adult it became a larger focus than anything, especially knowing about who I am and what I want. Do you know I’m 39 years old and I still don’t know a lot about that?

I’m a lot of things that have identifiers. I’m a counselor, I’m a mother, a friend, a lover. I have lots of things I can perform and do those well. I can be caring of my friends, considerate of the world. I recycle :p But when it comes down to investing time into me, just for me, I freeze or fly.

My immediate reaction is to quickly get near another adult so nothing bad happens. I’m 39 years old and I’m still running scenarios all the time of what bad thing could happen. I’ll live with that forever because no one protected me. So I’m protective almost to a fault, because I don’t realize that I’m lovable. It doesn’t even register someone could love me. So I need more and different and to keep on moving.

I achieve. I learned I could gain acceptance, confidence, etc by facing the many anxieties that became me, but were never my natural self. I’ve had many re-births, college saved and changed me. My children the same thing. And every relationship I’ve ever embarked on has yielded a new self, because we grow the most in relation to others. It shows us to ourselves.

But being loved for free never felt like a thing. I’ve always had to earn it. To dance around begging to be seen. I’ve had to work my way out of a thousand behaviors I had from my trauma to even have a shot at healthy love. I keep trying for it, but I was missing a few things. And every time I think I figure it out I end up back at square one, with an even greater sense of being broken and a failure, as if love is the only measurement of my success as a person, the fact I’m breathing is a success.

I didn’t know until now how much I desire love with my children that is more than utilitarian. I was both parents and roles for so long I got stuck in the working, flight, fight, freeze mode of it all. I think I thought if I could crack the code with an adult I would ensure that I would always be a safe parent. I came from such a lack of safety it was a fear my whole life.

Do you know all they ever wanted was just a second of my attention and it was so often somewhere else. I’ve been stuck inside my head trying to stay safe, be safe, keep them safe, and the result has been a distance I never imagined. And I’ve been distanced from myself, and romantic love didn’t fix that.

What I wouldn’t give to have known that. Known they loved me for free, and that love was easier than I was ever taught, but it’s hard to accept when you’ve never seen how to love yourself. I had no model. I tried to learn from so many scattered sources, movies, friends parents. I tried to learn love intellectually, but feeling love that’s another matter entirely.

I could tell all kinds of stories and say I needed the high of new love. I would be accused of that I’m quite sure by my critics. But it’s not that either….

I’m a seeker by nature, but I wouldn’t even know how to feel it when I found it because the unmet needs were so varied and so great.

Recently I came across something “I’ve never felt before”, my favorite line of course. But it wasn’t the love of another, it was the seeing of myself that naturally came in their presence. It was the recognition I love differently now, and I can’t tell you the immense sadness that I never saw this beauty in the strength of my journey before.

People have told me all the time, but I couldn’t see it. That’s the saddest story. I’m still thawing, becoming, coming out of this waging war I’ve had with myself my whole life of whether I’m a good person or not. Without needing to make sure I’m with someone that validates that all the time.

Who am I outside of this addiction?

Outside the storm I see so many things I didn’t before. I had another rebirth recently and I’ve questioned the windows, the walls, the cosmos’s, the gurus, if this makes me a bad person. Squared up with my yucky stuff again. But the finding is that this question can no longer stand. And since it can’t I have room to see other things.

I have room to see what my relationship with myself looks like. I thought I’d already done this, checked it off the list, like it isn’t an ongoing process constantly in flux. Like all relationships, we have to re up our connection, and my connection with me will always be the trickiest. And if we aren’t connected to ourselves all our other relationships have crossed wires and don’t go so smoothly.

So now I’m having moments with my children I’ve never had in this way before. I get to be the other parent too. The fun one, the nurturing one, the playful one. The one that takes them driving instead of finding someone else to do it because if anything ever happened to them it’s unthinkable. So now I am giving myself a trust I always deserved.

Coming out of the million anxieties I was blessed with and the many health issues it’s caused and the fear it will all swallow me.

I’m coming out again and I’m a newborn right now. There are so many amazing things about being one. You see the world as magical, you’re not ashamed to show your emotions or ask for your needs to be met. You delight in small things.

I’m battling my addiction and learning healthy love…. and that is bringing me moments of joy I can actually feel and not just know.

It’s been quite the ride…..

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Intentions and the Cosmos

“I am not a stranger to the dark, hide away they say, because we don’t want your broken parts. I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars, run away they say, because no one will love you as you are.”

Lately a great many things are shaken up in my life, in ways I never imagined. I’m finding a self I didn’t know, yet again. It calls into question everything. And when everything in your foundation is shaky it’s unsteady. My stomach is rumbling like the tectonic plates of my very foundation.

I’m always so sure about my truth. It speaks so loudly to me, but what it can never know is what the next day will bring and the next. To have an adventurous life you must be willing to continuously face down your fears. For me this is necessary.

As necessary as oxygen.

I have always been a seeker. A seeker whose main objective is security is making for an interesting cocktail. Obtain security then seek, obtain security, then seek. What if I had security from the beginning? I want to know who that person was too! I need to know her. It’s not a choice.

What I am finding is a security in myself that will keep me grounded and authentic to me at all costs and this is not a path for the faint of heart. This is loving my unloved child inside more than anyone else, because she needs it the most.

This isn’t a journey most can understand. It’s cold and lonely in here and yet on the outside everyone thinks I have it all figured out. One of the largest incongruences of my life. I’m human too.

Spoiler alert. I don’t. Not at all. But I am committed to my heart and my truth and recovering that little girl who deserved a real life full of love and support. This is my recovery.

This is me!!!! I could listen to this song and watch the beautiful dancing in this video a thousand times. It’s my song for 2020.

I’ve been shamed a thousand times during my life for my wounds, shamed instead of understood. And that pain has turned me into 100 percent heart. It’s open and it’s raw and if you want to see it just sit with me for an hour I will show you.

And if you’re my friend I will hold your heart with mine. And this is me. I cannot only be loved for what I provide others. I need to be loved for the very center of me, everything that has made me the things others benefit from.

The thing that wakes you up?! That’s a product of my suffering. It did not come cheap.

So here I am at 4 am, battling my Crohn’s Disease and holding my hurting heart. Zofran, toast, ginger tea, my trusty laptop and journal by my side. I’ve lost 10 lbs since Christmas, there is nothing easy about this.

“I am brave, I am bruised, this is who I’m meant to be. I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me.”

This last year in my 30’s is mine. I don’t want to heal at anyone else’s expense, but I’m also not willing to help someone heal at the expense of me. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but here are my intentions.

I intend to write about trauma, in a way no one else has before….. in my way. I intend to be more connected to my children than I ever have, and give them my wide open heart and presence. I intend to be still for me when I need to figure that out. I don’t have it figured out yet, but I intend to work on it.

I intend to discover and honor the body that has carried me this far. I let it take the brunt of the world. It needs to stretch and move with joy. It needs to release years of shame and being stifled and huddled terrified. It deserves to be nourished and cherished.

I intend to love bigger and harder than I ever have, and to always include myself in that equation.

“Look out because here I come. And I’m marching on to the beat I drum. I’m not scared to be seen and I make no apologies this is me.”

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Music, lyrics, water, ice

I said to my friend this morning that I have a big family. It just fell out of my mouth, and then all of my insides smiled at the realization. How can that be?! How can all of this change have occurred and right under my nose.

I’m always vigilant for threat. But for happiness…. I can’t even see it when it was always available to me. Just some fine tuning of perspective.

This hunting, constant hunting for belonging or acceptance has left my soul tired. What I actually had to do was to let go, not hold on tight. Then everything just opened right up to me.

I’ve traversed lifetimes of growth just this morning. A time traveling warrior of light. Transcending typical chronologies and customs, and all barriers of logic and reason. A traversiamo; I’ve crossed over.

I had a beautiful line right here, and I didn’t save the draft properly, and it’s gone. It was exquisite, and I’m feeling rather heartbroken. But isn’t this just how life works? If I sit here not writing, let the whole thing ruin my mood, when all the lines come from inside me anyway, and if it’s important it will come back again.

I’m in a freeze again. I’m waiting for something, the next something, and there will be a something after that. So why wait I suppose? Write what I can right now?!

I can write that life is happening around me so fast I feel like I can barely keep up. This creation has taken on a life of its own, and some of my parts (sum of my parts by Mary Lambert, a favorite), still feel like they are in that other life. I am constantly checking the evidence and pinching myself. That must indicate some pretty radical transformation right ?!

I can’t stop thinking about that line, and I can’t stop thinking about other things… my mind just rolls it over and over in the palm of my hand like glistening agates bathed in ocean water and sunlight. Mesmerized. They could turn to dust at any moment these dreams, and I know that like I never have before. I now know what it means to have the courage to go after your dreams. I used to think what’s the big deal? That’s because I was separated from myself.

People thought I was brave. And I was but I couldn’t feel it, and they never knew that.

What direction is my life about to go?! What many directions ? What do I have to offer the world ? I am excavating, contemplating, exfoliating. Laughing. Playing.

Mary Lambert sets my soul on fire. I want to do what she does for the world. With my words. Before my child got lost she wrote. She wrote a lot. Always had a pen and paper. She wrote poetry and song lyrics and tried so sing, not well. And then people made fun of her and she tucked all that away on a mission for acceptance. She watched and became anything she could to be chosen, wanted, to belong.

It’s not all tragedy though that lost child created the very thing that helped her become found. It was effortless to have those three gems, or at least it feels that way this many years out, and within this new journey. They are effortless to love, and yet I was blind for so long. Now I see everything. I spent a small amount of time fearing it was too late, but there’s no such thing really.

It’s never too late. I want to play the piano. I want to dance with joy. I want to weave words together into a brightly colored tapestry and then sit back and see me from the outside in a way I never have before. I have dreams and a heart, that are thawed.

It’s so hard to explain this life in words. I burst with gratitude to the point only unintelligible sobs can escape. I’m nervous to show the world so much feeling, they don’t know what to do with it, and I hate anyone around me being uncomfortable.

I make people uncomfortable, just before they find themselves.

I needed enough insight to realize how to hold on through the storm so I could witness the sunlight. Most of the storms of my childhood were unbearable. So it’s taken several trips through hell to learn how to sit in discomfort.

“Don’t go looking for some kind of rescue, you are the only one who can save you. We are we are more than our scars, we are more than the sum of our parts.” -Mary Lambert

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Fox Tattoos and Trauma Hues

I picked up my son from college last night. How is this even a thing ?! What happened to all those years? I was just surviving but I wasn’t alive in my heart. I’m grappling with this realization right now.

I provided my children with what appeared at face value to be safe people. Everyone was safer than me because I could become some dark thing at anytime.

That’s so sad when I say it now and feel it. No dissociation only raw realizations here.

My son has been talking about getting a tattoo. And my mom side says wait til you know who you are and what you like. She protects and guides and also thinks no don’t be so grown I can’t handle it. It’s scary. So my response was always no. Closed off from him. What he was asking for what he wants in exploring the world. So he went to another source. That’s what we do with unmet needs right ?

Anyway he was talking with my ex partner (now friend). She had said she was going to take him to do that. And something about this felt off to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it jealousy?! If it was I would manage that. But it was more. I’ve not been controlling with my children in fact I’ve let them be given to the world: however I think I did not even have a template for how important I am to them, and vice Versa.

I did not know how. I didn’t know how to mom or how to child. Chaotic confusion.

They have seen this mother. Always seeking, but most likely always at more of an arms length than is comfortable for me to sit with. But the truth sets you free, and opens up new possibilities, especially the hard ones. Most people aren’t ever willing to admit… it’s too uncomfortable.

That arms length was not believing in who I was as a mother. It was never them, and hopefully showing them now, and this connection blossoming now. I provided others for play, while I worked. While I worked at school, worked at my trauma, worked at Trader Joe’s.

What breaks my heart is that it was all so intense for me. I always could have been connected to them as much as I wanted. Children are open and loving always. I kept myself from their love because I didn’t want to use it inappropriately, like what was done to me. I was frozen. Trauma freezes our beautiful soft selves.

Now I’m thawed and they are older and the only way they will ever know how much of my love has always been theirs is if I write so they can read my story. My heart is opening. I can see them now and connect. What if I hurt them all that time? Were they lonely? It’s more than most parents will ever look at in themselves.

I think children might rather have consistency even than any other thing. And my c-ptsd has left me bouncing around the world like a brightly colored super ball. Were they lonely ?! They must have been because I was. I did the supposed to’s properly, but connection I knew nothing about that. I just tried to learn about life from the damn movies; not from any real connections. So that left a lot of room for error!

So this whole tattoo thing. I realized I want to be there with him for that and asked him. I asked him for this connection and to accept my place as his mother and his friend. I asked for my need and also let him know he is important to me. I could have just stayed in the backseat out of fear of myself.

I’m ready to accept my place in their lives. To love myself enough to accept my role and to fulfill it properly. I am sorry it’s taken me so long. But I promise no one has ever loved their children so much. I’ve done my own surgery and my own stitches and I’ve been living wounded without anesthesia for so long.

If I had something visible I would have had people gasp and run to my aid. Because it’s not visible I’ve been shamed and judged. And that created more bondage.

I am a trauma survivor. I live with PTSD every single day. I can’t even ride in a car without jumping 60 times. Most days I spend monitoring my heart rate and flushing from cortisol. So many times without my consent. My body and my heart are so tired.

I’ve called it Crohns. I’ve been in denial. Anything else. Because a trauma survivor story is filled with such shame. It will be no matter what work you do around it. How to not be seen as attention seeking or pity seeking. How to not have shame around this. When you’re responsible for everything.

Coming out as gay was only the tip of the iceberg on my coming out. I had been strong for so long I forgot I was soft. It’s my soft parts that connect with the world and my children.

I don’t talk about it. I really don’t. I live with it but I don’t talk about it, because I’m always afraid of taking up too much space.

It’s time for another healing journey, one with my body, my heart rate, my mind. I stopped looking, because I was looking to the wrong sources.

The medical community has failed me, the family system has failed me. And I get so angry…. not getting answers but I’m focusing on the wrong thing. If I had a medical issue it could be easily fixed and seen and there’s a pill for that.

I deserved to be seen so long ago….

Everyone deserves to be seen….

I’ve spent my life becoming the mother I want to be. It’s a lot of work. I hope this new little one is ready for me. I am ready for her…..

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Love is an open door

Hurt people hurt people.

I see the very realness of this every single day in my office, in my own life, in the life of my friends.

It’s what we decide to do with that pain that makes the difference. Yes you can decide to do something with your pain. You don’t choose that it’s yours, but you do get to decide what you will do with it.

Yesterday a dear friend reached out to me about a wound that she was experiencing as a result of her mother not being able to fully understand how to love her, or what she needed. She shared that pain with me.

Last night another dear friend wrote me a string of texts about how her mother did not see her progress she has made with her sobriety and with going to school to change her life around.

In my office so many people sit with me, and show me their wounds. It’s intimate and scary. They reveal themselves to me. I am in awe that they trust me so much with their heart.

It doesn’t matter the why’s of it all. It’s just so beautiful all the time. If their wounds can be beautiful and I can learn and be privileged by them, then so can mine. This is what heals me into a whole person. The courage of others to let me hold their pain with them, and they hold my pain too.

I know they can see it and feel it because they chose me to share their open hearts with.

The courageous are not the ones who have all the answers figured out. The courageous are those who go looking for it, knowing all the while they could experience disappointment again and again. They look anyway. These are my tribe.

Yesterday my wife took her progesterone and oil injection, no thanks to me. I chickened out. My anxious mind wonders what vital organ that giant needle could hit, and feels threat at the possibility of her imminent loss. This is what a combination of PTSD and anxiety can do to you. If you believe anything is possible then you aren’t limited by the mere medical knowledge that there is not a vital organ in your hip. Every part of her is vital to my existence. What if I did something wrong? What if she wasn’t ok? Oh anxiety. Sigh.

I wasn’t anxious before. What is this? I wasn’t human before either. I was a feral terrified wisp who fashioned herself as best she could. I was devoid of real human emotion that would have been poured into me by the wanting of my sheer existence. My existence was not wanted, so I didn’t know what to do with myself either. A person with this sort of beginning will always wonder why the wanted people are interested in her. It feels like a different breed.

But what I realized this evening is it is only our own story that keeps us from being loved as well as we could. The universe provides us with multiple sources to help our gifts come forth from us.

Spoiler alert. It isn’t always our parents and family.

Did you hear that? Sometimes it’s a teacher, a friend, a neighbor, a pet even.

It’s 3 am. I woke up like a shot at 3 am with all of this beauty and realization in my heart. 3 am actually seems to be my prime writing time, when without pretenses or agonizing self-criticism I can just pour my heart onto the page. Adult me knows that this 3 am bullshit will bite me in the ass later, in the form of nausea, dizziness, crushing wall of tired at exactly the wrong time.

But right now childlike me can allow herself to get up and participate in magic making. It’s never as good on the page as I experience it inside of me. That’s a real challenge I want everyone to see what I do, as I do, and right now. I want to be seen like we all do. But then I remember again all of you who share your heart with me. All those who seek my warmth and my counsel, and I know I am seen.

Lately I am seen so well it is staggering. I am regularly in disbelief about this. I was having a few moments like this about it over the past few weeks, and was sharing with a new friend these thoughts vulnerably. They asked me if it was perhaps my sense of worthiness preventing the reception of this. I said that it wasn’t. But as I sit here with all of these people’s shared hearts laid on in front of me I think I must change my answer. It all comes down to worthiness.

I am in shock that someone could come along and see me as safe, beautiful, someone they want to get to know more, someone to look to to learn from. I realize I don’t have a template for that inside myself. And that helps me realize that is what good love does for us. It gives us a template to go off of in learning to love ourselves. Which just makes life so much easier.

When I just said that I got really worried about my son. He is at that very delicate period of finding himself. His first year of college. I’m so afraid that perhaps from not yet having this template he doesn’t have it either and will suffer unnecessarily. I hope the love of others while I was chaotic and frantically searching, and as much love as I had was enough so that he knows he is special, and worthy, and he has permission to find out who he really is without torturing himself with the pressures of society, student loans, and all the negative possible outcomes of an existence.

Bumpy roads still can lead to fantastic destinations. Don’t worry my little love. Worry never did a damn thing, but limit my imagination and possibilities. Yes

While I was responding at 3 am to my friend who is hurting I found a message in my inbox that another friend of mine is getting ready to make her next step towards a dream of hers. She shared her beauty with me too.

Life is a giant canvas mixed with brush strokes of beautiful agonies. It is art in motion. It never ceases to challenge and amaze me. The pain of some of my friends right now, their loss, it sits heavily in my arms. So many people that I love are feeling so many big things right now.

And I am too. I am right in between the possibility of a dream and crushing disappointment right now. I’m standing here and all I can do is love as hard as I possibly can. And I can accept the gifts the universe offers me.

Dear new friend, I accept you seeing me and being interested in investing. You are here at exactly the right time. Thank you for seeing me.

And to all of the people who trust me with their valuable feelings, thank you. You are a gift, and your faith in me renews my faith in myself. It has opened up my heart.

My heart is an open door…

This is a big time for all of us. There is a crib in our room. There are baby things waiting. They have been waiting a long time. Fuzzy sloth blankets, cute little onesies, books on cooking for baby. They are in boxes in bags, packed away. There’s a photo of our embryo we transferred on November 8, 2018. Little pieces of our hearts also are packed away with those things. We begin foster classes tonight at 6 pm. The first step in a lifelong dream.

This love is bursting and flowing over. We must do something, many things, worthwhile with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Childlike Enthusiasm

Despite my conflict about this medication how I am feeling on the regular is this crazy optimism for life. I wake up every single morning literally bounding with energy for what could happen throughout the day. What special thing? What human connection. What could happen today?

I have woken up (thawed out) to a childlike enthusiasm for living. And I’ll never go back to sleep from that. Now I just want to give from a place of abundance and fulfillment to anyone and everyone who feels as if they don’t belong in some way, are too much, are not enough, not worthy. I want to warm them up and thaw them out.

I realized yesterday it isn’t because I don’t have symptoms and lots of various health things anymore, it’s because I’m so well cared for.

Yesterday we watched my daughters soccer game. They beat their town rival for the first time in the history of JV soccer, both of them played wonderfully. It was cold out, and once the cold gets into me it’s very difficult to get out. My lips get purple, my hands and feet and nose are freezing and no amount of bundling typically helps. I used to become so afraid of this. It’s very unpleasant and it can’t be good right. My joints ache after. I’ve tried all sorts of things and had all sorts of testing.

Do you know what heals me the most?

Love.

Once I got into bed with my person she lovingly warms my hands and her touch brings me right back to life. I believe 100 percent if you allow yourself to receive from source (for me love and the earth) that you can heal. When I’m cold like that I also ache and all my muscles tighten up, and it can cause a migraine etc. Normally I go to such a fear space in my body and I’m in my head, and can’t get out.

She brings me right back to earth and safety.

My secret is you have to reach a place where you reduce down to the truly important things. Not getting caught up in whether your house looks nice, your body, various appearances. Whether you’re good enough (you’re good enough), make enough money, have enough time. There will never be “enough” of those things, but think of how much can be wasted with a skewed perspective.

As my fear melts away, there is just more and more beauty to bask in.

If you had seen my life you would absolutely wonder how. I truly believe like a stray that has found its forever home I live in constant gratitude for the tiniest things and it’s a constant ecstasy.

I never imagined you could have a relationship where you truly fall more in love every day. I dreamed of this, but then romanticized and become crushingly disappointed by continually picking the wrong fit because I couldn’t move slow enough to pay attention to the details.

Prior to this I chose partners who were no where near ready nor did they want to be responsible to a family unit. They fell in love the same way I did, with the idea of something and someone. Not truly knowing what they wanted out of their one precious life. It created love to be the battlefield from whence I came, and that pushed me toward illness, depression, fear, and longing even further.

When I met my wife I had already seen that she loved in partnership the way my value system works which is that love is prioritized above all things. The love itself is what continues to expand the dreams. Not resentment or playing out with each other the legacy of our family systems.

This love is bliss.

It’s interesting to watch others reactions to my shouting from the rooftops. Responses are often critical and judgmental such as “if you have to share it all the time on Facebook then…. and maybe you should be more private about it.” Or with skepticism or with behaving as if it’s corny to love this hard and talk about it. If this is your response you probably want to check in on your own unmet needs.

Well meaning advice from those who see their world quite differently. Also it means those people don’t understand me at all. How I work. That I delight in having permission to share my truths as often and as loudly as I like. That I was shushed often as a child and told that little girls are supposed to play quietly in the corner with their paper dolls, and that children are meant to be seen and not heard.

If they aren’t for you move along. I used to accept shame and judgment so easily. It used to make me crumble. I wanted so badly to belong and fit in, I did anything, sold my soul, again to people who weren’t ready to create a big life with me.

Keep your dreams at the forefront and your enthusiasm for living. I wonder how much I was born like this, and how much is my chosen perspective. I wake up wide awake at 6 am every morning with thousands of thoughts. I used to wake up with those being terror filled, and the day being a gauntlet of symptoms to survive and my own dark thinking of how badly everything could go. My mind can do dark things. I’ve lived in dark places.

The saving grace is my determination towards the light. I am fiercely protective of this life I am creating. I know that loss does not discriminate, and that I am not immune. And that I will feel the effects intensely. Which will only make the beautiful things that much more special.

I continue to keep warming my inner child and bringing her into myself and feeling whole.