Tag: #grief

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The Infinite Sadness

Today was a beautiful really good day in so many ways. Today was a beautiful really hard day in so many ways. My heart is broken and I’m beginning to wonder if things will ever feel better again. If there will ever be that naïveté and zest for living encapsulated in the trapped childhood parts I was left with. Now that they have integrated my life feels so bland sometimes.

I’m always aware of how grateful I am. This is the longest I’ve really ever gone without feeling secured by being a part of something bigger, a family, someone else’s family. As well as having a relationship I am working on with a partner. Nothing eases the ache of loneliness. No amount of me saying how ok I am. I’m not ok. And any end to this pain never seems in sight because I’ve outgrown coping mechanisms that would allow me to accept anything less than two feet in and someone willing to do the work.

It feels like I’m going to be alone forever. There’s a thousand things in a day I want to be sharing. And then I give up and just go numb and try to busy myself, which doesn’t work either because I’m always acutely aware I’m numb.

I have everything anyone could want. I’m fulfilled. I love my found family, my friends, my family that is the kids and I. Our home, our pets, my little habits and routines. I’m doing so many good things right now, but at the end of the day there isn’t that consistent routine with someone that makes living worthwhile.

“For me it was always going to be about love” from About Time. I think in many ways people are who they are. You can analyze all day long, but those who are about love are about love. For the last year I’ve imagined what it would be like to have love where it’s just myself and that other person and it’s ours. I watch these movies and I get angry. I get angry about the fault lines in me that I didn’t know were there.

Sad and angry, sad and angry, get back up and keep going… and the cycle repeats. I always wanted the kind of love that stays, to have it, to be it. I’m so angry about what the trauma did to my brain. The broken speed and trajectory at which I have lived. I know I can’t be mad at my story and embrace it, but right now it aches and I am raw.

I go all day, fairly positive and it’s easy to be engaged because I love my work and my life. At night it’s the worst. I beg to be tired enough to fall asleep so I can have some rest, and look forward to my coffee and morning writing routine.

Then I resent having to ever get out of that warm safe bubble to do hard things like figure out taxes and pay bills and decide what to spend money on and what not to. It’s monotonous and altogether not worth anything without love. I’m pretty sure this is who I am and not just being co-dependent.

I have all these Gottman couple things, cards etc books things and no relationship to practice them inside. How did it ever become a fantasy for it to be just me and another person fully devoted with no bullshit. And how is that fair when I had it and…. that’s pointless at this point because being hard on oneself never helped anyone. Something I am learning.

I did appreciate that relationship for every second it existed until things in my life changed so swiftly. I can go back and say I wish I did differently but that just helps nothing. I’ve learned so much I can’t unlearn and that was necessary either way. Does it have to come with so much suffering? Apparently yes.

I have new relationships with my kids I never had before. Every day is pretty much a new kind of hard. But little by little we are figuring it out. I’m engaged and present and managing my overwhelm most of the time and connected in new ways.

But when I’m alone at night it just burns. It feels like burning alive every single night. Sometimes I’m in so much pain I wonder if I’ll even wake up. Sometimes it swallows me. It just never takes my enthusiasm for living: Thank God. Though some days it’s easier to find than others.

Right now my eyes are burning with tears and I just want sleep to gather me in her arms and tell me we are going to be ok. The tears stream gently down. Don’t they ever run out?!

I’m so much more irritable and sensitive and reactive and just a lot of things without some of my most vital needs met. I can meet them if I want, but it doesn’t replace the art of relationship. Navigating parenting is difficult under the best of circumstances and I’ve been under the worst for a long time.

I just want a glimmer is that too much to ask. I can’t even be miserable my life is blessed and fulfilling and I’m happy in so many new ways. But all this love and energy with no place to go eats me alive sometimes. It sits like a stone in my stomach. All these memories of so many things play on loop.

Oh good it’s almost 9; that means I can finally fall asleep and I won’t wake up at 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Tomorrow is a very long day. I have a series of doctors appointments, my first mammogram, errands for a procedure on Tuesday and 7 clients I believe.

Please take this pain … I’m shocked that pain like this doesn’t kill you…… mr sandman bring me a dream.

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Having your reality denied as a child/adult…..

“How a parent figure treated you is not a reflection of who you are. You do not need to be a reflection of their unprocessed trauma.” “Trauma occurred when we consistently betrayed ourselves for love, were consistently treated in a way that made us feel unworthy or unacceptable resulting in a severed connection to our authentic self.” “Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.” – How to do the Work by Dr. Nicole Lepera.

This book is my life raft this morning. I’m in a state of discomfort. I experienced a profound trigger yesterday on top of an already profound loss. Any situation that does not leave room for my feelings to exist is so similar to my childhood. A mother whose constant mood shifts, suicide threats and attempts, contempt and jealousy for and of me, and a variety of other things. Her overall lack of maturity, insight, awareness, and any variety of nurturing left me in a constant state of hyper vigilance.

The way I ended up coping with this was by having the capability to soothe and rescue her emotionally. Whether I was always innately good at this or whether that was developed as a necessity I may never know. But I was only able to feel good about my self by how useful I was at being useful. It never freely existed because of who I was and who she was. What every child deserves. In addition to my mother I assumed this role with my grandparents who put their hands up in helplessness. Parented my brother, not well I might add, and then felt guilty about that. I raised me, and him, and my mother, for them. I became a mind reader, a mood reader, a soother. So I feel alive when I am doing these things, they are as natural as breathing for me.

Thus paving my career as a psychotherapist. The seer is rarely seen, until they see themselves properly enough to know what is deserved. At least at work I get paid for it, and I’m beginning to refuse to do this with my precious time that is mine. Becoming protective of my time, peace, self.

The only thing saving me lately while mucking around in all my old stuff are the friends that show up for me. Getting myself out of that triggered state by talking through it, feeling my feelings and employing various self care strategies. Yesterday’s event landed me with a severe migraine and having to cancel my evening. I went to bed at six pm. Medicated and miserable. The toll on my body and heart is tremendous.

Abandoning a loved one in need to save myself from manipulation leaves me feeling distraught on so many levels. I end up feeling bad for the manipulator and that’s not an option. Particularly when my needs always get twisted into something going on with them. In a secure and safe relationship the need would have been met naturally. Asked for in a productive and healthy way, and my needs would have already been being met. Safe and secure. Clear and direct.

“Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive.”

My attachment system can betray me at every turn. Obsessive checking/hope for closeness with an unsafe source, regardless of logic. It’s so frustrating. Perhaps a review of what love is and what it is not is in order. A continuous inventory of this and then checked out against the list. Attachment is my proverbial Achilles heal. Once I have attached it’s set in stone, unless that attachment is neglected and then as we have seen I can fly out of it real quick. I am all in or all out, and I’m working on the in between and deciding with much more agency what and whom to be attached to. This is the most important part.

https://www.raptitude.com/2012/11/what-love-is-not/. This article is really good. It highlights the difference between desiring something and truly what love is about.

“Anyone with their own level of unresolved feelings will generally feel uncomfortable with a child’s expression of feelings and may cope by attempting to dismiss them. The child’s experience may activate similarly painful past memories for the parent-figure (these are often unconscious) who tends to push the child to repress or ignore the feelings that are coming up. The problem is that the child was having a legitimate feeling and looking to be comforted and supported; instead they were told the pain was inconsequential. Through repeated similar experiences, a child is taught that their perception of reality and related emotional experiences are not trustworthy.” Page 49. How to do the work.

Love is not being dismissed, redirected, a lack of transparency, manipulation, gaslighting. Regardless of how much the person wants you.

Love shows up consistently and safely always. Love is able to work through things because a solid foundation of honest and healthy boundaries makes that so. Let it be so. Love does not avoid a partners needs for the other partners comfort or avoidance of their discomfort. Love is selfless not selfish.

I vow to have the courage to walk away from love that is not founded in the things I want and need. To remember my ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and how high that number is. How I’m lucky to be alive and I will not forfeit that gift and all of mine for anything. How capable I am to share my healing with the world, and how important that work is.

I felt to be legitimate I must be chosen and belong to a human and their family. That feeling is like heroin for me. However I was never choosing myself enough to be choosy about that decision. Abundance over scarcity. I intend to live with an abundance mindset and attitude for the rest of my life. I watched a friends wedding video the other day, and no wonder I romanticized this. Such a belonging. And I had fallen into such scarcity that my last wedding was done in secret with none of those ingredients. I am still trying to sort out why that was a thing. What I need and want and how to stay that course……

The result of this work is a presence in my daily life that can rarely be stolen by preoccupation these days. It’s an absolute work in progress but most days I am loving it. Even the ones where I have to nurse myself back to health and acknowledge without catastrophizing, the lasting and major effects trauma has had on my body. Rather than doom and gloom this I’ll decide to keep it a motivator to steer me away from unhealthy things and continuously towards the horizons of my dreams.

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Running on Empty

Some dreams you take down, and some dreams come together unexpectedly. I’m hopeful for the latter.

In this period of utter groundlessness I’m sifting through mine.

I had a dream a little over a year ago to become a foster parent. If you have ever seen me pursue a dream you might chuckle, but for those who haven’t I’ll describe it. It’s a sprint. My mind is quite effective when focused so within a few months of the idea we had a crib set up in our room, bunk beds in another one of the rooms, and the mounds of paperwork were being cruised through.

I set the scene swiftly and effectively. There’s a gift and a curse in this way of doing things.

For me it takes much longer to dismantle a dream (particularly if I’m not ready to let go of it) than it does to try and create the conditions for it to exist. Perhaps I heard the Wendy’s commercial of Dave whispering “if you build it they will come” one too many times in childhood. Once again my entire life shaped by the television.

Anyway my family and I took cpr classes and we attended the foster classes and that’s when I realized so much of me was still the child rather than someone capable of steadfast patience in the face of a child that can’t regulate. I saw myself in the videos and vignettes of children experiencing abuse, and I wanted to look away, but I didn’t.

I remember avoiding the call and exit interview of the class teachers who thought we were the perfect candidates. I could not face that down at the time. I couldn’t face a lot of things.

Being honest with myself about that was one of the hardest moments of my life and everything that came after… the stuff of nightmares.

Lost identity, lost security, lost dreams, lost self, illness, terror…. I cannot even go in further into that.

My 100 yard dash came to a screeching halt and I set out to see myself and the relationships with my own children more clearly. This very difficult task continues. I am humbled daily. I am ill equipped to parent teenagers and the struggle for self love during this time is immense.

Anyone who heard me say ill equipped would laugh I suspect, anyone but my ex husband and a few scorned critics out there. In the traditional sense I’m not, but most often weathering the. “You’re ruining my life phase” and the bite back from rules is extra difficult for me because of my ten thousand triggers. Some newly acquired unfortunately, and many old.

I’m a piss poor punching bag who is simultaneously acutely aware of the need of teens to practice their independence with their parent and the parent still loving them. My off switch is immense. The love is never off but the response is and that breaks my heart. I’m working on it 🙁

Boundaries are hard. I’ve had to create the whole system from scratch. I’m getting emotional as I write this. I wonder if anyone in their whole life has ever tried so hard to become a mother while underneath the weight of their burgeoning painful mind filled with trapped and inaccessible memories that would run their life subconsciously. Now that I wrote that I’m sure many. That makes me sad.

I’m sad most days, which is better than irritable, scattered, panicky etc. Sad is ok apparently, according to my therapist. I don’t want to waste a second of life, but I’d imagine acknowledging and connecting to my own emotions is anything but a waste.

I woke up sad today. There’s many things behind that, many reasons. So I’ll just hang out in the bath where my tears can trickle freely and it’s warm and quiet and safe.

I can barely figure out what I feel like eating lately, and whatever the mood is for does not go well with my stomach. This loss of love in enjoying the art of it all is disappointing, nay, soul crushing. My soul feels crushed by an emotion like sadness and I want for that to have some balance.

On the flip side when I am able to come up for air, everything is new and beautiful. The pink blossoms are blooming on the trees in the backyard, and that alone is a comfort beyond all comforts. It helps me ignore the rotting wood of the deck that needs replacing, and the current state of the pool. And all the other things in my life that are falling apart that are teaching me it’s ok for one thing to come together at a time.

Deciding which thing to focus on always felt like the problem. Little did I know the extent of that. I will abide in a state of surrender and let the problems wear themselves out rather than me wearing myself out.

Surrender. Boundaries. Time.

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If you can’t trust your mind…..

This line stops me in my tracks. Trust my heart?! Have you taken a look at my life lately? But somehow I know it’s true.

I am reading Words on Bathroom Walls. It’s simple style makes me want to think and write that way as well. It just seems so straightforward, so easy, nothing like my mind.

Adam (the main character) and I have that in common about our minds. You never know when your mind will be your enemy or your best friend. One moment you can be so sure of the truth and everything, and the next shattered.

One moment I can have the galaxies of the universe on the tip of my awareness and the second I attempt to capture it, everything goes blank.

Like when I opened this blog post I had a wave of inspiration and in the time it took me to open the app on my phone, poof. Into the abyss. I sit very still hoping it will alight gently on my shoulder any minute now.

Thursday nights are dinner at my favorite restaurant. It’s nice having a favorite restaurant and being a regular. Another aspect of belonging of course. It’s comforting. Last night I felt comfortable in my own skin and confident and not socially anxious and not overly preoccupied with anything, even though I always manage to create something to be overly preoccupied about.

A regular I hadn’t seen in a long time, a tall dark and handsome man (rare for me to interact with LOL) told me that I looked great and asked what I was doing. You know to look so fresh and perky. I’m forty I’m not sure perky applies but we will go with it. It felt nice to be noticed (seen?) those are different I suppose. See over thinking again. Can you really over-think or is that just a way society shames us for using more of our gifts than we should?

Anyway later in the evening my friend who I dine with on Thursdays (friend is such an understatement fellow traveler and family more appropriate, and many others), went to go speak to someone and said tall dark and handsome enters seat next to me. He commented on my posts on Facebook and said he needs help. To clarify I believe he needs light like the rest of us, not exactly help. Light helps you create your own help as an inside job.

Once again the fact he would share that with me, and I’m that person, it never ceases to amaze me, humble me, excite me, and make me feel special in all the ways I never did in childhood. The universe has a funny way of making up for what your earthly coils lacked. It’s one of my favorite things.

I have a doctors appointment this morning. Sometimes it feels like my whole life is filled with them and then I think don’t feel sorry for yourself it’s not like you have cancer or something. And I toggle back and forth between validating and invalidating my experience. I just summed up how I spend most of my mental energy. Funny and not funny at all.

I’m dreaming about vacation lately and trying to get a vision for what that looks like. The toggling happens here too, a lot. Can I use those resources when there are so many loose ends in the air. Should I use it for this or for that. Time and resources apparently feel always running out despite the abundance I’m surrounded with.

Maybe I have more in common with Adam than I thought. I mean it’s not an accident I’m reading the book and love the movie so much. My perception can be completely skewed, and also it can be so completely perceptive to the ends of the earth. If I stayed solidly in that place I wouldn’t wander in my mind, in the ways one needs to wander to be a healer. Hmmm. See during the act of writing this that arose and felt damn true and good too. That’s why I do this.

Deciding how and when and to whom I process to, these days that’s a whole other matter. It’s more of a sacred decision than I ever valued it as, but also there’s so many less ways to go wrong (such an intense word) than I originally thought.

Highly sensitive people spend a great deal of time trying to find how they are wrong so they can fix it, presumably because their major intent is the betterment of humanity. Betterment of humanity detriment to themselves. Is it always that way for healers or just when you’re out of balance!?

What kind of healer am I? Was psychotherapist just the beginning? I mean it felt like the total destination and I already have a purpose. So what now? I’m always on the brink of something. I suppose that makes me an adventurer.

That felt nice to write. Not crazy and bad? No Adam we are not crazy or bad. We that invaluable shared experience with another that can also be found in books and movies and just so happens to be there when you need it.

I had a client share with me yesterday that the yucky depression voice is barely hanging around these days and maybe it’s just coincidence (see we all want to minimize our accomplishments), but that they noticed.

Something in the book that struck me is how Adam gets to know Maya, and the things he notices about how she operates and who she is. He knows her very well, the light and the dark and this happens slowly over time. Have I ever allowed that? Leaps and bounds subsisting off crumbs, existing primarily alone. I see myself so different now.

But I have no idea what that will mean going forward. That sort of groundlessness used to plunge me into pathological loneliness so easily and it would take days to recover and it would always be a patch job.

I’m sailing a yacht now and the compass and all the equipment is working and that in and of itself is terrifying. It’s a lot of responsibility, our own happiness. Much easier to play out templates and patterns from our upbringing and be in a part that is rehearsed rather than breaking through to our own.

I’m scared of my own abundance and my gifts and power. I’m actually scared I can’t complain or default ? Wow.

Who will I be outside the story I make up for myself daily to create relief. Outside the story what is real and what isn’t? Could it be possible that real is whatever I perceive and create and that’s ok?! That feels too simple and too complicated all at once.

I only have a few more pages left on my journey into Adam’s journey. Who’s will be next and what will I learn ?

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Victims and Perpetrators

“There are three sides to every story”, makes me want to throw up.

https://medium.com/the-ascent/in-an-abusive-relationship-there-are-not-two-sides-to-the-story-dc833dbc3af5

Who would’ve thought that taking responsibility for your own joy and happiness could be so difficult.

Who knew that it’s much easier to place it in the hands of others. (I think of Iyanla and myself before I came across her saying a relationship with others is only a reflection of our relationship with ourselves, ok good so a pervasive lack of self trust and some major attachment shit? Fun) Easier in the moment and more difficult in the long run.

Story of the ultimate human battle: discipline over satiation. Long term satisfaction over immediate. Well when you don’t think you’ll even live to see the next day now it all makes sense.

The legacy of the trauma survivor in so many ways is being sentenced to only live life in the current moment, and at times inside their own imagination because that is the only safe route.

Momentary safety overrides all other mental processes.

I’m thinking a lot about roles and boundaries lately. This makes sense as I am parenting teenagers, or as I like to call it herding cats 😉 Pema would say trying to get all the frogs in a bowl, and nobody likes a bowl of dead frogs lol. Fail, fail again, fail better she says.

Am I failing better these days or sentenced to life without parole inside my pattern? Stay tuned. I am failing better, but the fall is no less hard. I am angry at the fault lines inside of me laid down without my consent. Angry!

It’s lonely right now and yet it’s not. It’s lonely in a new way. A secure loneliness perhaps is taking over a desperate one, and maybe that will make all the difference in the world.

My thoughts are ahead of their time and I’m always ahead of myself. That’s a lot to come to terms with.

The proverbial cart is always before the damn horse. “How did you get the beans above the frank”, I’ve turned silly now. There’s Something About Mary reference and I suppose no better metaphor for the situations I get myself in could be had, no less painful.

There is no greater pain than to not be able to trust oneself and reality. This is a suffering I wouldn’t wish on anyone. In a matrix of my own making. I guess when you lived alone with only your imagination and your initiative this makes sense. And frantically looking for answers outside, rather than anyone helping. And worse being used and manipulated. It’s worse than I thought….

The benefit of childhood wounds directly at the surface is the opportunity to RE parent and become steadfast and solid. Not the same thing as boring and stagnant but they can often be confused for the other.

No black and white and there isn’t 50 Shades of Anything. A ridiculous fantasy. There’s just one foot in front of the other and I intend to taste and be the damn rainbow. Whatever that means. Like I said stay tuned.

The chronology of me…. another potential book title. Throw it in the pile with the rest as my attention threatens to betray me at every turn.

Just when you don’t think you can’t handle any more betrayal ….

I betrayed myself. And there’s nothing worse than that.

It’s a long way home…

And then she danced….

That’s been the longest running book title.

It and I are a work in progress that currently resembles a pile of raw meat. Shredded. Pulverized. The perpetrator and the victim and there is no reprieve.

Pema would say lean into the raw vulnerability. And I would cry out I’m exhausted of that, and some other voice from far away would say, hush Christina, you are just beginning, not ending. Why won’t you see it. You’re the only one who doesn’t.

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I Celebrate Myself…..

Sophie at approximately 6 months old. She’s heavy now. I didn’t move because the cuddles were too sweet. Why can’t human love be as easy as dog love?

The thing about love and I, is that I tried to make it and mold it and choose it the rest of the way I did my life. With intention and actions, but done by me.

I didn’t allow it to unfold organically ever. And if you had seen the beginning of my life you’d understand. Natural and organic for me, didn’t turn out so well.

I applied all the things I knew how to do to survive to love as well. I never trusted it. I didn’t have any faith. Maybe that’s what this process has become about.

Actually let me craft this better. I didn’t ever wait and allow someone…

Ok I see. I’m always trying to make myself responsible. I always was responsible. I had to be. I’ve never not been. And in this time now I’m responsible for and to me. It feels surprisingly good.

To know that I’ve put down my exhausting tasks and going to replace that with faith. That love will show up a fully formed thing and it will be safe and interested in me for nothing other than who I am. When it comes that will be what it looks like. Not for material or status gain, or for a perceived lack of other options. Scarcity.

For the pure enjoyment of the occasion. I celebrate myself. Stop this day and night with me….

Song of Myself Walt Whitman

The sun isn’t up yet on a Sunday. There are so many possibilities in this day. So many hours that can be filled by simply just being and noticing. One breath in and one breath out.

I’m noticing my kids a lot lately. How long had I been holding my breath waiting for something terrible to happen like that would change the level of pain felt if it did.

How long has life been a blur of longing and trying. What have I looked like to them? They just missed me while I was figuring myself out. Wanting more of me, not less, even as they pushed me away.

They are the only ones allowed to send me confusing messages about love.

They are trying to figure out their paths and separate from me some but still feel my warmth on them as they walk about the world. I’ve been lost to me and them, and it has cost a lot.

I have a migraine brewing, must be the pressure of the impending snow, or it’s Crohns Disease. My stomach is red hot coals this morning. 🙁 This is why I don’t drink. See still trying to blame myself, when it’s always been the stress.

Victoria came in and kissed my head last night while I was sleeping and my heart melted. We are figuring it out. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it, that single act of loving.

They are more able to be loving and open and warm than I ever was. It always made me feel defective when it came to them. The way I sometimes freeze up when emotions are too overwhelming. It’s only when I’m caught in shame.

When I don’t think I’ll be safe or good enough. I was never that. Life was that for me. And that made me start to cry. The words bring the emotions, and the emotions create the will to write the words.

This won’t help with the headache and the nausea.

My children are magnificent. They keep trying to better themselves. All three of them. I just hope their pursuit with that will not be as rabid and desperate as mine. That it can be relaxing and filled with peace. I guess that is my next task to model for them. It has felt impossible. RE-wiring. A break and rebuild.

My bed is so comfortable and my new bedroom color is lovely. It’s been a slow transformation. Who would have thought, and I am finally able to recognize while I wasn’t even looking….

I’ve been slowly transforming too.

That is a warm thought. I never thought I could find comfort outside the safety of another human until I was left so unsafe as an adult. A situation I never thought I would put myself in.

Love is always a risk worth taking. I have no regrets. Life is not meant to be lived fearfully and I stand behind my philosophy. I needed to be forced into recognizing myself as I am and not as I had crafted myself to be.

As it turns out this is even better than my representative. Read Love Warrior. We all have our path.

That was exhausting.

This is peace.

The only thing I’ll allow the rest of my life. Allowing. And I’ll leave creating for writing and not for love until love shows up for me without me doing anything. Natural.

Let the problem wear itself out. Rather than wearing myself out. Who knew that was an option.

Ok my coffee is beckoning and I’m going to need to take a migraine pill. My morning pages and my novel await.

Perhaps my unfolding as a poet and writer will happen right here… in live format. I mean it already has, but the consistency I was yearning to be.

Always,

C

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Peanut Butter Whisky and Grief

The way I work. This woman’s work. A great song. Featured on the movie She’s Having a Baby. Of course it is. A movie I can’t bring myself to watch these days.

When it comes to writers I get curious about one for various reasons. Recently a meme featuring Joan Didion stated that she had already left behind a couple of people she used to be, and I liked that. So of course on my next outing, one where I needed something to occupy my time, my mind… anything to feel some life in my veins, I would set out to find her.

So I went to Barnes and Nobles and left with virtually every book by her that existed. I have tamed my habits somewhat and I purchased the main one I was after (having no idea why at the time other than the title sounded fabulous), The Year of Magical Thinking. And the rest on Amazon, because cheaper. Though I prefer an independent book store any day. I also came away with a journal, the kind Elizabeth Gilbert favors, in a delightful color we shall call melba peach. Its uniqueness attracted me.

When you’re in pain you rarely think you just kind of do. Walking through my pain haze, wandering half in and half out of my body, I gathered up these items.

I had no idea at the time this book would be not only incredibly enjoyable, but also have a lot to say to me right now. I’m only around the 50th page, but the book begins with her husbands sudden and unexpected death, while their only child was on life support at a nearby hospital.

What strikes me so far about the book, is the happiness of the marriage. The couple were both writers, and anything these days that talks of a union between two people that is filled with mutual interest and affection makes my insides melt with longing. This isn’t new though, it’s old really. The longing that is.

Anyway the book as it turns out goes quite in depth about grief and never have I felt as seen as I do right now, and a book is offering me that. There’s talk of scientific looks at people grieving and what their bodies and minds undergo.

The kind of grief that gets support. I am in the kind of grief that doesn’t, the kind that is not only my fault in so many ways, but perhaps worse. Or that is how I was treating myself for a long time. I’ve since forgiven her. I didn’t have much of a choice I have barely been able to breathe as it is. Shame on top wasn’t an option.

How can one simultaneously be shown their capacity for love and loss all in the same short time span and live to tell the tale? I’ll keep you posted.

I am completely enrapt in this book. The first thing I have been able to concentrate on in as long as I can remember. The book also has very validating aspects for that. Thank goodness.

Thank goodness for writers who have the courage to put words to experiences so we may also find ourselves there.

I’m noticing now I’m a much different writer at night than I am in the morning. One could say I’m even split into two separate selves. My morning self and my night one.

My morning self is enthusiastic (generally) and bright. Frothing with ideas and piss and vinegar. Ready for the tasks at hand. I go full force into the day. I almost know no other way.

My night self is so worn down from all my endeavor and enthusiasm that she is a wispy creature in desperate need of comfort. Emotional, raw, wanting a resting space. Food, drink, soft and fuzzy blankets. Someone to run their fingers through my hair.

My night self rarely writes. But here we are, on a whole new path. Both morning and night self are cold lately, a kind of cold that cannot be warmed. So cold it hurts and the only way to help it is a long warm bath, or lots of movement. Only one of those is readily available in this weather. Joan Didion talks about the kind of cold that is because your body isn’t working properly when consumed with grief. I never would have thought about this without these words.

Today after my usual five back to back clients, I got some food and relaxed with my girls a little. We watched a couple episodes of A Million Little Things. I cracked open on a hard cider. I’ll have one a few times a week. I like to sip it slowly from a fancy glass so I can feel more sophisticated than I actually am.

Sometimes I drink from the can and sometimes a glass. All times I’m the same human. I just like to try lots of different things.

The teens went bowling, Chip made his weekly visit a surprise this time, as it’s usually on Sunday. He brought a bottle of peanut butter whisky. I had seen it “advertised” on an old acquaintance of a good friends page. It was featured next to their new baby’s bottle. Mom and son drinks. A baby boy, a thrilled gay couple are the parents. Funny I knew the mom only a little through someone years before. We were all children then. Though I was the only child I knew that had children.

An outsider. Alien.

Anyway much like following my instincts to a writer and this very book I needed… I explored the drink as well. It turned out not to be a disappointment. What’s even nicer is that Chip brought it for me, and a dear friend had a glass or two with me in the evening. It eased the loneliness some. It was a nice visit.

I made myself some dinner. Marinated chicken breasts with olive oil and balsamic, adobo, a little fresh dill, some garlic salt, and made a salad. Cooking for one. Strange. It was relaxing though.

Both the dogs are sleepy, and so am I relaxed from a good days work and all the things I’m able to provide myself after.

The kids will be home from bowling soon, the house will be filled with sounds again. I enjoy both my quiet life and my loud one.

I guess I just wanted to practice the art of capturing a still life as I know it right now.

I’m going to continue reading this book for now. Saturday’s into Sunday’s are my favorite, the possibilities are endless, and the time seems to stretch for miles. Something I’m not used to. It has always felt like it’s running out, and now it’s standing still.

And I’m still breathing…..

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Trauma and shame

It’s Sunday! And as you know Sundays are for blogging.

My daughters are seventeen, seventeen?! Where did those years go? They are beautiful beyond my wildest imagination and lately I’ve been able to travel back through my memories. Prior to this I never could really. I was traveling forward at the speed of light. Now I am glimpsing, staring out over the horizon.

We went to The Melting Pot yesterday. My little family plus a boyfriend (not mine obviously) and a friend. Each girl had a plus one. It was such a lovely time. I was present and the kids were happy, and that in and of itself is amazing. It felt good. They enjoyed everything so much. Just pure joy.

There was as always a couple of empty seats at the table, that should have been filled. Holes in my heart. I thought about it a lot as I always do, how the little one would delight in playing at dinner. But it didn’t steal my presence any longer. Nothing is worth that, no amount of pleasure or pain, to lose yourself and your luster for life. Not an option.

This morning I read a post on the complex ptsd group on Facebook. Someone wrote about how they shiver and shake in social situations and wondered if anyone else gets like this. I was so strong and resilient I had no idea what I was experiencing all of those years was complex ptsd. All of those physical ailments, intrusive thoughts, fear of dying, and complete terror ridden thoughts nearly constantly. Feeling like I didn’t belong, wasn’t good enough, and then betrayed by my own body. And not one single person put that together. The link.

Truly the world was just fine with letting me be strong and captivating as long as I could maintain it but god forbid I struggled. I got teased and truly just internalized that I had a problem. Absolutely brutal. All the while gratefully helping anyone I came across because I was just thankful to be alive and safe-er than I had been.

No one saw. I was such a good little soldier. And now I am going to spend some time honoring my journey and my story. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I know as the chaos calms I am organizing my thoughts better (at all) and so that helps me to know I’m on the right path.

There was something going on with me that I didn’t have the language for.

The only language I had was shame. Some people deal with this in ways that make them look even more efficient and attractive, but underneath the surface something very different exists. As I let myself be congruent with what I was feeling I lost a lot. Anyone who would judge me or take it personally, and everyone who couldn’t see the pain that was inside.

I think now and wonder how no one ever bothered to connect the dots before.

You think I’m just this island and doing fine? You think my physical symptoms, my sweating, racing heart, tingling limbs, trips to the emergency room, being spaced out and not able to focus that those were on purpose. Why didn’t anyone see? It always became my fault. Always judged for it. What’s wrong with YOU. And I better get this under control I thought or no one will ever love me.

If I couldn’t concentrate on what you were saying or even driving somewhere didn’t you ever wonder why? Beyond I didn’t care?!

Why can’t you focus, why can’t you remember how to drive places you’ve been there many times, why can’t you just be more quiet and need less attention, why can’t you suck it up, why must you have so much pain that you packaged away as to not bother the world with it?! Why do you need so much attention, any attention. Can’t you just manage that. As it turns out I could for most of my life.

Well I’m about to get loud.

It’s never been productive trying to have to shout to someone to get them to understand, to stay, to see. I always wanted to stay, but you were always going to need to see me too, and act like it by showing up.

And you…..I don’t want your promises of grandeur when you know damn well you won’t even answer my call unless you’re out of the house. Disgusting. I never deserved that.

I never deserved a lot of things. One being a paranoid delusional mother who was volatile and selfish and empty in her eyes. Or a cold womanizing father, predatory, who was only willing to have a relationship with me later in life if I had no questions and no emotions. Neither ever became a parent to me. They could have. They had a choice.

Everything is always a choice.

I never deserved that the safest place to land was with a martyr victim quietly co-dependent grandmother, and a harsh authoritarian grandfather, that at least was a little less dangerous and cruel with me. The real danger was his daughters jealousy at that. I was not supposed to receive anything they never did, after all I was not supposed to be born.

They would be nice when lonely or wanting something from me, while simultaneously telling me all their woes about everything and how much better I had it. Then when angry they would lash out say horrible things to me, physically chase me, or ignore and stonewall me. Getting any kind of attention that was pleasant was like a game of chess. I became the perfect player. My wits needed to be sharp to get the most out of that life, and I sure as hell tried.

He could even be warm sometimes. There were moments they both had genuine affection for me, and while completely burdened with the mentally ill children they created, those good church farers pulled themselves up by their boot straps and raised this granddaughter. Raised seems a generous term.

What I didn’t know was after getting out

alive how scattered my brain would be. How confusing it would be to be able to determine what was safe and what wasn’t. There was nothing about knowing who I was or my dreams. It was a game of survival.

A hunger games without the flashy costumes and weapons. It was mind war fare. It makes me skin crawl talking or thinking about it, that’s why I rarely do.

When I finally did go to college I was plagued by anxiety, and I didn’t even know it was that. That too more evidence I wasn’t normal and I was bad and wrong. Never once all that time did I realize I had illness I never asked for. That I was a victim not acting like one.

No one put it together. No one. No one except me now.

So you saw me functioning right ?! Trying to make a life with everything I ever studied to try and make that happen. But do you know most of my life I felt pain and fear and gave out love anyway. I gave it anyway so no one would have to feel like I was.

I have tried my best with what I was given. I’ve tried to keep the damage I was inflicted with off of anyone who comes into contact with me, and at bay. But I never knew I was allowed to claim my whole story and heal. And by god I fucking will.

I’ve had to crawl out of more shame than you can ever imagine and just talking about it is almost impossible. I took the responsibility for my whole healing on all by myself and I was trying to keep anyone from having to be uncomfortable. I wanted to make all the discomfort around me stop. I comforted all of them. I rubbed my moms back, listened to her pain constantly, even as she lashed out on me constantly. I spent time with my aunt I tried to be good and when I couldn’t I shamed myself. I was bad and wrong and not enough. And I carried all of this into the next steps of my life, all the while looking enthusiastic.

A pretty….. lost….. person.

So when you see me staring out in space maybe just maybe I am dealing with these memories. Not lacking presence or wanting to be connected. I wanted those things more than you can ever imagine.

To have them and to be them…..

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Scattered attachment

I’ve busied myself my whole life and now it seems all the pain that was buried unearthed itself all at once. Primal terror. I am reading Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. It like its predecessors, Conscious Uncoupling, and so many others reaffirms that everything I have been going through is easily explained by evolutionary theory, and not some personal deficiency.

I remember when I was interested in Bowlby, the pioneering researcher on attachment, before I even took a college class. I had articles printed by him as a young thing before schooling was ever a glimmer in my eye.

It helps me to not shame myself now, as I’m going through one of the hardest patches I have ever had and am tasked with giving myself grace.

For I am and have been in so much pain and for the most part unless you’ve gotten really close or seen my patterns you wouldn’t have any idea. I have always tried to carry it alone, anything else has felt like I’m feeling sorry for myself, asking for too much, grandiose to want to be seen, embarrassing, shameful, and a whole host of other things.

My mind is so scattered all the time I can barely breathe, and no I can’t tell a story any longer that I have caused this or that it’s even plain old ordinary adhd. That’s bullshit. My abuse was immense and intense and I have shielded everyone from it by becoming my own rescuer and trying to bring others along with me.

But sooner or later that river of hurt was always going to rise up. Now my question is what do I do with it? Raft it? That would be appropriate as I remember my adventurous teen self on the Rogue River. I wondered often how I went from being so adventurous to later being so anxious, and the answer is very simple. I had nothing to lose at that time, and no connection or value to myself.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I lived or died. That painful thought haunted me and through me into a 4 year long battle with my own body as I struggled and feared death. That was the first step in my awakening I suppose. Becoming aware enough of myself to realize if I died or got married or any of it I didn’t feel like one person would be there supporting me.

So of course I clambered to be loved and chosen and belong in a family as quickly as possible. What kind of expectations have I had for myself that I could shame myself for that.

I was supposed to have developed into an adult and it is assumed I’d be able to securely attach. Why wouldn’t I? Because you have never seen what is beneath the surface. I love hard to try and heal it. That’s what I do. I stay open and trying no matter how many mistakes to try and heal it the right way, rather than merely exist.

I deserve to thrive not to just exist, but if you had any idea the amount of work it takes for me to have understood love and connection more than merely studying it, but to actually feel it and stay.

My expectations when there are any always seem too much, when in reality they are below the bare minimum. Someone willing to see, to try at least to understand, and be willing to keep doing the work.

I only leave when there is no attempt to understand made for me. If I am expected to do all the work alone, that’s a place I’m too familiar with and something I don’t want. I want to work with someone, nothing more and nothing less.

The first break was due to sexuality and that nearly killed me before counseling. Being divorced was unthinkable. And I tried everything and I mean everything for it to be different. I felt horrible.

The next break was because I kept trying to patch the holes fast so the ship didn’t sink. There were three kids on that ship, sinking was not an option.

The next break was an accumulation of grief so great I cannot even begin to explain to you, and the pregnancy failures/losses were only a piece of it. The unmet needs were immense. But the needs of my children at face value seemed to be met and I prioritized that in ways that no one may ever understand.

I was not seen or heard. And I don’t think marriage was ever able to mean to me what I wanted to believe it did. I didn’t really know what it meant beyond survival. You choose a safe and good person and you try and make it work is what I felt was realistic. Fearing all the time my wanting and needing and very dreams were too much.

So that’s what I did. I had a dream. My dream was to have a fulfilling and safe partnership, and to be able to have a baby in the sexuality that felt like home, while my kids were still young enough to appreciate that, before beginning a second life. Perhaps I thought we would feel more like a family.

I wanted to be a family, as a lesbian woman, have a healthy partnership, and be invested in that dream with courage and enthusiasm. That is my dream.

I want to be seen and understood and asked about things too. How I feel, what I want, what I need, and what my life has been like for me.

What do we do when we can’t get what we want? Well I can only answer for me. I became it. I became interested in peoples stories their whole story beneath the surface. I still wanted that for me.

To be seen and noticed and appreciated not for what I do or provide, but for the whole story of who I am.

And I will concede it’s possible that maybe even as that was happening I couldn’t even see or feel it because I was moving too quickly.

My brain is in pain. It hurts to be this scattered. It’s harmful to me. So for now I will try and understand this pain and find ways to relieve it so I can carve the dreams I deserve and want and stay the course I choose, and do that from a place that’s using my knowing.

Right now just please hold me in your thoughts because I am in pain.

Always

C

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Gentle and Fierce

My mind is fierce yet I am determined to keep my heart gentle. My experiences were fierce and I’ve been determined my whole life to stay soft. It’s a constant battle.

My grief is not gentle, it is fierce.

I become fierce in groundlessness.

Fiercely overwhelmed.

Everything is overwhelming right now, and I wasn’t supposed to be doing any of this alone.

I’m allowed to not want to be and I was allowed to try for love in all the ways I did with all the needs I had.

My life and myself evolving too quickly to keep up. Many disjointed parts out of alignment. Sometimes I feel like a bag of broken glass. My second to last energy healing she spoke about seeing shards of glass and beautiful light and something about them coming together and a friend recently spoke about a kaleidoscope and mosaics have been coming up for me.

When I look out over even this past year I have an extraordinary life.

I always set out for that and I have one.

I have deep and enduring friendships that mean the world to me. Some new and some old, but all of them incredibly meaningful. I look at all the pictures of my tears, roads I have walked, my smiles, excursions, moments with my kids, this home. It’s a full life surrounded by love.

From within and without.

Perspective is a soothing balm to the open wounds all throughout me right now. Attachment fractures that feel like fault lines that can erupt at any moment. It feels terrible to be so acutely aware of this. The pain is unbearable at times. Almost all the time right now with glimpses of peace.

I just went through an intense period of “seeing red” I call it, threat everywhere, the intrusive thoughts get so loud I can’t hear any security. This will all be taken from you in a thousand horrible ways, bad things will happen, you are the bad thing, you had no business being born, you tarnished the family reputation, fix your mother, go soothe her, be quieter good little girls play with their paper dolls in the corner, children are meant to be seen and not heard. Why are you so….., let’s play the quiet game, all of ways you are inadequate. These weren’t complexes these were my actual beginnings. So much threat.

I work hard to calm these thoughts, and I fill my life with the opposite as one means of doing so. Pursuits that are worthwhile, but when there is no relaxation of the kind I need, those struggle too.

I am adjusting slowly but surely. It’s hard to collect my thoughts right now. That’s the worst thing. My nervous system is in overdrive all the time and I’m looking to connect to the things that used to calm it, and unfortunately these days that makes it worse.

Alone is a trigger for me I am finding.

I am capable of being alone. I’ve been very alone in so many ways. I’m allowed to not be I cry out. But I made this choice and here I am.

I don’t want to be figuring out the reorganization of my home alone. I never wanted that. That was not the plan. But these are the consequences of my choices. So I’ll take the hits, they feel like they just keep coming. I can’t breathe.

My grief is not calm and gentle it is fierce.

Being back at this place again. It’s like the ground hog day from hell. That movie is kind of appropriate actually. He’s an asshole until he gets it. His day repeats over and over until he becomes a different person and appreciates everything differently, and then the cycle is finally over. Intelligent writer there.

Something broke open last week, I hit a wall of awareness, or rather it hit me in the face during a therapy session with my daughters. I don’t want to be this snarling and snapping thing, it’s not natural for me, and nothing, and I mean nothing is worth losing yourself.

I have felt unworthy most of my life to connect with my children, so scared I would harm them, that I busied myself doing everything I could do well to keep them safe in so many ways. I didn’t even want them to see I didn’t know how to connect.

And as I wade daily through the stories of others the struggle became normalized. I recognized my own humanity in everyone else’s and reattached to myself in a slow painful process.

I remember my first energy healing. I could hardly be touched. I laid on that table struggling to be vulnerable and just breathe when so much rose up in my body. It was so defended. I remember her saying she couldn’t go anywhere near my heart, that it was too guarded and my mind was swarming like a hive. It’s so painful. If you had any idea what the moments of calm and gentle mean.

So that’s exactly what I’m attempting to become, with myself, and with my children. I hold on for dear life. Hold my breath and clench everything to survive. Then I spend all my time trying to undo that, to deal with the effects. The migraines, the pain, and the only thing soothing is safe adult presence preferably in the form of nurturing and attentive partnering with a good balance of give and take. I’ve long known this is the secret to a happy life. We are meant to be connected, and it certainly is for me. It feels a cruel joke the vulnerabilities that lie within in me with regard to that. The ones I’ve had to painfully uncover layer by layer, so I could be known to myself.

And now I’m supposed to like what I see and believe anyone else could ? The tasks asked of me seem impossible most days.

Am I a samurai sword ? Being beaten into submission so I can be what?! A weapon of truth? I’d rather be a beacon of light, peace, and warmth. How can one so fierce also be that ?

It’s all too much sometimes.

A screenshot from long ago stands out in my mind, it was our relationship can be unnecessarily intense at times. This coming from a person who held all the cards and the control and had me dangling on a wire. And you have the nerve to assess or speak about my behavior in the midst of deception and manipulation. How dare you make me the problem when I showed up and you didn’t. When I show up without excuses no matter the pain and cost to me.

Also that she would ask what I was doing, anxious about my whereabouts more than how I was doing. Yuck.

I’ve been shamed for the impact of my trauma in a variety of ways my entire life, and most people truly didn’t know what they were doing. They saw behavior as behavior and couldn’t or wouldn’t look deep. Looking deeper has become my life’s work.

Will anyone ever look deeper into me and stay ?

And will I stop trying to do that in the wrong situations and choose the healthy ones?

Stay tuned

Ps my last energy healing my heart was open and she put her hand over it awhile.

My heart was open.

My heart is open. That’s why it’s so painful.

It’s happening in my therapy sessions and I’m reconnecting with my kids and friends and appreciating differently. Don’t let the intense emotional moments shared fool you, it is happening. My first energy healing she had put her hands under my back and I recoiled and tensed but she didn’t stop, I thought she would, I worried about her having to feel all that pain. I didn’t want her to. My body screamed don’t hold me, but she stayed, and I softened, and my grief poured out of me, down the sides of that table, and back into the earth to be recycled. That day was a beginning in many ways. I sobbed and I thought she would say it was too intense or let’s stop, that I would be shamed again, that it would be too much, that I was too much.

What is too much is what I have endured in my life the danger and the loneliness and what legacy that has left me with to clean up.

It’s still extraordinary…..