Tag: #Highlysensitiveperson

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The Great Room Cleaning Stand-off

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

My seventeen year old son is brilliant, kind, generous, sensitive and anything a parent could want in a child. However lately we have reached a place where we do not see eye to eye, and I am wracking my brain to crack the code on this situation.

To give you some background I could be described as middle of the road when it comes to cleaning. My wife and I do not fight over household chores. We generally ebb and flow with effort in this department and when one of us ebbs, the other tries to flow. We do this dance fairly seamlessly unlike the resentment filled arguments with past lovers. We came into this both having thought through the complexities of the situation, and choosing to be grateful we have the other, all bags included.

We don’t ask for made beds, or color coordinated sock drawers. We understand that if our room becomes cluttered at times when we are exhausted or extra tired that this will happen with kids sometimes. Our expectations are that things are sanitary, somewhat kept up with etc, and that every couple of weeks you do a deep clean. Sweep, mop, vacuum dust kinda deal. That maybe 2 times yearly you go through all the crap that has amassed, and your clothes and see what you need and what you don’t. And for the love of all that is holy change your bedding at least every two weeks. For obvious reasons :p

About a month ago give or take I noticed that my son wasn’t eating hardly anything but fast food, potato chips, and gummy candies from where he works, Trader Joe’s. These empty containers could be found tucked behind the bed, in drawers etc. The regularity of showering diminished, the laundry piled up, pay stubs cluttered everywhere. The room took on an unsettling odor. And even the smallest task seems to appear insurmountable to him.

I chalked up this struggle to ADHD, as his computer had already been removed from his room so he could get into some kind of organizational routine. So we tried Vyvanse. Thus far the room isn’t clean and his mood is worse. He has new behaviors of lying, being more verbally aggressive, and placing all blame for his current predicament on me.

He got into my phone and read text messages he shouldn’t have, and I’m quite sure this breach of boundaries is the largest culprit of held anger. If you read something out of context and put it through your own fears and emotions it can be a deadly weapon. The result a poisoned relationship. As highly sensitive people it is hard on both of us that this is dragging out in this way.

As a child I wasn’t really raised per say. My grandparents talked at me, but they rarely followed through. And we had no structure built into any family unit. Once I reached a certain age they just often said they didn’t know why I didn’t help around the house etc. I was shamed in front of friends. They felt helpless and would say “you don’t keep your room like hers right.”

So for me I wanted my kids to not only feel part of a family, but to participate as a part of a working unit as well. This has been part necessity and part purposeful through the years. Most of the research I have read suggests children who help others and learn hard work are better off than those with everything done for them. I tend to agree based on my struggles and lack of that in my upbringing.

I know all about choose my battles and I’m confident many parents who would give their eye teeth for a child like mine would say, “just clean it he gets good grades”, or another camp who couldn’t stand the disarray and therefore would clean it out of their need.

I somehow feel it’s extremely important that he cross this hurdle on his own, and that he understands none of us are entitled to anything in this life. It is important to me my children are grateful, humble, and respectful. I was not. I can go on and on about our differences in upbringing there are many, most importantly of which is a lack of any invested parent on my end. However my behavior either way sucked, and it took me most of my life to relearn a better way. I don’t want my son to have this same struggle.

I’m quite sure the more we see the less desirable versions of ourselves in our young charges that we really become upset. And in these moments it’s difficult to be gentle and nurturing. I want to hug him and help him, and by God I also want to slap him. Such a confusing concoction of emotions.

So the stand-off is this: in an effort to not let him off the hook for accountability and responsibility that he will need in this life, and before he goes away to college, I have removed his privileges. A car we have provided and help pay his insurance on, a phone his parents pay for, etc. Now I can’t figure it out. If I were a senior and had to ride the school bus I would have that room cleaned in 2 hours flat. One swift upswing of motivation, be it rooted in anger or whatever.

Motivation! I am providing the motivation. He has dug his heels in and refused. I have bent and tried a more gentle approach after the storms calm. I had given back the car at least to get to work so he doesn’t use all his money on Uber and Lyft. Again 30 bucks for a ride or clean your room?! I bent to try and be an understanding parent. And my reward for having been a willow tree? He lied about the time he got out of work, and then caused a huge scene and protest. To which Courtney’s beloved co-worker and great friend helped defuse. It takes a village folks it really does! And we are lucky.

In all of this what hasn’t happened is him owning his behavior. He will say things like gee why would I lie? You think because I miss my friends. And that I am controlling his life. Now he is determined that he needs help, is depressed, and doesn’t know why he can’t clean his room. So his statement is that he physically can’t clean his room. Is it odd that I can’t understand this?

I have recognized he was over-scheduled with work and lots of high level courses. I can spot the signs of burn out a mile away, and he kept citing these as reasons to again break the rules. So I’ll offer practical solutions to him. I had suggested before classes began to reduce work hours and focus on school. But I won’t let him out of accountability and responsibility in the name of his emotions. In my opinion this does a person a great disservice.

I’ll meet part way. When he asks for help between one of his three parents, and a multitude of extended family, and even my ex partners who love him, he receives it.

And still nothing gives.

Stuck.

And I miss my son.

His response to this is to lay in his room, when he could have just cleaned the room and step into accountability. We each up the bar on stubborn, when what we really need is to let go….

So internet land help?! Share your experiences as a teen or a parent. How did you get through these battles and not lose your hair or your sanity?

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On becoming real…

I have a relationship with my writing that has developed silently by; that I am only realizing now. If I just trust myself a little (ha) and trust life a little bit, my needs are met much more easily than I ever imagined possible. Writing shows up, and I’m learning to show up for it as well. We have had a tentative courtship for years, but I always RE-coiled as less than worthy, and so writing couldn’t be close either.

Recently I saw the movie a Star is Born. It awakened the young songwriter and poet that I dismissed when I was young. I forgot all the dramatic song singing, all the pretend play, all the notepads filled with writing. I’m slowly remembering them now, going back for my child, reuniting us.

It’s raw and difficult work. It seems so secondary to the pressures of adult life, but something is slowly showing me that it’s actually necessary. The catch to all this new enlightenment ?! I feel everything. I am raw all the time. Vulnerable as a newborn baby. Living new lives within a single life. Defying gravity.

I continue to progress and grow as a Clinician, my sessions deepen and my clients return. I am learning new ways to love and be loved. I can cry when I feel like crying. As a mother I struggle to keep the same rigid beliefs and templates. But I just can’t. I empathize now. I am closer now.

I always thought I was keeping them at a safe distance from me. But really I think I was keeping a self that is so much more fragile than she ever knew safe.

Life is going to touch me now. “I’m a real boy”, the wooden parts abandoned for soft and breakable skin. And this means I am scared to death lately of my own emotions sucking me under. They are giant, terrible and beautiful things. They are mine and I can’t reject them anymore, or hold myself compartmentalized. But I am so very raw.

I’m safe and strong now, and I’m also the small child I was never allowed to be. And that’s confusing and scary. It’s not supposed to be, my backwards life. It’s intense and too much to bear or understand for most people. It’s weird and unknown.

“Tell me something girl, are you happy in this modern world. Or do you need more, is there something else you’re searching for.

“I’m falling’

In all the good times

I find myself longin’ for change.

And in the bad times I fear myself

Tell me something boy, aren’t you tired of trying to fill that void. Or do you need more, ain’t it hard keepin’ it so hard core…

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I’ll never meet the ground. Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us. We’re far from the shallow now.”

The movie was a spiritual experience for me.

My work deepens. No shallow living here.

Part of me still tries to panic as we ready ourselves to create a life and bring them into the world. But that part has grown quieter, it doesn’t run the show anymore. In its absence peace and joy are filling in.

And as an existentially minded person I know beyond a shadow of a doubt the cost of loving with the much of an open heart will be excruciating pain at some point. I can’t use a superstition or an illusion to numb me from that truth.

I always know. I am acutely aware. And the acutely attuned suffer more. I’d take a guess that’s why so many artists numb in ways that destruct themselves, and obliterate their loved ones with them.

And I’m so aware I can’t even do that. The tendencies are all there, Born or learned they are there. They try and seduce me; but there’s just too much life to experience that I must feel. And I could never live with myself if I let those I love suffer with my self destruction. So I recognize I can’t destroy my soul either, by not allowing my emotions, because they overwhelm me.

Everything overwhelms me….

If I don’t feel I can’t art, and if I can’t art what’s the point of it all anyway.

And if I can’t love two feet in…. my kids, my wife and myself….

then I can’t rest.

And if I can’t rest, I can’t write

And if I can’t write I can’t breathe.

I’m two feet in now….

Maybe I should write a song about that,

About what that feels like.

Maybe I will….

Once you realize all your dreams really have come true…. once you’re not running anymore….. you have nothing left to do but surrender into whatever moments life has in store for you. And that’s such a foreign feeling.

I’ve been creating my life for so long, so intensely. I don’t know how to sit back and enjoy everything I’ve worked so hard for. And if I don’t find out how, I’ll drive through the rest of all of our lives frantic and seeking, when everything I wanted is right here.

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Bathroom accidents or profound life lessons?

To the tune of I saw the sign by Ace of Base….

Today’s lesson brought to by my second “near death” experience in the shower/tub.

You may recall a few weeks back that a cabinet fell of my bathroom wall and showered me with breaking glass and debris and turned my writing sanctuary into a post accident trauma scene.

Well I had a similar experience this morning. My wife had installed a shower caddy to hold our ever growing family’s bath time needs. She had also installed the cabinet so she’s beginning to doubt her installation abilities, we don’t want that. Plus this makes for great life lessons.

Any tiny thing can be a profound life lesson if you choose to see it that way.

So this morning as I was filling the bath, not even in it yet, the whole damn supply tree flew at me, two deep bruises and a tiny cut, not to mention a big mess to clean up.

But not nearly as big as helping my kids not worry about me or my giant emotions. That one will take some work.

My first thought “my bathroom is trying to kill me”, or my wife 😉 second thought “what did I do to deserve this, as if today isn’t tough enough already.” I’m preparing for my 4th colonoscopy tomorrow morning. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it isn’t much fun.

As I traveled through those emotionally driven negative thoughts I began to think, if this has happened twice in a short amount and of time what exactly IS the message here.

And a wiser and calmer conclusion appeared:

“When things get too heavy and full they come crashing down.”

We can’t blame the installer here, because in both cases with a large family and a minimal understanding of physics (though our son is working on it), the clear culprit here is over-loading.

The universe always seems to have my back.

Any and all of the problems in my home currently between family members is a crashing down from being over-loaded with something, and then our less than best selves emerge.

We can become heavy with our own thoughts, too many bad ones about our selves and the shelf comes crashing down.

We can become over-whelmed when we don’t make enough time for play along with our responsibilities.

We can become pressurized to the point of bursting when we don’t feel close with others and like we are seen and understood.

The good news ? Wait there is good news?

Yes. It wakes us up to reconfiguring the whole set up. It helps us to examine and reassess the situation. So when we set it back up, we can make adjustments.

Now we will only use the necessary bathroom items on the caddy. Now we can clean up everything and put it back neater than we found out. Figure out what is necessary and what is just junk on there.

Now we can notice when the thing begins to get over-crowded and looks like it’s going to snap. And we can do that for and with each other as well.

As someone who lived much of her life just piling things on herself and believing she could carry it no matter what. This lesson teaches me to pause and be deliberate about my decisions, check in with myself and my family. This heals the impulsivity that was naturally gifted to me by my experiences in childhood.

I learned to run fast, and as I am learning from Madeline L’Engle in her book Walking on Water: reflections on faith and art, and from Pete Walker: Surviving to Thriving, and my vicious bathroom:

I must slow down, stay open, and RE-assess the situation. Simplify rather than complicate my life.

Now after a lifetime of the opposite just how am I supposed to do that? 😉

“Generally what is more important than watertight answers, is learning to ask the right questions.” Madeline L’Engle

❤️

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I’ve been transitioning my whole life…

Into who I truly am. This for me is a process of divine evolution, and it encompasses so many aspects of my self.

I wrote this Facebook post this morning and wanted to share it. It was inspired by a dear friend who came forward to me with information that has strongly impacted her life. We must lift her up right now as the media feels like waves crashing onto her shores. She deserves to be lifted and held right now.

I had a dear friend share something very important to them yesterday and it left me thinking this morning and I want to share these thoughts. I would also like to tag some of my personal heroes for fighting so hard to be authentically who they feel inside.

I wanted to tell you so far what your share has done for me. It’s making me wonder how many other things were not as they seemed in childhood, how many other fucked up things.

For those who don’t know I was raised in a strict Seventh-Day Adventist household. My mother got pregnant with me by an older man when she was 19, he was much older. I was a thing of shame.

I was shamed most of my life for how I behaved, for how I looked, for being her daughter. I was left by him, my father. I took care of my mentally ill mother. If reading these makes you uncomfortable then imagine what little me felt like. I was DCF involved. I wandered around an apartment complex alone and was molested by a young boy. I felt disgusting to share with anyone. I felt wrong. It wasn’t the boy in this case it was the lack of parents. I was removed from her care at this point, but she moved in with my grandparents with me.

I was alone. I was always alone. Until I found other families. Pam Jenkins Gena Rahenkamp LeMert John Enders John D Enders and many more. And even now more people come forward in my inbox and told me I was special to them then. My Aunt Linda who took me for normal childhood things like Disneyland.

I am a survivor because you loved me when I needed it most.

I am coming forward.

It’s actually making me wonder if I lived in a different time with different parents if they would have helped me transition to being a boy. Do you remember that me?! Masculine behavior as well, always wanting to protect and serve. “Hi I’m Chris”. I got called gay (proudly wear that now, but then it meant you’re scary and different and I don’t like that), a dog, told to go piss on a fire hydrant.

I didn’t want to kiss the boys I wanted to fight them for the girls.

I didn’t want to be rescued by the Disney Prince I wanted to look like him and love a princess.

I actually wanted to be a boy. I only favored boy clothes and swam in trunks with my shirt off. I used to play cards (pretend poker) at the table with my shirt off. I use to imagine peeing standing up (yes we probably all did,lol) but I mean regularly. And so many battles with my grandparents to not wear a dress and to shop in the boys sections. I felt uncomfortable in every possible way most of my young life and very alone. I got praised in my home for being strong and helping with my mother. Being sent into the lions den because she would be better with her own daughter right ?

Do you know I left that self behind in favor of acceptance?

We would do anything for acceptance in this world, and I needed it more than many, because of my home base. I was shamed to death there. Don’t be a slut like your mother. Don’t sing your voice sucks. Don’t talk too much. Good little girls are seen and not heard and they play with their paper dolls in the corner. “ Don’t talk so much, chatter box. It felt at the time that everyone wanted/ needed me to be less there, less of me, and if they were going to sacrifice by taking care of me please don’t make it any harder than it already is.

Do you know my blonde hair, I kept the same for many years was like Samson from the Bible. That wretched book that dictated so much of my shame. This is MY experience I am not putting anyone else’s religion down.

I met someone along the way Crystal Leckner who showed me how to be adventurous and myself, and my life opened up after that. Another personal hero. She changed her style more than you can imagine, and her hair, and I looked up to her so much. Another personal hero!

“But I don’t want to be a good little girl.” I didn’t want to be a girl at all, but I also don’t hate my body parts, and don’t want one more difficult journey. I love my wife and me as I am now albeit I think I am realizing clothes are still a struggle.

Last night we went to the philharmonic and anytime getting ready for something for me is still a battle… with what to wear. Partially now because I’ve gained weight, but also because I feel awkward in my clothing. I’ve settled on leggings and sweaters…. I dream of short hair cuts, but always afraid of not looking feminine, because then I’ll be treated badly again. I earned so much privilege when I became “a pretty girl”. 😕 I sold myself. I’d like to think I had to at that time to have any place to belong.

But is it still going on now?

I don’t even dance because dancing was bad and wrong and by the time I broke out of that I felt so awkward in my own skin. And then unknowingly people shamed me for my dancing. Why don’t you move your hips? Because the way I do feels different than how I’m supposed to look as a girl.

And then she danced is the running title of my memoir.

Do you know that my wife keeps that awkward photo of young me by her nightstand and I almost cried to look at it because I didn’t want to be that girl anymore. But since she loves it so much I am forced to love that her too. And that is healing.

No one should experience the abuses coming forward right now. However, the dark forces our light to shine more and helps us come together as we really are. #fighton #comingforward

How much of my acceptance is based on my appearance? If I begin to dress differently will people not come back to see me? If my gender is not immediately revealed will it lessen my credibility.

The fucking things people have to go through to have permission to be who they are in the world.

I wanted to share this so you now how proud I am that you are supporting your daughter. What a warrior! You’re doing for someone what no one did for me. You’re so brave and a beautiful person. How much of your brave is because of having to be? Would you be this warrior for your daughter without your experiences? This is the only way I make sense of my abuse. I wouldn’t be the therapist I am now without it.

Also maybe if someone had given me a better haircut it would have been a little easier 😂

-C

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I have a new “bar” for self-love.

*my bar is that I may see myself as magical as my wife does, the great salve that continues to heal the many hurts*

In my office I am always talking to my Clients about my “bar”, their bar, our bar for ourselves. A simple expression meaning “what are my hopes and expectations for my one go round in this life.” Am I allowed them? Or does my functional dreaming stop at whatever happens to cross my path.

Passive living. Aggressive living. Is there something in between? If there was an in between perhaps it would be the belief that magic exists.

These thoughts of magic brought to you from having watched the new movie A Wrinkle In Time last night. when the stars and my hormones aligned to bring me one of these clear states of consciousness where everything just feels magical, and I somehow manage to not discount that or minimize its worth.

To be clear and fair about this process today I am bloated and bleeding so don’t forget in the beginning and perhaps always we are afforded glimpses, and clues, not handed our dreams on a platter. Today it’s back to the business of just making it through to the next magic moment.

Whether it was the fact that a pair of very adored clients have a new baby and I was blessed with the opportunity to hold him a couple of times now, and it broke my heart wide open. It broke open the pain of the negative pregnancy tests, and the joy of our new possibilities with IVF beginning this month.

Or whether there really is such a thing as destiny and if I squint just right I can actually see the threads of the tapestry being woven before my very eyes..

Regardless lately I feel magic in everything.

So I was thinking about this and realizing/ wondering if my will has led me to somehow be allowed to RE-experience the childhood I should have had, now. My willingNESS to still remain open to people and experiences despite the many anxieties and hurts that clawed inside of me for so long.

And could this realization further solidly my belief that I will create beautiful things in some way that will touch the lives of others?

People are just too beautiful to pass up.

People are “the bread and butter” of my life. They are my patchwork quilt that keeps me warm when I am cold and scared, they always have been. And I’ve always been able to find what I wasn’t given naturally in the way we all imagine it’s supposed to work.

Maybe imagining things as supposed to work a certain way is very limiting after all, and sometimes we just need to buckle up and take the ride.

This suddenly made me think of Space Mountain at Disneyland. I rode it with my Aunt Linda as a young girl, one of the few typical childhood experiences I was blessed to be able to have. You are riding a roller coaster in the dark, there are a few laser lights and things, but ultimately you are surrendered to your fate once strapped in and set loose on the rails.

I screamed with delight. I felt the lightness of being in childhood for those moments. I don’t know if she and my Uncle will ever know what it meant that they took me there at that time. Looking back now it honestly could have been a game changer. I wonder without that experience if I might have gotten lost to a world of rebellion of a variety I couldn’t come back from. A kind that would swallow me whole. I certainly had all the vulnerability for it.

But there was always people. I always turned to people. And when that need felt a bit more desperate and anxiety driven as life got more turbulent I ended up again shamed for this behavior by some of the people that mattered most to me.

Replacement family after replacement family. A foster care system of my own creation.

The thing is that now I got it so damn right, that I can’t even become tempted anymore to discount the path of getting here.

My wife came home last night, just after I had fallen asleep. She came in and she just curled up with me and told me how in love with me she is. She did it in such a way that clearly she had experienced the same magic that I had over the evening, even though we were towns apart. We tend to be connected like that, in some cosmic manner.

She just said it over and over throughout the night as she read to get sleepy while I slept. I felt a rush of pure adoration and love. She remarks to me when she sees me playing and light that she notices a childlike me. This noticing has opened me up to accepting that could be ok now. It doesn’t have to take the linear traditional route.

It’s ok to find someone who loves you this much, and to find out how to receive that love when it wasn’t a part of your model. I’ve journeyed through hell and back. Out of the dark wood, up the mountain, down into hell, and back out the other side.

So when I see a scene in someone’s creation from their imagination I know exactly that the magic is real and I can connect to it. I don’t need to be skeptical or critical or pick the movie apart for design flaws. I can just experience pure and utter love.

Movies and music give our truest selves permission to come out and play, and to wonder, and to dream….

I don’t know if there’s anything better than that.

My bar for myself and my life have become pretty high. There have been lots of critics, but my love story speaks the truth about holding out for what you are really looking for, and what you want and deserve, whether you are able to believe in it fully yet or not.

That part can always unfold….

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Victim or survivor ? What is your story….

Things have been very difficult for me lately. And because of this I’ve lost so much good writing to the madness. (Victim statement eek) To getting caught up explaining myself to sources that have never sought to understand. (I can only choose to stop explaining to those who don’t see). Challenger versus victim.

Let’s put the Karpman Drama Triangle to work right here. The actual truth is that rather than taking my writing away from me, the difficult experiences humble me, and give my writing back to me in a more authentic way. But surrounded by the feeling it doesn’t seem that way.

I am a slave to my triggers right now. And as a mental health counselor RE-visiting this place feels such a threat. It feels like it could take everything away. And when I am in this place I am scared and rabid. I lash out and flood with texts based on the emotions I am feeling.

I don’t like this self. It is an old one. It is a self my critics would like me to be because it will validate their story about me, and for this as much as anything I’ll have the courage to dive into my own behavior and rescue myself out of the perils that are causing this version of myself to be more accessible right now.

I have complex PTSD. Wordy clinical article to distinguish some things

More reader friendly information on C-PTSD

This means that I am hyper vigilant and distrusting primarily when my character is challenged. Because that was the really big problem in my childhood. My grandparents used guilt as a means to try and control me, and so they often told me how I was behaving and why I shouldn’t. No one came along that understood what was going on in my home. This is why I am a fierce advocate in my counseling office of seeing the unseen and unspoken. It was nearly invisible and I suffered but didn’t know what to call it, so I internalized.

Invisible wounds are the most dangerous, both to the wounded, and to those they will unintentionally wound as a result of their pain.

Now as an adult my weapon of choice is awareness and speaking my truth loudly. And yes I too must realize when my perceived truth is clouded by painful Triggers and symptoms of C-PTSD. It is arduous work. And then when I am in it, because of it’s invisibility to others I am sized up very simply as being selfish. Because of who we see a parent should be.

It’s easy to sit in a glass castle and throw stones. Anyone can have an opinion. The internet is rampant with them. The persecutors are ashamed of their own privilege so they lash out at those already afflicted with wounds and wrong them further.

Thankfully I’ve never known and therefore liked easy, but also it has caused me to make things harder than they need to be. I clamp down furiously on my truth and hold on for dear life. I got better at being iron clad over my young years, not being soft and gentle.

Now I’m taking the responsibility to learn this late in life. It’s taken me surrounding myself by people who see the good in me, the true colors, but those too were mostly conditional, and again when my poor behaviors would escalate I would be criticized. But do you know what didn’t happen? No one came along and looked at the whole picture and said hey look at what’s going on here this sounds an awful lot like complex PTSD. Let’s look at your whole life and see what’s going on here. No one besides a few very brave mental health counselors who changed my life.

This is why it’s my greatest privilege in this life to take the heavy heavy burdens of misunderstanding of this nature off of people’s back. They leave them in my office and we hold them tenderly, unpack, RE-frame, develop strategies, and show the importance of the interaction between wiring and experience in shaping a person’s behavior.

We must take responsibility to educate ourselves, to see beneath a surface and try to understand. To see beyond our hurt feelings and stories to look for understanding.

We have two choices with witnessing or being effected by someone’s behavior. Persecution or understanding. If the behavior is absolutely destructive and unsafe then our only responsibility is a boundary and seeking help from a mental health professional.

But most of the time, almost always without fail, if we help someone see the best version of themselves (believe in that story) and accept the parts that hurt too, they become more of who we believe them to be.

Innate in being human is a struggle between our light and dark selves, we all possess the capability for both, and who we become depends on such a complicated variety of factors. But the ingredients for the best outcome include unconditional positive regard (Carl Rogers of course). The magic of counseling is believing in someone’s best self. Seeing the unseen in this way until there is enough encouragement for them to emerge.

I have emerged and yet the journey is never over. If you surround yourself or become bogged down with your critics and you have fragile attachments from the beginning you’re at a great risk.

I have never really wanted to own my whole story. I think that’s why my memoir won’t come. I want to be the strong, not the weak, but I am both. Both a hurt child and an advocate for others. I am a wounded healer, but at the start of my career I’ve been too afraid of being invalidated for my hurts, to allow myself to be whole.

I cut off my beginning and searched frantically to replace it with something that looked better. I might as well have cut off my limbs. My whole story matters here and I don’t tell it because it fills me with shame and self doubt, which threatens the stronger self I’ve built over the years. I don’t tell it because I’m afraid I’ll be viewed with pity or as a victim or accused of that, and that is what every abuse survivor is up against. This is why people don’t speak out.

We would rather not be uncomfortable with someone else’s discomfort, let’s just be honest here. So they shouldn’t really say anything because look at all the mess their speaking up causes. Then someone else will have to feel marginally as uncomfortable as them.

My selves will have to unite into a whole for me to write my memoir. And I’m so afraid it will all return, the nightmares, the insecurity, the foundation always feels like a thin plate of glass no matter how many layers I lay down.

The last time I was vulnerable with one of the two people who you hope will love you unconditionally, he accused me of being emotionally unstable like my mother, and then he died. This was our last interaction.

My children’s father believes me to be selfish and emotionally unstable, and I prove him right with my behavior lashing out in texts. In truth any parent in my position would be stressed and venting. Raising teenagers isn’t for the faint of heart, but when it’s me because of a belief system I’m emotionally unstable. Trigger. I instantly become the less calm and grounded self. This is why considering the source to trust for feedback about yourself is VITAL folks.

And anyone can go to someone for validation and tell them a story and get feedback based on that. Counseling is so much more than that. It’s beyond validation to challenger, and what is your part in this? My part is my triggers and how they cause me to behave and I will always find the courage to face and work on them.

My father, I’ll never know why he didn’t fight harder to protect me if he knew the dysfunction I was in, and why as an adult he wouldn’t be able to connect the dots. I had just been diagnosed with a disease. I was telling a story at that time that mine would be like my mother’s. Toilets filled with blood, multiple bowel resections, daily throwing up, fistulas, and many scary medications. I felt like it was a death sentence. I did feel sorry for myself and like a victim.

My ex husband of course was a replacement for my father. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, so it’s pretty simple to see how seeking his acceptance against all logic still feels important. And this is a beast only I can slay. On long walks, in books, in the counseling office, and in the arms of someone who sees the WHOLE STORY. And someday everyone will know my whole story…

My saving grace?! I can never stay there long. I can never stay in a victim role long because there’s no creativity in it. Through awakening my creative self I’ve found The Karpman Drama Triangle, and am using it constantly. Another tool for healing faulty, surface, thin perception that only leads to inaction and unhappiness.

The Karpman Drama Triangle and Relationships

I still deal with the struggles of Crohn’s Disease. It has made me more compassionate to myself and others. It has taught me to care for my body when it needs. I still struggle with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It helps me see these behaviors in others and to help them find a secure grounding and create new behaviors.

What we all want is to be seen and understood for our whole best selves, to be accepted and encouraged. For someone to see why we act the way we do when we aren’t our best selves. To be understood wholly.

If you can create more of that in yourself for someone else then you will be reaching towards enlightenment. Kindness, compassion, understanding that is not conditional upon something. That is given because you have found it.

This is what I strive for….

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Keep going…. into the fire…

I woke up this morning feeling closer to the ground I want to stand on with my ex-husband. This is what happens when you dig into the wound. When you hunt around for the splinters even as you wince and wonder if you just let the skin grow over it they won’t just stay mildly uncomfortable forever, but at least you won’t have to suffer this intensely.

He is not a threat, these feelings that rise are the threat. The threat here is the pain from still wanting to be seen favorably by him. I can still see his face that day he asked me to marry him. I can still picture the day we held our son for the first time. He knew a little girl me, that no one else in my life now knows anymore. He has pieces of my story no one else ever will. And the tears come. My divorce still hurts. And it isn’t supposed to right ?! I’m gay, and I’ve moved forward. But I can’t ever get back those firsts with that man, they are embedded in my story forever. And I choose whether they are splinters, or protective layers I honor because they are part of me. I don’t want them to be splinters anymore. He wasn’t a mistake, and I wasn’t either, and our children are amazing. We still made them, no matter how much I move forward that’s still a truth.

I still want to be seen favorably as we all long for. I want to be seen for my best parts, as we all do, but I think lacking a core family perhaps makes this a more desperate need in me. I wanted to move forward and keep my home base. Was this really so wrong ? If you had seen my whole life would you really fault me for this? And he saw it as no one else did, and has blocked those parts, because to continue to see me favorably only prevents him from moving forward.

Human beings have to tell a story they can live with to be able to move forward. Otherwise it’s nearly unbearable, especially for the deeply feeling. A gift from my life is that I always chose good people. I had seen so many bad, that this was a priority. So each time I held on tightly and then realized I still had places I needed to go, I internalized all that responsibility for the hurt. I was the bad guy I never wanted to be, rather than someone who wanted a safe home base and to also explore the world. The problem was my only model for a safe home base was in romantic partnership. I had my wires crossed. How else was I supposed to obtain that intense closeness I always yearned for. I wanted stability, but I couldn’t be stable.

That is the code I cracked for this relationship. Through being a counselor I heal right along with my clients. I found a self that was safe in herself, finally, what I had been desperately seeking. Along my way here people thought it was them I was wanting and needing. That must have felt intoxicating. To be so needed by another. Of course I was charming, that always was my true self, but I couldn’t maintain it if it wasn’t real. If it was a self I was trying on, but couldn’t keep. Because I would get scared and lost again, and then move quickly forward leaving my feelings, and my ex partners to wonder what happened,

Except now I could explain this whole thing, and have tried, but by now their own work keeps them needing a boundary against me, and what I have to learn is that we did have meaningful time, that wasn’t just erased by the ending. The whole story isn’t ruined by the ending. I truly believe that.

Can’t they forgive me for what I didn’t know then? Didn’t they know me well enough to see through clear lenses after?

I still love him, that is the problem. I wouldn’t get so hurt if I didn’t. Hate and love are from the same point of origin, they are both love. You have to love someone to hate them.

Not in the way both of us had hoped when we created new lives together. He stays in his feelings. I had to disconnect from mine enough to move forward. Doesn’t mean I don’t have them, doesn’t mean his way is better.

I’ve tried to write him long letters explaining my growth. Each is received first as too long, that is always pointed out. You’re too much Christina, because that’s not a trigger. Because that’s not THE trigger. And then regardless of the truth I have laid out on the page it is ignored.

True feelings and vulnerability were my weapon of choice against so many confusing realities. If I shout my truth out loud I’ll have to live up to it. I’ll force myself to not comfort at the expense of anyone around me. Very few of us are always our best selves are we ?! Did I somehow miss this mark other people are capable of? Or am I just more honest about it?

The truth is I had such a deficit of comfort that the first half of my life was spent almost solely in that pursuit. I picture myself for a long time, and when I got diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease after fighting so hard for a better life it felt like a death sentence. It cost me a marriage and a partnership again, the dark place I ended up in.

And again all along the way were people shaming me for seeking comfort. My own father sizing me up as “daughter your Facebook posts reflect some frightening mental states lately, not unlike your mother .” If he wasn’t there for much of the journey, completely inexplicably, then I wasn’t going to allow him to add insult to abandonment. Our journey knowing one another ended there, again. Abandoned again, after the warmth of hope had crept in. This has wandered to another blog post.

My conclusion: I won’t get as triggered if I don’t seek, expect, hope, crave, beg for understanding from those who don’t have it to give. For they are at another place in their journey. Perhaps where I was long ago, just needing comfort. He is still hurting and I would persecute him for what? Being mad at me?!

Hate is just love in another costume.

To be continued …..witness my pain and my process, weaving in and out of truth and understanding, sitting with my feelings. I’m not going anywhere this time. As my own parent I won’t abandon me when I’m not my best self. I am my person.

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Frozen in time… just like our donor Sperm

What does an excessively driven/determined person do at a 14 day post intrauterine insemination negative pregnancy test ? Ha say that five times fast.

Did I mention this was the third round overall? Did I mention before we could start it was awaiting the thyroid level each month? I guess we have been at this longer than I realized.

She obsesses of course. Finding every bit of tangible evidence that we still could be pregnant. Some people don’t get their positive until day 18 or so, but that’s probably not with for sure predicting of ovulation like we have with IUI. The clinic said test today and if negative to stop progesterone. Go to Jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200, you are failing at the game of life. No cute little blue or pink figures to stick gleefully in your car.

And she writes to cope of course.

Except she can barely write because she can barely focus on anything else. Thankfully as a Clinician she is drawn out of her own mind naturally during session and at least has that break.

Ok that’s enough third person. Third, third, third…. no charm here, not today. Stay positive they say. The stork is on the way.

I’m starting to get hard on myself. Christina are you always going to find something to be unhappy about? Three teenagers, two dogs, a career you adore, and healthy and happy love. Am I allowed even to want more? Or to have the emotions I do right now? Therapist says of course you are. Human says don’t you dare, it will hurt too much. You’ll get too caught up in them, and then what.

Don’t get down because stress inhibits pregnancy, don’t drink coffee, don’t have processed sugar, don’t exercise too hard….. Make sure you sleep enough, eat healthy… and my head spins. Hyper focus and it’ll be more likely.

Superstitions abound.

Does this mean we are meant to foster and adopt? Of course I know my wife wants to grow her own baby in her belly. It tears at me when the emotions finally hit and she bursts into tears. I fool myself into thinking I’m the strong one in this scenario. Just because I can hold my emotions hostage with much more command, an ability I never asked for.

I recall being witness to another’s journey of this variety and my well meaning and with little understanding advice at that time. I remember feeling a tad critical of their sharing with me that they couldn’t be around happy pregnant women. And here I am not even able to look at my FB feed because there are just fucking babies everywhere. It hurts doesn’t it? Oops.

It’s only three rounds I try to tell myself. I try for perspective seeing people have to try for years. But we are using science and spending a hell of a lot of money. Guilt. Another rub of not being how “God intended” of course. I don’t even ascribe to that belief and yet by now it attempts to leak in.

Can I ever just be still and happy? Couldn’t we have just honeymooned ? Be enjoying our love? Why do I drive so hard? Why is this so important when often it feels hard to connect with the children I’ve got. Why are we bringing a child into a world like this? Only to struggle and await the many impending disasters? I’m already overwhelmed at the drop of a hat. What am I doing ? And is it the negative result that makes me feel this way? That must be the sadness, frustration, and pain talking.

Because in clearer moments I know exactly my heart and what it wants and deserves. Why do we get so nasty with ourselves, so unfair?

I’ve been sick the past couple of days, and I know that isn’t helping. Sky high irritability, dizziness, and a variety of uncomfortable symptoms. I’m too driven even to be sick. It is just who I am. Do I have to make myself wrong for everything?

Be still Christina. Stay…..

Broken hearts heal…. and you will get your baby. Be patient….. I’ve never been patient. Does this mean this is my fault, and I’ve brought this upon us? Will I always function at a frenzied pace? Is this a fault?

Life brings you to your knees so you are forced to find faith in something. Faith in myself is always the lesson needed.

Stay…..

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My breaking writer’s block, and my broken body

I am relieved to find that as I began to read this morning, all of my own words began to take precedence over the page. A lot of times that’s how it happens. I’m also a little surprised because I feel too weak to even write. Reading felt somehow more resigned from my usual 1000 watt glow. Just after I wrote that line I felt immense gratitude for my mind and my self. Not everyone has this drive. There’s a dark underbelly to it though, and that’s a whole separate blog post, that isn’t quite ready to emerge from the Koi Pond that is my mind. Picture an over populated one with the fish frenzied and panicky and you might have an idea.

I had a Crohn’s attack last night. I have to get this out first so I can move on from it, otherwise it will impart a tone of sadness or less sparkle to my post, and you, the reader won’t know why. It’s been so long since I’ve had one I almost forgot I have this fucking disease. I think the fact I am able to forget for periods of time is a genuine blessing, and I also attribute it holistically to the peace and happiness I have found in this half of my life.

The attack goes like this this time. They can be different, and come on without warning. I typically limit myself to one drink these days as alcohol works very poorly with my system. This fact makes me feel socially stunted in certain ways. I’m at times jealous of my pals that can “have another round”, and not pay some price. But I’m finally getting over my id, and being able to accept my special instructions. I used to get really down about it. Severely worried I could turn a fun evening or getaway into a pity party for me, and inconvenience people by needing to leave quickly and without warning. I’m overwhelmed easily enough in those situations, without my body rebelling against me as well.

I had a cavatelli pasta with lobster in an old bay cream sauce. I also mixed some of my friends salad with it, because it was just sitting there. She was selling solar at the dinner table, and I was reading a debut blog post that I’ve been anxiously anticipating. Not the present dinner I would, normally go for, but I match affect almost naturally at this point. And there was live music, so struggling to hear one another was annoying me anyway.

The salad was probably the nail in the coffin. But I’ve realized by this point it’s not fair to me to try and figure out what I’ve done wrong in the scenario, sometimes I’m just fine. But any creamy sauce mixed with salad usually marks death, but I had been spared for so long that I forgot. I had one martini with lots of food drawn out over the whole evening. So when I became very dizzy when I got home, I couldn’t understand what was going on. My heart began to race and I thought maybe it’s just exhaustion let me lie down.

Next thing you know it’s 2 am and I wake up with my heart beating around 120 bpm, feeling like my stomach is simultaneously on fire, and also being squeeze and writhing like a boa constrictor trying to make its way out. I break out into a sweat all over. I barely make it to the bathroom, and while I’ll spare you the more gory details, the fact that much of anything can come out of one human made me actually feel like I might die. I felt as if all of my insides were being purged, not just the contents of my bowels. It hurt so excruciatingly badly that for a few moments I debated calling for my wife (what only to disgust her and embarrass myself, what could she do anyway), calling an ambulance, and then went down the path of wondering what they could do or would find. It started to radiate all through my back, aching, twisting, and the sharp chest pains that used to send me to the ER.

After a bout concluded and I was given sweet relief for a few brief moments, my heart rate would be down in the 70’s and I would begin to shiver violently. I got back in bed with my wife, she was loving, covering up my cold parts and becoming comforting, rather than annoyed she was dead asleep. She is a blessing. She asked if I was ok, I said no, but I refuse to begin panicking because once that starts it’s really hard on my body. So if I got her all up and concerned I would feel even more anxious.

I was hoping I could settle into a coma induced rest after that. A sweaty, tangled, dehydrated mess, thrashing between hot and cold. But then I heated up again and felt as if my face was burning, and my heart was high again. It was time for round 2, 3 came later. And by the time I went to sleep I know I was dehydrated enough that IV fluids would have really helped. I used to feel safe at the hospital and like they would be kind and comfort me. After so many experiences and them not believing you (before diagnosis) I’ve had such poor treatment at times, that I will be on deaths doorstep before I go.

As predicted I woke with a monster headache, squeezing and pulsating behind my eyes. And a weakness that could only be described as feeling like a corpse that has been summoned on All Hallows Eve. A lead block could have become mobile easier, but nevertheless I am a slave to my writer’s mind which wakes promptly around 6 am and will not stop yammering until I get it something to do.

So here I am in my beloved bath. I was very careful this am and even thought of skipping it, as losing even sweat at this point could probably put me in a life threatening situation. So the water is tepid, and I pre-gamed with slowly introducing fluids, a banana; a couple crackers and a Tylenol awhile before. My head is still pounding, but after being through hell much of the night, the water soothes my screaming joints, and cleans the stress and suffering off.

This seems so unfair my inside self throws a tantrum, the outside self unsure she can even make it out of the tub, let alone move or make her head throb worse. I should only feel like this if I were irresponsible and drank a ton and am hungover. Who gets the hangover without the party. The self pity is a seductive mistress. If this went on as it did before diagnosis for weeks, and any food became Russian roulette, perhaps it would get me again. But it never helps. I’ve learned I just have to care for my body better and be kind to myself when this happens. To not become enraged at the time it took from me, especially in recovery. A vibrant hyper strong woman reduced to barely being able to pick her head up.

I just go back to how blessed I am in life and love, and believe it will pass, rather than running all the scenarios and what if’s as I used to. This one snuck up on me so stealthily though. I am sad and hurting, while also trying to hold to the determination I have, and joy I feel writing. I must give myself permission to lay my truth on the page, and not believe that I needed to be able to whip up something witty and charming, to be able to take up space in the world. To not fear others as me seeking pity. I am seeking solace in the act of writing. And if one soul finds this kind of determination inspiring then amazing. If not I still have these thoughts written down so I can see myself in a compassionate light. I just want to hug her, and this was not always the case.

You see here is what’s been happening in my mind and my heart. First, I didn’t know I would spend most of my post on this, I expected to gloss right past. So this post shows me how much room my feelings around having this disease need, and how cathartic to write my truth as I’m experiencing it.

Truth be told whether it’s wanting to make sure I’m determined, or whether it’s another aspiring writer’s courage, it looks like my current writer’s block might be broken. Maybe yes, maybe no. The block itself I am recognizing has been caused slightly by the all consuming nature of trying to conceive. That’s actually what I meant to write about. How I can hardly think or focus on anything else. How even if we don’t talk about it, or take the advice of others “just don’t think about it”, wouldn’t that be nice.

It hangs in the air as if it’s one of those machines that freeze everything, but myself and my wife. Our journey is in movement, and the rest of the world is frozen. And I can’t move or breathe until we get that positive. And I can’t even know how I will feel, how she feels, how my family feels, because we are experiencing a great in between right now. Right in between a before and an after.

But you know where I’m not anymore? Purgatory.

I’ll be happy everyday for the rest of my life for this new in between. And I’ll take what comes, with as much grace as my fragile human heart can muster, including the ambiguities of this disease. Because love is my lighthouse, and no matter how rough the seas are, I can always find my way back to my heart now. We are not separated.

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The Only Constant is Change

*this post comes to you from a yoga mat outside my home, after a 2 mile “run”, the reality of this is way less glamorous than you might picture. There was jiggling, struggling, and probably a decent amount of swearing.

It’s time Christina, my body has kept nagging at me. Having a good relationship with my body might just be my longest standing obstacle I have to overcome. I have been distracted by other things, but I can’t escape my most organic and long standing home base. My current mission is to make it a place I feel proud of. Not curb worthy, but deeply renovated and designed in a way that makes my senses dance with joy.

How could I not honor this home that has been through so very much. My long legs have carried me quickly out of danger many times in my young life. I was always able to run, a gift, and a necessity. It’s only now when I reflect on growing up, I see how so many would comment on it, and I at times do the same thing. Nothing terrible, but just so much focus on it. My Grandpa liked to joke about my large appetite, saying that “I had to fill up both of my legs also.” That memory makes me smile. It’s nice when I can find those amongst the minefield of others.

My young body was in some ways a great source of pride for me. I was slender regardless of eating habits, muscular and lean. Unfortunately due to asthma my stamina has always been poor. I think the fear of not getting my breath back in such a terrifying way, has definitely left an apprehension to running. I am trying yet again to work my way through that now. Despite this I was athletic and excelled at volleyball and basketball. I played on high school teams. I’ll even admit to shaving the underneath of my head. Having a Nike swoosh, and my basketball number in there at one point.

This mornings new try at “a run” is motivated by the visit of my Dear friend Steven, who makes his yearly visit from Virginia. Now that I am thinking about it, it may seem “small” or “odd” this tradition, however again I have found it to be one of the longest standing consistencies of my life. It has outlasted three marriages (don’t worry the third time really is the charm in this case), many relationships, job changes, higher education degrees, and millions of anxiety filled moments. Steven gives us an opportunity to vacation ourselves. When he is here we try new things, and have an excuse to go explore our digs with a new invigoration, the kind that comes with sharing joy with others. My favorite kind.

Anyway for the past two years my routine has been to get straight into the bathtub and write. I am grateful for this, however lately I can’t seem to write much and there is a great restlessness within me. If I am to translate in this moment, I’m picking up that my body is asking to no longer be ignored. It could be saying something like, “ok Christina I get this writing dream, and I’ll do my best to carry you through your many uncertainties, but it’s time you listen to my needs a little bit, you can only go on like this for so long.”

Awhile back I tried to join Weight Watchers. I usually begin things way before I’m actually ready, but somehow the beginning calls me back into line at some point, and despite my criticisms, I usually know what I’m doing. Yeah we will go with that, rather than I failed. There is still time, there always will be until my lungs no long take in oxygen. Until my body has had enough of housing me. This is why we must have a good relationship. Anyway weight watchers asked us at a meeting, what is your why? They say if you know your why, you’ll be more likely to succeed.

I am realizing right now in this moment that my why has already evolved even since beginning, and it includes a beautiful soul of a client who is grieving his mother, and Grandfather, and the childhood he deserved, one full of acceptance and kindness. This client’s courage gives me so much strength. He doesn’t even know what he has brought to my life.

His grief is a special kind of hell, the kind where his parent is between worlds, and asking for release, and he as a witness, would like to be released as well. And since that is not up to him, he allows me to sit in Hell with him. He runs, and writes, and tries to understand, and we laugh, and we cry, and try to understand. We look for glimmers of peace.

But what I have really taken from him is a new motivation for my health. As I watch him miss the Mother he once had, and struggle with the mixture of anger and pain around her having neglected hers for a time. I can’t bear to think of my children feeling what he is now. So I will learn in a new way that my momentary indulgences will not be worth their suffering in this way, if it can be helped. In the end we don’t know what our ultimate end will be, but what does it hurt to hedge our bets.

So dear dear Client, you are my new why. For every moment of your suffering I will run. So I can suffer alongside you 😉 no really running and I were never meant to be, but since there is a why, I WILL find a way.

So for now my routine has to change. Am I afraid I’ll lose my writing?! Of course I am. But I am going to have to trust my body, and ask it to help me adjust. I will ask myself if it could be possible getting up and out, the blood flowing, can’t actually help this cause. And that I lied to myself because that’s easier. I don’t want easier, because easier now is usually more difficult later. I want the whole dirty truth right up front, and to keep facing down my demons and my obstacles as I go. The truth is life is short, and our great moments are not guaranteed to keep building. Sometimes it’s only the memory that keeps us afloat (or holds us prisoner it feels like at times).

They will pass, and that is where the job of the mind, and writing, can capture and etch forever. Dear client, please keep writing your pain, and your heart onto the page, until it breaks and all the love and gratitude flow out as well. It’s all part of the process. And I’ll keep running and working on my relationship with my body, so I can be around to tell my stories, and to hold my client’s sacredly as well. The only constant is change and often we are not warned when those changes will take place. A before and an after. Be grateful for everything as you go, hold those memories close, because a time will come when you will be lost, and they will carry you through.

My Clients and my Family carry me through, they are my why. In my photo I am wearing one of my wife’s old Army shirts, because in it I hope to be brave like her. She had the courage to go to Iraq two times, to leave everything she knew and held dearly, not knowing if she would return or not. She had to know that was a possibility. And she couldn’t even have known at that time, that wouldn’t be the bravest journey she would ever be on. Right now, right here with us is that one. She took the care and time to make sure she knew she wanted this life with us. Again leaving behind her way of life as she knew it.

And now we are venturing into this journey of growing this family, amidst all the challenges that already exist. For all the brave souls I travel with, life is a delicious and grand adventure. I am blessed beyond reason.