Tag: #passionandafamily

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Family Therapy: Gains and Losses

I thought I was…… I was wrong

Never have I understood grief the way that I do now. Never have I had connected empathy versus cognitive, the way I do now. This morning I went on a journey watching old videos of my life, my kids, our dogs, our found family members and I saw so much happiness and play and joy in them. I forget/forgot those existed as I stayed trapped inside a cage in my own mind. My own personal hell played over and over, which can be described as constant thoughts of what I was doing wrong or could do differently. That was my default.

I was talking to my dear friend Jen on the porch yesterday morning. We often talk about mother’s. And I said to her that I’ve played scenarios in my head a hundred times what I will say or feel when I get the call my mom has died. And resoundingly where I land lately is my mind screaming “it’s over”. That I will weep for all my pain, and also release. And what I realize about what I will let go is the struggle inside of me that if I just did something different could we have a relationship.

I would have done anything to love her better, I mean love her so much she became better, felt better. I would have tried everything and I did at one point. But I couldn’t ignore the anxiety and illness that plagued me as a result of that one-sided love and intermittent lashing out mixed with just enough of a crumb (so she didn’t look like a bad mother to other people).

I still feel like I abandoned her or being a daughter and not like I got out alive, the way I deserve to be able to feel. My mind plays tricks on me. It is not in my wiring to abandon. I have to be able to be honest and work through things, but it is not in my nature to abandon. Except I abandoned myself a long time ago, right along with all of them. And I’ve been reclaiming her for my whole life, while also trying to be a mom, with absolutely no template.

Sure there is no instruction manual, but I didn’t even have a rough draft. And I made myself into a good parent anyway. Not a perfect one, thank God, but a good one.

Chip dropped off potato salad this morning and then groceries later. I made breakfast burritos and dropped twin A at work, she drove and did well. Life just keeps happening around me, and now I am here too.

The entire energy in my home has changed. I never thought I would be here, never thought my best could get this good. It didn’t seem possible.

We had our first good therapy session as a family this past Friday night. For so many weeks I felt filled with bullet holes of all my mistakes and shortcomings. I would go home, cry and fall asleep and get up and try again.

You see I promised I would never supply myself with my children. That my need would be confined to an adult capacity and I would keep them kids. And when I look now I have been pretty successful at that. And they still have their experience with me as a mother and my shortcomings and wounds, but no longer are they distrustful of that.

They are able to get perspective and hear normalizing of the difficulty in the best of circumstances between parents and teens at this age, that it’s natural, and I have to hear that too, because for me…: the other shoe is always going to drop.

So here we are a year and a half of intensive two times a week therapy, including emdr, their individual therapy, and now our family therapy and there is some light. We are able to see the identity of our family with its own story rather than the constant comparisons that flay us raw. Make us feel less than.

We are our own story and it is a beautiful one. Our cast of characters is unmatchable. I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

If I had gotten what I wanted when I wanted it all of my energy would have once again been abandoning myself and this family, and while the dream and heart had the right idea, in practice Everything happens for a reason and in its own time. I held on so hard to the dream and a story, and didn’t trust my own reality.

The gift is that I’ll never do that again. I have a relationship with me, and a relationship with them. And a new relationship with life itself where there is a semblance of trust. It will likely always have a tinge of something bad possibly happening at any moment. There’s a lot of that in me, and that’s ok because I will and have learned to support myself through this and to choose supportive fellow travelers.

My work has deepened, and my relationship with self and others.

My story is far from over, in many ways it’s just beginning. Another life within the millions. Today I played piano. It’s been a long time since I could sit down and focus. I have an idea I can or will but then I just stare frozen. I can’t will my body to try.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been tallying the losses I’ve had. I won’t go into explaining how I’m not doing this to be negative I won’t do this to me. I am honoring my experiences.

In the past two years I’ve lost a home I lived in for 8 years, my first secure space. I’ve lost many possible pregnancies and a couple of heartbeats, I lost a dream of having a baby with a woman I love in a healthy relationship. I lost a dream of being a foster parent and providing more of what I didn’t even have. Needed to have it first. I lost a father in-law and a family. I lost a wife and more importantly an unconditionally loving human being who adored me and held me and supported me.

I lost a beloved pet and now a new one because we weren’t ready.

And then I lost my self respect personally and professionally. I lost touch with myself. And then I lost reality nearly altogether. I nearly lost my mind, and I definitely lost some of the health I’ve worked so hard for by spending my life walking away from unhealthy and toward freedom. I could have lost my life quite a few times over the past year.

I lost a soul relationship with a new family, kids and all, and a lover who still haunts my bones. I’ll love them forever, all of them in their own way, because they were a before and an after moment of my life. I send them love every chance I get, even when I’m hurt and angry. It just exists. I remember every single moment.

And I wouldn’t be me if the losses didn’t make me naturally think of the gains… I don’t have to try. So let’s see. I gained friendships that I didn’t even know I had because I’ve been so numb and removed from myself. They were there but I couldn’t feel them like I do now. I gained appreciation for family and attachment for the people who held me this past two years.

I thought I was grateful before, it’s nothing like it is now. I gained humility, awareness, a greater capacity for healthy self sacrifice. I gained a new home that now feels friend versus foe. I gained many lessons as a clinician and lost many doubts in my abilities ironically.

I gained a relationship with sex and my body that feels fulfilling and embodied and whole. I gained believing in my capacity for exercise and endurance. I gained pieces of my identity I would never have uncovered. I gained faith in my tefloness. I gained earned security. I gained the ability to value myself as lovable and deserving. and that line brought the tears.

I gained being less scattered in my burning brain. It has a permanent layer of salve on it. It’s soothing…. cool. Healing.

I gained the ability to be present over being lost in my head. I gained piano and enriching my already immense relationship with music. The ability to delay gratification and to not justify things in the name of scarcity.

I gained integrity……. one I was already built with but didn’t know how easily I could lose. I gained an intimate relationship with grief, and the understanding of how it can affect choices and so much more.

There are so many more, but these are the ones I can think of now.

So what now ?

The rest of my life being able to be present and not jumping ahead or freezing, for more than a little before I lovingly catch myself in a bear hug and ground, …..

I don’t worry whether I’ll write a book or not or what kind. I enjoy thinking about it and creating space inside my head for the discipline and dedication to breathe life into it.

I’ll be here writing, reading, connecting, singing, dancing, playing, working, living, and loving…..

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We are all connected…..

90 days……. she’ll love you if you love her like that……now the day bleeds into night fall…..she’ll love you if you love her like that.

Music begins my days and the songs speak to me. I realized this morning I’m in love again. This time I’m in love with my whole life and myself. I get it now. What being still means because now I can see my whole life and all my connections and my ability to carry on and connect beautifully with others, the world, and myself.

I get it now.

I’m on my front porch and the other chair isn’t lonely or empty, it’s often filled by some of the strongest and most beautiful people. The kind I aspire to be and am lucky to love. My life is surrounded by those that get it.

For the last 5 years or so I’ve been rebirthing myself. Contained in the watery womb that is my bath. And now I’m outside. I’m outside with the world, standing in all that I am. The musicians and authors they are by my side. They are my ancestors. Loyal brave and true they surround me with the art they have had the fortitude to get out into the world. They are encouraging me.

“You gotta get up and try”

And I always do.

That’s beautiful

I cry on my front porch in the mornings. I cry for the pain in the world and for the beauty. Grief is beautiful it means we have tried for something, and when it doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean we aren’t enough. It means we had the courage to try for something we wanted. The courage to pursue our dreams.

This morning I thought deeply about my beautiful friend’s birthday. About how strong she’s had to be and how her light still shines through the personal darkness she navigates. We are kindreds. Both vibrating with anxiety to the point it consumes. Wounds we were left with. Bullet holes bleeding, and still we rise.

She posted a photo with her grandparents from her birthday dinner last night and I could see the little girl there. The one who just wanted to be celebrated and seen. The thing we all desire. And it broke me open to seeing everyone’s child, the child in everyone just wanting to know who they are and what to do with themselves in the world.

Who am I? What is my purpose? Will I be loved? Will I be safe?

This finally feels like home. My house isn’t not a home because I’m not sharing the experience with a partner. My house is a home because I belong here. I am home. My home.

I can finally see the beauty in the flowers, in everything, in my own life, not just others, desperately wanting them to see too, so that can be a shared experience.

My whole life I was so driven and focused on obtaining this one main thing I thought would make me safe and happy, but discounting me and everything I am. Unless I was healing I didn’t know where I fit in the equation. Unless I was useful.

Now all my connections are important, no tunnel vision, not just one at a time. I can finally appreciate me for the way that I connect to others, and now to myself too.

My son didn’t do the dishes last night though he was reminded and asked and this morning I thought on the porch of how many times I’ve harshly pushed, asked him why he didn’t do them, not if he’s ok. Not a hug. Not warmth. Because that was my relationship with myself, because that was the relationship I was given from the cards I was dealt. It’s taken my whole life to get it. To understand the power of are you ok? How are you doing ? How was your day? Are you connected? Do you need something? The dishes can wait. They are not the most important thing. But that is what I knew how to do. My model my template. It’s as far as I could get.

Until now……

From now on…..

I literally couldn’t get myself to open warmly and hug and ask those things. Inside I’m screaming to do that, but I get stuck inside myself. In Pinks documentary she said a line, about how she wishes she could reach inside herself and give that little girl a hug. This is why the rebirth was needed.

Over the past year and a half I’ve been on a mission to reclaim that little girl. I didn’t know that was my mission. I thought it was something else. So often life is like that. We misunderstand. So my kid can connect with my kids. So I could replace harsh drive with enthusiasm for living. Warmth. Everything I accuse are only things I couldn’t find in myself.

Always disconnected with me, always begging for connection with someone else. Thinking that would crack the code and it never did. How many times do I need to crack open I thought? How much more breaking.

Breaking let’s the light in. You can hear all the quotes and read all the memes but in my experience you can’t embody the experience until you’ve walked the path yourself.

So this morning I’m outside, not locked inside myself. I’m in the light. I am the light. I’m in the world and I love everything. In love with myself (I was typing my life and it changed it to that and I left it).

I’m not afraid my existence is a burden any longer. I won’t live that way anymore. I am here and I have a voice and a right to exist. I won’t hide for hours in the bathtub trying to figure out how to fix what is broken. I don’t need to anymore. We aren’t there anymore.

Once you grow you can’t go back. One could say why would you want to, but of course it’s tempting because being new and open and ready can sometimes feel an overwhelming responsibility. I was overwhelmingly responsible for everything during my childhood. I get it now.

Now I am responsible to myself to allow myself to exist in all the light I have to offer and to enjoy that.

My heart is bursting with love and I don’t need to aim the arrow at anyone to feel safe and wanted. I can be love. And I already have love and I already am love.

I get it now. And this morning my heart felt so much love for everyone that has ever dared to love, and for everyone who has ever grieved anything, because grieving isn’t easy. It hurts to be human.

The people we connect with makes the hurt worthwhile.

It’s not the stuff, the milestones, the achievements. It’s always about connections. We try to make meaning and know what that is, we try to control. We beg to be enough, belong, to be seen. And those things are our natural birthright.

We have to claim that.

If we have shared a journey I love you. For your strength, your pain, your resilience, your harder moments. I love it all.

I have always loved life itself, and life is the unreliable narrator, but never again will I tell a story or believe one that hurts me. Not for long anyway because after all

I am human….

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All I Know So Far

It’s sacred Sunday, and this one is somehow a little more special because I am learning more about why I have always been drawn to Pink. She leads with the strength of her example, when it comes to her family and her people. I love her energy and her voice is felt in my bones, behind my sternum. “Lead by example, hustle, have a high bar for yourself, and work hard.”

She defies gravity by not limiting her beliefs to shoulds when it comes to motherhood. She believes she can both give her family an experience and have her passion, and I love that about her. She commented that she wants the show to be special for every single person who bought a ticket. And that type of devotion shows. She has never lost her passion for realizing the sacred exchange of her energy.

I’m thinking a lot lately about that exchange. Which ones take and which give, and how to recognize the difference.

I was good to myself today. I woke up and my household is happy and buzzing with energy. The light at the end of the dark night is peeking through. I had a life changing massage. My therapist is a warrior when she tackles the heavy armoring my body is sieged by. After we got to hang a little. It’s her birthday tomorrow. I celebrate this.

I was craving Italian and so what if I don’t have the family dinners around the table with the warm grandmother making pasta. I can order it at Fratellis and watch Pink. And what is better than that?

I drove Rian to work, got a smoothie, and cruised my favorite place.

But above all of these what I am most grateful for is the quiet in my mind as of late. The sheer surrender and acceptance of what is and what is not, without a battle. The wind is whispering through the leaves of the trees and they seem to reaffirm my answer.

I got to catch up with an old and dear friend last night and see my piano teacher at a truly unique venue. That was unexpectedly adventurous.

I also have decided to commit to finally enjoying the pleasure of reading City of Girls up til this point I wasn’t in a place to be present with the side of myself that can enjoy. And now I’m ready. I also shudder in fear at the thought of finishing this book before there is something new by my love to read. I’d rather have it to hold than to finish. You think I struggle with attachment.?

If I never read it, it can’t be gone. And I’ll RE-frame with I struggle with being careful about who I attach to and why. My attachment works just fine thank you. I’m hard on myself, to a fault.

There is a warm breeze coming through the door. Warm but not unbearable. The trees are talking to me again. They are saying “it’s time”, and I reply, but I’m scared. So scared. “It’s time Christina, to emerge in the ways you always deserved to invest in yourself and your art. You’ve worked so hard. There’s nothing hard about this, though you wouldn’t know it. Just lean in.

All you have to do is lean in.

This documentary is making me incredibly emotional. I want to be like her, like Elizabeth, like my heroes. As a woman and a mother.

And the trees say, “Christina you already are”, more of a whisper than a roar, and I’m listening now. I wouldn’t even entertain such talk before.

If it weren’t for all of this I could be consumed. It’s a sting and no longer an ache and why for the life of me would anyone be careless with the emotions of someone they love I cannot fathom. Not when there is so much at stake and so many other choices. But acceptance is the only thing I have room for in my life these days because I have an imprint to leave on the lives of others and it’s sacred to me that I leave them better than I found them.

I don’t yet know what my brand will be, or my branding. Which thing. They seem all taken, but that’s not possible. How do I choose just one? Do I have to?! Ironically I think it might be a guide about helping parents and children understand the dynamics happening between them through the lens of trauma recovery. The stuff I’m currently doing of course.

But that may still be too close to home to have a clear view. Something will present itself. For now I just need to recommit to morning pages and myself and see where that strong and vibrant relationship brings me. To enjoy all that life has to offer with enthusiasm, in the meantime, and to never take a single second for granted. Ever…..

Stay tuned

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Wake Me up Inside

Have I mentioned that I love Sundays? Although I am sleepy today. I am sitting and marveling at how much more energized I become when I have good communication in my life and something to look forward to. Good company and good communication is life changing for me. It doesn’t need to be some all or nothing attachment, just safe and reciprocal and well balanced and paced, and viola I am ALIVE.

What even is this where I am free from the mental masturbation and prison respectively of telling stories that were unkind and untrue about who I am as a person. Over-thinking, under-thinking, potato potato, let’s just call the whole thing off. I am tired of being tired and sad and whatever else. So like a real adult human who is allowed I am going to move on with my life and be enjoying living, rather than stuck in a story or in the past or the future for that matter.

I just had my car detailed and it’s one of the best feelings, especially this time as it was covered in slobber and all manner of ick. It feels like a million bucks and makes me relaxed and happy. Perhaps I have a little OCD in me somewhere. I mean I get why, it sure feels nice, but if I pressured myself to maintain that level of clean I’d go crazy. I shall enjoy it for the moment for what it is and also let real life take hold and not let it bother me too much when this time of enjoying it perfect passes.

We made a hard decision as a family this past week. We re-homed Sophie our beautiful and beloved German Shorthair Pointer. It was not good timing for our family the space we were in to be training and fully devoted to a puppy. We planned a pretty picnic, but couldn’t predict the weather. This was such a hard decision and we had been agonizing over it for almost 2 months in family therapy. We couldn’t come to any good answer because the emotions tripped us up from making a hard decision. The truth is what’s best for Sophie and for us at this time was to let her be with a family who she is their focus for the time being. This was a tough tough pill to swallow as one more attachment fracture was the last thing this family needed.

I wanted to make her my focus and had a vision of that, but I wasn’t following through and it wasn’t fair to anyone. It’s hard to admit defeat/failure, and for a couple of days I felt that familiar relationship with myself rise up where I tried to make me wrong for it. I know how judgmental people can be with such matters. She is a family member. And I tried to do no man left behind, but at the end of the day our mental health came first, and acknowledging the struggles our family is having at the moment with responsibilities, structure, and emotions. That was really the key. My therapist helped me re-frame the hard on myself default I often have, and it happened much more quickly this time.

There were some events and changes I did not anticipate and some things in her training or no training. I am not perfect. I had blind spots and I made the right decision going forward. While it was very hard at first, and still is, we are relieved because one of the kids friends took her. She has a fenced yard, a family who loves her very much, and once she is adjusted we can still see her and be a nice blended family. She lives two streets away. This decision once made and followed through with took a tremendous burden of stress and guilt off of my shoulders and I feel like a different human. I was shouldering so many burdens. A large area of work for me right now.

I have some freedom and peace of mind for the moment. My quiet writing time is my own again, and some tension lifted almost immediately between the kids and I, though with three young adults there’s always a new one to replace it. I’m starting to learn what’s normal about that and not devolve immediately into fight or flight every time someone has a feeling. I said every time, I still do most of the time. That is my biggest area of work right now. Learning what is normal teen behavior and not immediately throwing a template over it filled with abuse triggers and trauma responses that are reflexive and automatic. It’s taking everything I am, and everything I have to change these things, but I am doing it. Little by little.

I have come to the end of the road, like that lovely Boys II Men song from back in the day with a journal that I had. I have a couple that I could begin but none are attracting me at the moment so I think I’ll go to Barnes and Nobles later and pick out one that calls me. Hopefully it’s large pages like this one, the size and lines are perfect. We shall see.

My mind is so quiet these days it’s bizarre utterly. What to do with this new me. It feels so odd sometimes how much someone can change if they truly put in the work consistently. I didn’t even know this much was possible, as I for sure didn’t know my survival instincts and coping mechanisms were as pervasive and present in all things in my life. It’s a whole new world. And most of the time I’m not quite sure what to do with myself, but I’m excited to figure it out.

I am healing from my procedure and can finally take a bath again beginning this next Tuesday. I thought I might lose my mind without that comfort and routine. You don’t realize how much you miss something or how integral to your being it is until it’s gone. It has seemed like a lifetime since I last indulged and it is time to be re-united. Speaking of comforting routines Chip will be by in awhile, his grocery shop trip later in the day this time. I never know what I want to eat lately my appetite has been so weird since surgery. I just haven’t felt right and very bloated and nothing seems to settle, and my mood with eating is all over the place. This is soul crushing because I’m a foodie. Just not feeling myself in a variety of ways in that department. I’m looking forward to getting back into shape, moving my body, and getting some of this sedentary surgery weight off and feeling energized and better. It’s past time to get back and see Jen (my trainer), but she switched from mornings. I have to do something though.

It’s time to bring sexy back. I am tired of feeling uncomfortable and down in that department. I don’t worry very much about it these days though, because these days I don’t stay in any bad habit for very long without quickly re-evaluating. If it makes me feel like shit, no matter how great in the moment it could feel, I’m not into it. I’m excited to get back into the swing of reading and writing and just all of it. I’m excited to get back to living again. The song that is playing in my head right now for this idea is Evanescence Wake Me up Inside and Lay Your Love on Me from Mamma Mia. I’m obsessed lol. Kicking it old school. Typical.

The best part about a dark night is that when the light comes out everything looks and feels brand new. Life becomes illuminated differently, because everything is coated in a gratitude just to feel better. Like that first day you finally aren’t in pain or discomfort after having been sick awhile.

Relief. Peace. Joy. Still infinitely sad, but with all these things in the view upcoming. Also From Now On…… from The Greatest Showman. I am so grateful for the way movies like this make me feel things, and for my childlike enthusiasm that I have kept through all of this.

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The present of presence….

I don’t think most people realize that presence is a privilege. I’m here to tell you it is.

Learning to listen to my children has become one of my greatest triumphs to consistently strive for. Given the world I came from and so many automated switches that shut me down it is nothing short of miraculous. Truly. This isn’t black and white, all or nothing. It’s ebbs and flows. Sometimes I’m a better listener than others, but always I care enough to try and follow through with a repair.

Now I do. Yes now, because now is when I am able. I wasn’t before and that is the reality and as long as I allow space for their feelings around this we will be ok. Everything else can be figured out.

Everything else genuinely figures itself out as long as the secure attachment moorings are in place.

I guess that’s why so much of my life took so long to recover/uncover.

The Mother’s Day triggers are in full effect. It’s coming. Winter is coming. No matter how many times well meaning people instruct me to focus on this day in terms of who I am you cannot remove my pain from me, nor should you. Pain demands to be felt. If we don’t feel it, deal with it, and heal it, it spreads like cancer to those around us in the form of our treatment of them. Sigh

I’ve been going since 5 am today. I had a GI apt at 8 am. Labs are good all is well. I need to get my good and bad cholesterol a little better on each number, but total isn’t bad. I just need to exercise more and for my mental health as well. I start so many things that I don’t finish. Story of my life. And now my teenage son is struggling with this as well.

I imagine follow through is a universal problem, as well as getting our priorities straight. An art that takes a lifetime to craft, and maybe that’s the beauty of it all.

Some things however are consistent. Like how I feel when I drive onto Belmont Street and begin to see the water. Every part of my body smiles. Similarly to when I hear the piano or a vocalist that I love. Or when I feel that right touch in just the right way and every part of me sings and dances. The things worth living for. I just have to keep fighting for that.

When my writer self crafts that perfect sentence that just lands. There’s no feeling like it.

Funny I came here to talk about the pain associated with Mother’s Day and how we should learn to respond to people in a way that creates space for them, and many other things and what I find is my appreciation for beauty instead. Evolution.

I have lots to talk about in terms of life’s lessons. As I watch my kids learn them. I cut so many corners not reflecting my degree of conscientiousness, but rather my need for survival in so many areas. Can the clean up be delicious rather than the tragedy the pain sometimes makes it?

You can tell I’m busy by my scattered thoughts. I keep getting interrupted by calls for medical things. It’s a full time job by itself keeping care of a body. How does anyone even function?

For future blogging will be pool ownership pitfalls and probably more Mom shit. I mean does that ever end really ? I’m anxious. I’m anxious about a medical procedure tomorrow and the after. I’m nervous and secure. An anxious secure LOL. How can I ever be lonely when I entertain myself so well?!

I was doing some cleaning in my office this morning and I’m going over old letters that my kids have written me…. one in particular about how “you would think it’s really great to have a mom as a therapist”…. and all they want is my presence, the one thing I didn’t even have for myself. My own presence. Could it actually be a present?

Stay tuned …..

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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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Attachment and Boundaries or Sophie and Our New Vows

Sophie and kisses

There are many gains and losses in my life right now. A mark of transition. It’s Siggy’s birthday today. Our beloved Frenchie. His time with us was way too short, and also very deep. He was glue and laughs and so many things for us for a period in our lives. He was a long time childhood dream dating back to mr Magoo and whatever cop show had that bulldog in the office. A reminder I’ll always keep working at bringing my dreams and longings to life.

Our family attachment connections sometimes feel so short. Attach, detach, learn. Always determined to see how I have it wrong, and these days I’m trying to see what I’ve gotten right and to write about it. 😉 see what I did there.

I have Sophie at the dog park today. Sophie is our German Shorthair Pointer puppy. As per usual I had a romantic notion of how this attachment would help our family grow closer. Spoiler: we almost murdered each other during the puppy phase. Lots of miscommunication and a mother who was barely breathing. Not present at all. Resentments mounted, the troops revolted. And I’d like to think mom got her shit together.

Well ok mom is getting her shit together. The lack of consistency (among other things) with Sophie has led to the potential of RE homing her being in the best interest of her due to my chronic illness and already being over scheduled and under present in a variety of ways. My kids took the more wise adult approach to this. Mom it’s what’s best for the dog. And yet I couldn’t quite get on board with that.

You see I’ve forgotten my true self inside all of the losses this past time. Perhaps my whole life. And we are getting an introduction now. And I refuse to have another attachment fracture or believe it’s in the best interest of the dog. So one step at a time I’m going to learn to be a good dog parent to Sophie and get her needs met, just like I’ve done with my children. It’s not perfect but it’s ours and lately I’m seeing more fruit and less labor. Thank the Lord because these old bones are aching and cracking as the new ones take their place. I insist upon believing I can regenerate myself. If Liz Gilbert and all my hero’s can then do can I.

Wake me up inside ! I’m awake and alive and not going down without a fight.

You look wonderful tonight. What a beautiful song. I rewarded myself with nails after the muddy dog park. Touch. Bliss.

Anyway so we are rising to occasions around here. All of us. This gives me pause to acknowledge some of the things I’ve done right. My kids. My kids are kind to people. Warm welcoming versus distrusting and ever the victim of something, or any other defense we develop in response to pain. They will have to work through some fawn trauma responses I’m quite sure and some unmet needs and the resulting stories. I have no doubt in my mind that they will, and this is a new place for me. My mind could be described as a mine field of self doubt and horror for most of it. And I’m working my way out of that now.

As it turns out healthy boundaries are the main ingredient I see in terms of getting in alignment with our purpose. I’m reading Dr. Nicole Lepera’s aka The Holistic Psychologist new book. How to do the work. I am always shocked to find I could have written this book, and I’m threatened to tumble into a familiar despair of feeling somehow behind the mark. Why is that the immediate reaction? I just still haven’t figured out my own voice amongst all these others. Everyone else always seems to do it better, and that’s because I’ve been invisible to myself.

A couple of days ago it was lesbian visibility day, and today I’ll make it my own personal day to celebrate all my other identifying visibilities. And everyday forward, from now on. I’m simply tired of the stories I’ve been holding about myself, and the tremendous power that has had over my choices and quality of life.

Out and proud and open and proud and warm and proud and gentle and proud and loud and proud and quiet and proud. Just proud. I’m so proud of the resilience of my tiny family and how we get back up after life brings us to our knees. I will not separate myself as the enemy or the bad guy especially with my own children. We are more on the same journey than a separate one. Could have saved myself so much suffering if I knew this before, but as they say no mud no lotus.

There’s been enough mud to breed a field of lotus. I don’t think there’s a plural of this word, would it be loti? LOL. Silly.

Anyway … which is part of my southern vernacular by the way, such as anywho….. meaning onward. Which I guess means the opposite of stay. Can you do both? I think so.

Speaking of this a quick mention about boundaries as I talk about this daily in my psychotherapy practice. It’s interesting to me how misunderstood this concept is. It can so easily become an aspect of toxic positivity rhetoric. Such as someone has triggered me therefore I’m going to place a boundary “on them” versus already knowing your own boundaries, usually from hard lessons in my experience.

You don’t put boundaries on someone and you don’t move boundaries for someone, no matter how good they feel. Know thyself and know thy boundaries and suffer less. Period. When you argue with yourself you inevitably suffer and your body has many flags it waves at you to let you know you’re out of bounds. Your bowels will tell you, your sweatiness will tell you, your bones and muscles and everything in between will tell you. Learn to listen. Listening is everything….and to act accordingly and follow through.

I’m an emotional physical therapist (I wanted to say chiropractor, but they address the symptom not the root so we can’t identify with that) and I hope to be. And a lyrical wizard. A word nerd after a favorite writer of mine…. and it’s time for some re branding I think, as excavations continue……

My commitment to me …. my vow…. my word….. which needs to mean something…is to stay with my comfort and to stay with my discomfort. To acknowledge all of me is desirable and lovable and to never abandon her.

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Hopes, Dreams, Blending, Magic

It’s Sunday and if you know me you know that Sundays are for blogging and for finishing books respectively. Or starting them, or just having them sit near you in a stack like the best friends you’ve ever had.

Always there for you…. always there for you like the magnolia trees, the Sunday grocery shopper who loves me, my found family new and old. Always there for you like coffee and notepads and spring time and fall. The latter fleeting but they will always return and you will appreciate them more because they are temporary yet consistent parts of your existence you can actually depend on.

I’m finishing up Words on Bathroom Walls the book today and it’s making me think of so many things. The way we can find parts of ourselves in the stories of other people. Mirrors. Stories can be mirrors. We can take what helps and leave the rest.

Maya has just yelled at Adam for not letting her choose for herself if she can handle “his crazy”, and told him she deserves more than a crappy email, and does he love her…. well then she gets to decide.

Adam shows me how important belonging is to a human being and how hard it feels to accept belonging when you come with things that could be perceived as making life more difficult simply by existing.

Adam and I share a lot in common, and I’ve gotten lost in terms of believing in my value and sticking to that, accepting less than I deserve and being hard on myself for things that are normal and natural to ask for. I’m working through that now and staying with myself, my needs and wants.

The right things will show up naturally and be safe and secure on their own without having to work so hard. Like Adam and Maya. Just the two of them and seeing one another and accepting them as they are. It works and feels good, and the only complication is each battling with their worth based on their own struggles, regardless however they choose one another and they show up. There’s a power in that. It’s something I look forward to.

My latest homework from my energy healer was to essentially dream from the now versus getting lost in old stories of things I’ve been through. I get lost in the pain and story and go back there. I’m not going back there. I’m going forward. I have worked so hard to arrive to the point where I can go forward. I will not hold myself back in the name of these old thoughts and this old self.

What are my dreams and letting them take shape! I’m getting there.

This morning I watched a video with Abby and Glennon Doyle Wambach and Abby is distressed that her nail clippers are missing. She emphatically states how things have a place and she keeps them there and she lives with Glennon who is haphazard and comes with children. And I sat and thought about how it’s ok, she isn’t going to leave because the kids touched her nail clippers. And how many years I’ve spent not realizing I could have what I want. That someone could have their stuff but that it doesn’t threaten the relationship.

She can express herself and they can laugh it’s not an immediate threat. What a world to live in. I have felt threatened by everything so much of my life. Mostly scarcity, being a burden, that what I want doesn’t exist for me, too much. I’m afraid of being too much and she’s afraid of not being enough.

Fear is the great separator. I refuse to be separated from my priorities, my dreams, my future, my self, love, and everything else I want. It’s not an option for me.

It’s not an option for me.

My world is calm today. I had to nurse my way back from nausea, body pain, a migraine, and sadness this morning. My little comforts brought life back into me and hope. I keep moving and that gives me hope. When life brings me to my knees I get back up and keep going. And I admire the hell out of that. There’s a lot worse things and ways to deal with things than facing them head on with courage and truth, despite all the triggers and scar tissue.

My nose is cold like a puppy. I just warmed it with my hand. I breathe into it and the warm air cupped in my hand surrounds it in warmth. The magnolia trees are smiling at me from the backyard. I know they won’t be with me long, that this beauty and friendship is quite fleeting, and I know they will be back next year, and perhaps with each passing I’ll value their presence a little bit more.

I think of Glennon and Abby and Paul and Adam’s mom and all the blended families that make a mosaic out of the broken pieces and I have hope in my heart. Hope to trust the process and not work myself to death to be seen or understood. That I understand that what is meant to be will arrive and be present and accessible if my work with myself is in alignment.

I’m allowed my wants and needs and I’ll never feel bad about those or who I am. And that awareness that is finally able to be embodied and not just stated firmly with no follow through, gives me all the hope in the world.

My future is bright and hopeful and I have a lot to offer the world and partnership and my children, and my self. And this is not anywhere I’d ever believed I would find myself…..

And that is like magic……

Edit: because I hadn’t finished the book yet and now I have. Now I’m sitting in a puddle of my own tears in a very comfortable spot with aunt Annie’s pretzel bites with the bad for you cheese sauce. Somebody was asking me recently about comfort foods and I missed these little guys.

My daughter and her boyfriend picked them up for me. I can’t believe how grown my daughters are….

They have the real thing I think, my daughter and her boyfriend. The way the talk to one another and treat each other. All the skeptical thoughts want to come in about their age and being realistic. But in this moment I wonder if I haven’t done something really right after all. What if I gave them everything they need to go after what they want and the security to maintain. What if I did something right ?!

They (my kids) are certainly evidence of this. I think I might have actually done what I set out to accomplish with them. Instead of seeing myself how I’ve been stuck doing all these years….

At the end of the book Adam, who is writing to his therapist the whole time, finally tells his therapist what they mean to him. After being sarcastic and pushing away…. he says to his therapist, “I want yoy to know that I get that reading whatever is on my mind isn’t an easy thing for someone to do. It probably changes you a little, having to get into people’s heads every day.” Yes it does Adam.

I felt seen. I feel seen.

Maya helps Adam realize that his hallucinations are a part of him, particularly Rebecca. Maya suggests Adam comfort Rebecca. “Maya she’s not real! “She needs you and she’s a part of you, Maya said simply.” “Stop punishing yourself for something you can’t control.”

And ugly crying….

“You mean stop punishing her.” It’s the same thing remember?”

This is my why of wanting to write. Wanting to commit to the sacred practice of story having the power to show people to themselves and to make them feel things. To create and bring awareness and so many other things.

*where the magic happens* the writing don’t be ridiculous;)

Ps I think I need a nightstand lol. Though I like the simplicity for now. I’ll know when I’m ready for those steps. Right now I’m in between….. and that’s ok.

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The Simple Things

My daughter brought me coffee in the bath this morning and I literally burst into tears. Funny because I had made one but it just wasn’t that good, and she shows up with a “special coffee”, and takes the other off my bath tray and says, “we’ll just get this out of here”. And she was happy and light and that is worth everything in the world.

It’s been a year of scarcity, a scarcity I never wanted my kids to feel. And yet their connection with me, the intimate one, has felt scarce much of their life I think. Because in my mind I was lost, and I had a belief system of how to fix that and stuck carefully to that line.

That connection is healing. I’m watching it bloom like the magnificent magnolias out my bedroom window that comfort me daily. It’s giving me a security and push to be more of all I already am. I didn’t know I could have love like that with my children. I only knew the way I was doing things. Compartmentalizations. I got my needs from a partner and provided their needs as best I could, but actual connection… I never realized how terrifying that was for me based on my model.

We use templates and apply them over experiences and it can be so damaging, but it’s the way the human brain works. My template for mother child relationship and parent child relationship in general is absolutely devastating. It’s such an area of anxiousness and I can only see now how it’s been operating in my life, distancing me from my own children.

The truth is I never felt worthy of a connection with my children. I believe in earning our relationships not by titles and I perhaps made it harder than it needed to be. By never owning that I’m their mother for giving birth to them. Mine gave birth to me and never became a mother. It makes sense I made life more complicated than it need be, because life was always complicated for me. I wanted to make myself safe and secure before I involved them in my needs. I knew instinctively I would have taken from them in a way that was unrealistic. So I tried to meet those needs in the adult realm and preserve their childhood. That’s what I chose.

That relationship was never safe, mine with caregivers of any kind. It was so unsafe it would stagger you. I think you would cry. When I talk about it, it’s automatic that it feels I did something wrong. I must have, or that maybe I’m making it up, maybe it was all me. I was a difficult child, it was me, and the story gets twisted and I tremble with anxiety.

To remedy this I just put it all the way out of my mind. It’s too difficult to reconcile, and yet unexplored it was operating constantly in my life.

Sometimes survival looks a lot like selfishness.

These are the crossed wires of my existence. My critics landed on a story about me, and that was their experience. I scrambled for love and belonging and I had full good intentions, and a wholly unexplored self. You would think if you knew me this would be impossible, but I, just like anyone else with experiences like mine, constructed reality to be barely bearable, to even survive.

I’ve been categorized as selfish and putting myself before my children and criticized and judged primarily by the one person who actually bore witness to some of the horrors. He is one of the only people I know who met the empty gaze of my terrifying mother, and saw my grandparents all but offer him a dowry to take me off their hands. Just wow.

Any man that came around was an opportunity to unload one of the evil stepsisters. (Their daughters) and then me. They offered my father money to take my mother off their hands, and tried to push me on him, making me a burden rather than his daughter.

When I was young I was Tom boy and against the grain I liked Ninja Turtles rather than Barbie. I got a ninja turtle camera that imprinted a little insignia of Michael Angelo on the bottom right corner. I took a bunch of pictures while visiting my dads home. Of his art because it was so different than my grandparents. There was a half naked woman wrapped around a snake. I remember it vividly. I thought I was being a photographer. I was using my imagination.

What happened from that is that my grandparents saw how much money he appeared to have based on my photos and I became a spy from them and associated with my mother. No matter what I did as a child I kept doing something wrong or bad. I was wrong with my grandparents by sabotaging their efforts to get my father to take responsibility for me (someone had to), and I was wrong with my dad for guilt by associating and being a spy.

I was being an imaginative child. To be misunderstood in this way was devastating to my self in so many ways. I’ve spent the rest of my life feeling I need to work so hard to be seen.

These things were my fault. I was shamed for my behaviors, all normal for someone not being invested in or merely even wanted. He disappeared shortly after this. He would blame my grandparents and my mother for us never having a relationship. That’s what you did then I guess. Start a new family and not look back rather than be attached to crazy. I was a casualty and when I look back I see that at that time I was the perpetrator somehow.

I was the problem.

So when someone does something nice for me in this half of my life. Doesn’t matter how many years later it’s incredibly emotional, and also unearths tons of unworthiness and I better do something right back, or I will lose them. A normal process becomes intense for me, and I am shamed for being intense. Sometimes it’s so emotional that I freeze and the person is left feeling less than fulfilled by my response. They don’t know me enough to know it’s locked inside and it means more than they know.

Every little thing means more than you can imagine.

This also makes the bad things amplified. I have less room maybe than your average person for harsh. I’m fragile in certain ways and up til this point I’ve made myself wrong for that too.

I am on the brink of owning who I fucking am and excavating my identity out of the ashes of the lives I keep burning down because I didn’t know any other way.

The brink is an exciting place to be and it is also a terrifying one. Pleasure and pain and when those things get out of balance it can threaten an entire soul. Particularly an already tired one.

It’s almost too much responsibility To be whole on ones own. Am I worthy? Someone easily would reply yes, my loyal travelers would. But that is not so easy for me to come to terms with. It is almost too uncomfortable to be comfortable. The story of my life. The restless takes over like a tornado ready to upturn the crops I’ve painstakingly planted.

I am working on it…..

This morning I will enjoy my coffee, my delicious coffee with love in it. I’ll let it lighten my step and give me energy to face the trials and the beauty of the day. Sometimes those things are equally difficult.

It hurts to be human…..