Tag: #traumasurvivor

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I never asked for this strength….

To be clear, this is what grief looks like, my process of uncovering myself. From now on I’ll use all painful things I need to sit with to heal. By not minimizing, dismissing, numbing, ignoring. I’ll say my truths loud and forever, because it works.

Tonight I’m angry that I was robbed of my childhood, and my spirit respectively. It feels extra raw tonight. As part of family therapy it’s been suggested to me I can be intimidating and the possibility my children fear me or I make them anxious: this feels unbearable. It’s not because that’s how we don’t change. So I will feel it. It’s a punch to the gut. It feels like I’m making excuses when only I know truly the on and off switches that often operate against my will.

I can’t even explain the variety of abuse I endured and how it was consistent mental torture that always left me guessing my reality. Gaslighting, manipulation, shame, guilt, fear. How everything was on my shoulders: I was to take care or myself and if I had a need it was such a bad thing.

I can understand logically now caregivers were burdened beyond capacity and I was not that burden. But it does not make the imprint on me any less severe.

For a long while each new realization of how my trauma has impacted my choices, my relationships especially with my children, and me, left me feeling filled with bullet holes and left to bleed out and die. Every Friday night I would feel this way, and often Tuesday evenings as well as I travel through emdr exercises.

I have just wanted the pain to stop so many times. And I do not mean in death, I mean through living in a way thats enriching and authentic.

I have been severely lacking in support, and left to my own devices to figure it out, and then shamed for that as well. The more I lack support the more I scramble like a wild animal to quickly meet my needs. A frenzy. And then shamed for that too.

I kept my children safe from anything I could unwittingly become due to the lack of trust wired into me. Everything feels like a danger for me. My new tattoo, could get infected, could be allergic to it, could be my fault, could be irresponsible. Who do I think I am to have something I want and think there won’t be a tragedy to quickly follow.

Do you have any idea how much pain I live with daily ? And I’m not a martyr. I refuse to make anyone else responsible or sorry for me or be a victim either. I sure sound like one above don’t I. Except that is a judgment, and so too is what I just said I suppose. If my scars didn’t burn so hot. My grandmother running around wringing her hands and letting me fix it and soothe her. Poor Joyce with the mentally ill daughter.

Poor Chris. People would do nice things because they felt sorry for me, all the while shaming me for my acting out behaviors. A tragedy. All the whispers I felt them clawing through my skin. Don’t be nice to me because you feel sorry for me. Have the courage to see who I am and why I am and love me anyway.

If you want to love me be enthusiastic about me, knowing me, being around me, talking to me. That’s all I want. If you’re not enthusiastic about it then just don’t…. Simple. But don’t feel sorry for me.

They all stood idly by because no one wanted to upset anyone. So they whispered about my grandparents being the poor ones saddled with a mentally ill daughter who got pregnant. I became lumped in with her. I was Lisa’s daughter. I was not a child who never should have been in that situation. No one spoke up about that: everyone was so fucking afraid to upset anyone. So that became my burden to shoulder, and now because of it the other adults in the world shouldering their parents wounds trying to also be parents themselves find their way into my knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

I have only ever wanted understanding and support. Those are the things I wanted. Instead people are horrified at the mother when she appears any less than the societal standard for nurturing. We cannot do what we have not had. We can try, we can circumvent, we can fabricate and hope the knock off passes. But people can only do as well as was done by them, when they were defenseless and innocent.

I made sure I always met my needs with another adult so I never ever spewed all of my dysregulated emotions or all of my unmet needs onto them. I literally did the best that I could, and on top I keep working towards being a calmer, kinder, better mother, against all my wiring and all of the pain I carry.

Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Just be kind to me and understand me and never be a place that harms me. That’s not too much to ask.

I only want peace, that’s all I want. And to be able to be peaceful while living with all of these triggers, all this sensitivity to sound and anything that moves, and all of what’s stored in my body.

I want to be able to make a decision without freezing or flying. I want to not be irritable when my kids are simply playing because everything that moves agitates things inside of me I never fucking asked for.

If I could count how many times I’ve been gaslighted by society. Just do this. You think too much. You’re too sensitive. You’re intense. I am fucking intense. Life has always been intense to me, and then I got shamed for it. I’m angry: furious.

I don’t feel intimidating, I feel intimidated all the time. And like I won’t be safe and won’t be loved. And the parent isn’t supposed to feel that way. But I do, and it’s not my fault.

I need to only be responsible for my healing right now. And battling the shame that comes with speaking about it even. People don’t know what to do. You must be crazy. They look away from things they can’t make sense of and decorate their homes and stick their head in the sand.

And I’m not. I’m looking. And fighting. And trying. And breathing. And crying. And claiming myself from the lost and found.

I broken spirit is the hardest thing to recover. A broken heart mends, but a broken spirit is almost fatal. They broke it over and over. Every enthusiastic thing I tried to share some strange cold critical remark was made. I shrank inside myself, and became everything they needed, because that was the only way to even get a crumb of worthiness.

My children can be loving. They approach and hug me with warmth and passion and I want to be the same way. I know I am logically, but I’m all locked down inside myself.

I love with drive and I love with passion and I love with intellectualizing. I love with acts of service and reliability in financial support and keeping myself sane. This is how I love. I soak in hugs and warmth and affection, but giving them is always a carefully calculated world with me because what if it isn’t sincere. It never was in childhood it was a game. And then came the torture of having any affection given to meet an end, swiftly removed. Kicked in the teeth and punched.

I was not a child I was a pawn. I was not a child I was a therapist. I was not a child I was a punching bag. I was not a child I was a chew toy, a back scratcher, a gratifier of egos. I was not a child I was a burden. I was not a child I was bribery and image. I was not a child I was a meal ticket something to get welfare and praise. I was not a child I was a poorly behaved monster, and they made sure I knew it.

I’ve spent my life trying to be loved and belong somewhere. And in that process garnering even more shame. All of the fucking shoulds. You should have felt what I did or seen what I came out of. The fact I’m breathing is a miracle. And that doesn’t mean anyone owes me anything or I expect anything, except to be treated with compassion, understanding, and respect.

My abuse included the continued shattering of a spirit, with very few reprieves. Psychological damage continuously administered, to the point I was almost a robot, a machine. Responsive to the needs of others and deeply giving, but with no self. If you asked me what I needed I would stare blankly.

I’m intimidated by the smallest of tasks, things that for someone else is a phone call and a few quotes. Will I do something horribly wrong and end up not able to support my children somehow immediately is always in my mind.

I always feel unsafe, even without any evidence. Do you know how tiring that is? It’s not conscious. It’s a reflex, something that lives inside.

And maybe the happiest I’ll ever be is the only thing I’m programmed for which is my dark passenger and my saving grace: the gift of sight to clearly point out dynamics and needs in others; because that’s always so clear to me from my life.

Where do you think I got this knowledge? It only cost my humanity. If this feels dark, or intense, or difficult to read. If you’re uncomfortable with words like this said aloud, then you have just experienced a little of what I live with every day.

Abuse is intimidating isn’t it ?

This is my commitment to my children….. I will do the best I can….

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Tattoos and Transformations

All I know so far….. “you throw your head back and spit in the wind…. Let the walls crack because it lets the light in. “Perhaps this image will go on my upper arm in portraiture. Hmm

Good morning. So as it turns out I’m way more of a bad ass than I thought and at this point a lot of the habitual anxiety that I carried with me throughout my life is free to go. Thank you, but your services are no longer needed.

I’m working on a tattoo sleeve and in many ways not even sure how I got here. To be getting one. I’m a naturalist and I love the look of natural skin and I can be judgmental of myself while loving them on other people. What even is that?! Fear? Yes fear. That absolute asshole that separates us from a bold expressive existence that is our own. I have lived riddled with it, and it has obstructed so much of my joy.

These days what I am trying my hardest to do is honor and acknowledge what happened to me in a way that encompasses a wide range of compassion for my needs and desires. I was talking to a friend yesterday morning, my dear Mary and Pippin, outside in her beautiful oasis of a backyard, and talking about the difference between needy and needing. Lately I’ve been using this re-frame in my office. If someone says oh they are so needy, or oh I am so needy, my immediate question is: what are they/you needing? And it immediately changes the energy.

It’s literally astounding to the person asked that it could be seen any other way.

I am astounded by my life right now, and many days I’m not sure whether that’s a positive or not. It is not at all where I imagined I would be, and some of that borders on the miraculous and some if I am not careful threatens me with an impenetrable sadness.

I am deeply lonely right now, and also so far from alone. I’ve never understood things more or been closer and connected to ny loved ones. I am literally surrounded, and I can feel it and be present in it. It and I, are not invisible. That is priceless. I sleep well, for the most part, although this week has been riddled with anxiety and restlessness. I was so so anxious about this tattoo.

And I’m so grateful for that because it has shown me I am thinking less impulsively. Did you hear that? Not only thinking but behaving less impulsive. It felt impulsive or a mid life crisis. What a judgment there right ?! Who am I to have art on my body that is sacred to me if it means I could be judged or worse judge myself.

I looked at an arm that was not my own this morning and keep getting anxious I’ll reject it or won’t like it like that. It’s new and permanent, and it’s making me think of Attachment. I am continuing to read the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. I have been reading, absorbing, life rafting with that book for months. I believe I can finally mark it read soon. And not be so far behind in my reading goal in Good Reads.

The truth is I am slowly ever so slowly reading and writing more now. It has snuck up on me, this ability to attend and be still in a moderate way. Learning my way out of all or nothing, fight or flight, into real relationship.

The days that led up to my tattoo I was anxious for three nights, waking up all the time, strange dreams, and I’m remembering my dreams lately. The morning of (yesterday) I was nauseated with it. It’s insane to feel things this much, but I am beginning to embrace it.

In 2016 I got my et lux intenebris lucet (the light shines out of the darkness), Viktor Frankl quote on my inner left arm. I was so anxious I thought I would drop dead, pass out, get an infection. My intrusive thoughts were insane. My threat level was at a constant defcon 5! I didn’t realize even then why that was. So now in 2021 to have sat for 3 plus hours and got more done than I imagined. A half sleeve well underway. And I enjoyed it. Relaxed. Learned more about the guys at the shop. We shared trauma stories and I love them. Connecting. People stopped in and cared for me, my children got excited for me. I am literally surrounded by love and affection.

I noticed that I still want to ask other people, do you like this or it and go with what they say. It is still my tendency to be anxious and want approval, but now I pause and land on how do I feel and do I like this and I find my knowing. That is priceless.

Navigating anxiety, rather than it controlling me. I am driving and anxiety can be in the toddler seat, buckled in, where it belongs. I never even knew it spent most of my life driving me. I breathe a sigh of relief and the tears roll down. I am unashamed of the things that I’ve dealt with, and that make me me.

I am unashamed of my softer forty year old body, that’s sometimes hard to love. The changes in my skin, somehow slacker, and more lines than their used to be. I can’t even get lost in that because my eyes dance and are alive and not darting nervously, wanting to crawl out of my skin. You can’t unknow once you have decided to love yourself with the same ferocity and unconditional nature you would bestow upon someone else.

I am going to have fun with the images I put on my tattoo sleeve, the represent my life, my pain, my joy, my story. Sitting and having them emblazoned on me, is time and attention I deserve to bestow on myself. It is not an act of rebellion, it is an act of love, and I don’t need anyone to understand it.

But only to gravitate toward those who are gracious with their time and attention and desire to hear my story and appreciate it. and to let the rest burn. Not rejected, always redirected. Always path….

It’s Thursday and I love Thursdays because I get to have the best dinner company. I love it because I’ve never had anything this consistent in my life and it teaches me about love and life. It has stabilized me over the events of the past year and a half, and for that I am forever grateful. Does the man with the sad eyes and gigantic heart know that I don’t need to be walked down the aisle or spend every Christmas with him to understand that “because I knew you I am changed for the better, for good.”

The characters in my story are brilliant and I am loved, and I love them immensely and forever.

It is as legitimate as anything else in life. It doesn’t need to fit a traditional box and neither do I. I don’t need to be outside that box either to be validated.

Just walking that line of bravery between belonging and creating…. I love learning to walk that line. And the very act of living and creating an epic story with every moment of my life…..

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Wired for Love… Walking Between Worlds…

The quieter it gets, it’s always still there….there’s just more room to love and be loving because peace of mind is a choice. No matter how you feel and what exists and what doesn’t, peace of mind I have found is always a choice.

The two main things that stuck out from my last therapy session have unleashed a revolution in me. I’m noticing so many patterns. Such as how after a few days without therapy my mind starts to return to over-thinking, second guessing, painful ruminating on things not in the present. As soon as I get back into that safe space and process things out I return to grounding.

I am catching my triggers before they hit the ground now.

Knowing this helps me to tell myself anxiety and trauma is lying to me and operating as a mechanism not as a mindful choice and to be still and ground and make everything ok again by doing so. It works. If you do the work, the work will work for you. It fucking works.

I could be afraid of being dependent on therapy. There are worse things to be dependent on. If self-growth, grounding, and awareness is a way of life for me, which it is with or without therapy, then is that the worst thing? No! There are far worse things. I’ve lived (autocorrect changed lived to loved and I almost left it) them, over and over.

I think there will come a time when I’ll move on to the next phase of my therapy and growth from relating in general, and rather than make that time happen, I will trust in the timing and the work I am doing. That is after all the most important thing, and it’s also something I’ve lived 40 years of my life without.

So the two takeaways from therapy. In a personal journey to forgive myself for so many things right now and to see myself in ways I’ve always deserved, in my full spectrum of humanity, I have worried about impulsivity. I mean I literally tried to take anything available and make it into forever. I did this every single time. And while all of those situations were worthy of such a pursuit…. What I have learned is something truly can already exist available, without doing all of that work. Holy shit that’s a revelation that I can know cognitively, but embodiment will take much longer. That has to become real.

So my therapist asked me to consider the difference between impulsivity and irresponsibility, because I’ve been using them interchangeably. She said I’m not irresponsible and of course my pain wants to resist. My harsh relationship with myself says yes I am, because if I didn’t have that out of balance I felt I would not hold myself accountable. Except I hadn’t updated my software to my new self, the one I’ve been becoming for years.

Because trauma makes us invisible to ourselves. Often times trauma survivors can see others and the world with a staggering clarity, but during all their pain they left themselves to survive. I left myself to survive, and I never came back. Until my brink of 40 awakening. Wherever you go, there you are.

Here I am. I am here to stay!

I believed for years, mired in my health symptoms that I would be snuffed out early, and this past year I’ve had some habits that haven’t felt that. My energy healer and I identified those old coping comforts as self betrayal and that really helps me make one healthier decision in front of the other. One step at a time becomes a way of thinking and life, rather than a cheesy rhetoric.

Because no one wants to be uncool. But cool is such a different thing than can be seen on the outside. Cool is a heart that refuses to surrender in the fight of pursuing a life that feels it’s direct making: path. That’s fucking cool. Watch me work and peel back all these layers of gunk that built up at one time to protect me.

How could I see myself so poorly.? Easily Christina. You were not seen. But once you see yourself for all the beauty there is no turning back. I’ll never abandon me again. And that’s a scary concept, but not a disconnected one. So scattered, my mind so shattered, I thought I wouldn’t find my way out of the dark wood, and now I’m basking in the light.

It still smarts. There are new scars. The tissue is pink, they burn in the sun and in the sand, and the tears slide down my cheeks, but I feel and I am alive and connected with me. I’ll never lose this, you can’t take this from me.

So I was thinking how shitty it’s been to refer to myself as impulsive. You wouldn’t tell a Veteran they are being impulsive when they jump under a car because a muffler backfired down the street, you would feel compassion for them. The design of my life and my own ability to shoulder my own burdens never wanting anyone else to be uncomfortable by my story, has led to shame and misunderstanding after misunderstanding.

And I scrambled to explain myself, to beg to be seen. Something felt off, not connecting. Could I really be selfish in the way I was being accused, and I mean look at all the evidence.

I had to fucking recover and reclaim me, my right to exist. And if you’ve never had to do that then all I ask if that you listen no matter how many times I need to talk about it, because if it makes you uncomfortable imagine what it’s done to my insides. My fucking insides, screaming, tight. My intestines tightening, roiling, and I’d keep all that away from anyone else and the fact I couldn’t breathe, to make sure not to upset anyone. Because when I saw their upset even if it was compassion for me, it was so distressing.

So I internalized it all. And now I need to get it fucking out. Out of me. I need to talk about it, without being afraid of hurting someone else. And I need to be able to say aloud when I don’t feel well, like everyone else does. Instead of silently praying it will just get better and pass and if I make less of a big deal about it, maybe I won’t get so anxious.

I’ve tried every trick in the box to manage this burgeoning insanity (trauma) so it would never make anyone else uncomfortable so I wouldn’t have to drown in shame. I tried it until it consumed my body. My body began attacking itself, and I was forced to wake up and journey. However that was so scary and so painful that I just kept trying to find a safe space to belong and cling so my kids were kept safe while I felt so shattered.

And then that too became a fault and a problem and a bad thing about me, then I was co-dependent and this and that and finally my out of congruence landed me as the ultimate monster…. And I’ve had to walk my way through the ruins of that, finding the compassion for the battle itself, rather than me being a ruthless bomber of Pearl Harbor magnitude.

I’ve had to stop that.

So now here we are. Walking, crying, talking, learning, laughing, leaning, breathing, connecting, aloneing, singing, playing, and so many other things.

The second thing from therapy is again this concept of not accommodating, and being on egg shells, because I’ve been in such scarcity the only thing I knew how to do was chameleon. I can’t say what I want need or feel because it always seems to be a burden. And the suggestion that anyone you can’t be yourself with, your whole self (well that’s a lot, see that’s what immediately think). That’s not your person and those are not your people.

So not making myself smaller to belong or be comforted. Being my full size.

And then….. now….. my story and then books and teachings…. They will emerge.

It is in this year of my life that I’m able to see every mechanism to cope. Every irritability with my kids was all the pain I’ve been in, and now it’s time to release it so I can enjoy them and living…. Life itself, with my whole heart.

I want to educate parents about trauma and how they can misunderstand because of it. How we can mistranslate one another. And help them connect the dots to finding a relationship with their children that feels like the one they want, with realistic expectations, which are so hard if we have never known what those are.

Small shifts…. RE-wiring.

Wired for love.

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Music and Lyrics….

Never noticed the sticker on that container before whoops lol…. Life’s little imperfections

I’m trying to explore my own writer’s process. As inspired by the talented and handsome Casey Hurt. His brave lately and posting about his process is inspiring me. Also didn’t hurt that he sent me some writers goodies in the mail today. A journal that has the most buttery paper. To go along with my new blackwing pencils. Swoon. And the illustrated version of Strunk’s The Elements of Style, which I didn’t know was even a thing.

We were talking on the phone the other night and he was calling me on my excuses of being frozen and locked down and feeling a fraud, and it’s pulling me out of my repressed existence, and also having me explore the origins of that.

So today I pulled up Glennon’s new podcast about addiction, had my coffee, the book Attached. My new notebook and pencil and I started my very own jam session. Kind of how he does but with books, and companions who have put their work in the world, the place I want to go. And I just started vibing and finding my rhythm. Resonation…. Like a tuning fork seeking a home. There was a rhythm and a beat, and they were my mind and heart. Bliss and flow.

I would listen to a few minutes of Glennon, pause reflect and jot down some notes. Then text a friend and jot some notes from that. Listen to a song and take notes from that. All in my new notebook of course.

Receiving, Recognition. Reciprocity. Kindred connections….. life itself….

So here is some of my writing time from today…

I dissociated from myself. At a young age I split off from all of the things that I would one day come to know as integral parts of who I am. It was at that time that I began to give everything I was to everyone else. And to be invisible to myself. A relationship with myself and my art as well was non-existent and it’s taken miles of recovery, that in many ways is just beginning.

I became my own parent, but not the kind I ever wanted to be. Since I didn’t know how to be a parent at that time, I became one with a harsh authoritarian tone who tried to seek out anything and everything I was doing wrong, so I wouldn’t become those things.

And I sort of used that approach for everything, and it has been harmful to me my whole life.

People so often say things that imply everything isn’t about trauma. I so often have what I say redirected and I wonder sometimes if that’s their own discomfort.

Because for me it’s me still trying to find my real story. Trying to acknowledge years of the unacknowledged. Lately that’s been happening a lot. I think they just want me to feel better or see myself better. Normalizing can be helpful and it can also be harmful.

“Everyone goes through something”, with all due respect on that I think we need to respect the differences of people’s experiences as much as our shared humanity. The things I have been through are not often the same, and to to be heard, honored, have space held and listened to. Tell me more rather than shut it down I’m too uncomfortable.

People need to tell their stories as many times as they need.

I was also gifted a pasta maker, which was very thoughtful. I just had a profound moment of joy at being thought of in all of those ways. It feels like a long time since anyone has sent me things that reflected that I am seen. And that’s happening more lately as I choose myself.

Something about this blog post felt incomplete so I was going to finish it, but then days went by and I’m already in a totally different space with me. The alien pod in the corner dripping with goo from the emergence 😉

Get ready for today’s,,,,, walking between worlds, inside and out….. I will be writing it now.

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Blackwing 602’s and PTSD

Blackwing 602’s…. A new discovery and wanting to do some song writing…..

I’m quite sure one of the keys to a balanced existence is to be able to think and feel at the same time. I’m also quite sure repeated trauma particularly in infancy and beyond creates a brain that disconnects that wiring to protect you.

I over thought everything and I under thought everything. I literally had all my wires crossed. And in addition to this: It’s a lot of responsibility being a writer, our lives and often our emotions are not even our own.

I found out in therapy yesterday I probably don’t have ADHD. Crazy because if you saw me you’d think for sure I do. The same therapist has said for sure I do, but that was before I shared with her details about how medication affects me. She said that if Xanax works well, and I got a terrible headache and irritability on ADHD meds that means I don’t have it.

I said, but then how to explain never sitting still and talking in class, and being annoying to others etc. I was trying to be seen. I was lonely. The result of that was more negative feedback which I deeply internalized because there was no one else. If I talked to my grandparents it would be well what are you doing, they always made me feel ashamed.

I’m just reflecting on my appointment yesterday. Where I validated that trauma before the age of two and after has made such a dramatic impact on my life. It has changed my brain and I’m literally RE-wiring myself right now. I’m watching the changes and slowing my speed and taking everything one step at a time.

I’m having trouble focusing, and being still enough to have the deep relationship with myself to prioritize and recover my creativity. I don’t even know what it looks like, but also I do. Deep somewhere I do. Trusting that and investing in it is scary. Not trusting and investing in it is scary. Everything is so fucking scary. Thinking of EG in big magic.

Anyway I was telling my therapist that I think maybe I want to try medication, but I’m not sure because I hate how almost all of it affects me. I was telling her how I love playing piano and love my lessons. But when it comes to practicing I just look at it and freeze. I get lost in the day and everything else, everyone else, and continuously abandon me.

Although that’s a harsh narrative because so many choices I’m making are moving away from self abandon. I can’t even see me sometimes. I’m invisible to myself, while I see everyone else so well and clearly, and that just doesn’t work. I have to continue to fight for visibility and a relationship with me.

The only thing I knew how to guide my attention was deep conversation with others, which became deep connection, but I never knew what to do, or how to choose what space they occupied in my life or how to organize them I suppose.

My boundary less existence prior to the dark night.

Now I am organizing and having boundaries and giving myself whatever time and space I need to decide what’s right for my kids and I. And I hardly know what to do with this new self. Some of these concepts are so foreign and the sense of peace that is coming. Peace for me is almost a trigger. In my childhood if you settled into anything peaceful and abrupt stop would come and not in a pleasant way.

I will likely live with the feeling the other shoe is going to drop forever. Or at the very least it will be a reflex that attempts to kick in, and hopefully the solid foundation of peace I have built will override.

When I began this blog this was the battle I was having. I talked about ADHD and PTSD a lot. I had a lot more questions, and a lot less answers, and yet there are still so many questions.

I look around and almost can’t believe how I could have lived in that much pain for so long. So scattered, so much panic, so lost, so locked up, so locked down, in agony. Relieving it only by using my gift and feeling some sense of confidence from that. But no other solid footing. I thought that was all I needed, until I realized there was more healing that needed to happen.

I believe in therapy in a whole new way now. And now I will finally be able to be a human in my own life and not rely on connecting because of my sight. To wait and see what another person sees about me besides that and offers in terms of reciprocity and availability.

Providing resources from what I know but not feeling a desperate need to fix or change or that something isn’t ok. I am just being and I hardly know what to do with this new self, but here we are.

Lots of beautiful new things on the horizon. Stay tuned for my new attempts at creating…. Whatever that may be. I don’t know yet. That used to have an ominous devastating tone… now it’s I don’t know yet and a big smile spreads across my face.

It gets good when you do.

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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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Ocean tears

Where is she ?

The second I drive up over the hill the smell of salt and sea climbs inside my veins and breathes life back into me. Like coming home. Today a flag is whipping in the wind, the wind that’s tousling my hair. It’s 80 degrees and sunny and I have Pink radio on Pandora.

This morning the overwhelm roiled up inside me to a frenzy and texting a friend brought the tears. One of those good shower cries. Loud. Inconsolable. Here I am a whole summer later and have to refuse another like the last in any way shape or form. I am a new self and that’s scary and lonely. And if you add health issues on top down right depressing.

I’m being strong in so many ways. New ways and old ways. When I hit my limits I break down and then build back up, rather than acting in a trauma response. Life is much calmer this way. I connect more easily and peacefully with myself and my children. My mind isn’t wild like it was. I am free to focus and enjoy things if I wasn’t so fucking sad right now.

I was looking up things to find out why I’ve been such an emotional wreck since my uterine ablation, two weeks ago today. Is it that ? I feel bloated and just entirely unsexy and that sucks. It feels icky. I feel old. I feel not where I want to be. I feel ashamed. I feel sad. It all just bubbles up to the surface for release.

I don’t have the answers to lean on anymore. I am humbled. The only thing I can do is be grateful I can feel this deep and have packed so much into one life already. I don’t have regrets, just really big feelings.

I want things to look forward to again that feel exciting and give me hope and joy, but I can’t force them to be now. I have to be where I am. To be in this. But haven’t I been here long enough my soul cries. How long ? At this point it’s beyond being impatient. If this is hell, I should have prayed more, because I can’t take it anymore.

The bag from my surgery still sits next to my bed. I haven’t even unpacked it, books are piled all around it, I need to put away laundry. I can’t move. I am frozen and that’s a terrifying feeling. I can’t play the piano. I know it will feel good. I know it makes me happy, but I can’t move. It’s hard to imagine at this point ever feeling better again.

Recently someone was talking about wanting normalcy again after a large and painful life transition. And it made me think of Leslie Charles and her “there is a before and an after” when it comes to grief. A new normal must be created. And not knowing what that looks like is a hard place to be in. Focusing on what I want my life to look like, what I want, versus who. For me it was always going to be about love. All these concepts jumble together.

Be still

There are ways I like where I am right now. Irreplaceable lessons, and ways I most assuredly do not like where I am. And just like magic Unsteady comes on. Of course it does.

My day was cut short today. I am seeing 5 clients and that is a relief when it happens like that. I think I’ll go home and rest until them. I’ve been so tired since surgery. I don’t know what the hell it did to me or if it’s the sheer lack of a loving and warm attachment that I’ve always abided by. Probably that or both.

People are living all around me. I’m watching them right now. I feel like the walking dead and this is just a moment. I know me. That I’ll keep venturing and learning and being me, but right now I just want to sleep. And I don’t want to want to sleep because it’s gorgeous out and there’s life to be lived.

This state I am in right now is in such conflict with who I am. A suck the marrow out of life girl stuck in a black and white world.

One minute at a time…..

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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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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…..