Tag: #wellness

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Unfolding the Memoir Piece by Piece

I was never going to be able to write unless I got safe.

Felt safe

I was never safe with you and you made that about me not staying, when the truth is I had stayed past any logical point that any human would endure.

Any human that wasn’t wired with love being harmful, inconsistent and dangerous.

My ideas of love and my wiring are all crossed. I’m so angry about this. This is so painful.

They probably look like cords behind an entertainment stand, or underneath a computer desk did in the 80’s. Or still do for me because I tend to be old fashioned about things.

With my mom I was always responsible for her pain and not abandoning her. But the relationship was a one way street. Love was expected from me. Unconditional affection, acceptance, supply. But I was given nothing of the sort in return.

(To this day she pops up curious about my life, and ashamed because of how other people see her not having a relationship with her daughter. She and her boyfriend try and find pictures to print and display, from the internet. I do my best to shield all of us from that. To live far enough away.)

I was given terror.

Then when normal things would happen. Teenage moods being unpredictable I reacted like a feral animal, and not the steadfast parent I wanted to see myself as. Another life sentence inside my head of shame. I crawl out a little at a time now.

I am programmed for pain, when it comes to love. So now when I am loved it feels odd, suffocating sometimes, scary. I feel responsible to return it right away and scattered about how I should do that. What’s the formula.

I was rendered only able to think, never safe to feel.

So when I do feel now in real time, the moments become sealed forever to be replayed for survival. A reel of pictures in my own mind to survive off of when inevitably the same exile over and over will occur.

It’s hard to say these things, because if you say something it’s more true right?! Maybe if you just don’t acknowledge it, it will go away. Freeze and hide.

Once you say how you feel it could be a life sentence. Someone could take it out of context and once again misunderstand you so egregiously. I’ve served several of these after a desperate bought of honesty begging to be loved. And I never thought it could happen later in life after I’d worked so hard.

What I mean about a life sentence is having been so alone when it comes to relationship, you develop only an inner dialogue about what you’re doing right or wrong, and usually it’s wrong and why. And that’s your primary companion.

This companion serves the purpose of trying to make sure if you have even a shot at love, that you aren’t abandoned. So it critiques and controls your every move via your thoughts.

I was alone with all the things she said, running through my head, she was me. I was alone with how bad I was because I was the one who exploded right. The other is calm cool and collected. Yes Taylor, the problem was me.

I often pair love and food together. If I have felt love when I have eaten a meal, I have a photographic memory of that time. Every single detail and the taste I can recall. I crave that food. I try and recreate it, but it’s never the same.

I can only imagine this as a product of the scarcity of both I once had in my life.

I can finally speak about it without my inner roommate telling me I’m whiny, going to be judged, being a victim, manipulating, it wasn’t that bad Christina. You’re so dramatic. And the like…..

When I talk about my past my breath quickens to short gasps, my chest tightens, it feels like I’m choking. The fear is as if snakes were crawling all over my body. My ears get red and hot and I feel like I’m burning alive. Sometimes just for fun, this happens unprovoked when I’m just trying to live my life.

I felt this way the last time my mother touched me, which ironically was over my grandfather’s deathbed. Talk about confusing.

The words released were always an act of treason, my truth always caused me trouble. No where to turn but inward.

Like my love with my grandfather wasn’t complicated already. A harsh authoritarian constantly telling me I’d be a slut like my mother if I preferred the company of boys, at the ripe age somewhere between 10 and 12. Constantly commenting on my body, those long legs Chris you have to fill them up. Always comments on my body.

I was a Tom boy. I preferred the company of boys and their clothes and that was wrong and bad for so many reasons in that household. So was talking too much, and being enthusiastic, and taking up too much space.

I wore strange clothing because grandmother always tried to find things on sale. One year my wardrobe consisted of those Mc hammer workout pants popular with muscly work out men in California. They were cheap so I got every pair of a different design. Neon black and yellow lightning patterns, t shirts with kittens on them and Fanny packs.

I never stood a chance.

I was a walking target of weird. Including the bargain haircuts my aunt gave me while she was in beauty school. Nails were her gift. Not hair. My haircuts looked like a Lego man hair cap.

I’m terribly lucky I got braces. One of the only things that turned around how I felt about myself later was having nice teeth.

And paying for things for my moms bastard child came under hot scrutiny and loud verbal opinions by my aunt, and others. The welfare bitches welp is taking my inheritance again.

Every time I got a gift or something uniquely for me, it caused a terrible fight between my mom and my aunt. Every time I received I was punished. See anything familiar here.

Not a thought about how the child felt in the scenario. I heard all of it.

I tried again and again to shrink to fit, but my humanity ending up bursting forth in the form of behavioral outbursts and undesirable traits at school. Begging to be loved and seen as something good or at all, at all the inappropriate times.

My desk was always next to the teacher. I picked physical fights with boys. I was always rescuing the hurt and drawn to staying so close to them. I’ll never leave you. I know it’s unsafe at home. For me too it is, but yours is probably worse and definitely more legitimate.

You have a family. One of those unicorn things.

So anytime I was welcomed into a family circle, inside, the experience is always powerfully compelling and at the same time repelling. Terror and confusion, mixed with beginning to feel loved and seen.

Spoiler alert: it’s only a matter of time until you see how bad I am. This will always be in there, the pain of it, even if the cognition can be expelled via emdr.

Dance with the humans you belong. In childhood dancing was a sign of sexual wrongdoing. You did not do it it was dirty in every sense of the word.

Which makes sense the strong attachment I felt to my childhood best friend whose family while also Seventh Day Adventist, was a “little more progressive” and I learned so many things I loved.

She had older brothers with cool cars, and bad habits and it was so exciting, like being at the zoo seeing how other families functioned. Those real ones with moms and dads and siblings where things were not so incredibly fucked up (but still were).

I borrowed dirty dancing and faked sick from school the next day. I paused all the sexy parts and felt dirty and shameful and alive. To this day I could probably quote the whole movie by heart, and also never need to watch it again because I see it in my mind.

You could have thought it would be Footloose, but no it was dirty dancing. I probably related a lot more to Jennifer gray, her mousiness and child like demeanor, good girl persona.

Good bad good bad. Pick a side like the movies and it will play out like a movie. There is no real life. Only the one in my head.

I wanted to be good and do good, but I also craved to be cool so I would be…. You guessed it loveable.

So I could be loved.

Who knew that later in life the pairing of the offering of a family that wasn’t real, or theirs to offer, and …. I lost my thought. So painful when this happens, this is what happens when you write in communal space, and have teens lol, sigh.

I only ever could dance with alcohol and the sting of the comments by people when I looked awkward doing it, nearly too much to bear.

So that day when I danced sober with a family and a young child I loved, was magical for me.

I was only there because of something else that felt magical for me.

When something feels magical and then turns to immense suffering because I couldn’t even trust my own mind….

Not being able to trust your own mind is a special kind of hell.

My own mind is so often all there was. I was so alone with my own mind sometimes I thought I would never emerge a person.

It was the beginning of the end.

A soul death.

I am here in recovery trying to balance closing up the wounds and moving forward with my life in a way that for the first time can feel whole.

It is a gargantuan undertaking.

Recovery can be brutal and is also beautiful. Brutiful Glennon would call it. Make no mistake it’s a full time job and anyone who has to spend most of their life recovering from their childhood should be compensated appropriately so they can live out the rest of their days in peace.

If ever I am in a position to do so I would use funds to make this a thing.

I thank God, the windows, and the walls for the enthusiasm I was blessed with, that has me never giving up. Because it has hurt enough to make anyone want to.

I have more peace than enthusiasm these days and sometimes that is painful, it’s temping to feel less alive in it.

One should not have to come to great harm to feel alive or to feel love.

💜

I’ve outdone myself this Sunday. It ripped wide open. Just the beginning….

There are whole schools of thought around whether this type of introspection is helpful or not. Let alone sharing it. Allowing myself permission to exist as I am with all my parts and all my thoughts is cathartic. This is my vehicle.

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When Healing Turns a Corner, and it Gets Really Good….

*I used talk to text a lot, so this is probably an editing nightmare, and since I realize how life short is these days who has time to edit. We will do that when the finished product exists.

We are on the right side of rock bottom….

On lap three. A post started to formulate and if I continue to explain; during that time I’ll lose my actual thought. It’s that easy, to lose it, for me.

I’m walking to the rhythm. Feeling my ass strengthen, and the back of my legs. In this moment I could be a prize athlete, but only in my imagination and current empowerment.

Then though I’d look in the mirror and see the slightly overly well insulated forty two year old who in so many ways is just meeting herself for the first time.

I feel very different on the inside than I could be judged for on the outside. Hmm what a thought. And that how I actually feel about having stripped away all these layers of self and other expectations, is free.

Free

There’s a certain corner you turn with recovery when it just starts getting good, and I mean capital G ood. It’s not like there isn’t still all the other things. Memories, pain, pleasure all of it, all the time.

Time and trust are essential to this 💜

With the right (a good) formula life can get good (great). Feel good. Far from perfect, but just good. Yeah you get the idea.

Good is perfect

Euphoria was so last season, except still my favorite perfume for my chemistry. It’s mine, and so am I.

And I am the world’s.

And you were my Achilles heal and my kryptonite.

I hold the memories and the story. They intertwine like our fingers.

Push me, pull me, taste me. I dare you to erase me. It will never be real, just coping.

Cope this

Exercise makes me fiesty and a few other things. Fiesta. Foreva: silly playful.

I’m listening to A Million Dreams. It never gets old. I’m thinking about the restlessness inside of me, and how I don’t tell stories about what it means anymore. About how now I understand it as pain. I understand the irritable moods so much differently.

Yesterday I drove to Fairfield to get a B12 injection. I do this usually on Fridays once a month. Sometimes I have to have them as often as weekly, but right now we are in a maintenance phase.

I went to Barnes & Noble, to get a hard cover leather bound journal that is my favorite. Spoiler alert: Ended up with a Hamsa one, called to me, Italian leather mmm the smell.

I’d hate my sensory stuff so much, if I didn’t have so many other reasons to love it.

I might actually be ready to just write my story in it, not worrying about not having the ability to edit….

just write Christina

I will also look at the sale journals, as there are often many gems in there, I have been tasked to get the book, Come as you are, by my therapist.

Sex didn’t really have anything to do with it, she told me that the woman who wrote it, describes the cycle of trauma, in a way that, even through all of her training, that has not been matched, so I am going to read a sex, trauma book, to gather more helpful information about the rest of the trauma.

The content I’ve been with lately is so good ! What I’m reading and studying I mean.

It’s been along time since I’ve done any in office therapy, just because of how my schedule works. But I happen to be going on Tuesday, and I asked my therapist if we would do any EMDR.

We discussed that if I am going to do you will work around the negative cognition that I am unlovable.

So I’m sitting here thinking about this now. The rough around the edges of it all and I’m thinking about how, that’s not my identity, that is my pain.

The pain that lives inside me at all times.

I thought about conceptualizing it as the pain I carry, but that seems like way too much responsibility for things I had no part in. It just lives in there and I’m trying to make it a hospitable roommate. .. bend it to my iron will.

That’s an interesting way to conceptualize pain, right? I thought so.

I’m not responsible for so many things I carried and was willing to carry.

I am toggling back-and-forth between a million dreams and talk to write.

I am thinking about how curiosity killed the cat, and sometimes we see things that burn with a white hot inferno of pain.

In the need to sort out truth from all of the lies, your own experience.

And I think about how the most important things, true intimacy are the things that are not seen. They are not the flashy gatherings, the professional photographs, the websites, the events, because often times beneath those things are very different tale is told.

I think about how I am no longer duped, by outward images, and I have a much greater wisdom around that. That is safety.

I have been watching the show Away.

I always did love Hillary Swank. Thinking about how I have a passion and a family, and where does it all fit.?!

What I like most about the show so far, is the couple’s support for one another’s passion, the type of way that one knows who the other person is, no matter what, and how important that is. I love that kind of love, the kind driven by a deep understanding and loyalty for the other.

I have dreamt about that kind of love. I thought I had tasted it, and that turned out to be a rotten lie, the most egregious of which I told myself and allowed myself to believe. I was all in, and despite it hurting people I loved, I chose.

Now I allow myself to feel everything.

I have not cut off a single part of me to survive. Because the cycle must be complete. I must discharge the demons from my mind. There is no ruthless creature here. Only a beautiful human interested in helping and healing.

It isn’t something that can be sold. It isn’t something that can be manufactured, it is naturally forged through time, and staying.

Stay. Ironically I was wearing a t- shirt that said that during my last therapy session.

The word stay came up in my therapy session today, and what happens after you stay, the goal, the good. Not some benchmark for how many years you have under your belt together, or a flashy show, the real and indisposed of it all.

Stay not as a taunt or a gaslight, but the real kind. The kind where it can get good inside of the trust and warmth.

I am learning that is the formula of writing. I never needed to sacrifice to have what I wanted, only to allow and let go of what hurts.

That’s it 😉 like it’s easy?! Lol

Anyway, I’m going to walk into Barnes & Noble for now, and then I’m going to take myself on a lunch date where I spend time with my best friends, the book I am reading, and the begging to be inked upon journal.

And that was Friday and now it’s Saturday. Finishing this and a walk at the same time. Motion sick is a real thing. Maybe less walking and writing?! Maybe not.

Maybe I’ll fall in love with today.

Watched About Time yesterday and realized how much in it I am about. Learning why it’s my favorite. Every song. Especially into my arms. Oh the dreams I’ve had to that song. And the movie Life Itself. Connection. Emotional safety. Love. These are the things I’m about.

There’s no perfect in here, only good. And now that that’s softer life can really begin. Open heart and mind, kick ass boundaries. Self support and love. I deserve them all.

Dreams become reality. And I can hold space for all of it, my pain too, and the uncertainty.

I watched Stutz last night. So so good!

I have so much more to say but it will have to wait. ….

Stay Tuned

Oh ps I’m mostly keeping my no buying books 2023 goal. I had a gift card and occasionally find a way to cheat the system a little, but it’s been greatly reduced and that’s the point right. To lay down roots with the ones I already have, pay them the attention they deserve.

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Rituals of intimacy that Prevent the Restlessness and Pain…..

All the selves and stories I used to be, gathering the fragments, becoming whole…..

I miss my writing like I miss a lover. I’m always writing inside my mind, and these days I like what I see so much more. A great beginning, and another and another.

The other day I felt heavy and this is where I wanted to come. When I feel light this is where I want to come. This is home.

There are so many thoughts I don’t get down. Will they come back around? You never know and that’s the hardest part.

Knowing might be arguably harder.

How to ask a survivor to be open and contend with the unknown, when it takes so much energy.

This morning I saw a Sylvia Plath quote I liked and went down a Christina research hole. So now I know her whole life, and yet nothing at all. What struck me the most are the similarities in so many ways. Minus the suicide attempts thankfully.

Time to read the Bell Jar and actually finished this time. I was 80 percent there. What even is that?! How can you not finish?! Maybe unfinished is better?

Who knows if I had had her life at that time in the world. I think of the censorship and lack of support at that time. And how at any time this is the thing that often makes all the difference, being able to tell our stories.

Gunn street is closed today. The bright fuchsia car is in sight. I go down Peck anyway, that’s the mile loop.

Speaking of telling stories The Healing Power of Storytelling, Annie Brewster. I forget which podcast I heard her on. Will this help with another layer? Lately the sense is that while I enjoy consuming this material, being with these writers, outside is not where it’s at.

It’s time. I can’t resist much longer. Layers of self doubt and fear have sloughed away. It’s time. Don’t hold back.

Writing is like oxygen. I’m breathing. It’s warm and the sky is beautiful this morning.

Working on birthday plans for twin a and b. Nineteen years old. These benchmarks make me incredibly emotional, and reflective. I remember the girl who shared and shared with no off switch and very little consideration for how that person responded. I understand much more now. Time does that. And also there’s a lot I don’t.

What I found in Sylvia Plath this morning was a commonality to which we feel things. And look what that lent for her. But outcome is not the measure of a life. She felt more in her short life than many in a long one do.

And had the courage to capture it….

She was blessed. Blessed with depression and an abusive relationship some might say?! But she felt the heartbeat of the world and wrote it. Who did she serve ultimately? The muse ? Depression ? Societal expectations?! All of the above is usually the most sure answer.

It’s not black and white Christina.

The sky looks like purple snow this morning. Smelling and tasting the colors.

It’s a four client day, that’s a mini day for me. Hell it’s a vacation. But then there’s also room for restlessness.

I had a day the other day where I understood ocd more than I ever have. The need for control. The need for routine as a means for comfort. Routine is also the death of creativity and emotion, but so soothing. What a rub.

I felt close

I felt far

I was just thinking of how intimate it is someone’s rituals. How they get dressed, which order, in what way. And those last moments they are yours, indisposed. The last article goes on and then they are the world’s.

A different kind of intimacy. A smile a gesture: but so much unknown underneath those clothes.

If I could live in that in between always: the half dressed messy middle.

And just like that I put Shakira on….. I always loved this song. Her voice pierces me skin and resides underneath. Those are my favorites, the ones who can do that.

Spanish lyrics and piano, be still my heart.

Every mole, every curve, hairline at the neck, the pattern that is only hers. Hovering lips and breath at particular spots: what they look like. The world stops. The world turns. The skin of those places it burns.

Music touches my body and my soul. As I walk the earth.

These days I find myself grieving my life. The years I was dissociated from my self, essentially the entire first half. And the painful awakening.

And now I can find a miracle in laying in the grass and staring at the sky. Everything is emotional. And when I’m locked away from myself in an episode it’s excruciating, because I know what I know now.

So I crawl back to her and kiss her better, admire her strength, adore her smile.

The trees are magic. Stop and look at just one. The ability to see all the fine details, where each branch naturally lies.

Noticing is love. I notice everything.

Faith and peace and mercy and ground. My memories are always with me. I savor so many daily.

So many new to make. This in between exquisite connection as the default and all the old ways of disconnection. They sit and stare across the playground at each other, wondering are we friend or foe. Who do we align with?!

Disconnected her is as worthy and valued as connected her. We no longer cut off parts of ourselves for survival.

It’s safe. Now someone just please tell me nervous system that please. Re wiring is another matter entirely.

A new style of writing has emerged for me and it’s nearly terrifying. I recognize now this far down that I had no idea any of this would come out. In fact I had so many other intentions over the past few weeks.

I know how to let go now. Of control. And really that’s been my journey a very long time. To be able to cry when I felt that way. To have an orgasm.

I would describe it like having this emotional delay. Usually I have to be alone to access them, but there have been moments and times they happen organically and freely. Those are magic.

Maybe someday this is the body I will inhabit forever, fully connected. Will I still write, will I still be me? If that happens? Is it possible? So many unknowns.

C’est la vie

All my love,

C

Ps. hallelujah just came on and the sun began to shine, just now.

I joined Nicole lepera inner circle so I’ll be watching her and Jenna this evening and then a massage. Thank god. Please melt these stresses of everyday life and breathe energy back into my soul.

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Beauty is a curse, I’ve long known this

I’ve got approximately two and a half hours left of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I’ve been savoring it. I’ll feel incomplete for a short while in its absence. I’ve been all or nothing so long, it’s nice to read it bit bit and then process and listen to music. I have a nice groove going on.

I walked to Natural Kitchen and got a bowl today. I think the tuna from there makes me a little allergic, probably some preservative they use. A major goal in the new year is to begin working with a nutritionist and allergist and really attend to my health.

Another goal is to spend very little and see if I can pay off my student loans. I’m coming up with a strategy with my financial advisor. I want to leave my children with a good financial situation and also make sure in case anything happens to me with my Crohns that I have wiggle room. So they and we are safe and don’t have additional stress.

*don’t worry I’m not leaving anytime soon, I just think that far ahead. It’s a part of me.

When did I suddenly become such an adult ?! Who knows!?

I was able to do quite a bit for those I love this year for Christmas and it’s all done. I’m usually panicking the night before. It’s pinch me unreal the things I’m able to do.

I’ve been that way most of my life though, pinching myself at things I just never could even have seen for myself. How rich my experiences have been. No corner of my life unturned and I shall continue living this way.

I wore my only human sweats today and grey under armor sweater with beanie and just felt cool ha. Feels silly to say but I did. I felt cool despite having my winter weight on, some breaking out on my face. I just don’t torture myself anymore and that feels very nice.

To not nitpick myself apart about perfection. Now if I could just continue to do that with writing.

Go easy on me baby….. appropriate.

Henri is asleep at my feet. The cat dog that she is. The little prince is cleaning up after his ugly Christmas / cookie extravaganza last night. Thankful those are few and far between, and also grateful to be able to be that house and have such a good group of kids.

I feel like Diane Lane in the end of Under the Tuscan Sun, something I want to read by the way. I’ve only seen the movie. She had felt so low at one point, like she was never going to have what she wanted and then realizes she did even though it’s completely different than she thought.

Yep my face is definitely flushing from this food. I get much less anxious about these things anymore. I go with I’ll be fine, and if I’m not I’ll know and be able to get the care I need. Not going to eat this bowl again. But I will for sure walk to places to get my food and even shopping. I love walking when I can instead of driving.

Maybe next I’ll bike everywhere and keep costs down. Anything can be an adventure. I could be happy the rest of my life walking back and forth to the library and eating a picnic lunch out in the sun with a book.

The simple things…

I just want to make sure my loved ones are safe and cared for and myself and we have experiences. That’s what I’m focused on lately, and that I make choices that are congruent with that. Yes a therapist word for sure. Shocking 😉

Writing a book lately feels like more of a when, than an if. That feels so nice. I could cry just to say it, but most important that I feel it. A sense of security and that it’s solid. If my circumstances change I still am solid. That’s taking root.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. It feels different this year somehow. I’m acknowledging it and not saying it doesn’t matter and I don’t need anything. It feels calm and safe.

In fact I need to see a show, A Strange Loop on Broadway and the tree and have a nice dinner in the city with my loved ones. I’m not anxious. Well maybe a little. About not finding a bathroom or anything that can happen, but the excitement outweighs. Mmmm.

I have more than I need. I can begin thinking about what I can do to give to my community and to my field and all of it.

I have so much more to write maybe today will be a twofer or tomorrow morning I’ll take some time for me to contemplate the brink of my forty second trip around the Sun.

I was going to talk about Evelyn’s sixth husband because that’s where I am. And how I feel for people so beautiful they get trapped in the upkeep of it all, it’s one thing to enjoy taking care of yourself, pressure however is quite another.

Ok so I wrote this a couple of days ago and didn’t post. It’s more an update than passion ridden prose. A theme I suppose. I have therapy now on Christmas Eve eve. Then walking and family time. I anticipate a lot of writing as I am present and coming to the end of Evelyn’s story.

And still well at the beginning of mine 💜

Ps and in true Christina fashion I didn’t talk about the title subject much at all. Stay tuned it will come along somewhere…. Soon. I think. Maybe

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Thankful for All of You, the Committed Readers of my Story

Listening to My Life by NF, it pairs nicely with having watched GoodWill Hunting this morning.

I’m walking. My own turkey trot if you will.

There are things I do now to try and make my life easier. None of this will make up for how hard my life was for so much of it.

I’m tired in ways I’d never want you to understand, but I do want understanding.

These days I try and allow this rather than judging myself for it, condemning me. Criticizing and controlling me. Demeaning me. Beating me.

I spent over half of my life living this way. And attracting neglect and abuse in one form or another. Because those things like to breed and to continue. Like an invasive hearty species of weeds, they clenched my heart to death.

I reacted to life and I attached well to nothing.

And every day I’m healing.

And yesterday before the holiday I was triggered and raw. What’s different this year is how I behaved with me. This year I was understanding and kind to her. I didn’t minimize her emotions.

I used the episode to be able to see clearly how far she and I have come this year. My little girl and me. And to see how I could have never done this work and had any profound connection beyond an idea, a fantasy, and the beginning stages.

I’m so thankful for my therapist this year, and I know there are people out there thankful for me in the same vein. And to my energy healer who I had my “it’s not your fault.” Good will Hunting moment. Don’t hold me…..

My guarded heart. Don’t hold me my body screamed. Not worthy, not deserving, of holidays of love, or any good thing. 

I used to bare down and hold tight, white knuckles to my fighting position, seeing red. Now the tears flow so much more easily. The fear and terror and panic vanishes more quickly.

What used to take me days to recover from, what used to explode my whole world each time, now settles down in my mind in a matter of hours.

I intend to enjoy my healing for the rest of my life, rather than resent the fact I need to.

I’m ready to let go of the pain; it wasn’t the friend I thought it was. The safe and secure ground of my story, no longer has the same ring to it.

I can’t unring that bell.

I love you

I love me

What used to feel like stone, now feels like feather. The labored breaths, hot with pain, now come effortlessly. Nothing is blocking them.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still thawing. This is an everyday kind of job, an inside one, but now I’m so grateful for it. It’s made me someone with passion and heart. It’s given me a career that is a blessing and incredibly meaningful.

Hold on, Chord Overstreet.

Unclench my jaw. Untie my shoulder blades. Unlock my hips. Unbridle my love muscle.

Please let me feel things the way it seems like others do, in real time. Not only in private and silence where I feel safe.

Undry these eyes they were always meant to cry. It’s ok. It’s not your fault. You can be held.

Recovery

Recover with me. I thought we could do this together, but I had to do it for myself first.

Show it don’t tell it.

Practice less than preach.

I am loving, and I am loved.

My daily prayer

And gratitude for all of it….

All of you reading

All my love,

C

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The Movies, Music, Morning Walks and Making Amends

Always, C

I’ve been thinking the most about amends lately….

This mornings walk started with Dear Depression by NF and second song is Unsteady by X Ambassadors. If you love me don’t let go. Hold on….

Which makes me think of Me Before You, which makes me think of Love Rosie, which I watched last night. Which makes me think of which movies I enjoy so much and why.

Probably if I were to guess they were friends when I had none, and they at times inspire hope. I like movies that make me feel the way I want to around the people I have close. I could disappear into the feeling of that story. T

hat’s likely the most important thing here. I could have a family, a best friend, a lover, for that 90 minutes I didn’t feel the kind of alone that was unforgiving and unforgivable during childhood. I will have no amends there. Not a death bed whisper. Only an endless chill.

Deep emotion. Human stories. Inspiration.

I like these things.

How I like the piano and string instruments and vocalists that have been through the ringer emotionally. Mary Lambert, Teddy Swims, Pink, Taylor Swift, k Clarkson, so many more…

Like I like my authors…. Brene, Liz, Martha, S King. So many more.

Our vibe attracts our tribe they say. I have to believe it’s true when I pay attention to what I like.

I don’t like horror. I don’t need to experience anymore terror. All set thanks. I feel the things the character is experiencing in my body and heart and will think about still shots of the movies days and even years after.

I have an interesting encoding system in my brain. It’s kind of magical really. Genuinely.

NF Perception, Remember This. This guy has had some trauma too huh! So find people that challenge what you think….. gorgeous.

So back to my brain and amends.

What I’m realizing lately is that most of my life I’ve misunderstood myself so painfully.

Each time I shut down and moved overly quickly that was a reflex, that had nothing to do with my true self. She was so far buried in those moments.

This last time I tried to say that, but I was already in the action of my choice. It’s impossible to regret it because of where I am now. If you asked me last year though.

Not very dependable someone who changes that easily right?! The story, the T, the gossip. Hate it. Because it never understands. It’s fast and realization is slow.

The kind we need to breathe life back into a world gone cold and hard.

Empathy

I had it for others, but none for myself.

Anytime she did something that wasn’t in compliance I’d leave her out in the cold. Punishment. No understanding.

Here comes the amends. This is how I was with my kids. And a lot of it was because I was fighting to feel supported by their father, someone still lost in bitter hurt. This is my version of course and that’s all I can write.

If I told the bad story it would look something like this, of course he would want to be away because of the flip outs I did, just like my mother.

Just like my father wanted to be away from my mother. I understood why. BUT there’s so much I didn’t understand. Everything that came before me. What he did to her. A little girl with a grown man.

No perpetrator and no victim. We all have a part in our choices and I’m more interested in who I will become because of them, than to cast judgment.

Judgment is boring and nearsighted and hollow.

Nothing comes full circle there. You just chase your tail and go on a haunted carnival ride of your own emotions.

My ego fought an invisible battle with him to feel supported, because I felt I had none.

And the punishment fell to my kids. They didn’t have my warm wise presence at some of the times they needed it the most.

And now I sit in the pain of knowing this and let it soften the borders of my heart so I can course correct.

Twin b tried to scream at me your punishments don’t work and I doubled down. I wasn’t fighting her. She just wanted to be heard, and I shut down.

My shut down switch is so frustrating in my life. How do I forgive it, because it saved me before, and left me for dead later. The thing meant to protect me also kept me shut off from the love.

They were out in the cold with me. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. I want to explain to cry for understanding. But that forgoes the accountability I need to make amends.

They need to feel I can respond to their emotions.

How can you ask that of me my trauma cries. Don’t you understand how terrifying someone else’s emotions became for me. If you knew.

But they don’t and they didn’t ask …. They were at our mercy as parents. Now that I can connect with.

I only hope they will someday come to their own conclusion that I did my best in all the ways I could.

I didn’t do it all wrong, but I have the strength now to know that one of the most important ingredients was missing. That soft love. I hope that their fathers family supplied it enough. Holidays and unconditional love. Things I didn’t have.

I hope they don’t suffer in the ways I have. Those words are true. It would only be judged as dramatic or anything else for someone who doesn’t know, connect with these losses of self they never consented to.

No one told me about trauma.

When the first person (therapist) suggested it’s shocking I’m alive, it was like a scene in a movie. He couldn’t be talking about me. I wasn’t even in my body.

I had kids with a grand idea of creating a family I didn’t have and I was going to do it perfect of course in my idea.

Then life takes hold and tells you ha you thought that was going to work. Silly goose.

Being gay and not realizing became another school yard bully, and I almost lost that battle.

I would have done anything to protect my kids from divorce and him. I wanted to. I agonized.

I just kept hitting wall after wall with it. It was not possible and even the voice now says I could have done it and waited if it meant…. NO.

I’d do anything for love but I won’t do that. Not be myself how I was made. Not an option.

Divorce. The first area that requires amends. Creating a life for everyone (all my responsibility of course), when I wasn’t aware of myself.

My enthusiasm for living often preceded my better senses.

Can you ever forgive me?!

My mind is mostly fragments and so scattered and living steadily requires the gathering of all these things each morning just to function.

Please forgive me….

*I’m still trying to figure out this writing thing. This excavation. The where, when, how of it all. So bear with me as I find these fossils and thoughts. My psyche is so often a steel trap. It goes into lockdown with a hairline trigger. When I listen to music the rhythm style and emotion of my writing is immediately influenced. So if you’re here on my journey. Thank you for helping me be less alone in the world. It’s special to me beyond words…..

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Walking my Way Through my Own Truth

Nothing else matters

I love feeling myself getting stronger. Trimming the fat in so many ways. Building self. I feel my muscles strengthening and celebrating the movement. I definitely want to stretch more though as I move forward.

On my walk this morning I am thinking about the kinds of being alone. There’s the kind where all your thoughts echo it’s so empty, and you’re at their mercy. If you want to grow you just sit with them until you understand. There are mean time’s. There’s temporary alone, when a loved on travels and it’s a short time.

There is the alone in your head that you are every single day. With your own thoughts that no one else knows. Unless you’re reading this blog 😉

There’s alone after a spouse has passed away. An empty cavern, with the crushing weight of figuring out how to re-draft every day processes. Lost.

And then there’s another kind. The kind I’m thinking about today. There’s the violent kind of being alone.

This is when you don’t expect to be alone, but you find that’s the case over and over. The kind where the words don’t match the actions. The kind that causes illness, despair, and for some people even tragedy. The kind where the dishonesty makes you feel crazy. Your mind wants to believe in the love you thought you felt. The love you were continuously sold.

The kind where the person doesn’t know how to relate in a healthy way. Lost souls. So they manipulate others to meet their need.

I’ve never been lost like that, but very close to it. I do understand. There’s never been anything wrong with my understanding.

I’m a lucky one, but I worked hard for it. So luck is probably not the right word.

Not swathed in a story, I sat in my stuff.

I sit in my stuff.

And you know what it has made me a better human being. Most importantly a better parent. With much more space and awareness for empathy for the experience of others.

A far stretch from a perfect one, but better each day.

That’s what I chose to do with that. And to only forget as much as is necessary to do my work and live a fulfilling life. But never enough to be naive like that again.

I miss that naïveté. In some ways I wish it was never taken in such a manner, but then I can’t, because I wouldn’t be here now feeling what I am.

Presence. Peace. Love. Connection.

The alone melts away and with it the anger and pain.

Love is not an emotion. It’s sturdy. It is a choice and a promise.

I’ve never been very good at the consistent aspects of love. So built for survival I am. The only moment is now. A men and black reset each day.

So I’m working on my consistency and sturdiness of self, also not an emotion. I work on them by being consistent with my every day small behaviors and choices. Those are building a solid ground inside me.

This way emotions are allowed to do their work to keep the balance between my head and my heart. To protect and serve, rather than turn against me. Karen McLaren The Language of Emotions, a Bible of mine lately. The passage love is a steadfast promise around page 120 or so.

This is literally a manual for healing trauma. I bought many copies to give to those in need this Christmas. Clients and friends alike. That and Letting Go by David Hawkins. Those are my go to sources right now.

I’ve been reading that passage in sessions, when warranted, and I get goosebumps and usually both parties tear up.

For all the pain and suffering in the world there is always the possibility of healing.

Choose

It’s a choice, not a feeling. You can’t feel better without the choice and commitment.

Now excuse me while I sit here and enjoy how my coffee tastes after the walk. It tastes better, more satisfying. And try not to fret about my baby having surgery this morning, far away. I sent her a “fever frog” from 1800 flowers. That thing is so damn cute. It sings and dances and comes with chicken soup. It was the only option that stopped me from buying a plane ticket and being there. That silly singing frog. Sigh.

Trying to care less about being cool these days and hip. Never really was in the cards anyway lol. I want to play. To help people in my presence feel lighter when they are heavy. Rather than going to their place automatically with them and then freaking out about it.

The above I’m working on a lot. As a recovering chameleon. Thinking of The Luckiest Girl Alive in this moment.

Balance

Lighter by Yung Pueblo is another good one.

I don’t want to sell anything to anyone. I want to align myself with those who prioritize their own healing and the ones that understand love is a choice and show up consistently.

My vow is that if I want this I will also be it.

I must

Good morning on this beautiful fall day! Finally a chill in the air. It’s extra delicious this year, with the warmth in my heart maintaining my temperature.

Peace

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“The Pleasure is for Rent and So is The Pain.”

As captured on the cover of a journal at Barnes and Noble the other day. Love that place.

I’m sitting outside at Nate’s Plate’s, waiting for an egg and cheese sandwich. First time trying it here. Way to ruin your walk Christina. Ok we aren’t doing that. This is about enjoying life. The little things, and the big ones.

It’s a gorgeous pre fall day. I’ve been walking and occasionally jogging 2-3 miles most days. Sometimes only one, sometimes none, but usually some. Currently I’m listening to On My Own by Ross Lynch. It’s the first song of the day. It came on Spotify Taylor Swift radio. There is a fake plant, bright yellow in a wicker pot on the table, my water bottle a consistent comfort, and two bags of peanut butter chocolate energy bites.

From here I can see the playground, tennis courts, baseball field, that are behind the Milford Public Library. I love Milford. I’ve fallen more in love with it through the hard times and good of the last few years. Milford is a constant. And constants make my heart happy, despite my creative’s occasional rebellion against it. I always return if it’s safe to do so, and healthy for me.

I only cut off from sources of poison, and the bad thing was never me. I could cry writing this for all the confusion and suffering it’s caused in my life trying desperately to find “the right answer”, in those choices. Never know there was always a right for me.

I never knew my self. Never knew she was worth knowing. And that might make you sad to read, but don’t be sad for me, because I believe we each have a path that has meaning, even when the view hasn’t all come together. Unsewn threads causing doubts. Painful. It’s ok. Is it, my anxiety says?! Yes it is my higher self says. And I no longer shame myself for how long this conversation must be had.

The past few days I’ve been loving Greenlights on Audible written and narrated by Matthew McConaughey (so hard to spell this name sigh). Insightful, fun, quirky, a journey of sharing of self and thoughts. Of course I do. Bask in it. He just said a line, the pleasure is for rent, and so is the pain.” Meaning everything is temporary so be present essentially and don’t get too caught in being impressed, rather be more involved.

Engaged, present, involved, trying, learning.

Want to have a mad love affair with yourself.? Go someplace, order something, try something on, pick something up and feel it. What do you like, and what don’t you like. Pick up your head, put down your phone.

Think

Try a new food, a new spot to sit, and feel and think about what it feels like. Presence is bliss. Still your mind. Just look, sense, write, dream, feel.

So I had therapy last night. I still go on average two times a week when I can. At one time I felt I’d accomplished something by going down to one, because who wants to need therapy two times a week. I do. I do! I do because it helps the hurts. That’s why.

*I wrote this post Monday I think. It’s Sunday now. Had our first fire in the fire place kind of Sunday. White bean and chicken soup kind of Sunday. Watched a great suspense movie Sunday. Had a nap Sunday. Stayed in sweats Sunday. Set boundaries Sunday. Shared chocolates Sunday. Enjoyed seasonal candles Sunday. Chip grocery and visit Sunday. Took a walk Sunday. Gave a special gift Sunday. Thought about time Sunday. Finished Hillbilly Elegy and Slaughterhouse Five Sunday. Watched Hocus Pocus 2 Sunday. How did so much fit into one day.

Soon maybe it’ll be started my book on a Sunday.

Soon…..

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It Was Always Going to….Be a Lifelong thing….

I hope your soul is changin’……

Healing

I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending….

Happy Sunday from sunny Florida. Tiny lizards are cute, palmetto bugs are nope. Humidity is death, the bath still brings life.

Hot. Cold. Sweaty. Calm. Breathe, just breathe.

Be still.

My whole life I ran. I ran and I didn’t know I was running. I thought I was just living with gusto and a strong will. Where’s there’s a will there’s away would have been my motto. Until I hit a period where will was not all that mattered, a period that brought me to my knees. Kesha Praying.

Will could only take me far, and take me far it did. I’ve been marveling lately at all the life experiences I have, they have grown me. I wouldn’t change it, and that’s new because my ruminating signaled that I lived in a swamp of regret. I’ve visited don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a place I could ever live.

I’ve been so hard on myself for every single thing I didn’t ask for, and judged me for how I coped or didn’t, all the while not even realizing how much coping I was doing, because I didn’t call it that. That signals there’s an issue right ?!

Yesterday we watched Pieces of Her, not the series that was very good by the way, the movie with Shia Labeouf (had to look up how in the hell to spell that). Spoiler alert ahead.

The movie starts with an intimate birth scene, very well done I might add. Raw. Beautiful. I was nauseated during it, for her, but of course I was. The movie took me on a ride of emotions. I was experiencing it. Few movies do that. Recently the Starling also did. The fact these move me the most is no surprise to those close to me.

Anyway this movie! Things I noticed in the beginning. Sean, her partner, stayed calm, was a rock for her, strong. Inside of me twinged with the wanting of that, back then. I didn’t know I didn’t have it, and frankly I know my memory is so fucked up. But the idea of a man who knows himself, is strong in that, for better or for worse, already through recovery at that time. So he had that experience and owned it, and worked at it.

They hold their baby for the first time…. It’s gorgeous. Shortly after the baby turns blue and well I can’t even say it.

The rest of the movie shows the various ways they cope and don’t. How they take it out on each other. How one shuts the other out, and the choices they both make. Suddenly all of the things that happened aren’t such a mystery.

The family dynamics were so interesting, but at least they each said their truth. How they really felt. What is that even like? Not a family who you could cut the tension with a knife, all covered in pretty outward smiles with gnashing teeth.

I’ve been clenching my teeth at night. This is a new phenomenon for me. Of all the ailments. Sigh. Clenching so hard. Despite being more healed than I’ve ever been, and sleeping very well.

Last night there was a little girl in my dream, it was vivid. We had a pleasant interaction, it was warm, and one of her mother’s was accepting, not forgotten, but forgiven. Life moves on and I felt peaceful by it, not tortured. A whisper that everything is as it should be. I felt warm.

In my own life there are fires. One of my girls will be leaving for the other coast and the other family. There was no middle ground to meet on, so it’s not the best of circumstances and that’s creating an unbearable pain.

A difficult labor is quickly forgotten once the child is in your arms and you’re more than occupied with the many new tasks at hand. A fractured relationship of this magnitude that can’t get any oxygen and is turning blue is a different kind of hell.

One at the moment I can’t find my way out of, or see a way to just distract myself. It’s excruciating. And two months ago I didn’t know it would be this way. I didn’t dupe anyone. This is real and it’s mine and I get to be allowed to feel how I do without dismissing or distracting, and while still loving and supporting myself.

This is new. A new relationship with myself, where I don’t pressure myself, and stand up quickly saying, I’m ok. Where I don’t force myself, or get lost in unhealthy coping mechanisms. This is new.

I’m not ok. I’m scared, and locked down, and in this. And it’s going to take a little adjusting, and healing.

Who knew being a mother was so important to me. Everyone else. The problem is I didn’t regard myself in that way. I couldn’t see myself as anything more than her daughter. There was no myself, No herself. A Martha Beck reference from Diana Herself.

Here I am and I’m fiercely showing up, and I’m not ashamed. It’s a new look for me, and it’s going to take awhile for the training wheels to come off, and to rub the cobwebs out of my eyes to get a clear view in the mirror.

It was always going to happen..

My grief and my story are real, and what I’m realizing is that healing from the beginning let alone now is a way of life. For me it is, and that has to be ok. Not heavy or unfun, just real. It will ebb and flow. This creative heart recovery there will be periods I’m under, and periods I’m out, periods I’m dancing and playing, and one’s where I’m stuck to the floor.

Because this is what life is like when you feel it all, and take it all in, and learn to keep some of it out. This is a whole story of becoming whole, from the pieces of her.

This movie rocked me. It made me remember my birth stories and what was going on at that time, and how did you feel when you held your babies the first time….

Probably not just romantic, probably I was scared shitless too. And I get to be that! Because that is what’s real, and I felt that way having no idea what I’d actually have to face to be a good enough mother.

I had no idea the lengths I’d need to go to to not be triggered, to not use my children to comfort my emotions or take them out on. To keep them safe, even from me, when I didn’t know how unhealed I was, but I did at some level.

Intuition trauma blocked.

What’s a gal to do besides study and heal and study and heal and heal and heal and heal. It takes a village and daily practice and lots of support. It is happening though and for that I’m the most grateful.

That I am able to feel things as I am. I could just be numb. And there’s nothing worse. My dear friend is struggling with this just now, and I’ve learned, am learning, to judge less, and love more.

I’m learning a lot…..

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When Stories are Told in Safe Spaces Shame Dies

All of these lines across my face…tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am. But these stories don’t mean anything when you’ve got no one to tell them to. It’s true I was made for you.

Being loved is overwhelming….

This is my realization this morning.

This is why I have chosen partners that were not capable of healthy love in one way or another, and I wasn’t either.

Would I always have unbalanced love outside, and frozen love inside ?

I’m just beginning to be able to see the light at the end of that tunnel.

And it’s scary to be 41 years old, I almost said 42, I always round up. I guess so I’m already prepared. So much of my life is geared around being prepared, for anything. It’s scary to be 41 years old and feel like an infant at times, that vulnerable, because everything is new. I’ve never been this self before.

“I’m not the explosion guy”, that’s my father.” I think of Silver Lining Playbook. The pain that’s involved in families where a member had an unidentified mental illness or personality disorder. The shame and pain that passes through the generations. No treatment. No relief.

No relief. Let those words land.

Just shouldering those burdens trying to look and be normal. Swallowing it down. I get so angry with the injustice of that. The silenced pleas for help in the form of various “negative” behaviors in children and they just internalize and absorb it into themselves and become sick. Which looks like defiant, odd, impulsive, and a whole range of other things.

Then exiled from others because they don’t fit.

Understanding is the salve that heals. I apply it generously in my office. Often while having so many unknowns on my shoulders. Feeling like a small mistake could cost an entire life. Anxiety often weaves that tale. Sometimes the stakes feel so high, and then I have to readjust to “I can only do my best.” That’s been a game changer.

I don’t have peoples lives in my hands, I have their possibility of healing in them. The choices I make can impact their healing, but my role is not enough to stop the results of a lifetime of suffering if the train is already blurring down the tracks. I can’t stop a bullet, but I can apply a vest.

When you grow up feeling responsible for everything, and utterly by yourself it becomes difficult later in life to know what’s yours and what isn’t. A major task of therapy.

A major task of mine…..

I had a 20 k client day yesterday. Sometimes it goes so deep and so heavy, that one day feels like a week. I’m in a daze and don’t even know what day it is.

I do know I bring my whole heart and I lay my energy on the front line daily; and though I may never have a hero’s celebration. Let’s be honest I would probably squirm with discomfort. I need to learn to celebrate myself and what I do, and pause. I can’t always just keep going, but tell my mind that.

There’s a community that lost a teenager to suicide a couple of weeks back, and it haunts me. The pain of those affected haunts me. The intrusive thoughts when I see a sign in one of mine haunts me. The pain of those parents haunt me, and I’m not even first degree attached. But I am a human and I can’t even fathom that pain, or maybe I can.

The threat was always there in my own life. A not so gentle reminder of my trauma. My trauma. The thing I don’t talk about because to access it extinguishes my breathing almost immediately. I shudder and shake with it in the therapy office. I don’t want it spoken. What if I made it up.? I wish I made it up.

And it’s just easier to press forward and pretend it’s something that can be left behind. It can’t. It infects the next generation and the next until it’s spoken, understood, and loses it’s power.

I think my true self inside wanted a simple life. And resents the enormity of this role. I think my therapist would laugh at this. That’s just my whining about the acceptance of the things I didn’t choose. My energy healer disagrees, she believes our souls contract before they entire the body fully knowing what their destiny will be.

Did I sign on that dotted line? Was it inked in blood?

I have stories locked down inside me. Guarded by dragons. Dragons I shouldn’t have had to face then, let alone now. To access my memories. It doesn’t seem fair to go through what I have to do to do that.

I spent a life trying to create something I didn’t have to forget and if I want to heal I need to remember enough to also get that little girl out alive.

Confusion. Exhaustion.

Nobody wants that. They want fun and to believe in happy endings. But what about happy beginnings. I’ve realized lately those really do and did exist in those other people. The ones who don’t shudder when a voice raises.

Those happy people you’ll never be understood by, is how it felt. Separation, desperately seeking belonging.

Desperate.

Now that I’m no longer desperate how do I do life? It’s all new, and new is overwhelming even when it’s good.

Patience. Security. Safety.

A loving self ….

I created one.