Tag: ptsd

Motherhood

The Addition of All the Many Moments and Sum of All Their Parts

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on The Addition of All the Many Moments and Sum of All Their Parts

There will come a time when I won’t care what others think, or what I think for that matter. That time may be coming sooner than I think, for I’m far too tired to care this much for much longer. It seems caring about much of anything puts me at a disadvantage in the grande scheme of things. I still watch in awe how the confident function, and examine my reflection in the mirror and attempt to gaze back with half that confidence. I always end up half laughing , half crying. I’ll never be that.

It is difficult living in this bubble of brilliant type As with a few amongst them who have figured out how to play the game and get ahead. I’m trying to do just that. My head keeps spinning. I don’t know why I can’t think like everyone else thinks. Logically. In a structured way. There is structure in there somewhere, past the swirling seas of patterns and potential. I’m trying to find it. Structure, and release. How to offer high quality with little emotional cost. How? I don’t know yet. People do it, so it must be possible.

I feel guilty I have little emotional energy to spare for the actual state of things. I read election news and social media feeds and catch up quickly on how fucked up the world is and hope that maybe despite being so fucked up things will eventually in due time (maybe 10 days time) hit a wall and swing back the other way. Though the Supreme Court is now stuck without questionable intervention due to questionably rushing a nominee through. Yet some people really will be happy and benefit from a conservative government in power—I don’t agree with those people, I don’t think it’s fair that many must suffer to support their views, and yet some people will be happy. Those who prefer a woman to die than to abort her child. Do they not deserve happiness too? I don’t know. Who really deserves happiness? We are all pretty awful creatures and in the end to ashes we go. So, if anyone is happy at any given time even for the worst of reasons, isn’t there some sick beauty in that? I don’t know. I’m trying to see the rusted glass half full.

I hope Biden wins.

I guess we will find out soon. I am grateful my children will be too young to remember much of this presidency. I don’t want them having a picture of “Presidential” as this. My oldest will be 6 if Trump gets another 4 years, so there will be some memories — but mostly of the joy of seeing him out of office (hopefully) as he concludes his second term. Frankly I’m concerned if he doesn’t win this time he will continue campaigning for the next 4 years and run again in 2024. Everything is going to so much shit right now a part of me feels like we are best off letting him destroy us so we can properly rebuild, vs handing this mess to Biden (who he will continue to blame) to fix. Hmm.

It’s unfair of me to think these things. I can survive another 4 years of Trump, probably, but many others cannot. And his administration just announced they gave up on managing the virus. Entirely. What? Just let everyone die? I guess so. Just 1% of Americans. Sorry if you’re one of them.

The whole pandemic lifestyle is getting to me. The first few months I enjoyed—no longer having to commute to an office. Working from my bed in my pajamas. Going for long walks in the late afternoon vs sitting in 45 minutes of traffic to drive home. No having to come up with something awkwardly witty or say or ask at the water cooler. Just me, my family, my apartment, and my food delivery people who I never met other than by name in Instacart.

But now I miss people. I do. I miss being around people. Hearing them. I miss all the things I haven’t been able to do with my son like take him to dance class or little gym or the zoo or go on vacations and show him new things. I’ve invested all the extra free time in buying and now renovating a home, so at least it has been productive (I can’t imagine doing this in a normal time.) There are plenty of positives and yet—I miss my family. I miss my occasional happy hours with coworkers. I miss even more occasional massages and pedicures. I miss getting a professional haircut. It has been almost one year since I’ve had one. I cut my hair myself a month or two ago. It’s time to do that again soon.

I struggle in knowing many aren’t social distancing as much as my family is—and wondering am I giving up too much of my life to hide from something with a 99% survival rate? I mean, not that I’d be attending maskless indoor parties or anything. But what if my son went to daycare to meet other kids his age? What if I took him to the zoo or pumpkin picking? Or to ride the outdoor train that goes down to Santa Cruz that I always wanted to do once I had a child.

My son doesn’t seem to mind that he’s missing out on some aspect of his childhood. He doesn’t know what he is missing, though I suspect he has some idea when I grab him away from other children who come running up to him at the park. In the rare chance we go to the park. How will I, after a vaccine is introduced, teach him it’s ok to socially interact with other kids? Will he easily adapt? Will he shy away from socializing because that’s what he knows? I worry.

At least soon he will have a little brother or sister to play with. I mean, in a year or so when that baby is more than a blob that poops and cries. One day. You know if said blob and I survive childbirth. Which we probably will. I expect this time to be equally as scary as my last birth. Or worse. Or maybe it won’t be. I read a lot about traumatic births. So I’m scared. Women who have survived but who have hemorrhaged. Or who had an emergency c-section where the medication didn’t work. Who can blame me about worrying a bit?

In 13 weeks I’ll have another baby. That’s just three quick months. I am looking forward to it. Not the birth part. But the part after. Not being interrupted from my half sleep in the middle of the night after my child is born to be informed my father died. Not having to beg so many wonderful friends and family to help my husband survive with a newborn as I took a flight across the country, terrified of my blood pressure spiking or blood clotting, to attend my father’s funeral. Maybe some time, this time, to feel happy despite the typical positive birth exhaustion blur. I just want that. I don’t deserve it. No one deserves anything. But I hope I get that experience. A baby that comes out breathing. Who isn’t whisked away to the NICU. Maybe a “normal” birth and a breathing baby and things to go right for once.

I can’t let myself get too optimistic for anything. I thought my father was doing better and would make it three months so he could meet my son at Thanksgiving. I could see how happy he was holding my son for the first time. Laughing and joking with him. Telling stories about when I was a child. How my son reminds him of that. Singing to him and reading to him and having all those stolen moments that will never be. I don’t like to get my hopes up anymore. It doesn’t seem worth it. But it also doesn’t seem worth it to live a life always expecting the worst.

So I guess I have to figure out how to fill the glass a tiny bit more so I don’t have to make a judgement call on how to describe it’s respective volume.

Motherhood

Pregnant in a Pandemic

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Pregnant in a Pandemic

I had always planned to start trying for my second child 18 months after my first was born. I figured, like my first, this whole miracle of life thing would take months and require medical support like the creation of my first child. At age 36 I didn’t want to look back and think I waited too long to try. I wanted to give my son at least one sibling, maybe two. After my father’s death two years ago, and overall being so far from any family with children my son’s age, and growing up in a large extended family, it hit me hard how important it was to make my own little big family if I could.

Then, a global pandemic happened. In case you haven’t noticed.

I wasn’t in denial of what that meant. I weighed the pros and the many cons. I didn’t mind the idea of not seeing people during my pregnancy or missing things like baby showers and such. If it had been my first pregnancy I would be missing all that but been there, done that, and ok with hibernating these nine months. But I was expecting it to take a while to get pregnant—putting me at a late spring or summer or fall due date—after the second and likely worst peak of the pandemic had past. But the pandemic and my body had other ideas.

In March, I either had COVID or some form of debilitating anxiety where I couldn’t eat. The reason I think it was COVID is that my go-to when I am anxious is eating. But in a month, I lost 8lbs. I also had a lot of lung issues and ended up getting an inhaler and feeling liquid in my lungs for a while. It could have been bad allergies (I don’t have allergies typically) or maybe I was just losing it—but nonetheless I ended up eating healthy/less and with the massive reduction in social anxiety (not having to interact with other humans was just a huge relief, esp coming off what might have been an actual manic episode the prior fall and early winter) my body apparently said “ok, you are ready to be a mom again.”

With my first son, I took my pregnancy test on my 34th birthday. With this one, it was Mother’s Day. I figured my life is secretly scripted so of course I’d find out on mom’s day that I had rapidly reproduced this time around. I used a cheap-o test at first and there was a very very faint line. My text to a friend confirmed it was there. The more expensive test I took a few minutes later said it definitely was there. Pregnant. In a pandemic.

It was no longer a — well maybe I’ll get pregnant and maybe I’ll have to deal with the tail end of the pandemic in a while and maybe that will be difficult. It was—you are delivering in January. The exact month the pandemic will probably be at its actual worst, after a summer of people flouting the rules, after nearly a year of people saying they just want to get back to normal life. Oh, and for fun let’s make your due date two days after the inauguration what will likely be the most contested election in American history, when our prior president may refuse to leave office should be not get re-elected. Why not?

There are definitely pros to being pregnant during a pandemic. For starters, being able to work from home my entire pregnancy is a blessing. As I’m older now, this pregnancy has been a bit harder on me. I think part of that is because I’m not moving enough (which means I would be better off going to an office dusky) but being able to lie down and work, or sit down and wait for a wave of nausea to pass without getting any weird looks at the office is one of the best things about this specific situation. While last time I felt I had to push myself to not be disabled by pregnancy (working up until my due date with horrible carpal tunnel at the end and eventually being diagnosed with gestational hypertension and needing to be induced) I can take this pregnancy easy. Ish. I mean as easy as one can take a pregnancy with no childcare and a two year old wanting attention all day.

Yes, a negative of the pandemic has definitely been the loss of childcare. Prior to the pandemic my FIL came to watch our son four days a week. He enjoyed it and it worked out well for us. But then with COVID we couldn’t risk getting him sick—even though we immediately went into isolation and were being as careful as possible, I had to go to a few doctors appointments so we had to stop seeing my in laws for a while. My husband, who works flexible hours, stepped up to take on the bulk of the childcare. At first, that seemed to work well. I was thriving at work, sleeping well, able to focus without the commute and anxiety of judging myself so harshly for every movement around others. For a few months, I felt, hey, I can get the hang of this pandemic life.

My husband was definitely struggling, though, and as my pregnancy progressed the sleep I was getting turned into random wakings in the middle of the night. I began to be sad overall about the pandemic—about how my son cannot play with other kids, about how my mom can’t see her grandchild until who knows when, about how my sister and my son’s only aunt may not see him for years. We eventually made the choice to see our in laws again, but only 2 weeks after any in person doctor’s appointment. We have completely isolated otherwise, except for going around with our realtor looking at empty houses as we wanted to buy and move before baby number two. I think that little socialization and activity kept me sane these past few months. Oh, and we bought a house (also known as baby #3.) So we have been keeping busy. My son seems ok as he doesn’t know what he is missing. He is now used to mommy grabbing him when we are out and an older kid comes too close, like at the empty park the other night when an unmasked pre-teen came storming out of nowhere and sat right behind my unsuspecting son. Now that some parks are open we will go only when they are empty, and we wash hands after. It seems low risk. But who knows. We do our best. But like everyone else we can still get sick.

Pregnant women are much more likely to end up on a ventilator if we get COVID-19. I would very much prefer to not end up on a vent in my third trimester or ever. I’m scared now, a bit, but being as careful as I can be. I have only a handful of in-person doctor’s appointments left. I’ll go and wear my mask and try to stay far away from other humans and hope I can stay healthy. I worry about what happens when I go to the hospital to give birth. I worry about wearing a mask while in labor when I am already panicked and finding it hard to breathe. I worry about looking at every nurse and doctor who helps me while in the hospital and wondering — do they have COVID? What if I get COVID while in the hospital? Should I have a home birth? Should I get to the hospital so late I give birth in the parking lot and am close enough if anything goes wrong they can whisk me or baby inside and save our lives? What if I get sick at the hospital and die a few weeks later, leaving my kids with no mom? What if I get my husband, who has some high risk medical conditions, sick and leave my kids without a dad—and me without a husband?

But I keep reminding myself pregnancy is a risk in and of itself. Everything in life is risk. So I just need to be as careful as possible, keep calm, and carry on.

I mourn all the things I am missing out on this pregnancy. There has been little time to celebrate my growing bump. I am sad for the weeks ahead, after birth, when I can’t connect with other new mothers as I did last time. I worry for all the pregnant woman and new moms who are essential workers—or married to one—who aren’t able to lock themselves away from the virus.

Overall I, personally, am doing well. My concentration has gone to shit these past few months, but I’m surviving. After a few solid months at work when I was doing well, I came crashing down with the exhaustion and anxiety that is life these days. I keep reminding myself that just surviving—and doing the best I can (as long as I can keep my job, hopefully)—is enough right now. Gone are my fantasizes of thriving in my career, moving up the ladder, what have you. I can be a good employee and a mom and I don’t have to be a leader or brilliant or whatever it is that is worker bees think equals success. I am in a very good place if I can just hold it together mentally, and physically. I can have this baby and experience all of that and see what life looks like on the other side of it.

For now, I’m so grateful for the last months, for working from home and being able to see my son grow up. I didn’t see him much in his first year. I don’t have time or energy now to see him as much as I would like in a more present way, but I’m here nonetheless. I’m here to see him wake up and for a quick lunchtime cuddle and afternoon laugh. This has reminded me of how much I was missing. It really had made me realize what matters in life. In a sense, I think there is something to be said about being forced to hole up and slow down. And, assuming WFH will stick for a while, I look forward to being able to breastfeed longer versus having to sneak away to the mom’s room to pump every few hours. To not have to drive to the office in those first months after maternity leave when I almost got into an accident too many times to count because who sleeps with a <6 month old?

So I’m focused on the positives. And survival. And trying to move on to this next home-owning, mom-to-two, mentally stable (hopefully) phase of my life. I’ll do my best, but for the first time in my life, maybe I won’t give it my all. And I’m ok with that.

Mental Health

Let’s Write a Happy Post

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Let’s Write a Happy Post

It has been a rough… I don’t know… nearly 37 years. But compared to most 37 year stretches of human life it’s been good. Solid. Not so bad.

The challenge is slowing down and not feeling like I have to prove something. I don’t even know what I want to prove (other than, at this point, that I can consistently pay my mortgage for the next 30 years), but I think I’m finally letting go of this innate drive to be somehow special. Even over the desire to be recognized for being a proper cog. And a good mother. Not an amazing one or anything. Just a standard, run-of-the-mill, cares about her kids mom who occasionally treats herself to a (post covid) mom’s night out.

Aging is tough. Not just my own aging but experiencing everyone else go through it. Knowing 40 is just around the corner. Watching my mother having 70 around the corner. Still feeling sore from the midnight call two years ago, a week after giving birth, and in a bit of a delusional state to begin with, when I was informed my father passed away. Being concerned about other family members every time they feel ill as youth no longer is on their side and statistics suddenly look less promising.

Oh, but I promised to write a happy post, didn’t I? Well. I don’t know if happy is the right term but I feel rather satisfied that I managed to make it possible to purchase a home. Yes, there was some luck involved, but even more so tenacity and semi frugality and years of saving and investing and wondering if I might possibly ever have enough to buy something remotely worth buying. And despite my mental health challenges, my ups and many downs, I’ve done it. I am a home owner.

In home ownership, I also feel like I made and continue to make a lot of good decisions. In a high cost of living area the price tags on houses are insane, as are the monthly mortgage payments. But I’m happily welcoming my in law to share our new home, and with his contributions can also keep the monthly payment down enough to make me a tad bit less worried about losing the house if SHTF. We didn’t buy the cheapest house, but we definitely didn’t extend ourselves anywhere near what the bank was offering. The home, while not the cheapest house on the street, still seems to have potential for value growth. I feel like after 2+ years of looking, and finally compromising on the location quite a bit, we made the right choice. I made the right choice. A smart choice. A grown up one. And one that is going to be good for my family.

And while I’ve been pushed out of a role I aspired to be suited for at work, it is for good reason. It’s not a good fit. And what’s amazing is that I’ve been able to prove myself in another, tangential role, where I probably fit a lot better. And I’m being given a chance to really thrive in that position. Despite being sad my ADHD self couldn’t manage a seriously complex and collaborative role requiring equal parts project management excellence, influence building, and broad expertise, I am grateful and relieved to be off that boat, for the time being, and put on one where perhaps I’m not clogging leaks left and right all while trying to steer the ship safely to shore. I miss all the icebergs.

On paper, I’m incredibly lucky on so many levels. In real life, I am too. I’ve acquired some likely lifelong friends this year, successfully connected two good friends with each other across the county and now they’re in the middle of a fledgling romance that seems like it actually may stick. And for the most part I’ve turned the incoherent and at times terrifying energy of last year into something(s) productive and good this year.

I wish I could say I feel stable and life is just swimming along smoothly. It’s anything but. But. I’m starting to get into the grove of things, I guess. Of being a mom. An employee. A creative/ish. A near-40 nobody who can still be everything to my family. As my aspirations shift from stardom to all my loved ones surviving the next 5 years (and our country not falling into a devastating civil war), I find new stressors that are perhaps more real (and stressful) but at least make me feel somewhat sane to stress about. I’d take a do over of the last 12 months if I could have one—but since I can’t, I have to applaud myself for getting through whatever that was and for being able to be on the other side of it. I wouldn’t say I’m stable but I’m at least not presently captain and crew on a sinking ship.

Mental Health

Trying to Detach and Reattach

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Trying to Detach and Reattach

“Should we donate all of dad’s suits,” my mother asks on Facebook. It’s a simple question, but it strikes a nerve. Dad died two years ago. Hoarder mom is trying to work with a friend to go through all of the items in her northeast home virtually, as she’s stuck in her “snowbird” Florida condo all summer due to the risk of traveling in a pandemic. My mother, who yesterday had a 5 minute argument over whether or not to throw out an empty bottle of eyeglass solution, had no inkling of concern about getting rid of all of my father’s suits. Which, at surface level, is the right way to act about suits (and empty eyeglass solution bottles.) But my parent’s traumatic relationship, lack of empathy, years of domestic violence and pain just sit heavy with me. I know I need to let it all go, but I’m stuck. And like my mom’s 5 minute argument about whether to keep the empty bottle, I posed the question — should we keep one of the suits?

I asked my mom — what was his best suit? Can we keep the one he wore to my wedding?

“That was the one he was buried in.”

“Oh,” I responded. I’m pretty sure I knew that but I forgot in the way I forgot everything about his death because it was all too painful. I immediately experienced a flashback to seeing his corpse at the funeral–even though Jews aren’t supposed to see the body at funerals–because my non Jewish aunt convinced my mother that one should put something important in the coffin before he is buried and I was curious and had never seen a dead person and felt like maybe it would provide me closure or something or I don’t know and Catholics do it all the time so what harm could there be, so I brought my week-old son’s little frog cap and put it on his shoulder and looked at him for a second as the funeral home filled up with my father’s friends and family and acquaintances and I didn’t know whether to let my gaze linger for as long as possible — the last time I’d see my father ever — or to look away, knowing that the image would forever be burned into my mind anyway, and it wasn’t like he was about to move to change the scene…

Death of a parent is hard for everyone. It is especially hard growing up in a home where things that didn’t matter were clutched on to with such passion — a parent who cares more about the loss of an empty glasses cleaning container than the loss of a life, or the feelings of a daughter. My mother has been through a lot, and much of her lack of empathy I think is in response to all of it. A defense mechanism. I didn’t know her when she was young. Maybe she was different then. It’s hard to say. My father too. He had hopes and dreams once. He was always cynical and fact-driven and probably thought he was right in 100% of the arguments he was having even as a young child, but maybe once upon a time he wasn’t so bitter and angry. Apart, they cared mostly about themselves and had the ability to lead reasonably happy lives. Together, it was fuel on fire. Daily.

So you’d think I would want to get rid of my childhood home–a home that stores all of those memories. A home I haven’t lived in now for nearly 20 years, despite visiting often. It’s time to let her go. Yet just like my parents, I find myself more attached to the physical object that is the home and furniture in it than people. My childhood home is a person, with her own feelings and needs and wishes. My home was what comforted me and hugged me on all those long days and nights when I felt otherwise alone. Nothing was stable in my life except those walls. While the house has gone through some updates since I lived there, my own childhood bedroom is largely the same. The same lilac and off white wallpaper I picked out when I was seven, although now ripped in spots. The same Ethan Allen furniture my father purchased for a seven year old that the seven year old quickly destroyed (and I never heard the end of that.) The same view out the window of a huge verdant backyard and thousands of tall trees that would sway violently in summer storms. The power line that swooped elegantly across the backyard close to the trees, the temporary home to many birds who stopped by to visit. And stumps where other trees — like the tall pine trees and apple trees were slaughtered.

A house is just a house. And I can’t get back to the house now for who knows how long. It will likely be sold before I can. I’m not sure if going back to say goodbye would help at this point. In the same way I saw my father in a bad state in June and a slight recovery before I had to catch my flight back to California, only to find out his passed in August, so too may be my final goodbye with my home. I at least got to spend many years going back to visit it. I even had my son back once to run around, though he won’t remember that. I had hoped for many years visiting with my children, trips to their grandparents on the east coast, the comfort of that home, the warmth of seeing my new family experience the best of the house.

My father at least would have see the value in that. He cared about that house too. He put more money into it than one ever should have, in buying very nice furniture and adding on a family room and fixing up the bathrooms in ways that made little sense for resale value but met his own unique aesthetic taste. My mother has no attachment to the home, only the stuff in it. Only to empty eyeglass cleaning fluid bottle, and the papers upon papers that have been saved over the years — magazines and coupons and lose sheets where she jotted down notes. And hundreds of books and toys with missing pieces which she can’t bare to get rid of because she wants my children to have them. A hundred thousands pieces of my and my sister’s childhood mixed in with just about anything else you can think of – likely more empty glasses fluid containers.

I’d like to go back to the house once more to do a serious pass of my own stuff. Every time I went back I went through my things a bit, but never effectively. It was too much emotionally do deal with. I am a hoarder too, though I recognize it so try not to acquire a lot of things that I know will be hard to part with for no good reason. I buy makeup because I have no emotional attachment to it and it’s easy to get rid of. Clothes are harder, but I’m learning to become less emotionally attached to them. It helps that my life has no important events in it anymore, so I have few clothes that store memories in their threads, outside of what I wore when I gave birth to my son and my wedding dress, which after nearly 4 years I’ve failed to have cleaned and packed up appropriately.

For my own life, I am struggling because I do not have a home. I am looking to buy a home and the process is triggering due to what home means to me in the first place. Knowing the only home I’ve known as home is slowly dying. Looking around at my apartment and seeing not a home but a temporary place of shelter. Visiting potential homes to buy and thinking how we probably wouldn’t want to stay there forever, how they might be an acceptable starter home, but how long term, if financially possible, we’d want more space. So the home, even if we owned it, would also be temporary. Would it become too hard to let go? Or would it always feel temporary, like this apartment, and all the apartments I’ve lived in since I moved out of my home at 17? If my own home is sold and gone, maybe I could build a new home. Maybe the memories of the past would fade. Much like my father who I still remember very much alive, I’ll remember my house with her lilac wallpaper and the yard and the feeling of the wet grass under my feet and the dirt under my knees as I planted a dozen plants I purchased each year at the school plant sale despite being the world’s worst gardener. As long as I’m alive, those memories will never die.

And I know I need to let the house go. Much like my mom needs to let her random empty bottles of glasses cleaner that she might one day use to pour fluid from bigger bottles into go. I realize, intellectually, life isn’t about things, but about experiences, about moments, about what happens in any given day. I don’t need to be in a house or touch an old suit to make those memories any more valid. And there are some things in my life I’d probably be better off forgetting. Starting over. But it’s scary and sad and despite being 36 I don’t feel any more ready to let any of it go. I know soon I won’t have a choice. The only choice I have is in my own life. In the home I make for my family. In the decisions I make every day. My childhood is over. It’s long over. And, even if my mother cannot let the things in the house go, I need to break free of that house that provides a false sense of security. Nothing is every truly owned. Not even a house. The land is rented. It was never ours. The only thing that is ours is what we choose to remember.

Mental Health

Undoing.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Undoing.

Where I am right now, finally, I guess, is willing to accept that childhood trauma can and does impact the brain in ways that are chemical and physical. I’m talking to a new online therapist who has a history working with those who have far worse trauma then I’ve ever experienced, I find she immediately understands why I think the way I think, and it’s refreshing to not be fed the same basic CBT lines without a solid understanding of the way I react so sensitively to everything and why.

Maybe it’s not bipolar. That’s a self diagnosis that could be wrong. I’m just looking for something to explain this energy and all of my mistakes, and specifically how there are months where I am clearly depressed and others where I feel like I can take on the world’s biggest challenges and solve them by being so raw and real that people will be inspired and turn to exploring their own psyches and find out that we are all pretty much the same in our bitter-beautiful mortality.

And yet.

There is a problem with how I am. A problem not with who I am but the consequence of it. I am, apparently, an adrenaline addict, which is a thing childhood trauma and PTSD can do to a brain. I’ve been using the word “addict” a lot to describe my challenges so it makes sense.

In my preliminary reading on the subject matter — attachment disorder with adrenaline addiction — I feel myself nodding as I read the content. Basically stable life is boring and I crave chaos. I create chaos. Others do not understand this. I don’t really want chaos but it is an addiction. It is that self sabotage that happens over and over again because I’m way more comfortable with turbulence than smooth skies.

This is something, I’ve read, that is etched into my mind, but that can be mostly unwired. I hope that’s true. Because the gist of it is that the things that today have the potential to make me “happy” are the same things that trigger my next demise.

I’m told I should go jump out of airplanes to fill this need for adrenaline, but I’m not the skydiving type. But one can also do things like performing or running (30 seconds beyond feeling like you can’t run anymore) to get that dopamine in healthy ways. That makes sense—I’m happiest when I am regularly exercising because I’m burning through some of the addiction cravings temporarily. Once my back issues are resolved I’ll be making exercise a priority. I already planned to in 2020 but now it’s part of my treatment plan.

I really wish I could know what it’s like to live without any history of trauma, and can only imagine how hard it is for others who experienced far worse. I feel like somewhere in all of this there is a guidance to my future career as a therapist/author, maybe, helping others with similar pasts and making sure they understand that their brains have been altered from a young age, they are not crazy, they are just addicted to things that are not healthy in that they impact the chance to be truly happy and stable, if that’s what they want.

In the meantime, this adrenaline junkie has to stop with the involuntary self destruction and find motivation to strive for the status quo. I think my new online therapist will help me with tactics that work for PTSD which will hopefully alleviate my cravings for the ugly high of self combustion.

And, I think it is fall-winter too, that triggers the worst of it. Historically so. The fall winter turbulence followed by deep winter depression and by spring I’m ready to pick up the pieces but it’s far too late. Maybe because it’s my birthday and every year I got older the expectations to fit into this idea of the perfect little girl grew exponentially. All I remember from childhood outside of feeling like an outsider, longing to be accepted by others, is getting into trouble, being whipped, and apologizing for being a horrible, broken person. I’m pretty sure that isn’t everyone’s childhood experience.

And I relate only to those with similar childhoods, it seems—the high functioning of us, anyway. Those of us who rebelled against it. Because we want more than this and yet we aren’t sure if happiness is actually achievable in a state of stability. We have the choice between medicating away the highs that drive us (to both the good and the bad) and experiencing the flatline of emotions, or we try to get a handle on the madness etched into our minds with every gaslight comment, every burning snap of the belt against our flesh, every moment that took away our confidence and our understanding of who we truly are or how to make that person happy.

I guess it starts with accepting that SHE (he) deserves to BE happy. Not in an epic, adrenaline-inducing, self destructive sort of way, but in a calm filled with gratitude and acceptance that transcends the day and becomes a natural part of being way. There is a path to recovery and I’m going to find it. I will undo the toxic mind and somehow give birth to a woman who respects herself and believes she is worthy of her own happiness. And, that, ideally, happiness need not be synonymous with emptiness and instead actually, somehow, feel good.