Tag: selfworth

The Princess and the Pea

As we say around here #BeYou #BeReal #BeExtra. Only when we are allowed to fully be ourselves can we find peace.

There are so many things that I have joked about in this lifetime that are turning out to be core truths about who I am and how I relate to the world. from “like all things I swing both ways” (hello bipolar/bisexuality) To “I’m a delicate f*cking flower” (Hello sensory processing sensitivity) It has also come into my understanding that the very things I feel shame over and have been ridiculed for are part of the very nature of my being. (OH wow self-worth much?) This is the basis for so many of our anxieties, for our depression, and certainly our unhealthy coping mechanisms. In the world of neurodiversity we refer to hiding our traits as masking (or camouflaging) . Coming to recognize that the stranger, the very things we are hiding away from others and ourselves, that is our inner truth, our inner voice. We’ve silenced so much of ourselves for so long, sometimes not on purpose but out of trauma, that we don’t even know ourselves, that is the feeling of unrest and discomfort that too many of us feel.

For me specifically this is my sensory/sensitivty levels. We didn’t have words for Sensory Processing issues when I was a child, heck we barely talked about ADHD or even spectrums of autism. Being born in the late 60’s I was in elementary school in the 70’s and to top it off I was in Catholic school – there was definitely no room for individuality in those halls. What I do remember more than anything is being bullied and teased for being shy, withdrawn, and SO SENSITIVE. It was said to me like a curse – you are just so sensitive. Too sensitive. And I learned to see it as a moral failing, a weakness, an assassination of my character. My mother gave to me a love of musical theatre and she introduced me to the fairy tale of the “princess and the pea” via “Once Upon a Mattress” and would call me Winnifred, later in life we have come to refer to me as a “delicate f*cking flower” because I can feel things, hear things, and definitely smell things that others can’t yet I’m tough and loud and brash. (spoiler alert I LEARNED to be those things to mask my too sensitive self.) Life has been, if nothing else, an assault to my senses from day one. It’s exhausting. Gee I wonder why I have chronic fatigue (my “shocked” face)

Princess Winnifred Just can’t get a good night’s sleep

These days we also refer to my nose as the “super sniffer” (thanks Gus from Psych) but it’s not always cute in my life. It means when you use bounce on your clothes and I’m near you I get a headache and sometimes sick to my stomach. I am overpowered and smell things that others can’t,I’m like a canary in a coal mine all day every day, and honestly I thought I was losing my mind until an episode of castle taught me that hyperosmia is a real thing. (played by the ever glorious Stephnie Weir) Yeah I have genuinely lived my life presuming I was a bit crazy because no one else seemed to be troubled by the smells (sights, sounds, touch, emotions of others). I even inadvertenly self medicated as a smoker for years because that killed my smell and sometimes I still miss that part. Although once I got smoke free and could smell the smoke it is one of the most hated smells and I can smell it from 100 paces on you and everything you own – even if you have washed, breath minted, and spritzed. Sure the average person can smell strong smells, but I smell the faded ones and they effect me greatly. But the problem isn’t really the smelling or hearing that the TV is on, or the buzz of lights, or the way that lights hurt, or the fact that I can read a facial expression that no one else even saw – no it’s how people treat those of us who are more sensitive, that’s the real problem. Like we are making it up, or we need to “toughen” up. Knowing now that I literally feel different from other people is helping me get in touch with my true nature and rather than suppressing my feelings and reactions I’m learning to process them. (If you want to know more learn about HSP or SPS this person’s story is very similar to mine) I used to believe I was an “empath” but I now see that was just part of my sensitivity combined with hyper vigilance born of trauma. (spoiler alert a lot people are dishonest and think they are hiding their true feelings but some of us see that shit)

Trying to fit in is literally killing people. Want to understand the rise of auto-immunity, chronic fatigue, mental health issues? Take a look at how a faster, louder, brighter world is effecting 15-20% of us. It’s a evolutionary gift in the right circumstances but in a modern world it can be a real curse. Finding your place has to consider what works for you! Everyone has a sensitivity, I truly believe this and we beat it out of our children (especially our AMAB children), we cookie cutter it out of us in schools, we lose our super powers by seeing them as inconvenience or as wrong and “not normal”. But it’s our sensitivities, our uniqueness that guides us that makes us, well US. So the next time you feel you have to hide who you really are ask if that person, place, or activity is worth it. As we say around here #BeYou #BeReal #BeExtra. Only when we are allowed to fully be ourselves can we find peace. We are killing the very things that are our gifts. The world needs your love of your special interest (Hello Greta Thunberg) it needs your sensitivity. When we get in touch with that Inner Voice we can change the world and find happiness. Let’s stop chasing other people’s happiness and find our own. (spoiler alert you may need to unlearn some BS and you may need help, but that’s OK, listen. you know your truth. We just have to find a way to accept it and embrace it) End the epidemic of self-loathing that fuels so much hatred.

Motorcycle rallies and Grand Canyon stopovers (as the origin story turns)

Bottom line? I was a grieving, masking, pretending, smiling, joking MESS. To say I was sensitive would be laughable in it’s understatement.

UGH. Just ugh. My therapist assures me that feeling these feelings is what I need, but dear lord it is painful and difficult. I feel like I’m crawling through mud. But let’s maybe do a quick and dirty run down.

After my suicide attempt (which I’ve come to learn was less about death and more about not having enough emotional coping mechanisms this is food for thought for everyone) I rallied like a proper bipolar, celebrating with some great unsupported, unexplained bouts of hypomania wherein I declared I was cured and took off to “Thunder on The Tundra”. A motorcycle rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin to “clear my head” and “get back to normal”. Now remember I was on a BRAND new prescription of Seroquel. But hey hypomania/mania is not know for its logic. That rally was where I got my lip pierced. Rode a three-wheeler for the first time. And continued the tradition of spreading Rob’s ashes at a new body of water on the 9th of every month. There was actually a beautiful moment where many of the other bikers rode in formation to a waterfall and were with me when I left a little Rob there. It was symbolically, for me, experiencing things with him that we would never get to do on this plane of existence. At one point I had the poem, picture, and place for each month of that first year burned into my memory, but even that has faded and now just a few of the more memorable ones remain. (hey would you just look at this, I started writing and it got easier.) The rally had it’s ups and downs, I was struggling to be “normal” and those times were filled with booze, the worst self medication tool I had. (I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been w/o alcohol or w/the same kind of access to cannabis as an alternative) Bottom line? I was a grieving, masking, pretending, smiling, joking MESS. To say I was sensitive would be laughable in it’s understatement. So at the end of the rally feeling keenly the loss of the distraction and having a group of people leave without me because I over slept sent me into a bit of tailspin. I dumped the rest of seroquel down the toilet and took off solo to “explore” (IE drive aimlessly and seek some questionable distractions until the money ran out) I came home and quit my job and decided to move and leave my kids. At this point I had decided that maybe me dying wasn’t great but certainly being in my children’s lives was not helping them so I arranged for the twins to go live with their dad and his new wife, and for Lyra to move with her dad as well. It seems when I need to get my life on track my first instinct is to slough off anyone or anything that relied on me. The truth is I felt unreliable. I often felt that people would be better off without me. I am sure it seemed selfish and narcissitic yet it came from more than any one single straighforward reason. In hindsight I see it for the Flight and Freeze response that it was. I have been overwhelmed so much of my life. I’m learning now about sensory issues, autism, HSP, c-ptsd and so many other ways of understanding how life can truly effect each of us so differently. But back then? I just panicked, I just reacted purely out of a survival mode coping mechanism. At this point in the story I think a lot of people felt the kids would be better off without me, again. So it seemed reasonable to move close to mom and “start over fresh” (what a ridiculously naive sentiment LOL) and so it was that I packed up my belongings for one of the many times I ran away in life, and took off on my motorcycle to move to Arizona. On the way I stopped to visit my younger brother, who was living in the Grand Canyon at the time, aka the island of the misfit toys, and there a whole new f*ed up chapter of my life could begin. The infamous brief “stopover” that would turn my life into a new brand of self destructive behavior. I think we’ll start there next time, because this is leaving me a bit depressed. To really and truly examine the drama created by self defeating behavior is not an easy pill to swallow.

I think it might be important to note that at this time I had gone on to get my teaching certification in several forms of yoga and had even briefly run my own studio, before I had my suicide attempt this will later matter to the whole picture of recovery. So when you hear me get super agro about the cult of positivity and the harm of repressed emotions you’ll understand the depth of my experience.

Silencer – Rediscovered Poetry

Words that pierced my heart….

This is a “one-shot” poem from Feb. 2021 – I occasionally will go through the process of writing by way of stream of consciousness. No editing except formatting. It’s always interesting to run across them. Sometimes I need to hear what I was feeling. It’s always a bit stunning that you can forget something so deeply. Like, I wouldn’t have even known that I wrote this if I had stumbled across it unlabeled. It’s a pretty deep truth that struggles to stay surfaced. Working on not silencing myself everyday ❤

Silencer

Words that pierced my heart

Early

Often

Always sung in melodic harmony

Transfixed

Transformed

Words that Voices Never Shared

No One Dared

Silenced

Like a haunted theme

Of deepest

Fear

Never shared never heard

No one

Listening

Screaming Wailing Reaching

Cried

Begged

Pounding on glass

Muted

Stifled

Finally realizing it was

Always me

Silencing

Always me

Silenced

The only one I needed

Hear me

See me

Heal me

It has always been

Me

Previously On…Bipolar Days

I’ve felt it my whole life. This slightly asynchronous feeling coupled with that feeling that I really was just more trouble than I was worth. I used to agree.

When last I left off telling my partial “origin” story I had just left the psyche ward in Aurora, Colorado. It left a lot of people scarred and further divided me from people. I get this feeling that I’m just too much to handle for most people. That can wear on a person. I’ve felt it my whole life. This slightly asynchronous feeling coupled with that feeling that I really was just more trouble than I was worth. I used to agree. It made me so very needy. With absolutely zero boundaries and a chip on my shoulder that helped me with my self-fulfilling prophecy of being a burden that someone would eventually dump, like that fixer-upper project that took more time than you realized. BUT I see some things now that I never saw while I was kneck deep in all my trauma. I kept people at arm’s length while simultaneously lying to them. Not lying on purpose, but lying through masking.

When I’m in an up mood I can seem AHHHHMAZING. Fabulous. The life of the party. But sadly this wears off and one is left with a husk, a dried out, sad, and very difficult person to get moving again. I start out seeming to be this optimistic bright shiny star, that is independent and strong, and caring, and OH so giving. (PS I am all those things it’s not a total lie it’s just NOT SUSTAINABLE) and I spent my whole life trying to hide a complete side of myself. It didn’t help that when that side comes out most people cut and run further embedding the “truth” that I had to hide in the first place. I think I read too many books or saw too many movies because deep down I wanted to be rescued. I’ve waited my whole life to be rescued. But instead, I rescued others my whole life. (MAN I’m getting emotional writing this. Guess it’s a good place to be working but when I get like this I feel like I want to come out of my skin and it is SO hard to keep going)

Me trying to move past my brain gremlins and those pesky FEELINGS

Grrrrr—- See I felt unworthy so I drew to myself people who I thought were like me. Struggling. Figuring they would understand but time and time again what I got was someone who wanted to be rescued and had NO interest in mutual rescuing. In hindsight, it was a little unfair. I didn’t mean to present people with false hope. It’s just literally getting 2 people (at minimum) for the price of one. as I type though I realize I was also generally masking almost all of my true feelings and emotions. There’s the manic me, the depressed me, the REAL me and then the amalgamation I would present to people in an attempt to seem normal. Big air quotes on that “normal”, I still overwhelm and irritate a vast majority of the populous. I’m awesome when I’m teaching my enthusiasm and kookiness are great in that arena. I’m super duper in short doses…but over the long haul, you gotta really love the roller coaster ride. The difference now is I know I’m worth it. So I stopped looking to be rescued (but I’d still take a monthly stipend LOL or a lotto win :P) and that was the first step to true life change. Sure I still sometimes look at people and think HEY someone takes care of them. Someone stayed by their side and was kind when the going got tough, but I know now that so much of that is an illusion. I had the kind of love that someone accepted me fully so I know it’s possible, to honour that love I’m trying to remember what that felt like and be the one to give all that forgiveness, acceptance, support, and love, to myself. OH, but we aren’t there yet. We have yet to live through the total regression. We made it through the first year post-Rob – when Sh*t Got Weird – That year was topped off by the “Cuckoo’s Nest” story but I was just getting started. I guess next up is motorcycle rallies and Grand Canyon stopovers. What a ride indeed.

ephemeral

Just some rambling thoughts as I navigate the ups and downs of treating my bipolar moods.

I have found myself feeling dried up again. Once again engaged in the never-ending battle of swell and recede. I’m like the tide. Endlessly waxing and waning – I guess that makes sense the tide and the moon being inexorably connected and they mirror my moods. Mercurial. Capricious. Inconstant. Why does nature get to ebb and flow and be called beautiful, powerful, mysterious…and I am fickle, a flibbertigibbet, a flake.
Chasing my tail wanting nothing more than to find some consistency, some peace…yet my mind swings so intensely from one state of being to the next. It’s exhausting sleeping alone and still not knowing who you are going to wake up with. I have dredged up so many things and the emotions weigh me down.
I feel stuck again. Chocked on the memories. I can feel the walls in my spirit slamming into place. And the same old fears start to rise up – there is no hope. You can’t be stable. You aren’t bipolar you just need to focus more, you just need to be more motivated…The voices of childhood haunt me, chasing me down not letting me feel hope, not letting me believe…
I ride the waves that are my moods and never know where I will land. I’m trying to find the truth, the real me w/in the shifting tides.
In the liminal spaces, I know the true me waits, hoping to be freed at last.
I keep pressing forward. This note a testament to how my brain shifts and changes, how my whole way of being transforms. It’s like living with a stranger.
Distracted. Dissociative. Divided.

And I was so enjoying the ability to write for a bit – it feels lost. But Julia Cameron tells me to “fill in the form” So I’m writing, not so it will be good, but so I can practice. I’m writing to create, not to impress, or to gain anything other than the practice. I’m writing because I need to write. My thoughts spilling out onto the page for no other purpose than to exist.

I fight the fears, the shame, the pesky perfectionist voice that says I’m embarrassing myself. Because shame is a prison. Fear a coping mechanism. I fight the urge to give up because I know the tide will come in again. The mood will change. I will wish I hadn’t given up when the brain shifte. Never give up, never surrender.

I’ll live to write more of the story another day. My bipolar warriors we can ride the waves, we can survive the full moons, we can keep going during the darkness. Life is an ebb and flow our work then is to learn to surf it better. We learn by practicing. Today I beat back the demons. No day but today.

Ephemeral.

Photo 74839377 © Max421 | Dreamstime.com

“self-help” requires a team people

I know I’ve been writing mostly back story, my origin story if you will. But I read this piece on The Mighty today that really reminded me of my experience and I feel compelled to write about the good that is happening for me in the here and now, and how much privilege is involved in being able to get the proper help and why we, as a society, are actually really really awful to anyone who isn’t “normal” enough. I mean we are terrible and awful. But I digress. Let’s start with me.

I am currently not working. Between my mental health, physical health, and taking on the caregiving of my mother with dementia it has been impossible. I’ve been unemployed for 3 years now. The first year was all about hospital visits and surgery recovery with my mom. I wasn’t even home but living with her and that whole saga is another post altogether LOL…but, after awhile, we moved her back to California and bought a house with her divorce settlement so we could have some security and I could take care of her properly. That was about 2 years ago. It took some time to settle in and I started to think about going back to work but needed something flexible, and at home so I started building my own Voice Over business. I found I have a talent for it, I love it, BUT sadly I did not have the stamina or stability to run my own business successfully. Sure I was making strides yet I could see how I would struggle to be available for sessions, I had to cancel so many things because sometimes even my voice will change depending on where I was physically. I simply wasn’t ready. Additionally having to be there for mom and her medical care was time-consuming. It was too much for me to handle. Yet I was determined. First, I thought it was just me being scared and lazy. So I started and ran sessions of The Artist’s Way for a year – which led me to even create my own process The Way of Your Inner Voice and that helped me move past a lot of mental/artistic blocks. I was opening up creatively, I was starting to feel again, I even started to have hope. But that’s when I hit wall after wall mentally and physically. So 9 months ago I made the decision to go all-in on making myself better. Facing my demons and my past and truly building a sustainable future. And 6 weeks ago it all finally came together where I could really dig in.

Here is where the privilege comes in. See, I live with my grown children and they help me. I have a support system. I live in California and I have Medi-Cal, Medicaid for indigent Californians. It has, quite simply, saved my life. It took nearly 16 months since getting on this insurance but I now have a TEAM of people that I am starting to trust. It was a process I started about the same time I started doing “The Artist’s Way”. At first, it was just all about my thyroid and fatigue etc, etc, but then I realized it was so much more (that was the 9 months ago mark when I knew I needed to face my mental health issues) It took months of PCP appointments, MONTHS of waiting for referrals, and then longer to get the appointments with specialists, and it took months of struggles on the phones and people driving me to said appointments. Hours in lines at pharmacies. It has taken a team, consistent insurance, and a lot of literal blood, sweat, and tears… And that was just to get started about 6 weeks ago to try out medication and start with my therapists (mental, physical, speech). None of that would have, nor has it ever been, possible to do while working full time. We expect too much of people already struggling. I think it’s why I’m so dedicated to working on myself right now. Because I absolutely understand and appreciate the mega shite tonne of luck and privilege I have right now to be able to do this work. I stopped everything else. I am dedicated to my morning pages. My meditation. My walks. but most importantly I am dedicated to riding out getting on medication and changing doses and all the side effects that process entails. Dedicated to fully communicating with my doctors and therapist about my progress. Faithful to my routines. Devoted to full honesty and transparency. And most importantly feeling all the feelings I haven’t had the time or energy to face before.

So yes there are sleepless nights, Yes we are poor AF as I have been denied disability and SSI several times (I don’t honestly understand) yes the medication has side effects and the therapy is painfully slow. But by hook or by crook I’m riding this particular wave to the end because it’s the best one I’ve seen in a long time. And although I won’t be able to cure anything or become a superhero, I know that this will set me up for success in a way that I have never had the chance to even hope for. I’ve been swimming against the tide and ignoring how the undertow has sucked me under time and time again so I’m learning to surf and building a better board (that metaphor took on a life of its own but I’ll allow it)

Because I’m done being ashamed of my struggles and I’m recognizing the absolute badassery of what I have managed with shackles and weights tied to my feet – imagine what I can do with just a little bit of support and time to recuperate. We all need time to heal. Hustle culture is deadly. Breathe deep. Find the spaces to heal. And if you see someone who can’t? express nothing but empathy. There are no damn bootstraps, hell there are barely boots for most people. Compassion begins with yourself.

Like a stone skipping across the pond

I chose pond because we are going to discuss Thoreau a bit today, as I discuss why I’m writing now. Why I have huge imposter syndrome in everything I do. Why imposter syndrome is so deadly and unnecessary, how it’s a form of perfectionism and comparison, and how both are the death of joy and progress. I might dally around the idea of creative writing, run-on sentences, eschewing grammar perfection, and my love of the humble ellipsis……and not caring how many periods I use in them. (OH MY JIBBERS CRABST NO THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH — so me LOL)

Anywho skipping stones… this actually came up with my Psychiatrist visit the other day. I told her how my life seems interesting and full from the outside and people often marvel at how many things I’ve done…but I realized not too long ago that it’s because I’ve been skimming the surface of life. Hopping, skipping, jumping from one thing to the next w/out ever really going very deep. OH sure at FIRST I’m going deep dive. Like that first stone that you try to skip hits the water and sinks…but after that initial dive? I’m off, it’s too much. Boredom sets in. Imposter syndrome sets (Yes it sets in before I even start it’s a whole thing, hey it’s why I’m in therapy LOL) She was already saying it before me – apparently, this is a whole bipolar AND ADHD thing. My whole life I’ve been called flaky, and a flibbertigibbet (OK admittedly I do talk A LOT) as I flit from one big thing to the next. I have a lack of sustainability. Little did I know that it was sort of baked into my brain chemistry. Generally, the pattern is GO ALL IN – realize MEH I don’t love it as much as I thought – Or more precisely -OH god this sucks or I’m not really that good at it or UGH you gotta be like 100% IN for this to be your thing… so I’m OUT. There’s more than bipolarness at work though. I also have a fear of intimacy and some serious issues about joining things. (My childhood in the catholic church made me feel like joining and believing things too deeply was SUSS as hell so I get itchy at any sign of over-identification with things) Heck, even things I love like SciFi I avoid going too deep lest it becomes an obsession. (what is that some sort of OCD reversal? def. something to ask the therapist about LOL)

So that is why I’m here writing.
1. because I’m trying to feel the feelings that my therapist says I’m avoiding. (it’s a skill to be this emotional and still not acknowledge about 80% of what’s really going on)
2. so I can actually go deeper. Having done “The Artist’s Way” a year ago and being on over 400 days of #morningpages I finally beleive I can go all in and not only not lose myself but find myself.
3. By giving up on perfectionism and comparison I am finally free to write and not care who reads it or what they think. I hope it reaches people and maybe even helps a few but it’s not why I write and that changes everything.
4. I used to not only correct but OBSESS about grammar and spelling…then I realized that is just ableism, classism, and honestly just judgy nonsense that keeps us from communicating freely. I know my writing is “terrible”, I don’t freaking care anymore my point is to share not be a great writer. And maybe by finally admitting that I might get better because now I’ll actually DO IT.

Be brave enough to suck at something forever and still do it is my new motto

Not going deep has made me feel perennially like an imposter, but I think it was really just my fear of not being good enough at anything and as always comparing myself to others. So here is where Thoreau comes in. I had recently joined the ranks of those who maligned him, sneering at his “roughing” it while his mom did his laundry and brought him sandwiches. But then I realized I was “throwing out the messages with the man” (it’s just as bad as the baby and the bathwater) I was angry because I had let his work make me feel bad… I had compared myself to him and found myself wanting. So when I found out it was partially a sham I was self-righteously angry. But as that cooled, I realized how freeing this is….everyone is a work in progress. And just as I’ve learned not to judge a message by its spelling or grammar I am learning not to judge a work on unrelated things. Thoreau never asked us to worship him, he simply made excellent observations and STRIVED to live as he wanted. He fell short but that still doesn’t negate some of his words and his wonderful writing. One can be inspired even if the author is imperfect. (OH lord there’s a whole thing there huh) Bottom line it wasn’t his fault I was using his work to belittle myself that was all on me…and I could instead learn from it.

Here is the FB post I wrote when I first learned about the problem with Thoreau :

In case you have imposter syndrome feelings. In case you worry that you aren’t “marching to your own drum” enough. Or that you need to sacrifice something.

Remember that the man we credit with some of these thoughts was basically an imposter, taking help from multiple people, including free labour from his mom….

No journey is done alone, and that’s FINE just remember that… and don’t be afraid to ask for support and help.

I guarantee you that ANYONE you admire or worship or aspire to be like was not fully the person you imagine, they were/are imperfect, and even if they had greatness they too had struggles.

Don’t just skip along afraid to go any deeper. Tell your story. I bet it’s at least as real and inspirational as this classic work. I won’t tear Thoreau down too much, because I think he was more like us than not. The key point is that even with all the not-so-great “truth” the book is still a wonderful and insightful read and much can be garnered from it. The same is true for the rest of us. How can we ever dare to greatness if we don’t start somewhere and stick with it?

#yourstorymatters #yourvoicematters and it’s ok to need help

Found Poetry Break – Aliens Anonymous

FB Post February 6th, 2021

Aliens Anonymous

I used to joke I was an alien

My earth suit malfunctioning

At every turn

Allergic to life I’d quip

But it was no honest laugh

It was always a cry

A call

A rope

Seeking purchase anywhere

It could find

I tied myself to lovers

Threw myself into jobs

Tethered myself to toxicity

Anything to feel alive

Life was lived from the outside

Separate and cold

I didn’t feel locked out

No it was me

Just unable to find

The way in

So disconnected

Barely able to feel

A raging inferno

Disconnected

I can’t even joke

That way anymore

I’ve found that I’m not

All that odd

There are so many of us

From every walk of life

Battered, scarred, forgotten

In Every dimly lit corner

Damaged, belittled, broken

From the richest to the

poorest , no race, nor creed,

nothing could stop

the damage that was

Being done

After years of hurting

Our souls retreating

we sometimes reached out

with hope, a tentative smile

only to be smacked down

again and again

we are not alien

we are not alone

we are simply hurting

It’s time to find our way home.

This concept is so embedded in my life that I named my future dream punk band Faulty Earth Suits of FESS for short LOL I even share my blog there because this whole mental health journey is about this FES 😛

And then sh*t got weird

The one where I describe the total cr*p fest that was the 18 months after my husband’s death.

TW: Suicide (I’m too worn out to make it pretty with memes and pics sorry for the wall of text)

After Rob’s death, I sunk down into a deeper depression than I had thought possible. The very act of living and feeling was like a knife in my brain. I didn’t want to feel or think about anything. I had a bit of luck in that my company underwent a merger and I was laid off – lucky because I surely would have lost my job anyway and at least this way I got a severance package. After the first month of binge drinking and living on anti-anxiety meds. I turned to yoga. When I say I “turned” to yoga, I mean like in a cultist way. That trajectory will be woven through some of this but it deserves it’s own examination so maybe one day I’ll do a series on how asana (yoga poses) saved me and then destroyed me. It’s a whole thing. But now it’s simply a thing I do to keep my hip from screaming and I believe meditation is one of the greatest gifts I took from being a yogi and a teacher. Again meditation deserves it’s own telling but that is for another time.

I get super into Core Power Yoga. I chose it randomly from an internet search because they had a location and schedule I could use. I went EVERY DAY, sometimes multiple times a day for months. Simultaneously I was living this duel life where I was partying with my motorcycle and Hashing groups. So I was living so bipolar it’s comical. I was split and needed constant distraction. But I thought I was “healed”. I was pretending. I got involved with a few different lovers very quickly as well… and that is where it got weird. I was playing in polyamorous couples, drinking, dabbling in drugs again (I had given them up after college) it was like I was at my worst manic stage from my 20s but coupled with a deep depression and accented with a lot dissociation and outbursts of anger.

I was still pretending that yoga had “cured” me of my grief. But I was secretly spiraling out of control. Then the money ran out and I had to go back to work. This was probably the beginning of the end for me because the stress of a new job, traveling, and trying to maintain my yoga practice (which might have been the only thing keeping me from joining the circus at this point) I was slowly unraveling. I looked like a super hero on the outside. But inside I was suppressing more and more. The yoga stopped being soothing and just became another place where I was pretending to be OK.

One of my relationships unravelled, it wasn’t shocking none of us had any business trying to be a thruple and I was ousted of the relationship. I was too vulnerable. Mind you this is less than a year from Rob’s death. I was in no way ready to move on but I felt I had to and I was DESPERATE to replace that love. DESPERATE. It was like I had a collapsing black hole inside me and I was trying to fill it with anything – wine, women, song! You name it I would have tried it. I travelled. I took Rob’s ashes to new places for that first year. I wrote a SHITE tonne of poetry. I pretended.

But when that tiny ray of light was doused when the third in my thruple said I had to go – I was crushed in a way that felt worse than the night robbed died. I just couldn’t stand to feel the things I was feeling. That black hole sucked me right in…After I was dumped. I, once again, pretended I was strong enough. I was fine. I went to a movie and dinner with my mom and assured her I was fine.

(Cue Morgan Freeman: She was, dear listener, not fine)

I went to bed with a glass of wine and lay down on Rob’s side of the bed. I saw his last crossword puzzle unfinished. I cleaned his glasses. I rummaged in the nightstand. And there they were. His pain meds – Oxycontin. I thought. Just one so I can sleep. I took one. Waited. I still felt. I still wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to die particularly, I just wanted things to stop for a bit. I wasn’t strong enough. I was failing. I was letting everyone down….I took another one.
Then I thought – F*ck it…and took a handful. Mind you washed down with wine. Then the panic set in. What if it worked and I never saw my kids again. What if this was it. I was conflicted.

It is fuzzy from there- I know I talked to someone on the phone. The cops were called. I had a gun pulled on me when they asked what I took and I reached for the pills in the nights stand. I woke up in the hospital. I saw my mom’s face.
I was transferred to the psych ward…Identified as BiPolar yet again…and that my friends is a story for another day. Because oof da. That’s a lot.

There is still so much shame. Sigh – but when I come back maybe we’ll talk about how sh*tty the psyche ward is and how we watched One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest when I got out.



Nothing as powerful as avoidance

This is the face of unresolved emotions. I know I want to talk about the time after Rob’s death. Need to even. It’s important in the evolution of how I arrived at this point of FINALLY dealing with me BEING bipolar. It was a time of yet another encounter with my bipolar diagnosis that I brushed off. It will be another decade of life that I pushed and pushed and felt my sanity and self-worth erode. Another terrible marriage/relationship choice. Another cycle of enthusiastically throwing myself into something and then running away. That chapter will give way to the early California years and the next diagnosis that came with the added – uhmm you are also like super ADHD and OCD. By the way you got some C-PTSD going on in there… Gurl you in danger.

I just create, destroy, and run. Wash – Rinse – Repeat. That my friends is a cycle of mental health, not a personality trait. (I mean who know what the actual personality is under all these masks)

And I can see with that perfect hindsight vision how close I’ve come to breaking the cycle and then the inciting incident or the complete overwhelm that happens and I slide backward.

Yet I think I can finally say that I know I’m not falling all the way back to the beginning. I can see the progress. The learning. And I suppose it’s why I’m finally here putting everything out there. Maybe I’ll tumble my way through all the malarkey flashback style for a few years and then put it together like a puzzle.

For now, I’m avoiding the grief post. I’m avoiding reliving what comes next and I can practically see my therapist’s raised eyebrow as she doesn’t have to say a word. She gets me, she knows I know. I know she knows I know…wait what was I talking about…. avoidance, oh yeah. I suppose the progress today is I am here writing even if it’s not 100% about what I want to talk about. Even if it IS dancing around the darkness I must traverse. The hurt, anger, and pain I feel somewhat obligated to carry. And good lord the truckload of regret for what I’ve done to my family and friends.

Instead since my grief post, I did this:

Instead of actually blogging/writing/processing I went on a clickup binge. LOL avoidance master!

At least it has the appearance of being productive. Even now I’m putting the pressure on myself to write every day – which of course I will struggle to maintain and then I’ll feel like a failure and then I’ll quit??? Well, that has been the past pattern. It’s hard to work through the hollow times. It’s hard to maintain hypo-mania levels of enthusiasm and it’s nearly impossible to slog through some of the deeper depressions and care about any of it. I’ve joked my whole life that “I am my own dichotomy” and “as with all things I swing both ways” — Hahahhahaaaaa… OH wait. #porquenolosdos ? Why not indeed.
I’ve always known the truth. Here’s hoping embracing it will finally bring lasting, sustainable change that leads me to the life I dream of and a way to heal the generational trauma that I so graciously passed on to my children.

My kids….