Letter to Myselves

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According to Mama. as a baby you were sweet and easy (it was not until you hit three that you turned into a diva meant for the stage). Equally a Mama and Daddy’s girl, you were also obsessed with your older sister Lori and Grandma McGinty, To the best of my ability I have determined that you were happiest when held, didn’t matter who, you just needed to be in someone’s arms. It is not lost on adult me that this was a trend that carried through your life – as though you only felt as real as the way other people loved you.

You wanted to be liked – needed to be loved so badly, you made yourself smaller and smaller emotionally while you grew bigger and bigger physically. You were a happy round baby, a rolly-polly toddler; even playing sports and swimming like a fish didn’t keep you from packing on the pounds. Always active and vibrant, I remember third grade with a vividness that sometimes feels like a fever dream. Wanting so badly to be accepted, to be “popular”, bending that chubby little body and too big personality into a shape that never felt right, or whole, or you.

It was a feeling that only got worse as you got older. Feeling so inherently other even with your friends because no matter who tries to see you, they can only see what you put forth. And as badly as you want to be loved you are sure if people see the real you they will not love you at all. You are about thirteen when you “fall in love for real”. Heartbreak is unavoidable because while you’re falling for him he’s falling for one of your friends. The thing you don’t see is how much he actually cares about you – because it isn’t in the way you want. Looking back now I can see how much he cared, and it makes me wonder how many other friendships, true, lovely, meaningful relationships you missed out on because you were so consumed with the idea of romantic others (seriously child put down the romcoms and romance novels, it’s not that deep).

Despite what 13 year old you felt, this will not be the greatest love of your life. – not even close. And as we near forty, it has dawned on me that the greatest love of your life is not even romantic. The thing that has saved you time and time again has without a doubt has been your real friends, They are the ones who have loved you through the storm. They are the ones who reiterate that though your size may fluctuate your value does not – which is something you still don’t completely believe but you’re working on it.

The older you get, sadly, you will still struggle a lot – with everything from abusive boyfriends to your sexuality. There will come a point that you even want to die – but the good news (though it might not have felt like it at the time) is you don’t.

Actually you’re going to want to die a lot – though your teens and your twenties. So this story Hollywood tries to sell you about those being the best years of your life is a total and complete lie. Utter fiction! You keep putting one foot in front of the other though. You keep breathing. You meet obstacle after obstacle and somehow keep it pushing. By the time you are 36 you are over 500 pounds. This is as much a coping mechanism as it is self punishment and having ready access to food. So. Yeah. The weight struggle never gets easier, the real blow though is that when your father gets cancer you’re in no condition to help care for him.

That whole time is complicated and has brought you to the belief that closure is a myth. The wound still exists you just learn (as you’ve learned many times before) that you exist around the wound. It never quite scars over but it does become less of a gaping chest wound (or you’re just really good at triage at this point, it could definitely be the triage thing). 

Anyway, 500 lbs. You (and society) shame you constantly. Shame yourself into surgery- bully you into believing it is the only option. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t – the jury is still out on that one given. You lose 70 lbs. or so which is exactly enough to give you the confidence you need to put yourself back out there, once again searching for that “missing piece”.

What you find is a snake in the grass with boundary issues. You put too much trust in too fast without a well thought out safety net and in October of 2023 your blooming season comes to a close all at once in a flurry of tears and self loathing. The world comes crashing down around you and the rose colored glasses come off to reveal all the red flags that just looked like flags before. 

You are bereft, inconsolable. This wound opens up old wounds and they demand to be felt all at once. They will not be denied.

You backslide, completely losing yourself and your progress. You gain back at least half the 70 that you lost (as much a form of self mutilation and punishment as anything else). You feel like a total failure – that you have let down everyone who ever stopped to believe in you for even a moment. You have betrayed their trust and good faith in you – this isn’t true of course, you’re just still learning to look back at your past chapters and not want to set the whole book on fire.

Surgery is not a pass/fail life lesson. You’re not going to be graded on it. It is a tool, a tool you can make use of or not. That choice is still up to you.

What you actually need to work on though, is the idea that who you are is not contingent on who is loving you or how heavy the scale says you are. It isn’t about your weight, your romantic other, or some set of false goods Madison Avenue has sold you about the girl who shrinks in size and is suddenly “worthy”. You need to learn to carry yourself with AUDACITY – the audacity to be who you are in the body you have while not asking for permission to take up space. 

In actuality, you are learning to be the person you needed when you wee younger.

You are learning that whimsy has more to do with keeping you young than skincare or eye creams or fad diets. You are learning to be happy but also that happiness is not a perfect state of being. It is moments throughout the day that you can find some sort of stasis. You are learning that nothing hurts more than you can bear because you’ve survived 100% of your hardest days. You are learning that you can exist in this skin – scarred though it may be, both physically and metaphorically. You have weathered every storm, lived through dozens of “unprecedented events” and you’re still kicking. 

Not only are you still kicking, you are trying to leave people better than when you found them. You’re trying to spread light and love and positivity while still holding space for and honoring your pain and anger because it’s all about the whole picture.

My hope is that when you look back at this letter in a few months or a year you still carry that idea and desire with you. My hope is that you learn  show yourself the same kindness and grace and love you so readily offer up to everyone else. But also BOUNDARIES. 

You get to set the price of admission to your life! You teach others how to treat you and while some people really do just suck you don’t have to allow them unfettered access to you and your peace. 

i hope you learn to speak to yourself the way you speak to those you love. I hope you learn to embrace yourself flaws and all – but even as I write this I find it a little funny that I have hopes for you because for so long I didn’t. I couldn’t! I was so busy trying to stay alive I couldn’t see past the end of my own nose (and suffering)…. but now even on the bad days the horizon seems so vast.

Life is short but if we’re lucky it is wife with enough space for all the versions of ourselves that have ever existed and those that may come to pass. 

On Faux Christians and Health Updates

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9:13 PM and I am just now sitting down at my laptop. Why you may ask? What busy and important things did I have to do today? The answer is literally nothing. Today was a day I wanted to lay in bed and disassociate for the whole of it… and that is mostly what I did this morning. I just laid there because I have this bee in my bonnet about something someone posted on something I posted on Facebook. This person does not matter in the grand scheme of things. They’re not important, they have no bearing on my life in the slightest. I have basically nothing to do with them – having completely forgot we were even Facebook friends in the first place and only remaining Facebook friends to keep from having people ask why I cut this cancer out of my life and having to go into the whole long story of how she wronged my family and is basically a moron. If you know the story, you know the story and the story might also be why I am so worked up over them taking the time to post something uninformed and stupid on my timeline.

See, I have no tolerance for bull anymore. I am tired of making nice with people I can’t stand just because we share some DNA or formative memories. But the thing that sticks in my craw about this whole situation is that for months and months – maybe years and years, I have been posting about my struggle, about everything I have gone through – the ups and downs and where that has left me emotionally. I have been painfully wholly honest about this journey that I’ve been on – from struggling to see doctors to the triumph of getting surgery, to now the fall out of not taking care of myself (last week’s doctor appointment didn’t go great, I’ll get into that later) and while I have been baring my soul this person has remained silent. No words of love, encouragement or acknowledgement of how I have struggled or the progress I’ve made. Nothing. But I post something that – while political is factually correct (something along the lines of America is not a Christian nation, it’s a nation where you’re free to be Christian) she comes out of pocket about how I’m wrong.

I talk about struggling with my mental health, I talk about being sexually assaulted, I talk about nearly dying after surgery (a fact I still struggle to come to grips with now) – literally nothing from this person. Not even those false offers of prayers and support. No, this person felt this was the hill to comment and die on. Why? If God is really all powerful, and you really believe he hears your prayers and answers them – if you genuinely believe in a loving “Christian” God you would remember that he said (paraphrasing here, my Matthew is a little rusty) “That which you do to the least of these, you do unto me”. So, where is your righteous servitude now? Where was the support, the guidance, the “love” they’re supposed to feel for their fellow man when I was posting about not only my triumphs but my struggles? Never mind the fact they believe DNA means more than anything else on the planet – so long as it serves to make them look good. The second someone challenges the “family” is the second they’re out – and having written all of this I realize now that I prefer my found family to at least half the people I share DNA with. They don’t claim me and I don’t claim them… and it doesn’t even upset me until they show up in my life spouting stupid bullshit – but their comments were beyond the pale, both ignorant and factually incorrect. Luckily i have a group of friends/family who were more willing than I was to get down in the mud and correct their foolishness.

Now onto last Friday and why I am made of bees this week. I knew that I was not taking proper care of myself. I knew I was self destructing and self sabotaging. I knew it… I was not prepared to come face to face with the consequences of my actions. In the good news column we have the fact that as much as I might have fucked up, my A1C is still better than good. It’s like a 5.3 I think (definitely less than 5.6 I can’t find my little print out with my numbers on it). I was so worried that I had let my numbers slip tremendously because I had been over indulging in coffee and carbs and you know all the things you’re not supposed to have after bariatric surgery. I was not taking care of myself – in part because I did not feel worthy of the love and care it takes to put into yourself after everything that happened in October. I had been slipping before that of course, dabbling in foods that weren’t approved for my post surgery life but October was really when I was like “to hell with everything, I hurt and food is the only thing that makes it feel even a fraction of an inch better.” I knew what I was doing. I knew there would be consequences. I knew but I couldn’t stop myself because I was in so much emotional pain and then the stress of the move, and just everything got to me… and even though I knew it was coming I was not prepared to see the numbers on the scale jump like that.

To add more issues into the mix my kidneys are spilling protein which like not good, right? My levels were so high they couldn’t even really measure them. The silver lining to this is it was the jolt I needed to get somewhat back on track. I’ve been doing better with trying to intermittent fast and making better healthier food choices even when I do “slip up”. I have examples but the last thing I need the internet to do is stomp all over whatever I’ve deemed progress so I won’t be sharing those little victories here. Let’s just say that never in my life have sweets lasted more than a day in my house and right now there is a box of them sitting in the kitchen I haven’t touched. I’ve also started up Factor again, which is nice because it’s keto friendly, heavy protein meals with acceptable veggies and they mostly keep me from wanting to snack all the time. I know right now I am being hyper vigilant because I am so freaked out about my kidneys and kidney issues run in my family, but I hope I’m not going so hard I burn myself out again and just give up. I know I have choices, I know I have options, but sometimes my brain likes to tell me I don’t. Sometimes my brain likes to be excessively cruel and mock even the small strides I make to better myself. Sometimes my brain is a straight up bitch to me to be honest. I would literally cry if I heard someone talking to someone else the way my brain talks to me.

Anywhoozle. Yesterday I had an appointment with my psychiatrist and he basically told me that while he understands I am struggling a lot right now, there isn’t anything he can do for me medication wise. In fact he took me off the Xanax completely because it’s for “acute panic” and I don’t have acute panic I have constantly all the time anxiety and he’s worried that it will become habit forming for me after so many years of use… and since I was only using it about once a week when the nightmares/sleep got bad he didn’t feel I needed to stay on it. I see his reasoning, I don’t know that I agree with his reasoning but I am going to do as he asks because I am assuming he knows more than I do. I am frustrated that it’s still a six to nine month waiting period to be seen for talk therapy. That is ridiculous. I know it isn’t his fault, but it’s just frustrating that his next best answer is “check into online clinics like betterhelp” – the only possible bright spot that I am not at all getting my hopes up for is that my former counselor is back in town at their clinic and might possibly have room for me on her roster – but according to my doctor I should have heard from them within 24 hours and it’s now almost 10 PM so I don’t think I’ll hear anything until Monday if then.

The state of mental healthcare in this country is a joke. I’ve gotten on my soapbox about that before but it’s just very discouraging that I am willing to do the work. I am willing to deal with whatever, and there just aren’t people in Idaho who can help. I don’t know what to do about it to be honest other than to keep pushing through and put one foot in front of the other. It’s almost like because my crisis isn’t acute there isn’t any help for me. I’m not a danger to myself, having lived through losing so many people (both to suicide and just life in general) I could never do that to the people I love. The idea of causing other’s harm is physically distressing to me, so ending my own life is not on the table – but because it’s not and I’m not self-harming in a “typical” way there are no resources for me. If I were popping pills, or self mutilating it would be a different story but because my self harm comes in the form of binge, and my definition of binge is so much more narrow now because of surgery it’s not seen as profoundly detrimental – even though I can assure you it absolutely is.

What a downer note to end on – so I will say this, despite the struggles, despite the phony people, I know that I am truly and deeply loved – and if you’re one of my people who loves me despite the mistakes I make and my sometimes big mouth I am so monumentally grateful for you.

Keep your hearts up, be kind to people, all that jazz. xoxox

38 Minutes Later

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It is currently 1 minute to 4 AM on Friday March 1st and what better time to write out all of my thoughts and feelings than 4 AM on a Friday? I am sitting in my new bed in my new apartment wrapped up in what I like to call my Muppet skin blanket (it’s tie-dye shag and makes me happy). So much has changed in the last few months and yet so much remains the same. It’s not where you are so much as where your mind is I guess? I am still struggling with everything that happened in October, the emotional fall out of it all has taken a toll on me. I both quit writing and delved deeper into writing at the same time. I can’t explain it other than to say that escapism flourished in my brain while facing things did not. There was too much happening inside my brain and outside in the world.

When I look at what’s been happening there is a net good to be found – but I have been going through it to get to this point. There have been nightmares and sleepless nights, there have been countless panic attacks – but there has been an outpouring of love from those in my life who know the depth of my…suffering for lack of a better word. I have a true sense of community around me right now, and I am so grateful for that. I don’t want to do that thing though, that thing where I list off all the good or all the bad and then invalidate my own experiences because they some how fail to measure up to some made up point system in my head. I am trying to find the good in every day but I am also willing to admit some days just suck.

I always worry about saying that, about expressing that sometimes things just aren’t okay and that – in and of itself – is an okay thing to experience. There is always someone who wants you to find the silver lining in your trauma… and sometimes there just isn’t. Sometimes I get so busy trying to contort myself into this shape of “what good can have come from this” that I almost break my neck and definitely break my own heart. Sometimes bad things are just bad things – and we have to learn to be okay with that because there is no bigger way to be a failure than to invalidate your own feelings. A few months ago I was talking to a friend about everything that had happened, and how it could have been so much worse and I really I should count myself lucky (and about a dozen other toxic things) and her exact response was “Bitch, I’m gonna need you to stop invalidating your own fucking trauma.” And that’s the thing, the root of the root, just because it could have been worse doesn’t mean it wasn’t bad – doesn’t mean it isn’t something I have had to survive.

Even now, as I type this from my Muppet nest and try to hydrate and I look at all the positives in my life right now this very moment, I realize it has taken so much work to get here. It has required me to step up in a way I never have before. Moving stinks (in case you didn’t know that already) and it’s very hard. Changing your situation, changing your mindset is difficult, and we live in this hustle culture of toxic positivity that never lets you take a break to process. Every day there is something else that I “should” be doing to get or keep this house ready and sometimes I just want to sleep the sleep of the dead. I have been doing much better about going to bed at a regular time and sleeping more than four hours but I’m still trying to fit all the things I want/need to do in a window of a day that feels too short to get to it all and something somewhere has to give but I’m not sure where.

I want to leave this on a positive note though, so here is a list of things that currently make me very happy:
1. The Muppet Blanket (obviously)
2. The soft feel of my mattress when I have had a long day and finally get to climb under my covers.
3. The smell of the apartment, there is like this…new construction smell that hasn’t worn off yet that is amazing.
4. Long conversations that are mostly memes with my best friends because that is our love language now.
5. My pile of stuffed animals sitting on a new dresser my old neighbors helped me build.
6. Hot showers that wash away the grime of the day.
7. The feeling of having just paid the rent and knowing we’re safe for another month.
8. My eyes getting heavy as I write this which means I could grab a few more hours sleep before my alarm goes off to get ready for a doctor’s appointment.
9. The fact I have changed so much since the start of this blog that I can say offhandedly that I have a doctor appointment and it not have been the sole focus of this entry and how I was going to have to fight to deal with said appointment. That’s pretty amazing actually.

That seems like a good note to end this entry or whatever you want to call it on. I am better than I was, even if I am not where I want to be. I can celebrate those small victories while also saying “this is really hard.”

On Traveling

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It is a new month and I have safely arrived in Oregon! I am so excited to be here – I have some worries about being entertaining for 18 days but! I keep telling myself that I don’t actually have to perform or mask here. I can just be – or figure out how to be this version of me I am having to become.

They have a dog! His name is Traveler, aka Trav which of course I have turned into Travy – because I have to add onto whatever name I have been pretended with. I don’t know why, it’s just a thing. He is a giant cuddle bug, and slept with me most of last night. It was great.

I do miss Mom though, that’s a weird thing to say probably because I’m a grown woman! In other families/circumstances I might be living across the country or something from her. But we are us and being apart is not something we’ve done a lot of in my life – save the summers I spent at Dad’s when I was a tween. I’m trying not to have anxiety about it but she is still battling that long covid cough and has fluid on her lungs. In a way it might be better that I’m here so she can focus on taking care of herself but I I still worry about her. I guess I can’t escape my worrier nature!

I don’t have anything new or exciting to talk about, I’m mostly exhausted from the 7 hour car ride to get here yesterday. It was a lot, but I’m so thankful for my aunt Sue who brought me and my cousin for hosting me. It’s gonna be a good month!

On Heavy Topics

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TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RESULTING EMOTIONAL SPIRAL

I have danced around this issue and eluded to it enough. The language we use to talk about these things is important and while I am sure there will be some fall out from this…I have to use the language I have access to to begin healing. It has taken me three weeks to come to a place where I can say these words aloud, and somehow writing them down feels even bigger, even more final or real than anything I have allowed myself to say up to this point. I am struggling with the words to use, with what to say about it, but I have had a couple friends point out that perhaps the reason I am struggling so much is because I am so resistant to feeling these feelings. They’re not good feelings, and I worry that I have fallen into the trap of almost toxic positivity. I am so scared of backsliding that I have been shutting down my own emotions and in essence making everything worse. So. Here goes nothing.

Three weeks ago I was sexually assaulted by my then boyfriend.

Even writing that sentence hurts because I know there are people who will not believe me or classify what happened as “assault” because it wasn’t violent. The fact is anything less than enthusiastic consent is not consent. I was in an altered state, so altered that he would later complain about having to “babysit” me. I set a boundary before we were ever together and he did not respect that boundary – and when he pushed for more than I was coherent enough to consent to I fully disassociated, I left my body and it was like it was happening to someone else. I was separate from myself and I do not feel that I have fully come back into my own body even now as I sit here trying to figure out how to talk about what happened in frank honest terms so that I might move on from this.

The problem I have, that many people will probably have with this is that it took two more days for me to leave. I stayed with him because I was desperate for things to be okay. I was desperate for him to not have to be one more thing I needed to survive. I laid with him, I cuddled with him, I tried and tried to be okay with what had happened. I told myself I was being dramatic, that it wasn’t that serious, that words like “sexual assault” ruin lives and he said he loved me so it was okay…until he tried to do it again. After we had had a big conversation, after I had reiterated my boundaries to him, after he had apologized for pushing in the first place, and promised it wouldn’t happen again… and even in all of that it was not really the violation of my boundaries that made me angry. It was the moment he tried to talk to me like I was stupid that prompted me to leave – because apparently that is where I draw the line.

Doesn’t make sense to me either. I won’t pretend it does.

I keep telling myself how lucky I am: lucky it wasn’t worse, lucky I had somewhere to go and someone to come get me, lucky that he let me leave and all I had to deal with was his useless pathetic apologies and tears rather than dangerous rage. I’m lucky, I’m lucky, I’m lucky… but I don’t feel lucky. I feel violated. I felt more violated when he decided, despite my having blocked him on every possible platform I could, to message me from an unknown number Thursday night. He wanted to “talk” to “apologize” again – with no regard to what I clearly wanted, which was CLEARLY to have nothing to do with him any longer. Again, total disregard for my boundaries, for what I needed and wanted because what he needed and wanted was more important. Abusers keep abusing, I guess.

What is my point to all of this? It is 2 AM so I am not sure I have a point beyond a desperate attempt to take my own power back. To take what has made me feel like a victim and turn it into something good – which is possibly that whole toxic positivity thing again. Maybe I just needed to get the words out of my brain and soul in the hopes of shedding light on the darkness I feel is going to overtake me if I am not careful. I feel my blooming season has come to an abrupt end – but I keep reminding myself nothing blooms all year round. There is a time to blossom and a time to rest. Perhaps now is my time to rest. For anyone concerned I have spoken to my psychiatrist, I have gotten myself a referral to re-enter therapy, I am doing everything I am supposed to do in response to a traumatic event.

I am doing what I am supposed to and yet…I cannot stand to be alone, I cannot sleep, I either have no appetite or want to devour everything in the house. I cry and cry and cry. I hate the crying most of all because it feels like weakness. It feels like he’s winning because I am suffering. I know that is a backwards way of thinking. I know, I know, I know…and yet here I am. Unable to sleep for fear of nightmares, chewing my bottom lip raw because of nerves, unsure of what to do with the hours I have to face down. I have done productive things. I hate being alone so much so I am going to go spend time with family. Rather than collapsing in on myself I reached out to solve the problem. A year ago Fall brought out the worst in me. I took to my bed and shut down for no other reason than the days were too long and the light too fleeting. I am slogging through this moment. through these fears, through this pain and refusing to lay down and die…

So maybe that’s something?

On Scenery Changes

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I am determined to finish out this month strong, to post every Monday and Wednesday even if I feel I have very little to say. I’ve also been posting more on TikTok as I try to process difficult emotions and where I am in my journey. One marked change that I have noticed in myself is that I actually want to be around people now. I want to talk and talk and talk, before I would have collapsed it on myself, I would have retreated into the safety of my room and not wanted anyone to witness my struggles – even though my lack of presence would have been enough to tell them I was struggling. My logic is often flawed but it came from a place of wanting to protect people from the darkness inside me.

I have realized, however, that I am not my dark thoughts. I am not the foul mood or pain I have endured. I am the light that won’t go out. I refuse to surrender to the pain or the bitterness that could otherwise consume me. I have been on this path for a long time. I started just before my dad got sick but I have come to understand that his battle with Cancer truly propelled me through my fear and pain. He was a catalyst in many ways for the emotional transformation I have been undergoing the last four years. There were other factors of course but losing him taught me in the most brutal way that I can do hard things and sometimes you gotta do it scared.

I mean I have anxiety, there isn’t a thing I’ve done in my life (besides hiding in my room) that I haven’t had to do scared but before all of this I felt that I was doomed to fail no matter how I tried. I didn’t believe I was worthy of things working out. THAT is a huge change in my life, believing that not only CAN things work out, I DESERVE for them to! I deserve good things, I deserve dreams coming true. I deserve love and respect and kindness – not just from the world but from myself too. I could let what happened to me two weeks ago completely derail that belief. I could let it make me afraid to trust, afraid to let people in but if I do that he wins and he doesn’t get to win. He doesn’t get to beat me at life.

I’m not who or where I want to be, I’m still learning and making mistakes but at the end of the day I am not too broken to get there. I am putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that I don’t have to do any of this alone. For the first time in a long time I reached my hand out to people and didn’t let the fear of it being slapped away stop me… and it paid off. In November I am going to go stay with family in Oregon, I’m going to go be with my people. Two years ago I wouldn’t have even had the courage to ask to be totally honest… but I asked and I was more than embraced. It feels good to know I am genuinely so loved – it makes me a little sad I forgot for so long… but mostly it makes me happy that when I need it most there are reminders in the universe.

On Getting Through

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It is 4:30 in the morning and I don’t know what to do with myself. I meant to write yesterday but if I am very honest with you I ended up sleeping most of the day. That is how I am coping right now, it’s the only thing I feel like I can do until I see my psychiatrist on the 25th. I can’t seem to focus on anything – not shows, no writing projects, not even makeup. I just look at my pile of palettes and am completely overwhelmed with the idea of what to put on my face. I have awful words echoing in my head. Words I don’t really know what to do with. I know at some point I’m going to have to say them out loud, to take back ownership of what happened to me… but right now I still feel like I am being overly dramatic. I hope with time and talking about what happened I get passed that, but right now it is a heavy weight on my chest.

I know I’m safe, I know I’ll be okay. I know, I know, I know but believing is very different than “knowing”. I’ll get through this because it’s the only option I have – but going through it sucks. A lot.

On Safety and Experience

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It is Monday. That means a blog post must go up. I am not in the headspace to talk about positivity. I am not in the headspace to do anything if I am perfectly honest with you,

I am struggling right now, more than I know how to put into words. I keep thinking how it became so trendy to say “consent is sexy” for awhile and today that sentiment is filling me with rage. Consent isn’t “sexy” consent is EVRYTHING. It is the ONLY thing. If you can’t consent then…something is being taken from you, your rights are being violated, and that violation lives in you. It can feel like it’s taking over every single part of you. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair- and while I know life isn’t fair it doesn’t change the fact that it hurts. It hurts so much I feel physically sick.

I made mistakes, I trusted someone who didn’t deserve my trust, and I know that that happens, I know that in some ways this is just the price we pay for living, for having a life, for putting ourselves out there. Life happens when you do more than hide in your bedroom… you trade safety for experience – and this is just the shit side of experience. It is hard not to regret it, to not feel like maybe I would have been better off in my ivory tower where no one could reach me.

But then I think about everything I missed out on keeping myself “safe” in my little bubble. I think about the fact that for five days I got to be with my best friend while I processed what has happened. She held me, she stroked my hair, we talked and talked and talked about a million and four things both the bad and the good. I sat at her table with her beautiful babies who are not babies anymore and I experienced family dinner chaos for the first time in years. I think back to this summer where I went to my sister’s wedding and all of the other things I felt and did in those months… and I wouldn’t have been able to do all of that if I had stayed “safe” in my room.

The bad outweighs the good right now…and that is hard. But part of me knows this is temporary. This isn’t forever. This too shall pass – might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass. I am home. I am safe. I am loved. I just have to “find the facts” as they say in DBT and keep trying to move forward.

I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.

II hope you are too.

On No Meaning No

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I have a sticker on my laptop, it says I am no longer available for things that make me feel like shit – my friend Cole sent it to me and I knew she needed a home on something I would see all the time. I love the sentiment of said sticker. This isn’t an update on how my laptop decorating is going, I swear there is a point to all of this. I have spent so many years of my life trying to be who other people would like or want and while I joke about coming into my villain era what that really looks like is just setting boundaries and not allowing them to be disrespected… a thing I am still not actually good at. I’m trying but the people pleaser in me is strong. She wants to take over constantly in the back of my brain telling me how if I’m too much or not exactly who someone else wants me to be they’ll leave or stop loving me or wanting me around.

Healthy Pixie knows that that is the trauma conditioning talking… but this past weekend I was reminded of how far I still have to go. I like to think of myself as having evolved past putting myself into situations that could be harmful for me. I like to think the mistakes I made in my teens and twenties couldn’t possibly follow me into my late thirties. I’d like to think that but the last few days have shown me a million ways I am still that girl, still subject to that conditioning, still prone to making mistakes that put me in jeopardy. I am trying to wrap my head around the trust I had violated by someone I thought I was safe with. I am trying to tell myself that his disrespect has nothing to do with me and everything to do with his own issues. I am trying to tell myself that believing people when they present themselves as a safe person doesn’t make me naive or dumb or bad… but the other half of my brain is going over all the mistakes, all the warning signs, all the micro pressures and aggressions that I shouldn’t have let him get away with but I was so desperate for this trip to be good, so desperate for him not to be another thing I had to survive that I dissociated myself right into a series of events I am still trying to process and find words for.

I am struggling to tell this story because I don’t have the words – and words are my thing! I am articulate and well spoken… the echo in my head keeps saying “you should have known better, been more guarded” I am trying to find kindness for myself, to find compassion and understanding for how I could let this happen… but did I let it happen? Did I make it happen? I set a clear boundary with someone and they inched over that boundary by multiple miles. Was I wrong to believe that he could be trusted? If I take ownership of it does it mean I never lost control? If I were smarter or stronger or something more would it not have happened? I know what I would tell anyone else in this situation, I know how I would advise them, but I can’t make myself believe me. I am talking and thinking in circles right now because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to cope with this.

How do you come back from someone you think you love, who claims to love you, doing something that puts you in a situation you’re not just uncomfortable in but you also feel violated by? Is it over dramatic to cut that person out of your life? In my anger – the thing that prompted me to get the hell out of there after the series of gross events I told him he was dealing with the consequences of his actions. But now it’s 2:14 in the morning, I’m sitting on my best friend’s bed, listening to her breathe and wondering if I owe him something more. Part of my brain says I owe him nothing but I want other people to understand where I am coming from. My brain is a screaming void of beratement, of slut shaming victim blaming bullshit I would never tolerate if I heard said out loud to someone else. I would absolutely riot if I witnessed the conversation I am having with myself right now.

I am safe. I keep telling myself that. Physically I’m fine but there is no denying the fall out from this, the impact it’s going to have. I can’t just push it down and not deal with it. So I guess that’s what this post is really doing, addressing and trying to process. I am safe. I am fine physically, and with time I will be okay emotionally too… but it’s going to take time. I am safe. I am safe. I am safe…but my brain keeps replaying the moments in which I wasn’t and beating myself up for it… am I spiraling? I feel like I might be spiraling. I just had to get this out of my brain. Remember- no is no is no. It’s not “convince me”, it’s not “wait till I am vulnerable and ask again. It means no and no is a complete fucking sentence.

On Anniversaries

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One year ago today I was sitting in a hospital room, taking to my mama and my sister and my bonus mom about whether or not I was nervous about the procedure I was about to go under. As I reflect back over the last year I can’t believe I am really here. A year ago I could not have imagined everything I would go through – the good and the bad. I could not picture my life as it is now, if you had asked me what I would accomplish in 365 days I wouldn’t have listed half of the non-scale-victories I have had. In the last few weeks I have gotten really caught up on the scale, on the fact it’s not moving or that I’m not where other people are after a year out from surgery. The thing I have to keep reminding myself of (and my sister is really great at helping with this) is the life I am building is a testament to how far I have come. I go to the doctor now – of my own volition! Without being on death’s door! There was a time, not so long ago, that that was UNHEARD OF. I know there were times Mom sat in the car, unsure of what to do for me, to get me where I needed to go because I was too anxious to leave the house and I desperately needed to.

I used to have to medicate to even tackle phone calls. It was a whole process to even make an appointment… in the last week I have had to call and deal with insurance, denturists, the chiropractor, and trying to find a different nail tech at various points. Never once did it cross my mind that this was a big deal or that I couldn’t do it and should get Momster to do it for me. I realize for “most” people this is just a routine part of adulting but there was a time in my life that this was not possible for me. I simply would have buried my head in the sand and been a hermit until life was at critical mass, then I would have cried hysterically and taken two Xanax to try and get through the mess I had made by not dealing with stuff! What a horrible way to live life! I forget sometimes that these victories are, in fact, victories. I forget that even when the scale doesn’t move it doesn’t mean I am failing. I have to remember to find joy in the mundane things – because there was a point I wouldn’t have been able to do them at all. We must seek joy on the days it seems most elusive, must remember that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step in the right direction.

I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago about the previous iterations of us we have been and how without them we wouldn’t be where we are now. How at 16 and 21 we could not have imagined the lives we’re living now because we never expected to live this long. I know that sounds a little morbid but it also happens to be very very very very true. We’re in a unique position where every day things can (and should) be magical to us – because we never imagined we’d see them or be able to do them. We tend to forget to be grateful because there is still such a long way to go, or the timing isn’t perfect, or a dozen other little things that (for me) can take away from the moment because it’s not cinematically perfect… but then I remember life is never “perfect” and anyone who tells you differently is lying or selling something – or both at the same time. I have to remember to be mindful not mind full. I have to remember to find joy and magic in the mundane. Life can’t always be ew tattoos and nail appointments (two of my new favorite things), but there is beauty in living every single day – it might not be glamorous or even particularly interesting to other people but it is a life worth living!

Have some pictures from the last year!