Learning To Be Okay: Trauma and C-PTSD

TW: For me, just reading the following words will sometimes trigger episodes. But here are things that will be mentioned below: Emotional Abuse, Sexual Assault, Physical Abuse, Trauma, Religious Abuse, Medical Abuse, Demonology, Suicidal Thoughts and Actions 

Questions I get asked frequently: When you say C-PTSD, what do you mean? Surely you can't have had that many traumas, as most people only experience one horrific event or like a rapid succession of awful and then get PTSD, right? And how long have you been suicidal?

My childhood had several traumatic events that I refuse to discuss here as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse were involved and I quite frankly can't discuss it yet. My earliest memory of being suicidal is when I was 8 years old. I used to imagine a small chocolate lab puppy running along side the bus, sitting outside the classroom window, rolling in the grass outside my house, etc. When my brain couldn't process my emotions, I would look out windows and imagine that puppy there. When things got awful, I imagined running with that puppy. I began to daydream about following that puppy far away from where I was. At night, I dreamt of running after the puppy and the puppy leading me to the door to the Afterlife. In my dreams, I was always too afraid to open the door. Sometimes a wolf would chase me and the puppy to a dark, terrifying door and I would scoop the little guy up and run with him. The wolf would tell me that it was only a matter of time before he would get me and drag me into hell. I began to dream that the way to avoid the wolf was to either run or to slip into a natural death. At the ripe old age of 8, I began trying to hold my breath until I died. Nearly every single night. If I saw dark spots I'd stop, because I didn't want to end up at the dark door with the wolf. The several occasions that bright spots exploded before my eyes, indicating my successful journey to the bright door with the puppy, something happened such as a family member coming in my room to check on me or a loud noise that would scare me into breathing. After a few months of this, I decided it wasn't a good way to die and I'd have to find another way to get to the puppy and the bright door. I began to accept that I'd just have to wait for death to find me, as my attempts to find it didn't work. My physical and emotional abuse continued with new abusers replacing the old. Many events happened that made me desperate to find a way to escape.

When I was 10, I became obsessed with running away into oblivion. I didn't want to run to a place, just wanted to run until I was away from those who were hurting me. I tried to run away from school, but realized it was cold outside and I hadn't had a drink of water in a while. I went back inside to get my coat and a drink and was caught by the custodian, who I lied to and said I was looking for a dropped pencil. He escorted me back to class. I spent many days trying to see if I could open my locker quietly enough to get my coat out but as luck would have it, mine had a squeaky door. I knew I would be caught and get in trouble and I didn't want to get in trouble. I wanted to run away or die, not get in trouble, so I stayed in school. I noticed a small rip in a back fence in the schoolyard and slowly, over several months, made it Abby-sized. I slipped through it and ran away from school again later that year at the beginning of recess, but came back by the end because I realized I had no where to go and I had no plan. Another time I ran away from recess with a plan but was seen by a local mom who asked me what I was doing and I told her I was running an errand but was going back to school right then. She walked with me all the way back until the school was in sight and watched me slip back through the hole I had created in the back fence. She told the school about the hole and it was repaired by the next day. 

When I was 11, I suffered another severe traumatic event at the hands of my peers. It was a bullying session that went entirely too far. I found a book about a pre-teen who used cutting as a means to deal with her life. I hadn't considered violently taking my own life until I found that book. I went home and took a knife out of the kitchen drawer. I was contemplating whether to stab or slice my wrists when my mom came home from a shopping trip or meeting and I threw the knife in the drawer, ran to the bathroom and threw up. I then ran to my room and shook, sobbing as I realized there was no escape from my life and I was truly trapped in it. 

At 12 years old, I had a brief reprieve from all the awfulness as I found a love of fantasy novels and of writing stories about young girls like me with super powers destroying those who tried to hurt them and those they loved. That year was one of the best of my life. Anytime something upsetting happened, I slipped into my fantasy world where I was all-powerful and destroyed my abusers and sadness with the help of an army of cats or with space blasters or with my own amazing super powers. 

At 13, I ended up seeing demons in my room at night who I believed were responsible for my "bad thoughts" about myself. One evening, I crawled from my room to the mirror in my parents' room over and over again like some kind of possessed horror movie kid, sobbing and demanding to know why I couldn't just die. I remember curling up in the fetal position out of exhaustion and praying that the demons would go away. The shadows with eyes I had seen disappeared and I was able to get up. I didn't see them after that. I now know, from talking to psychiatrists and psychologists, that I was suffering from PTSD-fueled hallucinations and that I had been in the throes of a severe depressive episode and that the demons leaving was due to my brain finally kicking into life-saving mode and repressing the memories that had been haunting me. 

At 15, I had my first homicidal stalker. He was a friend who became upset when I did not want to date him. He sent me letters detailing how he was going to kill me and what he was going to do to my dead body. I got a brief reprieve when he went to college and found a girl who looks exactly like me. He was kicked out of college for stalking her and sending her death and rape threats. He then returned to his parents' house and proceeded to e-mail me regularly and call me when he knew my parents were not home. He continued with this throughout my college years and indeed was still taking his car and following me around my hometown occasionally right up until I got married. 

At 16, I helped a guy friend get over a break-up and he became obsessed with me and would threaten to kill himself if I didn't talk to him, hang out with him, etc. I finally drew the line when he asked for sex and sent me a picture of himself with a gun to his head when I refused. I called the police on him and refused to give my name. He got help, but I remained horrified by the whole thing. 

At 17, a boy told me he loved me and asked me to sleep with him. I told him I wasn't ready and he went and had sex with other women and blamed me for it. 

At 19, I was sexually assaulted by a boy I thought was my friend. He proceeded to try to kill me with his car, stalk me for four years, and show up in my college town my junior (or was it senior?) year to try to run me over with a brand new car and then he came to my campus and stood in the middle of it with a gun in his pocket, asking random college students if they knew where I lived. A friend of his called me and told me to hide, as this boy had expressed to this friend that he was going to "finish what he started" with me as he hadn't "tried hard enough" before. 

At 20, a young man became obsessed with me and it wasn't until he was deep in a psychotic breakdown that I found out how dangerous he was. I'll leave it at that. 

At 23, I underwent what was supposed to be a routine surgery to correct a malformation in my skull. It turned into seven horrific surgeries. I technically died four separate times and I have seen the afterlife three times. It was after this that my coping skills completely failed. I became actively suicidal during and after my recovery. Meeting my service dog Riley saved my life. She is the reason I am still here today. 

After meeting her, I met my husband. Together they are helping me heal. Jeph now also alerts to attacks and is learning to lick me and take care of me when I cry.

Add all the above to years of being sick and not believed, medicated incorrectly, and treated like a pariah by the medical community and you've got one hell of a cocktail.

TL;DR: When I say I have C-PTSD, it means I cannot point to a specific time in my life or specific traumas that led to my PTSD. I've been suicidal since childhood.

Other FAQS:

Is your husband an abuser? HELL NO. He is the best thing that has EVER happened to me.

Who were those peers when you were 11? Can you tell us more about that event? I won't go into it because it isn't healthy for me to purposely re-live it when my brain is more than capable of putting me back there at any time in my mind. As for those peers, they've grown into kind, excellent men who have spouses and kids of their own. They've each, at one time or another, approached me and, horrified at their own actions, apologized and begged for forgiveness. Some have approached me more than once because they couldn't forgive themselves. Even though the trauma from what they've done echoes in my brain and will forever, I've forgiven them in my heart and refuse to disclose who they are because we've all moved on.

What happened before age 8? I can't talk about that. If I ever can, I'll let y'all know.

I'd love to hear more specific examples of your traumas between birth and age 14. Sorry, not going to go into that here. 

What kinds of abuse have you suffered? Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. 

Do you believe in repressed memories? There are several instances that are so bad that I only remember the before and after and who was involved and my brain refuses to let me remember the actual event. When you're hurt, your brain does everything it can for self-preservation and sometimes, particularly for the ones that happened when I was young, it blocks the conscious mind's access to them to avoid experiencing that hurt again in detail. 

WOAH YOU SAW THE AFTERLIFE OMG TELL ME ABOUT IT DID YOU SEE LIGHTS AND STUFF?? I appreciate your interest, but please respect my need to not talk about it. It took months for me to be able to admit out loud that I'd seen anything when I died and I still haven't talked to anyone about it and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to. 

How did 1 surgery turn into 7? My surgeon tells me it was because he was pre-occupied with wedding details for his upcoming wedding and he thinks that excuses his shoddy work on my fucking skull and that it excuses him doing things like losing a surgical instrument in my body, making unnecessary holes in my skull, bruising my brain by shooting a dart backwards through my head instead of the way he meant to, sending me home with fluid leaking out of my brain and my brain in danger of falling into my spinal column because he was busy, and authorizing a surgery without anesthesia because he read the form incorrectly. And no, I can't sue him because I had to sign forms saying I wouldn't in order to get the repairs I needed to live. 

A New Adventure Begins

I am officially enrolled in a program that, when I complete it, will let me obtain my Dog Trainer License. That's right, folks. I'm turning my hobby into a profession. My love for dogs is going to carry me through these intense classes and into a career I can tell I'm going to enjoy.
Not going to lie, this program scares me a bit. I wasn't at all worried about it until I looked over the material. This is definitely an in-depth program that is designed to ensure only the absolute best reach the end and graduate with their license. I really want to be a part of that elite.

My husband took me to buy school supplies. I've always forced myself to buy practical supplies, but this time I let myself indulge a bit. I do have normal pens, pencils, and erasers, but I also have a glittery zebra binder, a glossy pink folder, a shimmery planner, and a pretty golden notebook. My fellow EDS-ers can appreciate the zebra binder. It's mint green with glittery gold zebras.

Once I finish my book learning portion, I get to work with shelter dogs as part of the school's outreach program. I'm going to work with the dogs who really need it with the goal of getting them adopted. Both of my fur babies were shelter dogs, so I am ecstatic over this opportunity to help other doggos find forever families. I will then get to shadow a mentor and eventually teach classes under their supervision.

Those of you who know me know that I have a tendency to rank academics as #1 in my life. This means I will sacrifice sleep, food, family, friends, health, love, everything and anything for the grade. And not just any grade, the top grade. The one thing I have been scared about is that this program will ignite that toxic part of my brain/personality and that this toxicity will take over my life as it had for so many years. I am determined to not let that happen. Part of that is that I could start studying tonight, but I am forcing myself to wait until tomorrow. I went ahead and looked over the material, but then made myself log out of the online Student Center and I'm blogging and watching America's Got Talent and World of Dance (Fik-shun is a contestant and not a judge?? What is this??) and playing with my dogs. I also made myself stop and eat supper when I realized that I was so absorbed in looking over the material that I was ignoring my stomach pains. Many people don't realize that my GPA was my life for so many years that when I graduated college, I didn't know how to define myself anymore. I didn't know how to measure my success. It took years to get over this awful way of viewing my life, and I'm still not entirely over it. I don't think I ever will be. But I do know that being aware of it means I can make conscious efforts to not let this toxic mindset back into the driver's seat of my life. I will complete this course and I will graduate. I am determined. But I am equally determined that this will not be at the expense of my life, health, and happiness.

My baby Jeph is my "project" dog. I get to take videos of our training sessions, proving I can apply the lessons I'm learning to a real-life canine. Mr. Jeph is unsure as to how he feels about this. He'd rather climb on the kitchen counters and explore trash cans. But he will learn. He's a smart little guy.

To summarize: I'm so excited and so intimidated and so ready. Bring on the pups!

The Porch Theory

Y'all, I had a dream two nights ago and I just can't stop thinking about it. This dream has radically changed how I think about my life. I woke up today thinking about it again and it's been three hours and I can't sleep or stop thinking about it so I think I'll share. Bear with me as dreams are weird and hazy and confusing, but hopefully you can follow along.

In my dream, I had a session with a famous therapist. Famous therapist's name was Sally or Susan or something like that. My brain isn't super original when it comes to names. Anyways, I was in her office with my husband and I was crying and telling her all about my life and talking about how nothing I'm doing seems to be working. She nodded gravely and told me it was because all I was doing was re-painting my porch. Stay with me, guys. This is where shit gets real. I was like, "This sounds like another mindfulness exercise that isn't going to help," and she told me that those exercises helped you recognize the chips in your porch paint and the other general wear and tear. What the heck, right? She gave me a workbook and told me I needed to do the homework before she saw me again the next day. In my dream, I went home and grumbled about having to do some more pointless analogy therapy that ultimately would do nothing for me. I then opened the workbook and what was in there was fascinating.
The Porch Theory is this idea that your life is built like a porch. (I need to add here that I am not a carpenter, have built stage set pieces, and am fully aware that what follows is not actually a good way to build a porch.) There is a poured foundation made of concrete. On top are four main support beams. Covering those are the long pieces of wood that make up the porch. Then comes the stain/paint and the decorations. Each part of the porch represents something different. The foundation is what your every action stems from. This is the root cause of everything you do. Then the foundation beams are the four main focuses your brain has. The long pieces of wood are your values that stem from those main focuses (which are influenced by the foundation). And then comes the paint/stain, which is the actions that you do and your outward symptoms, caused by the values which stem from the focuses that are influenced by the foundation.
In my dream, I did two written exercises. The first was to analyze my life starting from the paint and working my way back to the foundation. Then I labeled a diagram of my current "porch" with what I had written. This exercise took a long time, even in dream world. I ended up skipping around to the different parts of the "porch" as I tried to make sense of everything. The end result was me staring at this "porch," feeling as though I had been laid bare onto paper. My paint, the outward manifestation of my inward life, included like "people pleaser," "excessive apologizing," "panic and anxiety attacks," "sobbing," "anger towards my health," "shame over needing mobility devices, medications, etc," and "going to countless doctor appointments even though I know this doctor isn't the one for me." I could go on, but you get the point. The long pieces of wood, the values, were things like "religion," "putting family and friends above health," "getting the highest education possible," "being the best," "keeping a clean house at all costs," "forcing my body to stay healthy as much as possible," and "working a good job". The four main support beams were "Not wanting to be abandoned," "Not wanting anyone to regret being around me," "Not wanting to be a burden," and "Thinking everyone else deserves more/better than I do."   My foundation was Fear and Worthlessness.
After I did this exercise, I found myself back in the dream therapist's office, sobbing and holding my husband's hands as I told her all about my porch. What could I do? This seemed like a horrible life I'd created for myself, and I felt hopeless about it.
She told me that yes, this is a terrible porch. It is, at its foundation, flawed. She told me that I couldn't expect a beautiful life when my thinking was all stemming from places of fear and worthlessness the same way that I shouldn't expect a porch with a nasty, cracked foundation and rotting wood to be an amazing place to have lemonade and iced tea during the summer with my husband. She told me it wasn't my fault that my porch is shit. She jokingly told me that with the life I've lived, she was surprised the whole damn house hadn't fallen apart. I couldn't stop crying. She got down on my level, looked me in the eyes and quietly asked me if I was ready for a new porch. I told her yes, but how the hell do I do that? She nodded solemnly and said, "Renovations."
She then had me do the second exercise in the workbook. The second exercise was, "Describe your dream porch (aka ideal life/values/etc.). My dream porch's outward appearance were things like "singing in the shower again," and "smiling," and "enjoying time with friends," and "happiness," and "baking" and "painting". My porch boards, my values, were made up of "Living in the moment," "Gratefulness," "Finding contentment," "Loving friends," "Relationship with husband," and others I can't remember right now. The four beams were "mental health," "healthy marriage," "physical health," and "hope." And the foundation? It was Self Love.
Sounds great, right? But how to get there? SallySusan the Dream Therapist was a little hazy on this one, but told me that every time I am having an outward symptom or thought that echoes the nasty porch, to think of the ideal porch and try to follow along with what I think that would look like. For example, if I find myself crying over how messy the house is, I should take a step back and realize that this comes from that gross foundation. I can then try to remind myself of how I want to be thinking. AKA, "Yes, the house is messy but it actually isn't hurting anyone and hey, isn't it great that husband and I have been resting and going places and having fun and yeah, we haven't had time to clean the house but look at all we've done this week!" or "Yes, the house is messy but it actually isn't hurting anyone and if it is, I can ask husband for help because I don't have to do it all by myself and it isn't horrible to ask him to help and we could play music and it could actually be fun!" or "Yes, the house is messy but no, you haven't 'done nothing' all week, you've taken all your pills on time and rested your joints and remember that one time you pet your dog? That was pretty awesome! And it's okay to focus on your health. Remember those beams on your dream porch? It's okay." She told me that I was going to need to go right down to the foundation and change it and then the other changes would follow.
My dream therapist told me that this was going to be nasty, messy work. She told me to think of it like any renovation. There will be setbacks. She told me that any time I experience a setback while working toward this "new porch" and feel like I'll never get there, to just think of it as a construction issue and forgive myself. There might be termites living in the wood of the porch, waiting to be exposed. The renovation crew might take unexpected holidays and leave me with a shattered mess to work around for weeks. Maybe there's some electrical wiring that needs to be replaced. Perhaps we'll get the porch built and realize that the foundation was never actually touched, the crew just said they did it and we have to tear the whole thing apart again. She told me that just as re-making a foundation for a house or porch is ridiculously hard and irritating, re-making a foundation for my life will be, too. And just like porches continually need weather-proofing, the occasional board replacement, re-painting, and other regular maintenance, keeping myself healthy will require constant work. But she told me to look forward to the days when I can sit out on a nice porch, sipping iced tea on a lounger next to my husband and watching the sunset.

Although it was a dream, I'm going to follow along with the Porch Theory and see if it works. Feel free to join me. If you'd like, you can share your own "Dream Porch" with me in the comments or on my Facebook page, Instagram, or Twitter.

Clouds

The clouds are slowly parting. It's been several days since my last sobbing breakdown. I have appointments with doctors to see what is going on with my neck and spine. We're not sure if there's an issue there that needs to be addressed, or if this level of pain is my new normal. I get about 8 hours of awake time, and I can walk around and do things for about an hour total a day. The 8 hours are broken up into a five hour segment and a three hour segment, approximately. I sleep for the other 16 hours. And I'm "resting" for seven out of the eight hours. Sometimes I can "rest" sitting up, watching TV or reading a book. Those are good days. Other times, I need to be in bed, flat on my back, willing my neck muscles to relax, completely drugged on anti-nausea and other such meds. Because my husband works the night shift, I'm awake from around 10 PM until 1 AM (give or take a few hours either way). Then I sleep until he comes home and I'm awake from 8 or 9 AM until somewhere between noon and two. It isn't a totally strict schedule yet, and the dogs are having some issues adjusting to this new "sleeping while it is light out in the afternoon" schedule. Also, I keep having to erase whole sentences of this post because a very eager Jeph seems to want to blog by hitting the keyboard with his paws. I think he thinks I'm playing with a toy and he wants to play, too! One of these posts, I'll have to let him guest post.
Part of the clouds parting is that after a sobbing fit, I fell asleep for 19 hours and missed some doses of a medication that I'd been put on a couple of weeks prior to my meltdown. When I woke up, I felt like myself. It was like a fog of awful had been lifted. I thought perhaps it was exhaustion, but it turns out that particular medication was making me worse. I stopped taking it under close supervision by my husband. Finally, I'm starting to be able to calm my brain and heal. I've been able to begin to convince my brain that it is safe here again.
I am now finally able to look at my mental health care objectively and realize that I am not currently receiving the care that is best for me. I'm starting the process of making a change to a different care team. The person who has been diagnosing me and prescribing medications for me is not an actual Psychiatrist. She is a Licensed Nurse Practitioner who works alongside the Psychiatrists at the mental health clinic. Nothing against Licensed Nurse Practitioners, but I need a Psychiatrist. She even has continually admitted that she has no idea what she's doing with me and is stumped by me. And I've found out that the medication that I've stopped wasn't even for any of the symptoms I've been experiencing. Also, the Psychologist that I've been seeing also told me this past week that she has no idea what to do with me going forward and that my symptoms are severe enough that they are out of her realm of expertise. So here we go, trying to get a new care team.
I had a three hour long, several phone call evaluation from my insurance. They're trying to get me enrolled in their Case Management program so that I can have someone working with me side by side to get all the specialists and referrals and help that I need. It was quite a depressing evaluation, as I had to go through all my symptoms and all my different systems and explain how and where and why they are failing. But after the phone call, I suddenly felt strangely empowered. No wonder I'm breaking down! No wonder I sleep 16 hours a day! No wonder I need a wheelchair! No wonder I can't do what everyone else can! Look at everything I deal with on a daily basis! Look at all I manage to do in spite of this! Look at how I can still drink water, take the dogs out, change the laundry, keep up with personal hygiene, and more. Sometimes, I can even make myself sandwiches or heat up leftovers. And you know, I'm going to go back to being proud of that. I'm going to work on being proud of myself again.
And speaking of being proud, I just looked up from my screen and my dogs are so proud of themselves because they found a rip in an old dog bed and have scattered the stuffing all over the living room floor. They are so happy destroying their bed. I hope they'll continue to be happy with they realize that they are responsible for that bed getting thrown in the trash.
Until next time, friends. Stay safe,

Everything Is Grey

I'm in the midst of the worst mental health breakdown I have ever experienced. I say this honestly. I say this not to solicit sympathy or pity. I say it because I think that honesty goes a long way with those of you who have come here to read about my life. I do not have an Instagram-perfect life. (If you follow me on Instagram, you know everything is heavily filtered and mostly is pictures of my dogs). I'm not one of those military wives who writes about attending military balls and taking advantage of all the opportunities that military life has to offer. I have zero things against those types of military wives. Sometimes I wish I was one of them. I envy them and their ability to wake up and get out of bed and walk more than a block without having to sit or ride in a wheelchair. I admire their ability to cook for their families, decorate for holidays, keep their kids dressed and alive and healthy, etc. In contrast, today I brushed my hair for the first time in seven days. I'm not joking when I say that this was a monumental task. Talk about knots. It was pretty gross. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to use a lot of conditioner and a hair mask before attempting to unsnarl the mass that my ponytail had become.
My Psychiatrist told me that I need to treat this like the flu. Lots of fluids, lots of rest, watch a lot of movies and TV, and be nice to my body. I bought a bunch of food that I usually love, because otherwise I can't attempt myself to swallow even one bite. My poor anxious stomach can't handle the idea of a full plate or even a half-full bowl of cereal. I've dropped at least five pounds in the past few days and it's not a good kind of weight loss. I've slept for over eighteen hours a day every day and I'm still so exhausted that my entire body is pretty much constantly shaking and I'm seeing double.
I won't go into what is going on in my brain simply because it is too triggering to me and to others who have similar issues. Let's just say it is hell and leave it at that.
I'm safe. I have 24/7 monitoring and I have to show my husband my pills and show him me taking those pills and I have an action plan and lots of resources when I need them. I say when, not if, because I 1000% need them. Believe me, this is not an "if" time.
My Psychiatrist also told me that I'm actively going through new trauma right now. I also looked up my medications and they're medicating me pretty heavily, apparently. It seems as though the combo that I'm on is used to treat some real nasty things. She looked at my eyes and saw me losing my mind sobbing and told me I need to get into intensive treatment as soon as possible. She called my insurance company and is working with them to get me into a Partial Hospitalization Program and a DBT program. She helped me set up the safety plan and the action plan and if those fail, she told me she wants me in the hospital. Right now they seem to be working okay, so that's nice I guess.
We had people over for a barbecue and it was actually really nice. Lots of laughter. I felt like I was playing the part of a happy person, but even that was nice. It forced me to take a shower and put on real clothes and talk to people. I didn't have any energy to do makeup or care about outfits or anything, but it was still good for me to try to interact with normal humans. It was exhausting, and I'll probably be more "sick" tomorrow, but I still think it was good for me. And it was definitely good for my husband to laugh and grill and tease and eat with his friends. He's been so steady and supportive this week, and it was comforting to see him let go and have a good time.
I'm wearing my new PTSD bracelet constantly. A local first responder makes these bracelets as a way of coping with his PTSD and as a helpful tool for the PTSD community. The beaded bracelet has a bunch of normal beads and one skull bead. The skull bead represents the trauma. The rest of the beads represent blessings. You're supposed to go around the bracelet, naming all the blessings in your life with each normal bead and reflecting on the trauma in order to let it go when you reach the skull bead. It's actually a rather helpful visual, as it is obvious that the skull bead is hopelessly outnumbered by the blessings beads. Even though it is horrifically difficult for me to name blessings right now, the act of forcing my brain to try to think of positive things is healing.
I'm not sure when I'll be writing another post. Thank you all for bearing with me with the sporadic posting of the past few months. I'm afraid I can't be certain of when I will have the energy to write again. Hopefully this nastiness passes soon, but everyone is warning me that it can last for a month or more. I think I'll run out of shows to binge-watch by then. Stay safe, friends. I'm off to hide under a blanket, watch Masterchef, and use up another Kleenex box. Love.

So Many Updates

So it's been a hot minute since I've written a post. I know you've all been anxiously waiting for an update on my life and, more importantly, the lives of my fluffy children. So here it is.

If you're following me on Instagram, you know that baby Jeph has begun having Service Dog Training outings.

As you can see, he is overjoyed to be following in his big sister's footsteps! When I take them places together, he copies her behavior. When he's by himself, he's not quite sure of what to do, but he still tries very hard. 

Check out those ridiculously adorable eyes!

Riley is enjoying her new job as the Good Example, as well as her time off for naps. She does not quite like to wake up from said naps...

My favorite thing is the look of utter betrayal on her usually sweet and happy face when she realizes that she's been woken up for a picture. She's like, "Human, why? Human stahp." 

I've been not writing posts because I got some news that I actually need a wheelchair permanently. I need a mechanical one. We're getting a manual wheelchair for travelling, but the doctor wants me to have an electric one to get around the house. It is a hard thing to wrap one's mind around, and I've written and discarded many a blog post about this news and my feelings on said news. I've come to the conclusion that it honestly really sucks to have mobility taken away, but a wheelchair is so that this declining mobility doesn't stop me from getting around. A wheelchair is a helper and a friend, even though the stigma of having one still exists. And what would I rather do: continue falling and crawling on the floor and having my husband have to walk me around the house or zip around on wheels and take the dogs on walks and get to see the world while sitting? I think I'm slowly making my peace with it. So watch for me yelling, "On your left!" while I zip by you Steve-Rogers-Style. 

I've been put on Seroquel for my mental health. It's main side effect is drowsiness. And boy, have I been drowsy! I take it at night, as I get super loopy about twenty minutes after taking it and then it puts me right out. I sleep all the way through the night and then into the morning. And I feel like I'm slightly drunk the entire day until about a couple hours before it's time to take it again. I'm hoping that my body will adjust to this medication, as it's the best one I've tried. I'm taking it in conjunction with my very high dose of Effexor. There are some symptoms that are getting worse, but others are definitely stabilizing or even getting better. And so it goes with treating any kind of illness. 

We bought a 2001 Red Corvette. I'm in love with it! It is so comfortable to ride in, and I'm loving working on it with my husband. I know nothing about cars, but I can follow directions well and I adore learning. It's been a long time since I've been able to work with my hands, and I get such a thrill from building and cleaning and unscrewing and all the things one can do with a tool chest. I've only ever built furniture and set pieces, but my husband has spent his life working on cars and is a very competent teacher.

Look at how proud he looks to be in our garage. This was the first day we brought him home, before we began to work on him to make him the best he can be.

Baby got back.

Currently, there is a really low-budget dubbed horror movie on TV. The "monster," if you can even call it that, is so ridiculous that I can't stop laughing every time it appears on the screen. What even was the Creature Designer thinking? Or Makeup Designer? I don't even know who or what is to blame for this atrocious attempt at scaring an audience. You'd think an Italian horror movie would be better than this, but nope. Oh, now we're visiting some creepy producer who has cameras everywhere and they're making it out to be like a cyber horror flick? I'm so confused. Oh, the creepy producer is in a wheelchair. Can't wait for him to get possessed and stand up or some other cliche. I've been loving these campy horror movies that have been on TV as well as some old favorites like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot with David Suchet as the main character and The Great British Baking Show. All are excellent distractions from pain and loneliness. Oh, wait guys, there is a creepy repairman in the house of the main character. I'll bet he's possessed or something. Main character (woman, actress) is going upstairs to check on her baby. There is a stranger watching the baby, but the stranger claims to be related to the regular babysitter. And the main character doesn't seem disturbed by ALL THESE STRANGE PEOPLE IN HER HOUSE. Also, the director keeps blaring heavy metal music at weird moments to show that something out of the ordinary is happening. But enough about this terrible excuse for a movie. Did y'all know that old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are on Hulu and Netflix? My husband and I really enjoy making fun of these silly movies, and MST3K adds in an excellent level of humor and entertainment to the wooden acting, bad camera angles, etc.

But now it's time to make some lunch. Hopefully I'll be able to write more consistent posts in the future. Love to you all!

We Are The New Warriors

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that I need to create a soundtrack playlist for my life. Doing the kind of things that chronic illness and mental illness warriors do on a daily basis requires superhero movie music. I mean, honestly. Someone without these things won't know how hard it is to fight with your own body and/or your own mind. It takes so much energy to get out of bed, brush teeth, style hair, make food, and other things that able-bodied and neurotypical people do in their routines. (I'm not sure if neurotypical is the proper term, as these things change a lot. What I mean is someone who is not fighting a mental illness. Feel free to correct me in the comments if the term has changed, and I will use the new term in future posts.)
Tonight, I looked over the reading my Psychologist has given me. I set my alarm to get up in time to get ready to go to my first Group Therapy session, prescribed by my Psychiatrist. I took my evening mind and body medications in order to be able to survive the night. I looked over my prescription papers that say that I medically need a wheelchair starting now. And all I could think as I did all this was action movie music swelling the way it does in every good action movie and the main character (me) saying epically, "Let's do this!" followed by the bass drop and subsequent fight music.
When we say we are warriors, we do not take that term lightly. We are not being overdramatic. We are not applying labels to things that don't deserve them. Someone who fights as hard as we do is a warrior. These illnesses take our blood, sweat, tears, friendships, families, future hopes, saliva, organs, awareness, and whatever else they want. And we fight tooth and nail to keep as many of those things as long as we can.
We are many. We are mighty. And if we ever get completely better, we'll dominate the world. But for now, we will take naps and continue to fight when we wake up.

10 Happy Things

While I am still over the moon about the new EDS research, there's too much other stuff going on in my medical world right now and I can't try to make sense of it enough to write a meaningful post. I'm so tired and so terrified of new physical and mental symptoms that are doing whatever the heck they are doing and I don't think I can handle talking about these things publicly yet.

So. Here's 10 Happy Things:

1. Guess what my baby Jeph learned to do? He can open doors all by himself! He opens the door to go outside to pee all on his own. This is huge, people! Huge! And today, he opened the fridge for me for the first time! Simply amazing. I love him.

2. Tonight, my husband's friends are coming to see us. We're going to dress fun and go out and hopefully have an excellent evening.

3. I put an automatically-spraying air freshener thing in our living room and also cleaned the floors and now our house does not smell like pee. And will continue to smell nice, unless Jeph leaves me a present or two.

4. I'm excited to take a really relaxing bath this afternoon. I'm going to put so many excellent oils in it and stretch out my angry muscles.

5. There is ice cream in my freezer and I'm going to eat so much of it.

6. I'm excited to get my hair touched up so that it continues to look amazing.

7. There's a huge conspiracy thing going on that Justin Bieber is a reptilian creature and it's the best news story I've ever seen ever. There are like videos and everything where people go, "RIGHT THERE! HE BLINKED LIKE A LIZARD!" It's honestly amazing and I am so here for this.

8. I'm so excited to get Jeph's "Service Dog In Training" vest in the mail. Then, we get to start practicing and training in public.

9. I have so many green outfits that I have options for this weekend! I can try a bunch of them on and then decide instead of being stuck with a green t-shirt or something.

10. Magnum just released a Cookies 'N Cream ice cream bar and I need it.

Love to you all.

The Good, The Bad, And The Jeph

I've been officially diagnosed with PTSD. I was right. This is bad news because, well, obviously I'm going to have this for life and it really, really sucks. This is good news because it means I have treatment options and support groups and everything I need to cope. I started a new mood stabilizer on Saturday, and so far the only side effect I've experienced has been my eyes jumping around and not focusing as well as I'd like them to. But my mood...guys...my mood swings have gone dramatically down in just three days of this medication! So good. And the noise in my head has lessened maybe five percent, which is a small but noticeable difference. 

In not so great news, I have something else besides PTSD. The doctor is not certain what it is yet, and wants to treat the PTSD first and foremost so that she can get a more clear picture as to the symptoms that are part of the separate disorder. She warned me that it is one of the bad ones. The ones people hate to be diagnosed with. She comforted me with the knowledge that whatever it is, she will find it out and there will be treatments for it. She also ruled out Schizophrenia, which was a huge relief. She said it is probably a dissociative disorder, and that it is not at all unusual that a disorder like that accompanies the PTSD. My brain is resorting to child-like coping skills to deal with the overload of trauma messages it is processing. Children run away from problems, make up stories, ignore things until they go away, etc. and my brain is doing these kinds of things without my knowledge, causing black-outs, voices, and all the other terrifying things that aren't the horror that I'm already dealing with caused by the PTSD. It is also possible that the PTSD diagnosis will eventually be changed to C-PTSD, or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as I've had several traumas and not just a singular event. Also, my Night Terrors have become more pronounced, with me scaring my husband half to death by waking up screaming bloody murder. We're not sure if that is a side effect of the mood stabilizer or a new symptom, but it's not very fun for either of us. The dogs are both so used to me that they just lift their heads up like, "You good, bro? You need us? No? Okay," and then they go back to sleep.

SPEAKING OF DOGS! Jeph. You guys. Jeph. My little three month old fur baby has started taking care of me during attacks without any training whatsoever from me! How is this possible, you ask? Riley trained him. That's right, folks. Riley showed him what to do time and time again and he learned. On Saturday, I was lying on the couch in such a way that Riley couldn't quite get to me without injuring me. She nudged Jeph and he put his toy down, hopped up on the couch, walked up my body to my face, and licked my tears off. He noticed some tears had gone down onto my neck and he got those, too. Riley made a sound at him and he then laid down on me and kneaded my body with his head and paws until I stopped crying. He stayed on me and whined until I pet him, calming me further. Finally, we fell asleep together on the couch. Riley fell asleep on the floor, confident that her human was taken care of. He also insists I pick him up when I am pacing around the house, trapped in a manic episode. What a great little guy! He's still a little terror, eating the couch, knocking things off tables, eating laundry, and jumping up on me with his sharp little claws. But he is also coming along so well with his training. He is learning to walk by my side in a harness that he only hated for a few minutes. He is learning to be a calm, well-behaved little one. And now, thanks to Riley's guidance, I know he can perform some service dog tasks, and I'm eager to see what he can do when I actually train him!

It's been a weekend, y'all. But I'm hopeful for a future that will be difficult but doable. A future full of hard healing and many, many puppy cuddles.

Psych!

Yesterday, I went to a two hour psychiatry intake appointment. It was the most terrifying thing I have ever done. It is right up there with surgeries, teeth extractions, and staying in a room where there is a spider on the wall.
The building itself was probably the most run-down, creepy building I've seen. Think in your head of all the horror movies with psych hospitals, and then you have an idea of what I had to willingly walk in to. I almost couldn't get out of the taxi, as I was struck with such a paralyzing terror. I had been shaking all morning, and the moment I saw my destination, I couldn't breathe. Riley nudged me and made me get out of the car. She took me all the way to a building at the back of the creepy campus where the main entrance apparently was. She guarded me immediately upon entering, and did not stop guarding me for the next two and a half hours. If that doesn't tell you how awful the building was, I don't know what will. After getting registered at a run-down desk with people's pen marks all over it, I was led to a nurses' room to get my vitals checked. It was completely dark inside, as the nurses inside I guess don't believe in turning on the overhead lights. They took my vitals to the tune of someone's mixtape playing angrily in the background. I waited in a run-down, nasty waiting room. Then the grey clouds parted, so to speak, as I met the nurse who was going to be conducting my intense interview. She was a lovely person, and showed no signs of judgement no matter what I said. Her approach allowed me to open up and be incredibly honest with her the way I am honest with people I have known for years. After the interview, I had to wait in a nasty waiting room again for an appointment to get made, and guess who is returning to that awful building tomorrow for another two hour appointment where I will get a diagnosis and maybe some new medications? Me.
Last night, I broke down sobbing. I asked my husband what would happen if the diagnosis was something worse than what we thought. My loving husband held me and told me it wouldn't make a difference. He told me that we would just have a label for what is wrong and more possible treatments. He assured me he would stay with me no matter what and that we would get through the upcoming storms together, just as we have all the previous ones. I don't know what I would do without him as my rock. I never understood what people meant when they said things like "he is my rock" until I was married to him.
So listen up, hallucinations, voices, racing thoughts, flashbacks, panic, blank-out episodes, and everything else in my head. We're coming for you. Even if I have to go to every single creepy building in the world.

Learning To Be Okay: Hostage Negotiations

This is another Learning To Be Okay post. A reminder that these posts are for me to help myself work through the issues that I am facing in my mental health battle and I will not be offended if you can't read further due to issues of your own. Be safe, loves. TW: Self harm, abuse, suicide

One of the major problems I have is that I cannot buy nice things for myself or do any basic self care without feeling an incredible amount of guilt. There is a tiny, evil voice in my head that tells me that I am not worth it. That I don't deserve it. And I'm talking anything from makeup to clothes to skincare to expensive medications to bath supplies to basic groceries. I don't deserve to put fruit I like on the grocery list. I don't deserve to ask for a gallon of milk if my husband isn't going to drink over half of it. Sometimes it even tries to convince me that I don't deserve to take my pills on time. I haven't suffered enough for the day, so I should put off taking my heart pills. I am well aware that it looks ridiculous on paper, because of course I should eat and take pills and have clothes without holes, but please understand that this tiny evil voice is so convincing and so present in every decision I make throughout the day that I have moments of weakness where I believe it. It is exhausting to continue a running dialogue with it all day, every day. But the lesson I have learned about this voice is that it is not the voice of rationality. It is not the voice of reason. It is not the voice of truth. It took a very long time to learn this lesson, and I have to continually remind myself that no, this voice is not one to listen to and take advice from. The day I realized this lesson, it felt like I'd awakened from a nasty nightmare. Before I realized what was happening, my inner dialogue went something like this:

"I'm thirsty."
"You just had a drink fifteen minutes ago. You don't deserve another sip of water for at least another hour. Do some damn work for the first time in your life."
"True. Okay. What more can I do?" *Works self into exhaustion* *Dehydrates self* *Doesn't understand why self is always sick and why self cannot just rest*

Many times, the disgusting voice would try to openly convince me that I didn't deserve to be alive. I'd breathed enough air for the hour, I'd hurt enough people, I was gross and disgusting and the world had tolerated me long enough. I was ill from EDS, yet no one believed me and I was told how horrible and attention-seeking I was. Wouldn't it be better to just end everything than to hurt my loved ones with my supposedly fake illnesses? You see how convincing this nasty voice can be. The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 11. The knife was going toward my body when my mom unexpectedly came home and I was afraid of being caught and dropped the knife and ran to the bathroom to throw up. I know it doesn't make sense, but I didn't go through with it because I didn't want to burden my mom with finding my dead body in the kitchen right when she came home. Several other times that year, I waited until the house was asleep, said goodbye to my stuffed animals, put the blankets over my head and then held my breath until I passed out, trying to will my body to kill itself. Thankfully, it did not work and I woke up and sobbed, partly from not knowing why I wanted to die so badly, and partly because I was still alive. I could never tell anyone about these things, because that would be burdening more people, and that was unacceptable.

Once I realized that this voice was out to destroy, not help, my dialogue changed. I no longer willingly let it control my life. It feels like a hostage negotiation with my body as the hostage and myself and the voice as the opposing parties, but it is so much better than blindly listening. For example, as I sit here, I am running a dialogue in my head that goes something like this:

"I'm thirsty."
"You just had a drink fifteen minutes ago. You don't deserve another drink for at least another hour."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
"...Is it? Are you sure?"
"I'm thirsty, my water is right next to me, I'm going to drink it."
"You need to finish this blog post first. You haven't earned a drink until you hit "Publish."
"Screw you." *Takes drink of water* "Oh, I have to use the bathroom."
"It doesn't hurt yet, you can wait. Or are you so weak you have to put your disgusting self in the bathroom more than once a day?"
"That...makes no sense. I'm going to the bathroom."
"Ok, fine, but good luck taking a shower today because you haven't done any housework."
"...Ugh."

I am aware of where this evil voice came from. I won't get into a lot of it here, mostly because I'm afraid to hurt people who may have unwittingly contributed to it. But I will say that I know that it stems from my fears of inadequacy, my inability to be perfect all the time. I will also say that if you have any interaction with children at all at any point in your life, encourage their uniqueness and their individual abilities, talents, and personalities. Be loving and safe. When children feel that the adults in their life are not safe unless they perform a certain way or act a certain way, it feeds that nasty voice that I would not wish on anyone. Children start to withdraw, which is sometimes mistakenly viewed as a sign of maturity. A child with no personality to speak of is a terrified, hiding child, not a well-behaved young person. You might be surprised how the children under your care actually grow if you prove yourself to be a safe adult. And if a child trusts you enough to let you see their true selves, do your damndest to not violate that trust. Teach your children not to bully. Bullying is not funny, it is not something all kids do, you are literally screwing with people's lives. Take your role as a parent or teacher or caregiver or relative or someone who sees a child occasionally seriously and be a safe person.

I am looking forward to getting more tools for dealing with this nasty voice from my new psychologist and possibly controlling it a bit more with medications my new psychiatrist might supply. But until then, I will continue the hostage negotiations.

Take Your Feel-Good Illness Movies And Shove Them

Long-term illness is not like you see in the movies. It is not the quiet, pretty, good little girl who it turns out is secretly suffering from a life-threatening illness. It is not a reclusive billionaire who is really hot if he just shaved and who decides not to live because what is the point of living if you are in a wheelchair. It is not a gorgeous, pale woman with subtle makeup lying tragically in a bed, staring out a window and living only so someone can be her savior. It is not the optimistic, sweet yet sometimes sassy little girl who helps you discover the how to live again before she tragically passes away from cancer without showing any outward signs at all ever. It is not the invalid who just needs a little fresh air to suddenly be completely healed. It is not two kids trashing a town because that's how one learns to "live" and they're going to die so they might as well "live" as much as possible.
When I was younger, I used to cry that I was not "pretty" sick. I wasn't a beautifully thin child in a warmly lit room, surrounded by toys and cards and balloons and other gifts. I was constantly yo-yo-ing up and down fifty pounds, as medication side effects played with my body shape. I swelled up to three clothing sizes larger in the afternoon, then woke up back down those three sizes. I was eleven the first time a stranger asked me when I was due. I wasn't tragically weak and sitting outside in a wheelchair, taking in the sunlight that would magically heal me. I was told time and time again by school counselors that I was sick only for attention. I was horribly harassed and traumatized every day by my peers at school, and while that for sure played a part in my mental health and mental health does affect one's body physically, it had absolutely nothing to do with my underlying actual physical issues. I was compared to the Secret Garden boy and the Heidi girl over and over again. Maybe I should try yoga, go out in the sun more, try a sport, etc. And then there was the "why aren't you dead yet?" question that I got time and time again from peers, teachers, strangers, and well-meaning family friends. I began to wonder when my illnesses would finally kill me. Everyone else seemed to think that being sick for a long time inevitably led to death or it wasn't real. And everyone couldn't be wrong, right? When my stomach pain got so bad it led to dizziness, sweating, vomiting, and fainting, I hid how bad it was for two years. Two whole years I let my family believe that I was just doing regular pre-teen girl things like makeup or dancing or whatever in the bathroom when really I was having spasms in whatever dark corner I could find because either I would die tragically soon or I was really making it up and didn't realize it and it would go away soon. Watching movies that portrayed illness just made me feel so incredibly inadequate. Something was super wrong with me that I wasn't like what I saw.
Long-term illness is greasy hair, smelly bodies, dried vomit on toilet seats. It is realizing in the late afternoon that you haven't brushed your teeth all day so many days in a row that your teeth ache. It is doing your hair and being too exhausted to do makeup or get dressed. It is looking around at the house and realizing that while you've done the dishes, every other room in the house remains a disaster and you simply cannot get up to clean them. It is applauding yourself every time you manage to get from the bed to the couch. It is realizing you've already watched every episode of every show you want to see on Netflix and Hulu and resorting to watching things like Divorce Court because at least you haven't seen every episode twelve times.  It is suddenly realizing that you've got an infection starting near one of your surgery scars and being terrified that you'll end up in the hospital with a blood infection and then calling the doctor's office and getting an appointment for a week from now and being terrified that this appointment isn't soon enough. It's managing to feed the dogs, let them out, and that's about it. It's sitting on the couch extremely hungry, but being too exhausted to get up and make yourself something to eat. It's getting dehydrated because your legs decide to not let you walk to the faucet and you've run out of water in the pitcher by your bed. It's keeping a notebook with you with all the important information you need to remember because you can't remember any of it by yourself. It's being dependent on other people for your care. It's being dependent on a dog for your care, sometimes. It's holding a degree from a top liberal arts college and not being able to use it because you can't work for one hour a week, let alone forty without ending up in the hospital for a week. It's having to have so many reminders and systems in place for medications and still forgetting to take the right pills at the right time. It's having your service dog annoy you until you realize, "Oh! It's pill time!" It is people telling you that you are so brave for continuing to live. It is people telling your significant other that they are so brave and good and pure for staying with a horrible medical mess monster like you. It is strangers offering you advice. It is strangers glaring at you for parking in handicapped spaces because you're too young to be ill. It's fighting hard to be heard by doctors. It is crying with relief when you find medical professionals who help you. It is crying in despair because you've woken up in pain yet again just like you have for the last twenty or thirty or forty years. It is seeing spots when you bend down to pick up a towel you've dropped. It is falling down stairs, falling in bathrooms, falling in kitchens, falling at friends' houses, falling in grocery stores, falling in movie theatres, throwing up in every single public bathroom in your surrounding area, passing out at an event that was supposed to be about a friend or family member but now is about you because you've passed out. It is waking up on the floor of the bedroom unaware of how you got there or when or if you've hit your head or broken bones. It is knowing the EMS personnel by name (Oh, hey, Len. How was your kid's dance concert?). It is comparing and contrasting hospitals in the area in casual conversations. It is trying desperately to not bring up your health in regular conversations. It is a constant struggle. It is ugly, it is brutal, it is exhausting, and it is gross. Depending on what you've been diagnosed with, you might be on the highway to death or you might be trapped in a debilitated body for years upon years.
Yes, it makes you stronger, but it's because you have no choice. You have no choice but to fight every single day. You are literally fighting for every breath you take and every tiny task you complete is a reason for rejoicing. I would pay so much money to go see a movie that portrayed long-term chronic illness or terminal illness like that.

Learning To Be Okay Part 1

I will be occasionally baring my soul to y'all, as I am working very hard on my mental health recovery. I see a new psychologist soon. I spoke with her at length over the phone. Our goal in working together will be to help me cope with my mental illnesses, not irradicate them completely. Therapy is not a magic pill, and I will have to do hard, dark, terrifying work in my mind and in my life in order to help myself. I'm scared about doing this work, but I am ready for it. A really good way for me personally to work through issues is to write about them. I will title these posts "Learning to Be Okay Part __," so if you don't want to or can't read them, you'll know which ones to skip. Today, a certain issue is running around and around in my brain. In an attempt to start working on it, I write about it here:

I haven't the slightest idea how to not worry about money. I grew up worried about it. I have saved and scrimped and budgeted and been terrified of not having enough since I can remember. In high school, when I finally had some income of my own, I hated spending any of it. I cried every time I had to make a purchase that was necessary. In college, I wore my shoes and clothes until they were almost indecent with the number of holes in them. My friends just learned to accept it as one of my quirks. Once I was working for a living, my medical expenses made it so I never had enough money. I ended up putting groceries on a credit card just so I could eat enough food to be nutritionally balanced. I bemoaned the price of milk when it went up to almost four dollars a gallon. I hated walking by the produce section, full of gorgeous fruits and vegetables I could not afford and could not medically eat. The special diets I was on were so expensive, and I cried after every grocery trip. 

When I met my husband, I was working a job that my health could not handle. I was too terrified of being homeless or not being able to afford my treatments to stop, even though my health was steadily declining and I was visiting emergency rooms every other week. When my now husband, then boyfriend, insisted on helping to support me, I had so much guilt that I was physically ill. I was terrified to the point of wild panic that everyone who knew him might think I was taking advantage of him. I was also so incredibly angry at my body. I had graduated with honors from a top liberal arts college, and here I was unable to pay for groceries and medications to keep myself alive.

Fast-forward to now. My husband has a good job. We have a safe place to live. My pantry has the weird powders and supplements that I need for my stomach issues. My medicine drawer has the medications I need to keep myself breathing. I haven't been to the hospital in over three months. And I honestly don't know how to handle this change. I am convinced somewhere deep in my brain that one day I will wake up with nothing and have to fight for food again, working jobs I cannot physically handle and destroying my body in the process. 

The positive side of this is that I am always on the lookout for sales and coupons. I can't bring myself to buy anything without researching it thoroughly, so we always end up with good quality items. And my husband has been amazing about this. When he found out that my shoes had holes in them, he took me to buy new ones and encouraged me to throw the old ones away. When he noticed that I had hardly any clothes that fit, he took me to buy some new ones. I insisted on taking advantage of the clearance racks and sales, and he sweetly indulged me in that little eccentricity. 

I keep frantically donating and giving to people who don't have enough, as I hate that there are people in the world who go through what I did and I absolutely loathe that there are people who have it worse. I want to give them all a safe place to live and a loving family, but since I can't do that, I donate my clothes that still have wear in them and anything that I can't use goes to charity.

I have this deep fear inside me that I will someday become materialistic out of nowhere. I know it isn't really a thing I should be afraid of, as this isn't in my nature. But I still worry. What if some people still do secretly think that I am taking advantage of my dear husband, as I do not look sick to the un-knowing eye? I know that I worry about these things more than I should, because I sometimes rave about them during panic attacks when I am not in control of what I am saying. My ever-patient husband holds me and comforts me while I cry, and then insists on not letting me wear shoes whose soles are literally falling off. I am grateful for him every single day. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love him.

Now if you'll excuse me, my dogs are barking at the neighbor dogs, and I must thank them for their diligent protection of me. They are very, very good dogs.

Rock Bottom?

(Because I know many of my readers suffer from things similar to what I am writing about today...TW: Trauma, Medical things, Mental health. Read safely, loves.)

There was no post yesterday because my body decided it was done. I had a full physical breakdown. I slept for fourteen hours and when I finally awakened, it was because my angel of a husband physically shook me awake. He knew I was dehydrated and hungry, even though I could feel nothing but the severe pain. He helped me sit up and forced my reluctant body to take pills and drink water and eat food. He helped me to walk to the couch where he could keep an eye on me. I had a few good hours where I was awake and coherent. Then, suddenly, I collapsed again. Apparently, Husband spent an hour warming me up with blankets and heating pads and tea while massaging my convulsing limbs to get my blood flowing properly. I remember hardly any of it. I am so incredibly grateful for him. He is amazing.

I'm going to be brutally honest here. I know I have a lot of young people who I have taught in past years who look up to me and who will read this and be shocked, as they think of me as upbeat and a positive person. And the number of people who know I have mental illnesses is very low. I'm sorry, guys. I'm human. And I'm scared.

I'm terrified. My mental health is severely slipping. I've begun losing hours of my day as a routine thing now. Instances like suddenly realizing I am at the grocery store with my husband and having no memory of the day prior to that is a normal occurrence. The voice inside my head that tells me to die is getting louder and more insistent. The panic I fight is becoming an overwhelming tidal wave that is rendering me incapable of going a single day without hysterics. The medication that I am on is helping me hold on to my mind by the fingernails. I've begun dissociating very noticeably. And just the other day, I realized that the voices I have been hearing are not going to go away. They've been getting louder. There are three of them, and so far they just say my name or "Hey," but my word, it is terrifying. If I had a dime for every time I have broken down sobbing in front of my husband, saying, "what is happening to me?" or, "you're not real. This is a dream," I could pay for mental health reform in America. And the flashbacks? Let's just say that my service dog Riley is definitely earning her treats. I finally called my EFMP (the program the military has for disabled family members) sponsor and told her I need to see a psychiatrist ASAP to get a proper diagnosis and proper treatment. The asshole who "treated" me before (in 2014) literally sat down with me for three minutes, didn't let me talk, and then laughed at me outright when I told him I was having flashbacks. He told me that doesn't happen and young women like myself are usually prone to anxiety. He then called my therapist in (who was in the same building) and, laughing, told him that I was having flashbacks. The two of them openly giggled together. And I still had to go see that therapist, as he was my only hope at not killing myself. When I told him that I could never trust him after seeing him laugh with my "psychiatrist," he was shocked and told me he didn't realize that would offend me. I should probably pray about that, I was told. He himself did not believe me that I actually was ill until he witnessed a flashback. When I came to, I told him I wanted to die. He suddenly realized I wasn't a "hysterical female" and demanded I be on medication and possibly permanently institutionalized if it got worse. From 0-100 in less than 60 seconds. Impressive. He hadn't ever seen anyone actually go through something like my episodes, and was completely at a loss as to what to do for me. He also was not aware that people could go through more than one trauma in their lifetime. Worst. My only experiences with mental health professionals before that was countless (at least 10) psychologists and therapists who were hired by my insurance company to get me to say that the physical illnesses I had were all psychosomatic (i.e. I was doing it to myself because I was an attention whore. One counselor's words, not mine) so they wouldn't have to pay for any of my medications or treatment. Spoilers: I have three debilitating chronic illnesses that are worse than they would be because I wasn't treated properly for 25 years. Here's hoping that this upcoming experience with mental health professionals is better.

I don't know how much longer I will have my mobility. My next doctor appointment, I'm going to be talking with a physician about getting a wheelchair. I haven't danced in months. I haven't been able to drive a car for any distance by myself for two years now. And yesterday, the pain was unlike any I have ever had (with the exception of the pain from surgeries, because holy shit that hurt). My body is telling me that I am doing too much. And I'm upset and terrified, because all I am doing is sitting on couches or sleeping on beds and yes, I'm cleaning and taking care of a small pup but my goodness, that's nothing compared to what some people do and here I am completely unable to even do the smallest of tasks? It's upsetting.

I get these urges to just do stupid things to my body because who the hell cares, right? What is it going to matter if I drink myself to death or smoke until I have cancer? Or eat until I throw up? Or go walking in a bad neighborhood by myself at 3 AM? Or smack my head into a wall until I see blood? The self-harming voices are getting loud. Thankfully, I haven't done anything yet. I have a service dog who recognizes the spiraling thoughts and comes to jar me out of them. And she's teaching little Jeph to do the same. Human hasn't spoken or moved in a bit? Time to lick her. She's already taught Jeph to climb on my lap and lick my tears while she licks my hand. And my husband refuses to let me get away with saying everything is "fine" when he knows damn well it isn't. If I didn't have them, I would have been dead by now.

So here I am, on a Sunday morning, having not showered in days. I'm completely exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. My service dog has "grounded" me at least six times while I was writing this. I know I might lose people. I know I might only have three views. But I have to be honest.

Stay safe until tomorrow, friends. And I will try to do the same.