Tattered Soul.

I open the medicine cabinet to grab some Tylenol for a headache.

If I took this, it wouldn’t be enough to kill me. I can’t do that.

With a cold chill chasing up my spine, I pick up the bottle of Flexeril. There are at least 50 tabs in it.

This would work. I could call Stacie and have her watch the kids for me. I’ll leave a note on the front door that she will see when she brings them home, telling her to take the kids to my sisters and to call the police and my husband.

I hear the kids playing downstairs, but it has no affect on me. It’s an emotional muteness, a stale sound. I’m not sure how long I’ve stood here, seeing only the bottle in my hand – my heart vacant, engulfed in despair so raw, that death felt appealing.

Should I call someone? Maybe I should start counseling again. We can’t afford it. No. Just put the bottle down.

I put the pills back and sit on the edge of the tub.

I am so fucked up. No normal person goes to get Tylenol for a headache and instead, starts planning her suicide. Why is this my life. Why can’t I just cry and feel better. I’m so sick of this. I want to end it but…the kids. I know in my heart they are better off without me, but they will never understand that.

My daughter bursts through the door.

“Mommy, what are you doing?”

“I’m just sitting here, baby.”

With begging eyes, she asks “Will you do a puzzle with me?”

“No, baby. Mama just doesn’t feel like it.”

“You never want to do anything with me.”

“That’s not true. I’m just tired today.”

“You’re always tired.”

“I just don’t feel like doing a puzzle right now, honey. Maybe later.”

Why can’t I just sit with her and do the fucking puzzle? All she wants is my attention. Why can’t I give her that?

***

This was my Monday morning. It’s my Tuesday nights and my middle of the days. This scene plays out whenever the fuck it feels like it. This isn’t my every day, but my any day. I don’t want to live this way, but my brain doesn’t give a shit. Depression is a narcissistic disease. It doesn’t care that other people are depending on me, that people love me, that I love them. Depression is spiteful. In spite of medication and my beautiful life, I struggle with suicidal thoughts.

My awareness of what suicide does to a family is almost a curse in itself (My uncle committed suicide when I was 6 years old). It imprisons me in this revolving state. Because I have seen first hand what suicide does to those left behind, I won’t make the conscious decision to end my life.

People say live life to the fullest. I feel cheated of that concept. I can’t erase the neurons that collided in my brain, due to the trauma I endured as a child. I can’t undo the damage responsible for feeding my predisposed genes.

I’ve worked on working around them. I’ve talked it out, I’ve medicated to balance life and I’ve just trudged through. I love my children with all my heart and soul. But it is with that tattered soul that I fear the damage I am doing to them. People say, “Just look at your beautiful babies.” I know how precious they are and how strong their love is for me. That’s what hurts the most.

This is my depression. This is how depression has manifested in motherhood. This is the challenge of living my day to day, surrounded by love, while being encompassed with sorrow and despair. I don’t wear a scowl on my face, as a sign that I am broken. I lace up mental combat boots and march on. I try to be the woman, the wife and the mother that I want to be, and I am most days. Not only because I am trying to protect those that love me, but myself as well.

I must have a light that shines somewhere deep inside me. It’s dim, but enough to keep me alive. It’s enough to keep me moving forward. That is what I will continue to do. That’s all I can do. I don’t know how I am going to win this internal war, but I will. I just pray there will come a day, when I will no longer be my own worst enemy, and finally be able to live fully and freely.

~Originally Published on SisterWives Speak

Depression, Not Suicide, Took Life From Him.

At the core of what I know about depression, is the truth that emptiness fuels it. How can a man that we see as so full of life, be so empty. That, is depression. Learning of Robin Williams suicide, I am paralyzed at the power of this disease.

In ways, his death scares the shit out of me.

I have depression. I treat it, but still battle with it. I’ve felt despair so thick that it becomes a barrier against feeling anything else. One is very weak in that moment. Love, friends, success, children – it’s all seen as existing in spite of you. Yes, I gave my children life, but in that dark space it feels like I am now the one draining the life out of them. And everyone else around me.

Even knowing the grips and lashes of depression, I’m profoundly sad and shocked that Robin Williams took his own life. He talked candidly in interviews about his struggles with mental illness and the many treatments he tried. He could have afforded to have world renowned psychiatrist and psychologists on staff. But that wasn’t enough. Sometimes it’s just not. Perhaps it’s better said that it was the depression that took life from him.

I’m wondering where his brilliant mind was at, and the thoughts that led him to end his life. Did he see the decision as a sacrifice for his loved ones? Was the pain finally just too much? No one can say.

So many of us are walking around these days, on the edge of whatever it is keeping our being together. Not lost souls, but individuals with dark spots on our every days. Some days we’re better at seeing through the spots. Some days we’re not.

I don’t know what to take away from Robin Williams death. I’m struggling with hope. I’m at ease for his new peace. I’m consumed with the idea that no matter who you are and how capable you are of fighting this disease, sometimes it’s just not enough.

Try to see the pain through his eyes. Take a different angle, and never judge someone else’s battle.

 

 

Her Last Chance.

A despairing film covers her eyes, blocking sight of arms reaching for her. She’s twisted in pain, unable to absorb love. Really see her. See her hidden scars. Suspend her grief. Her mind is teetering that fine line. It’s up to you.

**************************************************************************************************************

Do you see her much?

Click the badge to learn more about the Gargleblasher challenge over at Yeah Write!

I just missed the link up this week! I went to upload an image and lost my spot! Urrrrrgh…oh it’s on next week 🙂

It’s A Shame About Shame.

Shame has a crushing feel to it. I think to those that have felt or continue to feel shame, it’s suddenly having a spot light aimed on you. It’s the turning of your stomach, like a cement truck, endlessly twisting what’s inside. Shame is that instant jerk of my head, so as not to force another person to have to look me in the eyes. It’s the belief that I am damaged goods, and everyone knows it.

Shame is a burden I have carried most of my life. It seems to come with the territory of being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. It wasn’t something I identified as a consequence of the abuse. Growing up, I didn’t know life without it. I felt like I walked around with a neon, flashing light on my forehead that said, “Don’t look, I’m gross.”

Shame is still present in my life. It doesn’t consume me, but becomes an occasional reckoning force. Nothing turns that spotlight on as bright as talking about being a mother suffering with depression and suicidal ideations.

When people talk about suicide, it often lacks an empathetic tone. I don’t fault people for this. It’s not my wish that anyone should feel a pit so deep in their soul, that they crave to feel nothing at all instead.

I’ve been in many conversations where the word “selfish” has been used to describe someone’s decision to attempt and/or succeed at suicide. People say things like, “He has a good life – why can’t he just see that?” Believe me, he can. That’s what makes the coat of shame so thick. In spite of everything he may have –  family, money, love – his brain will win every time.

I used to immediately slouch my shoulders and look away from others when the topic of mental illness or sexual abuse would come up. I would feel as if I was burdening others to know they were talking about me. The secret that I am that tainted person, may upset them, so best to just sink in to the pavement.

Shame makes you feel like it is not your choice whether or not you can openly talk about what was done to you, or what was etched in to your DNA. I never felt like I was allowed to let anyone know that I genuinely have felt like suicide was an option. I didn’t know how to not put someone else’s comfort level above my own.

I’ve learned though, that drawing attention to the fact that I can empathetically talk about the subject of depression and abuse actually heals me. Discussing it, has become one of the most effective tools I own. I can help control the conversation when I use the unfortunate knowledge I have, and steer it in a productive way.

It doesn’t come without a strong pull on my chin to look at the ground when I actually do join a conversation. I try my best to fight it. Ridding myself of shame has been like strengthening a muscle inside me. Every time I refuse to look at the ground, instead keeping eye contact, as I confidently discuss a first hand knowledge of something our society sees as taboo, that muscle strengthens.

People talk about fighting stigma but go about combatting it in a processed, packaged way. The stigma exists because of the shame. Lets start accepting that to be worrisome or embarrassed over what you can control, is to be ashamed. Feeling shamed, is what happens when something is done to you. One is always without choice. Understanding the difference is critical and can in fact save lives.

**Originally featured on Crazy Good Parent

Flawed Sacrifice.

Looks can be deceiving. The four walls around Maggie’s lifeless body, told a very different story of her life, than the one that played out in her head.

Maggie’s office housed all that anyone knew about her. Her PhD hung on the wall, adjacent to the plush couch, her patients sat on. The bookshelf displayed her best-selling, self-help books. Her children’s artwork, framed around the door.

Not even those closest to Maggie, suspected the depths of her sorrow. A pain that her silence fueled.

***

Jack looked at his wife for several seconds before asking, “Are you feeling ok, hun?”

He couldn’t help but notice a void in Maggie’s eyes tonight. He watched her clean a dinner plate, in a repetitive circular motion, for nearly 5 minutes longer than necessary. Maggie’s body and mind were locked on something internal.

“I’m fine, babe. Just thinking about Addison’s birthday party this weekend. Could you pick up what’s left on the list tomorrow after work?”

Maggie’s vibrant nature was as absent as her mind. Jack could feel his wife’s vibe, begging to be left alone. He respected the unspoken plea, answering only, “Yeah, I can do that.”

That night, as Maggie tucked the kids in to bed, her hugs and kisses were stale. Afterwards, she sat in the middle of the hallway, equal distance from the only real traces of love, in her defective heart.

Maggie passed through the living room. She stopped behind Jack’s recliner and told him she had a ton of patient’s notes to catch up on and would probably be in her office late tonight. Jack felt a pull in his heart to grab her, but decided to give her some space.
***

To my family,

I wish this wasn’t real. But it is. This had to happen. I’m not the wife and mother that you have always thought me to be. I have spent the last 20 years building on my knowledge of how to help people feel authentic and happy. That journey has been about me, attempting to heal myself. I’ve been searching over half of my life, to find a way to “fix” me. There is no where else to look.

I followed the paths that are suppose to lead to happiness. I married you Jack because your love was so strong, I thought it would help build me in to a woman that was capable of loving herself. I became a mother because I had studied and seen the power of maternal love. I failed at that too. My soul is just too broken to hold the undeserving love you kids give me.

I have become numb. Numb to the reality that there is no hope. I am numb to career and financial successes. I am numb to the arms that embrace me. I walk in stride only with fear of being exposed as a fake. A woman who masks her total void of self-worth, with drive and designed compassion.

Knowing the pills will be taking effect soon, is the only peace of mind, I have ever really had. Joy on the surface is what I have spent my entire life portraying. There would have come a day, when my make-up wore off, exposing my unhealed wounds. This was the only way to prevent it.

Jack, I want you to look at the Piet Mondrian painting you bought me, so many years ago. Do you see how the branches are being pulled away from their foundation by a force, unrecognizable in the painting? Please understand that to be me. Remember how you loved the straight lines and bold colors? Please understand that those lines always looked bent to me, and the colors, pale and draining.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the burden of my false emotions, misleading arms and fractured soul. I will no longer be those burdens on you all.

Now you are free. Now I am free.

***

Jack sat in the first row, his and Maggie’s children on both sides. They wept together. It was not only a room full of grief for a wife, mother, sister and daughter; but heart ache for a woman, who was never able to truly live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week’s prompted writing challenge was to use the line, “Looks can be deceiving” as the first sentence of your story; as well as, make reference to the painting Avond (Evening): The Red Tree by Piet Mondrian, featured above.

Dehydrated Fingers.

Ever been in a fight with yourself? This past week, I have done nothing but defend myself against myself. My ego has been throwing sticks and stones at my brain, leaving my heart heavy and hurting.

My chest and arms have felt as if they were taken hostage by gravity. I had a gnawing urge to huddle in a ball. I had a full-blown panic attack last weekend, for no apparent reason, that seemed to precipitate the following week’s worth of self doubt and a total inability to focus. All my emotions suddenly seemed to lack muscle.  I lost my groove. Actually, it feels more like the groove just ran away, with no explanation as to why.

This is the revolving, depressive door I seem to walk in and out of. Maybe I need a higher dose of an anti-depressant. Maybe I need a change more drastic than a hair cut. Sometimes I manage the episodes better than others, but regardless, it trips me up every time. This time, it wore like a thick coat with the fuck its just dripping from everywhere.

I write steadily, whether it’s something for my blog or one of the several journals I keep. My fingers have felt dehydrated this past week. I have tapped on the keys, only to erase everything I’ve written. I tried to write a fictional piece using a prompt that truly inspired me, but hit a wall. It just kept turning in to an unintentional, dysfunctional autobiography. I tried to write in my kid’s journals, but was left scribbling generic thoughts on how much I love them, ten different ways. It made me want to literately, hit a wall.

This fight I’ve been having with myself, it’s looked differently this time. What’s missing is my temper. It just never seemed to show up. My depression usually seems to have a bit of an angry streak to her. Most people don’t associate depression with frustration, but my “episodes” are filled with it. I drop a spoon on the floor and tailspin in to a swearing Tasmanian devil. The most regretful of reactions occur when my young children act like young children. That part of all of this will always have me fighting back tears.

Something jarred me, left me spinning and it feels like it was done on purpose. The other day, sitting at my computer, I tried to convince my brain to talk. It wasn’t working, and then, neither was my internet. My modem burned out for no apparent reason. It was like the universe was begging me to disconnect for a while. So I did.

For four days, I pushed motion out of me. I’ve forced myself to stay moving and occupied. Stale air and a lack of movement is dangerous for me. Not pushing through it has never taken me anywhere pleasant. Instead, I started spring cleaning early, or as anyone who would have seen me these past two days would call it, manic cleaning.

I dare you to find a spec of anything but love laying around my house right now. To top it off, I made a batch of soup and baked some goodies. Who knew depression would bring my inner Betty Crocker back out. It felt good getting back to basics. Starting from scratch has helped me even out the scales a little.

It’s so strange to me, how anyone that feels like I have inside, could still give so much of herself to others. How I, or anyone else, can smile and even occasionally laugh, all the while, have such a tattered heart, is beyond me.

Finally, today, I felt a break. A break in negative cognitions and the extra weight I felt following me around. I seem to be back in the running for finding the right words and locking them in to sentences that help me breath easier. All the drafts I had going before I fell in to this depressive funk, have either been deleted or are gaining a new perspective.

I don’t believe I will ever feel thankful for my illness. However, coming out the other side, always makes the sun seem to shine a little brighter, my thoughts to be a little more clear and my many blessings seem all that more grand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<a href=”http://yeahwrite.me/moonshine/”><img src=”http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/moonshine.png”></a>

Alice In Her Own Wonderland.

While searching for blogs related to mental health awareness, I stumbled upon A Canvas Of The Minds via  Twindaddy at Stuphblog.  I’m so grateful I did.  This blog is exactly what we need to see more of in our everyday lives.  Combatting the stigma in order to treat the minds of those that carry a mental health diagnosis is crucial to our society.  Especially in a time like now where random acts of violence are mistaken for an opportunity to vilify anyone with a diagnosis and attempts at suicide are  labeled “attention seeking behavior”.

I want to do my part in raising awareness so I am taking the “Blog for mental health pledge” and will continue to make my own struggles and knowledge on the matter transparent.  Here is my pledge:

“I pledge my commitment to the Blog for Mental Health 2014 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.”  

Here is a story I wrote just about a month ago that I will use as my introductory piece.

My mother was bi-polar. I don’t have the paper trail to prove this but I know in my heart she was. My educational background is in psychology and I started my career and continued to work with the mentally ill before resigning to stay home with my young children. I share that not as if to say I know what I know because of my educational or work history.  It’s relevant because I’m starting to understand that my focus on furthering my education and understanding of mental illness was really a quest to love my mother not a career choice.

I can’t tell you how many times I saw my Mom in the tired lines imprinted on female patient’s faces I worked with both on a mental health unit and of those I worked with in their homes. It’s like they were all pieces to the puzzle that was my Mom. She was in and out of my life so much through out her life that all I really have is pieces. I became a motherless daughter in 1997, when I was 15 years old.  The stories from my older siblings, all of whom are at least 12 years older than me, are a part of figuring it all out. Understanding where she came from, what she went through and the decisions she made is another.

It’s both a beautiful and some times disparaging thing when a daughter idolizes her Mom. Especially when, despite the mother’s best efforts, she could not be the kind of Mom that she needed to be. It’s so conflicting to want to be like your mother both because of and despite her faults.

I have had my own bouts with clinically diagnosed depression.  At times, I have questioned whether it is actually the uncompromising pulls of high and low that strangle me and not just the low.  Either way, the force that is my entangled brain has, at times, left me fighting the urge to run away.  To escape and embark on an anonymous life.  A life free of my current self.  In a sense, a life void of authenticity that allows more choice in how I can be perceived.  My mother did this.

According to my sister, Mom would sometimes be gone for weeks at a time only to return wearing a waitress uniform adorned with a name tag that read Alice.  My mom’s name was Connie.

A few years ago, I googled my Mom’s name because I was that desperate to find clues about who she was.  I surprisingly stumbled upon an arrest record in North Carolina from January of 1985.  At that time, Mom lived in Florida and my oldest sister was due to give birth to her first child.  My Mom had been arrested for larceny, impersonating someone else and somehow ensued a police car chase.

I was conflicted with anger and jealousy.  Her choices hurt her family.  Still somehow I craved to go on my own “adventure”.  That is the problem with glorifying someone.  Their actions are excused.  Especially when that person is your Mom and part of you is her.  I know that it was her untreated illness that helped fuel her disappearances.  I just wish I knew where she was on that polar line that ran through her mind when she would choose to leave.  And just how much of it was a choice.

When I first considered starting a blog, I thought about using an alias. I finally decided it would defeat my purpose. Writing is a cathartic experience for me and I no longer want to experience that in hiding or alone or in search of answers I have no real way of knowing.  I can’t keep chasing the missing pieces of the puzzle.  It’s best left unfinished but placed in a frame and hung to be honored anyway.  The whole picture isn’t really necessary to me anymore.  The love is in the pieces that are connected.

I am finally seeing Connie for who she was – the un-romanticized version of her life as a child, a daughter, a sister, a woman, my Mom.

http://acanvasoftheminds.com/2014/01/07/blog-for-mental-health-2014/

A Distorted Mind.

I was hit last night.  I didn’t know where it came from or the cause but it was a blow that shook me.  I’m still shaking.

I can’t understand why depression seems to creep in and take such an oppressive hold, at times that seem so incongruously wrong.  It feels like years worth of building myself up has crumbled down today and it has left me desperate.  Desperate for an air I can breathe back in to my usual full of life mind and body.  I’m running on discouraged fumes today.

I am reaching for a layer of strength so that I can mother my children through this somber day.  My arsenal for hiding my broken pieces is running frustratingly low.  The art of distraction, for both them and myself, is vital today.  I need room to decipher how to react to them when I feel like this.  It’s difficult to recognize.  It’s hazy at best.

Just as the energy to find humor has completely left me today, so has my relationship to any familiar emotion.  I am indifferent to all of it.  Love is there.  I can feel it.  I just can’t access it.

This is my truth.  I have these days.  I have variations of these days.  I have no way of knowing when this particular occurrence will lift or at least ease.  My body usually recognizes the break before my mind does.  I’ll be in motion again.  I’ll move forward and up word in thought.  My brain will react less critically.

Time is the only prescription that works.  Time and the will and ability to connect my flesh to the moment.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/daily-prompt-forward/

Let’s Just Not Talk About It.

Charolette Philby

I’ve spoke about being a one in three statistic before.  Being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse isn’t something that you file away somewhere and dispose of the negative affects.  In time, I’ve learned how to manage the unwanted flash photos and broken record moments that plague my mind but it still, and probably always will, influence how I think about things.  I can’t help but feel I’m being disingenuous if I didn’t admit the origin of some of my thoughts that occur because of that experience.

I’m sitting here, trying to write about a topic that I sort-of, kind-of know what I want to say about and an ASPCA commercial, high on drama and Sarah McLaughlin, comes on the tv.  I rolled my eyes.  Not because I don’t feel for stray, hungry, abused little pups but because it’s odd to me to see a campaign so heavily supported regarding our pets but nothing of that level or even close is done about the one in threes that are right in front of us.  The younger me’s that are disregarded.

Could you imagine, and why aren’t there, commercials that show children who are hit, neglected, raped?  Ugh … it’s hard to even type those words let alone consider the need to watch something like that.  In comparison though, it just seems odd that we can stomach one televised version of neglect and abuse but not another.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m too close to the issue or just because I’m simply human.

A study conducted in 1986 found that 63% of women who had suffered sexual abuse by a family member also reported a rape or attempted rape after the age of 14. Recent studies in 2000, 2002, and 2005 have all concluded similar results.  This is reflective of a breech of trust.  A misrepresentation of value.  How is a child, a being that is in the midst of learning the value of trust and love, suppose to value any part of her mind or body when a person that is recognizably a part in teaching her those values, violates and negates the ethics being “taught”.  Like respect.  If a girl or boy is taught to disrespect his or her body by it being disrespected against, they will certainly fall victim to those that are inflicted with the need to perpetrate them.  It’s a toxic cycle that I can’t understand how has fallen so far off the radar.

The affects of the epidemic that is sexual abuse are basically ignored.  People shake their heads and say things like, “Pedophiles should be hung by their balls” and “How could anyone do that to a child” but the truth of the matter is the people that violate children get a minimal punishment and very little, if any, psychotherapy to address why this perpetration happened in the first place.  No one wakes up one day and decides to be the kind of person to violate a child.  That kind of dysfunction is bred from somewhere.  I’m not making excuses for an abuser or placing direction of blame by any means.  I’m just saying that the identifiable parts we have come to know as a convicted sex offender are ignored almost as much as the invisible scars that they leave behind.  And that is part of the problem. 

I previously worked in a community that is plagued with sexual offenders, most of which are level 3s.  When you look this particular city up on the convicted sex offender registry, it is hard to differentiate how many actually exist in one single area because there are so many red dots.  I’m not exaggerating…click here.  But lets not talk about that because it makes our skin crawl.

Why don’t we see the sort of magnitude of awareness around the issue of childhood sexual abuse that we see regarding neglective/abusive pet ownership?  Is it a cultural lack of value for the well being of children?  Is it a higher empathetic nature for animals over children?  I can’t believe that. It feels ridiculous even suggesting it.  Is it because it is just simply too hard to recognize that perpetrators are both the skeevy alcoholic, dirtbag you see within your own circle of friends and/or acquaintances and the “upstanding” members of our communities that go to church on Sunday and hold higher education degrees?  I really don’t know.

We will sit through and absorb commercials that list things like “loose stool” and “oily gas” or “nipple leakage” as a side effect to something that is suppose to make us feel better but we wouldn’t be able to sit through a 30 second block of time that gives us the warning signs of a child that is being sexually abused.  They are far less disgusting.  A list would probably read like this:

• withdrawn
• low self esteem
• possibly engages in self harm
• prone to depressive symptoms such as crying spells, abnormal mood swings, thoughts or attempts of suicide
• overly complacent
• experiences violent outbursts

That’s not a list I pulled off of Wikipedia (I resisted the urge), just my own educated guesses.

We are bombarded with visually stimulating charity requests for children with cancer and rightfully so.  I’m not disregarding the epic need to find a cure for a life depriving disease such as cancer.  I’m just wondering why the epic failure to recognize the lasting affects of sexual abuse with such compassion and vigor.  PTSD is a cancer on the mind if you ask me.  I don’t know why that is so hard to understand.  I just don’t get why there is such a lack of response and outrage to something that could be prevented if we would just admit it exists.

If anyone needs big pockets and/or grass root efforts to help fill a need, it is the local mental health clinics and those that work in the communities to support mental health services.  The additional social workers these places need to address the “side effects” of abuse is astounding.  It is an epidemic in this country that is evaded mostly due to the population that is predominately conflicted.  This population contributes less financially to the economy and votes less.

We are visual people and I understand marketing enough to know the visual effect trumps all.  It’s pretty hard to profit off of damage you can’t see.  That’s the thing with sexual abuse.  There are usually no visual effects.  No heart wrenching physical scars.  No observable damage.  The damage lives and wrecks havoc inside of you.  And the small amount of people that devote their lives to verbally bandaging those wounds are not supported enough.

I have worked with wounded adults.  By the time I, as a mental health Intensive Case Manager, entered their lives’, the damage had been done and it was my job to assist them in adapting to it.  There are far too few people to accommodate the need to prevent the children from getting to the point that I helped manage as adults.  It’s senseless really.  The enemy and the environment that breeds them could become so easily recognizable.  But the opportunity to expose it just isn’t.  Because it makes people uncomfortable.  How disgusting is that?

I didn’t tell my story for nothing.  It is a part of my being. It needs to be acknowledged to understand other perspectives I share.  I will from time to time talk about this topic.  It’s not easy and it’s next to impossible to put a humorous twist on.  But for me, putting it out there initially has shed the shame in talking about it openly.  I feel like if I have a thought that derives solely because of that major and unfortunate experience in my life, than I need to speak up.

Take the Panic Out. A new voice for the new year.

 

Hey you. Yes you. Turn the other voices down so you can at least hear mine. I’m here to help you find some grace and defend your serotonin lacking beautiful brain today. I’m on your side I promise.

Your pacing is killing me though. Just sit down. Yes, I know this means one of the kids is going to notice you and probably want something from you, they’re kids what do u expect? Yes, I understand you feel broken today but your shattered pieces won’t cut them. They will actually help heal you if you can bring yourself to just hold them.

It hurts.  I know.  The depletion of your self worth is temporary though.  Your baby girl feels the pain radiating from your heart and somehow is able to acknowledge your need for space.  Don’t deny her simple, deserving moments of your attention today.

No!  Do not eat another cookie. These are no doubt your most amazing peanut butter/chocolate combination of love; however, you’ve already put on 10lbs in the past few months.  If you don’t start using a bit more self control, what you stuff inside in hiding will start to show in plain view.  Your uniform of jeggings and baggy sweaters can only conceal so much.

Quit tearing yourself down.  You set the bar too high for yourself on a good day.  Today your just flirting with self sabotage.  Break out some crayons.  It won’t kill the little guy if he eats a few more and his sassy sister will be entertained in her own precious, pink and purple world of hello kitty.  Coloring makes for good conversation…even with these two crazy beings that combined have only graced this earth for 5 little years.

Cut your self some slack.  Commit to yourself that whether it is genuine joy you’re feeling or unexpected sadness, you will be authentic about the moment.  Shame is no longer holding your nerves hostage.  You shed that skin for the last time.  The Celexa is helping you to balance the end of that life…don’t fight it.

You’re getting there.  Just breathe.  Teach your daughter to breathe when frustration gets the best of her.  It will save her a lot of grief if she learns how not to implode over life’s minor screw ups early in life.  You’re doing the best you can and it’s better than expected…you know that.

It’s ok to cry.  Give in to the Disney channel, turn on the hottest shower you can stand and go have an ugly cry.  Detox your soul.  It will uplift you.

Now, quiet the noise and relax your skin.  Take the panic out of the moments and inhale the reality around you.  It’s ok.  You’re ok.

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