Jaws ate Dory

 I feel like I’m in a sinking ship. There’s a port with a space for me and my ship and everything I’ve ever wanted on it but it’s just sinking. And I can’t keep up with the water pouring in. I can only repair the damages half assed before something else capsizes me.

I focus on my mental health. I set boundaries for my physical health as were in a pandemic and having to quarantine isn’t really something someone in my shoes can afford to do. 

I have panic attacks as I prepare to clean a house. I fear I’m due for another attack. When will it strike? Like lightning it continues to strike, only this kind doesn’t come with the clouds of warning. So I anticipate. Constantly. 

I’m endlessly tortured by those who were supposed to care and didnt. Who were supposed to take my side but didn’t. Then there’s the 99.9% remaining that just don’t know what to do. Which is fine. I mean, I don’t know either. 

I continue backing away slowly, further into solitude so I can focus. It’s eerily quiet in my solitude and it’s oddly relaxing and comforting yet incredibly sad and lonely. 

I am tired. Once I have to explain myself deeper than a minimal effort I am exhausted. I’m so tired of fighting and working so hard to maintain the minimum of productivity. 

I’m lost, I’m stuck, I’m drowning. 

It seems I’ll have to swim the rest of the way and show up without a boat. 

Cold air goes best with self sabotage and regret

 Sometimes that times i have the most to say are the most difficult times to write. I feel raw, shameful, empty, embarassed, and filled with self hatred and loss of a sense of importance and worth. Depression, anxiety, ptsd... it's a melting pot created by a a collection of shitty situations and chemical imbalance that create the masterpiece I am today. 

Despite having these things for the better part of my life... I'm still learning, adjusting, adapting, and coming to new understandings that comme with growth. These are live demons that can take handle of everything I love and hold dear and tear it to shreds in a matter of seconds. Sometimes we are so used to pain and suffering, when we aren't experience enough of it we tend to need to create such things for ourselves. We need and hunger for the pain because it's often been the only time we feel alive, or like we HAVE to fight. We can't sit it out or we die. I'm not being dramatic. This is where harmful behavior, catestrophic behavior, suicide and unhealthy lifestyles come to play. It's not just a sudden feeling someone gets and runs with without thought. OFten its been a battle no one is comfortable enough to discuss and understand despite the fact that, when a loved on dies from suicide, everyone says "If only they had reached out! I would have spoken to them!" To be clear, I am not suicidal. 

Fuck off with that. I am so sick of people thinking they could have been the savior in a persons life. IF they're struggling in that way. Hurting. ANd living in this dark abode... they need more than a conversation over coffee some afternoon. SUre that can help but they need you at 4 am when they can't sleep. Or at 11 am when they can't leave their bed. These are battles we fight every day. We need help every day. 

In my therapy.. I've worked a lot on boundaries. I've been hyper aware of what i"M feeling, how I'm reacting, how I"m triggered. I've worked insanely hard on these things the last year or so. I've made specific plans and rules to live by in order to keep myself safe, protected, and to give me a plan when I am triggered. 

I had a happening this weekend I did not expect. I became triggered in a way I did not expect. I saw my rapists wife at a restaurant. I, foolishly thought I had overcome it and had moved on when in fact I hadn't thought or reflected upon it at all. This trigger sat inside my heart and my head for two days and brought me down. I thought I was sad. I thought I was PMS'ing. I thought I was just overwhelmed with the typicality of life. I wasn't. I was in a trigger. I didn't' address it. 

I spiraled. I broke every rules and guideline and boundary I have created and agreed upon and broke them. Every. Single. One. My trigger resulted in one of my greatest self sabotage moments of my entire life. a sabotage I didn't think I was even capable of. 

I spent my phone call with my counselor in absolute frantic tears this morning. I shamefully expressed how I had wrecked all of my progress in a series of moments. The closest thing I can compare it to is by celebrating sobriety with a bingefest. I wept with my tail between my legs and am now on a semi watch list. 

I feel like a failure. I feel like a.. I feel like an idiot. 

and now? Now I get to start all over. From the beginning. Pick up the pieces I'm allowed and try to force them back into some shape of a picture... a picture I may just never get to see again. a picture that may just fade away completely like some memory. 

When I get this low, I can't sing. I can't listen to songs I know. I can't.. think or focus or,,, I just fall into the rotation and muscle memory of shit I'm supposed to be doing. The fact that I've been able to write is astounding to me. I'm not going to edit it. I'll end up deleting everything and that's not the purpose of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to help people who go through shit like this. To know that it's not just inspirational quotes and hearing how strong you are. It's not about statistics or causes or whatever else. 

I want people to understand the deep and lasting effects of being a survivor of rape. ANd it is this. It's failed marriage. It's pushing friends and loved ones away. It's pushing love in any form away. It's acceptng trauma. It's sleepless nights, and days of gloom. It's eating disorder. It's depression. It's anxiety. It's crippling fear and panic at seemingly nothing. It's losing your sence of self worth. It's losing your mind. It's spending the rest of your life in therapy. It's shutting down. Backing off. closing off. boundaries up. walls up. It's people judging you and calling you crazy until you tell them what youve been through andn then they tell you how strong you are but they''re still going to keep your rapist in their lives because it's easier. It's wishing they had known. But then not caring to know. It's "Get over it". 

It's being frozen in anger and fear and flashback everytime the news is on. Its watching your friends and family support a rapist and call the accuser a liar who wants attention. But then they want to know the names of mine. Why? 

So now, despite how low I"m feeling. How awful I'm feeling. How weak and depressed, and devestated I'm feeling... I will take a shower. in silence and in the dark. I will get dressed. I will do the bare minimum of what I have to do today. 

Apparently this makes me strong. Me not killing myself or winding up in a ditch makes me strong. me laying in bed and wallowing in my own tears and spilled coffee on my bedsheets makes me strong. I keep going. I'm not strong. I'm about as weak and as fragile and as scared as anyone could be.

fuck.

Time for coffee.

Falling into a panic is attack is incredibly heavy, clouded, and takes your full attention for sometimes days prior. When you’ve experienced them for so long you can sometimes track them like a storm. You are in tune to your thoughts, feelings, senses... your body tenses and holds firm.. your wall is up to protect you from everyone and everything that may try and harm you (which sometimes can be a literal anything). Your eyes dart every room, back and forth, every person, face, wall, what is moving? where is the window and where is the door? How can I get out? What am I missing? 

It’s exhausting. 

You can be totally frozen and yet every other sense is on overdrive trying to put up barriers to pretext you while at the same time using up all of your energy. Causing absence of exhaustion. Defeat. Can’t take any more or do any more. 

I am still in a time where I sometimes think I am stronger than these triggers and attacks. I smell French vanilla coffee and I want to vomit. But the healing and growing part of me wants to be stronger than a scent. But it’s not just the scent. The scent is a trigger acting as a time portal, sending me back to working in a store. I’m standing in jeans and my work T-shirt. I’m trying to work when suddenly his face is there. His stupid fucking face. Holding that styrofoam coffee cup. He’d done it several times before. It used to be my favorite. I’m staring at him. Trying to be strong but so mad. The inside of my lip is blood from my biting. Chewing. A restraint I’m attempting. My wrists still hurt from his stupid fucking hands, clenching and holding them together. I dump the coffee and never drink it again. Not that kind.

That is a trigger. I will get a whiff of it and that is what happens. And I want to fight it and be stronger but sometimes I fucking can’t. And then I get angry for wasting yet more time.

But then it happens. I push it back and ignore and avoid and then I’m left with my only free morning.. having wasted it. I am trapped in my bed witg my thoughts and demons and triggers and all that I avoid with keeping busy. 

I get angry about what makes me feel better. For what I crave and desire and for what makes me feel whole again. 

When I come to I am frozen again but this time I am still. I am loose. I am calm. I am breathing and it is effortless and full and feels like it’s for the first time. That first breaths. I was drowning or at the top of a mountain and can finally take full and deep breaths. I can visualize my lungs expanding with air. My rips growing to the point it looks like they’ll crack. My face is wet. The air feels cool as it dries. My eyes are glazed. My body is still. I feel both dead and alive. I’m in a coma. 

And then I get up. Its time for coffee.

Pandemics and Civil Rights Movements

I've struggled keeping up here if you haven't noticed. I didn't want to take any focus away from what's going on in the world right now. But tonight I suddenly had the urge to write so I'm going to jump on it.

I haven't been able to meet my counselor face to face but thankfully we have Zoom chats once a week so we can at least see one another.

I'm on the hunt for a good affirmation to tell myself every day. She said it might help me separate my trauma brain from my actual brain. Sometimes I get so deep within my trauma brain it's days before I'm able to shake it and wake up. Add depression and anxiety on top of it and you have a super fun concoction of fuckery. Therefore if I have some affirmation to tell myself every morning, evening and time I feel really low on myself it might help me see I'm in a trauma. This should also help me zero in a bit more on actual triggers and what's causing these extreme shifts and emotional pulls.

Another thing I'm going to begin ASAP is a daily journal. Just for basics. What I did today. If I felt a certain way. What maybe caused or had some effect on me. Not necessarily LiveJournal style, but enough where I can feel a solid end to the day, do my affirmation, and feel like I've accomplished something.

In all of this chaos of the shutdown, we've lost routine. In some sense of the way even if you've gone to work as always, there's still change. I'm hoping maybe to bring some routine into my days. My flowers are too. I suck at watering them. I love them but it seems I'm some plant villian. Kinda messed up.


I'm learning how to cope with being alone. I haven't really had that in the last 5 years. Even before that I worked 60 hour weeks. It's amazing my cat knows me at all. Maybe a routine will help me. Being a newish single mom, I'm still not used to not having my kiddo here with me sometimes. One would think I'd get all sorts of things done but, not really. There's a lot of avoidance.


 But tonight I'm manic. I've gotten 3 loads of laundry done. I put a shelf together. I cleaned my kitchen floor on my hands and knees. I put away rooms full of clutter and "where the fuck does this go?" kinda stuff. And now I'm writing. One would thing I would feel incredibly accomplished but I don't. I have no control. I feel as if everything is spiraling just out of reach of my fingertips. My plate is so full and I just keep pushing things around with my fork hoping it will digest itself because I'm not sure of the sequence of events that need to happen, and I know there's more layers I can't see yet, and I'm afraid. My knee jerk reaction is fear. I cannot tell you how sick I am of being afraid. It's my body's defense to protect me so I shouldn't be MAD at it... and maybe I'm not. It's justified. I'm just tired.


Everyone says how strong I am.


What are the other options but to survive? What does it matter? Brave or not, I'm here. Afraid. Tired. Manic. Pushing the fork.


That confidence tastes good. That sense that everything is set and ready and planned and perfect. It's safe, and comfortable. Then I'm strong. Then I'm bold. Then I shine.


This is the part where I freeze. Every quirk I have is on full display. Eyes darting. Nail biting. Putting my hair up. Taking my hair down. Putting my hair up. Taking my hair down. twisting and pulling my hair tie. Finger spazzing. I can't sit still, but I can't move all at the same time.


Trauma brain.

Say Their Names

I haven’t been able to write. I haven’t wanted to begin a sentence with “I” lately. Tonight I have a few things to share that have helped me and might help others.

I am a feminist, a supporter of equality, a supporter of human rights, an ally to the LGBTQ community, and also the Black Lives Matter movement.

I am also a survivor of domestic abuse, and multiple sexual assaults. 

I am white.

I am a woman. 

I am a writer.

I fear confrontation. I have a freeze response. 

My struggle in this historical time has been.. that I’m not sure how to walk. I know my friends hurt. I know my friends ache. I know my friends are angry, and tired, and that some of them are absolutely destroyed. I know they have been marching, and shouting, for a week straight. Miles upon miles of city streets in Syracuse have been filled with the most powerful of peaceful protest. I am proud of my friends. I am proud of my city and it’s residents. 

I needed to be reminded that help and support can come in all sorts of various ways. I don’t feel I can physically march. I fear I will shut down and freeze up. That something will trigger me and send me into a full blown anxiety attack I won’t be able to shake.....

SIDEBAR I feel I need to express that a panic attack isn’t necessarily “freaking out” like in movies. Mine can be  a slight paranoia to an all out horror film. END SIDEBAR

However, I can still donate money, or water for supporters, or pens, or whatever else they might need. 

I also saw something that said not to take the lead, but to follow. Be whatever people of color need us to be. 

Listen. Love. Support. 

The system... is down

***I wrote this as I was falling asleep and then actually DID fall asleep. I’m posting it the morning after untouched. Sometimes, I get the urge to write despite being exhausted or not having much complete thought. I typically delete when that happens however I’m not going to do that.***

So I’ve been without a laptop for nearing 3 weeks now. This is why I haven’t blogged. It’s not the simplest to type these out on a phone. Therefore if there’s a typo.. just know what I meant. Thanks.

Today I was cleaning and recalled my first intense, triggered flashback. It was sometime in the area of my second sexually abusive relationship which I’m sure played a great factor in the recall. If you’ve never experienced abuse or flashbacks or triggers I can understand the frustration in that. The incredible details mixed among the simplest of lost details. I can assure you, it is not more convenient to have forgotten the things that will help solidify your case and will also make it believable for you. That being said I don’t have many details for this part. I remember driving my car.. which must have been my first car which was my blue Saturn. I was tracking North on I-81 and had just passed the exit for the airport. My best friend was with me. We often took the most random drives and adventures mainly listening to Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5 and Dash Ladd Confessionals. So this was not out of the ordinary. Suddenly something hit me like a brick wall. To this day I cannot remember what did it. Was it a song? A commercial? Did she says something? Did I see something? I almost had to pull over because I was so disoriented. It was such a huge moment I thought she saw it too. It was a literal flash and jolt for me. I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t bring it back to see it better and I couldn’t figure out what had made me think of it. I still don’t .

I don’t remember anything after that besides probably sounding absolutely insane to my friend. I kept trying to figure it out. And now I think of THAT moment every time I drive that way. Triggered by a trigger.


After learning what triggers are, I was able to better understand them and also pinpoint what caused the trigger. For the most part.

Spilled coffee and flowers

Yesterday I had a day that made me so incredibly happy to have taken steps toward working on my mental health. It seemed nothing could go right. From the moment I opened my eyes I felt such an incredible weight of misery and darkness and sadness and depression just laying on my chest like a lazy stubborn beast.

My husband and I have been separated for a bit under a year now and have a 5 year old daughter together. I realized early on that with the changes and everything that holidays the first time around were going to be tough. Would probably kind of suck. Trying to figure out who goes where and when and which part happens where and when and all of that. I did this not to be pessimistic but to be realistic. To not go too hard on myself if things aren't perfect. Standards can be set pretty high now a days which can often leave a parent feeling somehow "less than" under the best of circumstances. I feel we've worked well together to keep things magical and fun. However I had a new realization as soon as some loud ass crow outside woke me up. After I shouted "SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU STUPID FUCKING CROW!!" and slammed my window shut, I plopped back into bed and realized "Oh. Mother's Day is coming up. Oh. Everything is closed. We can't go out with my mom. I can't get a tattoo. We can't go see a movie. There's no school made Mother's Day thing this year. Oh." So right off the bat I was feeling the self pity.

The day escalated quickly. I ended up having to take my mother to the ER (non COVID related issues). I couldn't go in with her. I couldn't sit with her. Driving away I felt a wave of sadness. I was angry for feeling bad about mother's day when now MY mother was alone in a hospital. I felt sadness and helplessness.

I came home and sat. In misery. In defeat. In sad. In mope. In nope.

It was only about 5:30. I couldn't just do that for the rest of the night. So I got up and decided to work on my kitchen. We just moved in and haven't fully settled yet. So I did my dishes and worked on cleaning and wanted to make some dinner. Just as I started to get going.... WHAM! I hit my head on the cupboard. The corner went right into the top of my skull. I screamed "Fuck! Goddamnit!" and held my hands to my head. I felt the heat start to fill my cheeks and face, I felt the tears well up, and I felt my knees buckle. Slowly I slid and crouched awkwardly down to the floor. I had a flashback of when I was pregnant and dropped my iced coffee on the floor of our first apartment together. In a flash I recalled scrambling to clean it all up before he saw because I was afraid of being screamed at for being so clumsy and so stupid which, were the actions of someone else. Then I asked myself when it changed. One trigger to the next, to the next, to the next until it finally clears and I find myself slowly catching my breath. Counting window panes. Reading the numbers on the clock. Noticing each and every floor tile. I get up. I wonder if the neighbors ever notice me and wonder what the hell I'm doing. I don't care. I make dinner. I clean my kitchen... it looks nice. I feel pleased. I go to bed.

I wake up at 11:30 today. This is unheard of. But I realize my body. and mind, and heart needed the rest. I decide to also take a long hot shower and listen to music. I do. I end up at the store. Here's another side bar:


I. Love. Flowers.I love them! They're beautiful, they smell nice, and they make me so stupid happy. But for some reason I had it in my head for a long time that you don't buy yourself flowers. I have no idea why. I just really thought you didn't. Maybe we read into that another day. But when I was single and in my 20's and had an awesome apartment I loved I was like "Dang, I wish some guy would send me some flowers!" And I had this realization that "I mean... I could buy flowers... they're right there... Just buy them!" So I started buying myself flowers on my typical grocery run. And that is something I stopped doing.

So today? I bought myself flowers. I did! and I split them up and cut them down short into 3 little glass bottles I've saved because they also made me happy because they are cute. So now I have fresh flowers in cute glass jars and they make me happy.

And I kept going. I took a walk with the dog and my neighbor, and then I cleaned my basement and set up my kickboxing bag and beat the shit out of it for a while. Now I got some writing out. I have to admit I don't feel as focused right now so I'm not editing this. Part of this journey is me... writing. Just writing. So I may not always have a really good tie in. Especially if I'm still a bit into the anxiety. Which is right now.


Take care of yourself. Some days I need to just chill out and relax and watch PBS Kids all day with my little one, some days I need to distract myself and be out and about running around crazy... some days I try to point and focus my energy into something positive. In any one of those days, I can end up crying on the floor in my kitchen. Sometimes that means you stop and rest or go to bed. Sometimes that means you call someone. Sometimes that means you go for a walk. Sometimes that means you curl on the couch and watch Princess Bride. Sometimes that means you stay on the floor a while. And sometimes that means you get up and make dinner. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. It's important to learn how to read yourself, and to learn coping devices. *Note to self later. Add site for coping devices*


All in all... Your trauma doesn't define you... even though it can feel that way sometimes or a lot of the times. You are more than your trauma.

I am more than my trauma.

I am more than my trauma.

I am more than my trauma.

*Read and repeat as necessary*

Actually, it's a mug.

I was in Target a while back before the whirlwind of Quarantine struck. Back when you could still meander aimlessly through the aisles, casually sipping a comforting brewed beverage which is conveniently located in the front of the store... up and down each aisle without a list, or a care, or a face mask. When you didn't know what you needed but Target would TELL you...ahh.. those were the days... I'm sorry, what were we talking about? As yes. Aimlessness. *sigh*. I was getting the first group of basics that I knew I would need for my new apartment. Dish towels, drying rack, toothpaste, WHY DIDN'T I BUY MORE TOILET PAPER, shower mat, batteries.. that kinda thing. Anyways, I went through the basic bitch Magnolia Home section which I adore looking through! However, like dying my hair, I lack the follow trough to commit to such an endeavor. But this time something caught my eye. It was low key sassy, and sarcastic, and passive aggressive and I don't know who was messing with Joanna Gaines on the day she designed this mug but I am here for it. Look at this:

WHAT IS THAT?!?! I had to have it! I had to. At first I snorted at it, because that's what I do. I snort at things. I reached for it, and shook my head and took a step. Then I stopped and stepped back again. And then I picked it up and really looked at it. It wasn't pink. It wasn't floral. There were no cheesy pictures, or an over used yearbook quote of guidance and encouragement. It was firm, both glazed and unfinished, the letters printed deeply and in caps. For no specific reason, but for all of them at once I placed this mug into my cart and kept going. It was the first thing I took out of the bag and placed on a shelf. Even before all of the work was complete.

As a person with multiple stories, and multiple traumas, I have an array of triggers. I've learned, in the last 7 years, how to zero in and pay attention. One thing that I do, is to let words of abusers take over my brain. Those words lay so deeply within me I don't know that they'll ever disappear completely. So I do my best to differentiate if the words are coming from my brain, or from my past abusers. Sometimes it's hard to tell. Sometimes I can't find the logic. Sometimes it's still easier to just believe them regardless and quit or give up. I'm doing my best to rebuild my confidence, so even if I use this mug as a joke sometimes, I'm hoping it might ingrain itself into my brain the same way the negatives did. So if I begin to doubt or question myself on a task that may seem crazy or way above my level I'm hoping I"ll respond with "Actually, I can." and go for it. A semi for of training.

I, like everyone else in the literal world, has had a lot of adjusting to do recently. A big one I hadn't prepared myself for was my crisis counselor moving on in his journey. I take advantage of an incredible program here in Syracuse which provides me with free counseling sessions (They offer much more than that, however that is my current level of need). This was not a surprise. My counselor was an intern. However, with the quarantine, our last few sessions were virtual. Now despite me being incredibly thankful and appreciative of such technology being available, it was sad to have it end that way. A slight lack of closure. But really, I'm never truly satisfied with the final goodbyes. I've only been back into counseling for about 5 months or so, but the growth I've managed to accomplish has been incredible.


I'm willing to fully admit my anxiety during this next phase. Now is the waiting for a new councilor during a quarantine part. I have no idea how long it will take, or if I will connect the same way. I, again, feel so thankful to have received the councilor I did in that time. We were able to solve  problems, face insecurities, and identify a lot of blocks and other challenges I had in a very small window, comparatively. My hope is that, despite having a blip in the radar, I'll be able to continue my growth and progress. And, at some point, if anything in my mind says I won't be able to stay strong, I won't be able to focus, I won't be able to make progress and that I can't do it... I'll just snort and say "Actually, I can,"