So hello there…
It’s been a hot minute, well actually more like a very long slow roast since I posted on here. Much about anything. I’ve cheated a little and updated some of my posts but anything out of my own fresh mind. Nope. I’ve been missing. Gone. Poof.
Where exactly did I go? Well, I went to a dark place in my mind and it’s been a struggle of one step forward and two steps back for almost 2 years now. My therapist suggested I write, at first I didn’t want to but then I remembered, I used to love to write. It’s kind of like talking to yourself, but in black and white (and on a blog also for the world to see) Talking also helps me get little sparkles of light, almost like the sun shining through the thick leaf canopy of a dark dense forest. Two flies with one swat right? Writing and sort of talking. Telling my story.
So how did I end up in this dark place where all the butterflies have broken wings?
Let’s rewind to 1996 when my Dad died when I was only 12 at the time. He died and the next day (even though it wasn’t expected of me I’m sure) I just had to be grown up. I cried the day he died and refused to shed a single tear again after that. Not at his funeral, not when people spoke about him. I just simply said I’m done. My poor mom tried to get me to see a therapist but there I also refused to speak a single word.
In 1997 we moved, not house, not just towns but provinces where I ended up being dropped into the middle of the school year, in my first year of High School like a hot potato. I never really adjusted, fit in, felt safe. What I didn’t recognise then, but I do now, I was bullied by the mean girl. She made sure I felt isolated and alone for my entire 4 and a half years at that school. Always taking the friend I was talking to at the time around the corner to talk in whispers and inviting them to sleepovers. I think I was invited once, where she didn’t let me have a bath or wash my hair the next morning.
Wait I’m getting off track here, after my dad died my maternal grandparents helped raise us and I was very lucky to have them still till I was in my mid 30s. But then they died too, 3 years apart. I was devastated, when my grandfather died I wasn’t even in the country (yes a risk I know. Going on trips, bad things could happen and you can be away, far away) We had them both cremated, it’s what they wanted.
But now you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with my dark forest. Since my grandmother died, we’ve moved more than a couple of times. Each time we move we pack up and little handwritten notes, cards and scribbles in books from those people I’ve lost pop up among the books and files, and somehow I always end up with the box with the urns.
The last time we moved is what broke this emotionally unstable camel’s back. Lockdown had just lifted so we were all emotionally unstable at that point, I’m sure. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me because I felt like I was in a freeze frame. Each time I sat down to work it was like someone came and put a black bag over my head. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t blog, I couldn’t take pictures. I was just frozen.
After the move I just had a complete mental meltdown. I tried to do something that I’m not proud of but I just wanted it to be quiet, and feel nothing because even though I was numb I was feeling everything. My bucked had just too much water in it and it spilled. I spilled. I spilled everywhere.
All these helplines the government advertises, the government funded ones the private funded ones. Useless. All of them. One even told me to phone back when I feel better. Like wtf lady there might not be a time when I feel better.
That aside, I ended up going to my local clinic just to get onto the system and by chance it was a Wednesday and they let me see the therapist that’s there on Wednesdays. And there we had it, the reason why I was feeling like my world was crumbling in slow motion. I have PTSD. Death, trauma, everything that brings me back to those emotions I felt and suppressed since 1996 just got too much. I was in all those emotional states of loss all at the same time.
I got better and I was feeling more like me, baby steps that turned into leaps and I was in a good place. Yes. Was. Something happened. I’m not ready to air this publicly because it’s not just about me but something that happened over 30 years ago that I didn’t know about poked its head out and it shattered my world. My PTSD got triggered and I’m starting the process to heal again. Fighting for my winter to go into spring.
Except for all this there are some other things too, that I’ll address in a next post because I think this one is already too long.
So if you’d like to stick around for this journey you’re more than welcome. If you’re gone to be a troll. Don’t even bother.
PS. I use humour to cope.
