depression

Maybe tomorrow…

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Yesterday I said maybe…Maybe school will start back up again. Maybe you can plan your birthday party next month. Maybe your best friend whose mom has cancer will be able to go.

Yesterday I said maybe, then yesterday maybe was gone. The governor cancelled school for the rest of the school year. The girls still have online schooling. But now everything deemed as fun is officially over. Tomorrow they were supposed to be going to prom.

It’s been a rough week here. Winter made a come back. There is a smattering of snow on the ground. It’s been cool and windy. I haven’t even been outside running this week. Everyone has cabin fever on steroids. It is a problem around here this time of year when we aren’t locked down.

It brings back memories of long ago. When I was in 8th through 10th grade I was homeschooled. My mom pulled us all out of school when my autistic brother Matt could no longer go to school because of his violent behavior. As a teen I lived in isolation for three years rarely leaving the house and rarely having anyone over. It seemed different then, maybe because I was a child.

I spent three years in isolation as a teen. It’s been a month now and I probably leave the house as often as I left the house back then. Maybe I have to examine that as part of my trauma experience. I’ll add it to the list.

I told myself I liked the isolation and really I think I do. I told myself that is what I wanted. When you can’t have what you need sometimes the best coping mechanism is to tell yourself what you have is what you want. You get used to it. It becomes normal.

Now everyone else is just as crazy as I am. The sanity playing field has leveled out. Maybe now you feel the anxiety that I always felt. Maybe the anxious introverts are now pulling ahead of the coping game. If you also struggle with depression, give yourself another point. Now the social anxiety people even don’t have to feel bad for not wanting to leave their house.

It feels strange to leave the house now. It feels strange to drive my car. I went to the store today to get groceries for my elderly parents. It feels strange, to call them elderly. It is hard to get groceries from someone else’s list. I’m not sure why.

I wore my mask that my crafty daughter sent me in the mail. I don’t mind wearing a mask though, although I couldn’t wear my glasses which made it harder to read the list. I don’t feel like I have to smile because no one can see my mouth.

Most of the people at the store wore masks. I don’t see little children anymore. That’s different. I hear more people fighting. That’s different too. It’s exhausting, but I don’t do anything to be exhausted for. When I get to my parents house, my mom opens the trunk to her car and I put the groceries inside. I wave at my mom and my brother Matt through the window. My mom looked different today like a wilted flower.

I wonder when all of this will end.

Maybe tomorrow…but yesterday I said maybe tomorrow too.

This stinking sinking boat we’re in

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I think the numbness has worn off and it is starting to hurt now.

I’m struggling today. Just the other day I was thinking about how hard it would be to be trapped inside the house with toddlers. But, you know what, it is hard to be trapped inside with teenagers.

It came to my attention yesterday that my daughter Arabella is behind in her online schooling. I had a sneaky suspicion about that although she has never had issues with grades or school before. I didn’t think I would have to micromanage my teen. I would almost rather teach common core math to a grade schooler right now. It would probably be less frustrating.

I can imagine how hard online schooling must be for a teenager. It takes a lot of grit, maturity, and strength of character to have self-motivation. When your whole world is falling apart you still have homework to do. The world is ending, but math..

The girls were supposed to go to prom this weekend. They had appointments to get their hair done. Now their beautiful dresses hang on a rack in the back of a closet. I could go on and on. The musical. Concerts. Going to state. Track. Spring break trip. Goofing around with friends. ALL GONE!

Why bother when the only thing left is the thing about school that most teenagers don’t want to do?

I have been angry. YOU NEED TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK. I have been frustrated…impatient. How do you help your teenager cope with disappointment? Now my daughter dug herself into a hole she might have a hard time getting out of. How do you deal with that? Should I ground her from her phone? She hasn’t seen her friends in a month. What else is there to take away?

How can you be upset with someone for feeling depressed right now?

It is hard to deal with disappointment if you never learned to deal with it at this level before. My daughter clearly is not at her best. All she does is mope around and eat junk food. Over the past year she worked really hard to lose 50 lbs. Now she is packing on the weight again and it is awful to see.

Our remaining foreign exchange student is not fairing much better. She has been sleeping a lot and not eating much. She hardly weighs anything as it is. It’s hard for her to find the motivation for school as well since this year does not count for her when she goes back. This is no longer the American experience she paid a lot of money for.

Also, her mother was going to visit in June and they were going to go back home together. Estelle just found out that her mom won’t be coming and she is not even sure she will be able to go home as planned. So far her departure is the only remaining thing left planned on my calendar.

So here we sit. What do I do? My just do it mentality is not working. I see everyone around me falling apart and I can’t motivate them. I’m trying to be supportive and understanding but it isn’t working well.

I’m not sure what to do about it but I can’t be the only one in the same stinking sinking boat.

scratch this

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My husband woke up with scratch marks on his neck yesterday morning. Five red raised welts caused by what looks like a left hand based on the markings. He didn’t wake up. He only knew because it burned while he was taking a shower in the morning.

I didn’t wake up either. We both slept deeply that night. That was the day we woke up very early to take Clara to the airport. We were both very exhausted. I knew I slept deep. I had that awareness. Did I have a nightmare and not wake up this time? Did I attack him? It had to have been me. He would have had a hard time scratching himself at that angle with his left hand. Plus I am left handed. Could’ve I attacked him without either one of us realizing it?

I have been keeping busy since Clara left. After she left I cleaned the house. The day after I met with my therapist. Afterwards I went grocery shopping for my mom. She completely quarantined herself since the coronavirus. She is freaking out. She will not leave the house even to go to the store.

The first couple weeks friends and family dropped off food at her house. This time I told her I would go. It felt like my obligation as her daughter. Plus with the special diet, I felt like I was probably the one person who could get her the items she wanted. She sent me a picture of two full handwritten pages. It took me 2 and a half hours. I got her 11 bags of groceries so they should be set for awhile.

Paul didn’t want me to go grocery shopping at first. He was angry and wanted my mom just to eat the food everybody else does. He was worried that I would get the coronavirus and have a weakened immune system because I am taking antibiotics. At his prompting, I called the pharmacy who told me it wasn’t a concern.

I haven’t been feeling the greatest. I have been feeling very tired, nauseous, dizzy, and have a headache from time to time. These are all common side effects of the medication. Also if I mix the medication with ANY alcohol (even with aftershave the label says) I could have a very serious reaction. So I stopped taking the elixirs from the wellness clinic because they have alcohol in them.

This also means I stopped taking Ashwagandha which helps maintain proper cortisol balance. The last time I went off this my PTSD symptoms went haywire. I asked to be put on it again after I figured out what changed. This time I feel fine off it or so I thought. Now I noticed that I am startling easy to noises. The anxiety and hyper-vigilance is starting to kick back in.

But even more troubling, I feel paranoid. Maybe Clara left because she wanted to get away from me. My therapist is angry at me. My best friend is out to get me. She is going to blab everything I’ve ever told her out to the world. My husband doesn’t love me, he doesn’t care. Yesterday when I called my brother Luke for his birthday I felt like he didn’t want to talk to me. At times I am afraid to talk to you.

Wait! It isn’t logical that everyone started hating me simultaneously. The problem isn’t them, it’s me. I’m being paranoid but it feels so real. I see it clearly now. I have another week to go to heal my body before I can go back to healing my mind. I hope I don’t totally lose my mind before then. At least I have awareness which I suppose is some consolation. It was more than I had yesterday.

Now if I could only figure out how my husband got scratched while we were both sleeping at night. I just hope I am not up all night worrying about it.

Last summer, this summer

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Maybe I was naïve to think after my son graduated from high school last year that it would be smooth sailing. Sometimes I can be like that, overly optimistic. And things were good for about a month. Then my life fell apart again in a different way.

It was last summer that my health went to crap. I found a new doctor and she was appalled that my last provider had me on 2 pills a day for a duration of 5 years for acid reflux. These were pills that should be taken once a day for a course of 10 days. She took me off my medication and had me scoped. She told me to take a few Tums for my gushing gut wound and sent me on my way. Besides being anemic nothing else was wrong with me.

But something was wrong with me. I’ve even had a doctor once say it was all in my head. She only said that once because I never went back to her again. Please if it is all in my head, fix it.

After being very strongly encouraged by my mother, I decided to go to a wellness clinic for allergy testing. I was found to be allergic to 22 foods. The biggest culprit was dairy. I said good-bye to my favorite comfort foods. But I still wasn’t feeling better.

I scheduled an appointment with the wellness nurse. She said I had a level of inflammation in my gut that she has rarely seen before. I had more tests done and started a treatment plan.

In the meantime, I discovered that I have Complex PTSD from childhood trauma. I have been seeing a great therapist. I have been working through my lifelong struggle with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Meanwhile my life fell apart in other ways with family problems that really had nothing to do with me.

Over a month went by where every single night I did not sleep the full night. Some nights I would just get up and sit looking into the darkness. Nightmares were common. If only I could sleep then my problems would be solved. With help from both my therapist and wellness nurse, I am now able to sleep a couple of full nights a week. With sleep, my mood improved greatly. I was feeling a little less like a zombie.

Once again I become overly optimistic. I had more tests done. I’m getting better. I was going to finally be able to do the 30 day detox diet and get my allergies retested. I imagined myself this summer eating my favorite foods again. This summer it was going to be cheeseburgers, mac and cheese, pizza, cheese, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese curds, lasagna, and cheese. It was so close I could almost smell it.

I went into my follow up appointment last week with great expectations only to have them dashed. My results showed that only 5% of the healthy population got test scores like mine. I have several parasites. I also have Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). This means that I have good bacteria in the wrong place which interferes with food absorption. This could explain the anemia.

So now I am on an even more restricted diet. Limited sugars, starches, carbs, processed food, and fiber. Too much of these foods can make the bacteria grow and make me feel sick. Pretty much the only thing I can eat now is meat. If it weren’t for living with a meat and potatoes man and ham I would probably be a vegetarian. This has really taken the joy out of eating.

The nurse also gave me a prescription for an antibiotic to kill off the parasites. It will help a little with the SIBO too. She said she only prescribed it to two other people but thought it was necessary in my case with my chronic gut issues. I was a little terrified to take the first pill. I read about parasite die off and it sounded miserable. So far I don’t feel great, but I don’t feel awful either.

It was hard going in with the expectation of good news. But I am on the road to recovery however long that might be. I know what I’m up against. It’s good to know it all isn’t in my head.

A part of me drowned that day in May

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When I was 6 years old, I watched my three younger brothers play in the lake by myself. My dad told my mother not to worry because if anything happened surely I would scream for help. They were inside the cabin not too far away. I’m not sure how long I was left alone. It could’ve been two minutes, it could’ve been twenty. But I don’t remember that.

My youngest brother just turned two. He went deeper into the water until it was almost over his head. He started to choke and flail about while my 3 year old brother thought he was swimming. My brother Matt who was 5 is autistic and he was oblivious to the whole situation. I really was left alone to deal with something I was too young to handle.

I was so afraid that my body froze. I couldn’t even scream for help.

The memory is always the same. I almost watched my brother drown and did nothing to save him. If my mother hadn’t checked on us, he could’ve died.

My husband asked me if I ever thought I could’ve died that day. He asked what would’ve happened if I jumped in to save him when he started to struggle. Maybe he would’ve pulled me under. We could have all drowned.

I never considered that before.

I think a part of me died that warm day in May. If you could imagine a 6 year old watching her three younger brothers in the water with no one else around. Debatably if I had any childhood up to that point, it was gone on that day. Who even knows what other responsibilities I had on days disaster didn’t strike.

I never was a carefree child. It seems like I was a careworn old woman all my life. I missed the time of magic and wonder. My imagination didn’t wander. Maybe that’s when my life started to be ruled by logic and structure. One part of my brain overdeveloped while the other part didn’t develop much at all.

I became this way before my brain developed enough to give me adult reasoning. I became advanced in rules, structure, routines, and control. If I couldn’t control my circumstances, I could have super human control over myself. Or I could feel like I had some control over things that no one cared about controlling.

As I grew older, I noticed there was a chasm dark deep and empty. There was a void inside of me bigger than a black hole. I longed to be someone I wasn’t. I wanted to be spontaneous and carefree. But would I have to exchange my hard earned grit for feelings and fluff? I couldn’t see two opposing traits rule inside of me at the same time without causing a war.

I mourned for the child I never got to be. I don’t think I was supposed to be the person I needed to be to survive. The seed was planted and the tree grew tall. It’s too late to cut it down and start all over again. The tree didn’t get watered enough but it got used to the soil it was in. I always wondered what the tree would’ve been like if it was nourished properly.

Maybe a part of me did die on that warm day in May. I feel like a part of me is missing. It was the part of me I wanted to be but never took root.

At this point, it is too late to chop down the tree. But I can prune away the old unhealthy branches to make room for new growth. That I still can do.

Gratitude week 13

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I’m not the superstitious type, but week 13 pretty such says it all for me right now. I’m having a hard time feeling grateful. Whose stupid idea was it to do this gratitude crap anyway? Oh well!

Right now I’m supposed to be touring New Orleans for the first time with our foreign exchange students and family. Instead we got the news today that Clara’s parents want her to go back home to Germany. We are so sad it has to be this way. We also decided not to have our daughter be a foreign exchange student.

This week the last thing I put in pen on my calendar is gone. We will not be visiting my brother and his family for Easter.

The Europe trip open to students and their family that got cancelled is not refunding us all of our money. They are keeping almost 1/3 of the travel expenses. Parents are angry and a petition is being sent around to try to get everything but our security deposit back. It’s a huge mess.

My husband and I have been fighting like crazy.

Everything keeps breaking. Now my son is having problems with his car.

Need I mention the economy.

So…it might be hard to find ten things this week.. Here goes..

  1. We are all healthy.
  2. We have enough food to eat.
  3. I only left the house once this week. That being said, the only compliment on my hair was from my husband. Just for the record, the last time I colored my hair was in September. I started doing this before it became cool (the hair salon’s closed).
  4.  I spent some time working on our new business today and it felt good to be productive.
  5.  In some ways I kind of like not being so busy.
  6.  The weather is going to be nice this week, sunny and temps around 50. It is so hard to exercise outside when I am freezing so this will be nice.
  7.  We named our indoor pool Florida. We can go to Florida now.
  8.  I think I am doing pretty well holding things together.
  9.  We will only have 3 teenagers in the house, although I am very sad Clara is leaving early since we get along so well. But it isn’t good bye forever and she will be reunited with her family.
  10.  I had a couple nights this week that I slept fairly good.

The new normal

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I’m doing okay with this isolation. It’s not that I don’t like isolation, I like having a choice. I was supposed to be on a beach in Florida right now.

Things are breaking down. The DVD player broke that I watch my exercise videos on since the gym closed. Thankfully my ancient laptop has a DVD player. Our main TV died. I don’t think it responded well to the surge of overuse. Or maybe it didn’t like being the bearer of bad news. Or maybe it got a virus. Oh wait, that only happens to computers.

We dug out some puzzles. After sorting the pieces of three puzzles in a row on the same day, all three were missing multiple edge pieces so I threw them out. Then Clara and I opened a brand new puzzle still in its plastic wrap and that was missing an edge piece too. We searched and searched but all I found was some dried up dog puke behind the couch. Now I remember why I hate puzzles. I had to walk away for a few days. The last remaining shred of my sanity was on the line. Seriously!!?! A brand new puzzle had 4 pieces missing.

This corona virus is the new crisis in my life right now. It’s not that bad really after the last couple months of crap going on. Being lonely and bored has been an adjustment. It’s hard to sit still and not to feel like I should be rushing around doing something. I almost feel guilty about sitting around while essential employees are working hard with people getting sick and dying.

I worry somewhat about my loved ones getting sick. I realize that my husband and most of my best friends are over 50. Having my mom, husband, and close friends all be older than me is slapping me in the face hard right now. It’s forcing me to look at death. Thankfully at this time all my friends and family are healthy.

My daughter Arabella got her old job back at the grocery store. The last couple weeks its been like the day before Thanksgiving there. They recruited her hard. They gave her a raise and put her back in the bakery packaging products and washing dishes. They told her customers would probably be rude to her. Arabella was happy about this. At Culver’s she used to run orders out to people’s cars. People treated her kindly and gave her tips whereas they chewed other employees out except for the ones with special needs. Then she started worrying that the customers thought she had special needs because they treated her differently than everyone else.

Our foreign exchange students are still here. They could stay if their host and real family still wants them to as long as school is in session. Online schooling is scheduled to start on Monday. They both realize they could be stuck here beyond the time they planned to go home. Estelle is feeling homesick and Clara was also crying about it this week. They are keeping a journal of their experiences and hopefully some day it will make for an interesting historical book.

It seems like all of our plans have been washed away. The trips we were planning are gone now. Financial security. Gone. Paul and I are working on starting a new business soon. How will that go in this economy? My structure and routine are gone. The gym is closed. I won’t even be able to see my daughter graduate from college.

I worry about death more. I even worried about what it would be like to become very sick from the virus. After running outside I felt a little wheezy from seasonal allergies. I wondered what it would be like not being able to breathe. My workouts are lackluster. Why bother? The races I might sign up for this summer might not even happen this year.

I have to hope that soon we will get through this and it will be on to the next crisis.

What could’ve been

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Last month someone close to me attempted suicide.

Maybe you noticed I didn’t write much during that time, maybe not. It’s been easier to write about crusty old scabbed over wounds than the ones currently tearing open my flesh. But now I’m ready to jump back into the flames of the fire that consumes me and threatens the very walls of my foundation.

Part of it I blame myself. I was where I spent most of my life, in survival mode. I was consumed by everything going on with my dad. It’s very bad and it sucked every ounce of energy, joy and peace out of my life. I thought about it every day and every night much like we are thinking about the corona virus. There is not a day that goes by we can completely purge this crisis from our minds.

I didn’t notice anything was wrong. If I did, I dismissed it as superficial (not as bad as what I was going through with my dad). When you are drowning, you tend not to notice if someone else is going too deep.

This person took a handful of pills and settled into bed for their last peaceful slumber. But it wasn’t like that, peaceful. Their life passed before their eyes taking a nightmarish turn. What have I done? Terror coursed through their veins as they struggled to purge the pills. Then they reached out for help.

When I found out, I screamed wildly with rage. I kicked the garbage can and assaulted the contents within. I wanted to put my fist through the wall, but restrained myself. For a few days after, my logic brain shut down. I forgot what day it was. I couldn’t process things in my mind that before I did with ease. My strong suit of structure shut down. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t write. Fear coursed through me day and night making it nearly impossible to sleep.

I felt angry with my dad. After what he did, I didn’t think I would ever smile again. Did this person think I was angry with them because of my reaction to my dad? I pushed everyone away. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize they needed help until it was almost too late.

I’m not going to lie, this past year has been tremendously difficult. What little joy remained within me was destroyed after the suicide attempt.

I feel like the mistakes of others are ruining my life. My childhood was ruined and is not salvageable. I tried really hard not to let the things other people do ruin my life, but it is easier said than done. If I am going to wallow in despair my whole life from the mistakes of other people, I might as well just screw up my life myself.

I can’t bear the weight of this anymore. Have it back. I don’t want it. Call me selfish, but I just want to worry about myself.

Thankfully this person realized they made a mistake to try to end their life. They are now getting the help they need. But still my mind wanders to what might have been. What would life be like if this person was not around? It would be horrible to find them dead.  Gone forever. There is much sorrow in thinking of what might’ve been. Thankfully this is not how their story ends. If nothing else, I can take comfort in that.

Garbage day

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We were supposed to leave for Florida today.

Today we found out that our music trip to Europe for this summer has been cancelled as well. I was going to go on the trip with my mom and daughter Arabella.

I suppose it’s just as well because I don’t know if we can afford to go any longer anyway.

I just want to take my 2020 calendar and toss it in the fire. I wrote too many things into it in pen that will no longer happen. Every time I look at it I will be reminded of that.

With everything going on, I don’t think my daughter wants to be a foreign exchange student anymore. She was planning on staying with Estelle’s family. But Estelle and Arabella haven’t been getting along that great. The honeymoon is over and now they are like real siblings. I don’t think Estelle wants her at her house anymore anyway.

Yet we will continue on with our foreign exchange students. Although I have a new worry. What if one of their family members die at home while they are stuck here? It is stressful having four teenagers in the house and sometimes I just want to send them home.

I am feeling really bummed out by the change of plans. I’ve always lived by structure and routine. Now everything I thought was certain is uncertain.

The gym closed so today I dug out one of my old exercise videos. In the process I found out that my DVD player no longer works. Maybe it conked out in the 1990’s. Who knows? Then I got the video to work on my computer but messed up my TV. My 45 minute workout turned out double than that. In the meantime, Estelle fell asleep on her exercise mat.

Then I thought to dig out a puzzle. It seems like half the pieces are missing to make the edge. I might have to throw that out too. What a way to clean the house. If this never happened, I might still think these things worked into the next decade or two.

I’m afraid I might lose track of time. The garbage truck never came yesterday. Did I have the day wrong? How will I remember without my schedule?

Ah yes, today. Today is the day we were supposed to leave to go to Florida. It is still written in with pen on my calendar.

Losing my reality

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I felt good for about a half a day this week. I told my husband to enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s been a rough last couple of weeks. It’s that time of year again where I am reminded of the anniversaries of the deaths of three loved ones. I especially remember my grandma who seems so far removed from me now that it is hard to believe she even existed.

In this past week I’ve heard about the deaths of the wife of a friend and the daughter of an acquaintance. Both died unexpectedly, tragically. They were both young, upper 20’s and lower 30’s. They both left behind families, very young children.

Then there was an acquaintance this week who told everyone via Facebook he was going to stop kidney dialysis. He is in his 30’s, had a failed transplant, has no family, and can barely make ends meet because of this. I have to question, is it suicide? I want him to want to live, but would I make a different choice in his circumstances?

Death is in the air and the sorrow of it is making me sad. So I gladly breathed in a reprieve from the anxiety I was feeling if but for a few hours. I thought just maybe I would sleep for the night but to no avail. It’s been almost 3 weeks now since I slept a full night. The exhaustion of it is almost relaxing to me.

I can’t relax. Depression is the closest thing to relaxing I do. My body resists all attempts to relax me. I sometimes wonder if local anesthesia doesn’t work for me because my body literally fights off all attempts of relaxation. Maybe it is just a crazy thought.

I was in hypervigilant mode for two weeks. It was awful. One day my daughter came up behind me unaware to hug me. I freaked out and screamed at her to get away from me. Later I talked to her in a general way about the trauma I experienced as a child and explained to her how startled I was by her unexpected touch. Even my husband tried to comfort me by touch and I told him not to touch me.

I tried to explain to my daughter why I had a hard time with touch and she got mad at me. She told me I was overexagerating and that her life is just as hard as my life was. I tried to give her the kind of life I wanted as a child and it is painful to hear her say that. It’s hard to have compassion for the trivial things.

Sometimes my autistic brother would attack us while we were sleeping. Is it any wonder that I cannot find sleep? My brother beat me on the daily and I was not protected or comforted.

Being physically abused wasn’t the worst. Even my dad’s verbal abuse wasn’t that bad. Being called stupid frequently didn’t end my world. What really hurt was the psychological terror. My dad seemed to have this innate ability to know what our deepest fears were. When we were little he would force us to do things we were afraid of. Then he would laugh at us when we showed fear.

My dad would torment us in the presence of our siblings. We weren’t allowed to be angry or cry, then we would get it worse. In fact, the more we laughed and taunted our frightened sibling, the better it would be for us. Compassion or kindness was punished.

We were terrified of my dad. My dad was especially abusive when our mom was not around. I don’t even think she knew about most of the abuse. At best, he would ignore us and watch TV. Sometimes my mom threatened to leave my dad. We were so terrified of being alone with my dad that it was my brother Mark’s job to beg her not to leave.

I built this wall of strength around myself. My dad robbed me of compassion, tears, and anything perceived as weakness. I can do anger, but I cannot cry. My mom cried and  was too weak to stand up to my dad or my violent brother.

But yet I am weak, yet I am vulnerable. In the whole healing process, I’ve lost a part of my knowledge of normal and real. Is this normal or is this normal to me? Am I not safe or do I just think I am not safe? Am I reading people right?

For example, I told you about the old man at the gym who complimented me on my running and looks. Perhaps it is creepy, perhaps he is just a lonely old man. He seems to know my patterns now. I saw him watch me when I was in my exercise class. When I am running, he gets on the treadmill next to me and starts talking to me.

I always wanted a dad who paid attention to me. I am starving for that. I am so hungry I might ingest things that aren’t safe for me to take in. Because of my hunger I reach for anything offered and I seem to no longer be able to distinguish if it is good for me.

I’ve seem to have lost some of my discernment.

That’s probably why I wasn’t prepared for what happened next…