A Year of Growth and New Beginnings

2022 Was a Pretty Good Year

Despite some health challenges, 2022 was a pretty good year for me. The biggest event was my oldest daughter’s beautiful wedding to a wonderful man. In fact, October 17, 2022 was one of the happiest days I’ve had in my entire life! Seeing your children happy is really all we want as parents, isn’t it? My daughter got a true gem, and I gained a son-in-law I adore. That would have been enough to make it special. I also got to see my youngest be brave and step out on her own in a new world. This brought a trip to San Francisco for me last February where I also fell in love with the idea of living in California.

In addition, for me, it’s also been a tremendous growth year. I’m starting to settle into truly knowing who I am and what I want for myself moving forward. I have been taking better care of myself than I ever have. I feel like my cocooning and chosen solitude has been beneficial to my healing. I am stronger, braver and wiser. What’s more, I am eager to continue the path I am on and excited for the next chapter. I’m addicted to growth and learning again. Healthy coping mechanisms have replaced unhealthy ones. In many ways I may seem like a completely different person. I see it more as a “return to self”, closer to who I was meant to be all along.

I still struggle with regret, mostly for relationships I let fall away and people I may have hurt along the way. Wasted time. Spending too much of that time (sadly, most of it), disassociated and only going through the motions and surviving. To me, that only drives me to make the most of the time I have left. To never ever again become sedentary or complacent. To never settle for less than the life that makes me feel content, fulfilled, at peace, and maybe someday, truly happy.

What’s next?

Plans for 2023 already include another relocation (very likely California) and a return to school for a Masters in Counseling.  It may be a pipe dream to pursue a new career after years of being unable to work at all.  It will be extremely hard and very expensive. And over 50? When a lot of people my age are actually retiring? It’s true, I am still limited by my disability and the challenges of aging but these days I have accepted that just because something is extremely challenging, that doesn’t make it impossible. The small successes I’ve had recently only drove my ambition to strive for more. I have fallen on my ass enough and gotten back up enough times, that I’m not afraid of falling again, and honestly, I have nothing to lose. I feel like the attempt in itself is a victory. Much of life’s success comes with just showing up, and if you don’t even try you most definitely will fail. Going forward, I will never stop looking for new goals, and I will never stop giving each endeavor my best shot.

One of the new goals is to begin telling my story right here. Perhaps no one will read it. But I feel that it’s a story that needs to be told. It was heading towards the land of cautionary tales, but my hope is that it will have a happy ending. Stay tuned and find out. I’m done hiding behind my fears of what people think. I’m tired of trying to pretend my life has been normal. I’m tired of being held back by what I now know is complex PTSD stemming from way back. For example, I have determined a few significant years that changed everything else after. My 18th year in particular was a complete nightmare. I’ve never before addressed just how much help I had needed and not sought out. Burying a string of incidents so significant meant I carried it with me from then on. I have carried every trauma since childhood with me. Over two years of weekly therapy and I still haven’t uncovered or addressed it all. I still have a lot of painful unpeeling ahead. It’s heart wrenching to go through, I won’t lie. But based on what I’ve already faced and begun healing from, it’s a necessary path to true peace and better mental health. You’ve got to go through it to get past it. A hard lesson, sure. Facing down demons is scary and painful.

No Regrets!

2022 was the first year in my life that I can look back with no regrets whatsoever. I did the best I could and I continued to improve every aspect of my life. 2021 had been a lot of wandering around lost, trying to find myself again. Recovering from loss, processing grief, and licking my recent wounds. Taking my life back. In 2022, I started making larger moves forward, learning so much about managing emotional flashbacks and anxiety attacks. I started feeling together enough, healed enough, and strong enough to start setting bigger goals for myself. I have learned that the words you tell yourself are even more powerful than the words coming from others. Once you learn compassion for yourself, and begin talking to yourself like you would a loved one, you spend less time in self hate and disappointment. You are less likely to believe that you aren’t good enough or don’t deserve any better.

I have a lot to say, but I’m not sure there is anyone who would hear it. When I try to write things like this I am swarmed with too much to say and I often lose the point as I have done here. I have realized that most people just really don’t care about what I’ve gone through. I don’t need it to be acknowledged by others to know it was all real. At least not anymore. I won’t minimize it anymore. It’s a lot for any one person to deal with. Are there people who have had it worse? Always. That doesn’t make it any easier to endure. That’s something we all should remember.. Don’t minimize your pain and trauma by comparing it to others. Any trauma changes your brain, your ways of coping, the way you live your life. Every trauma, no matter how big or small, is still traumatic. A definition of trauma is, “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.” How can that ever be nothing?

Every person experiences trauma in their lifetime. Some experience more than others. In my opinion, every trauma needs attention and care just like any physical injury. I have been taking a lifetime of them on, one by one. I spend quite a bit of time in disbelief that all of it really happened. I would love someone to tell me it’s all just in my head and I’m making it all up or remembering it wrong. But the truth is more evident and real as I continue my journey, and all of it really happened. When your therapist tells you it’s amazing you turned out as well as you did, then you know you aren’t crazy to believe your journey has been exceptionally challenging. It’s not in your head. Life really has not been fair. Now is the time to deal with it and move on. No one ever said it would be easy and let’s face it, just being a human these days is challenging on it’s own.

Difficult Lessons and So Much Growth!

Part of my trauma has emerged from feeling invisible, ignored and misunderstood as long as I can remember. I felt that nobody really cared about me, and tried to make people pay more attention. I feel I’ve spend all of my life lonely for someone to nurture, care and give me compassionate attention and love. In truth, looking for fulfillment from other people is a waste of time. Looking to other people to make you happy only leads to disappointment and heartbreak. It also breaks open the door to those who would take advantage. It leaves a person so susceptible to gaslighting and manipulation. Especially when you are so odd and your life has not been “normal.” It’s easy for those with less than noble intentions to convince you that you are worthless and to make you feel unloved. To take a broken and damaged soul and break it further is cruel, but there seems to be an epidemic of cruelty these days. There are so many of us out there who have come face to face with that viciousness.

While I will hold true to my nature and continue to see the best in people and be quick to forgive, I will now respect my own boundaries and ask for the same from the people I let into my heart. I refuse to become a bitter, negative, angry person just because things haven’t turned out the way I thought they would. I’ve had some bad luck, made some wrong turns, and who ever expects their body to just stop working? When I lost my career I also stopped setting goals. I have learned that having goals to reach is a major key to my feelings of self worth. In 2022, I set goals and reached them. Some small, some life-changing. When I stopped drinking completely for 6 months, I started losing weight quickly. Two birds, one stone. Now I don’t even care about ever drinking, and have replaced it as a coping mechanism. After losing 30 pounds this year, and taking better care of myself overall, I feel better about myself all around. A year and a half as a nonsmoker after 30 years of nicotine addiction will do that too.

What Else Happened?

I went to a music festival this year, learning that by swallowing my pride and using a mobility scooter, I was able to truly enjoy it without getting worn out so quickly. I still can’t believe I found myself in a mosh pit with said scooter, but that’s a story for another day. I took care of health issues this year that I’d been putting off. I found out that I had a few new ones. I am taking care of those too. One by one. Having an illness that has no cure and will most definitely get worse and not better means I need to do all I can to slow down the process. Taking care of myself first and foremost. It also means I have to jump at every opportunity to live a full life. To start tackling bucket list items, sure, but to also savor the happy moments. To be truly present.

I have felt so many moments of happiness in 2022! When the happy outweighs the sad, it makes the difficulties more bearable.

Moving Forward With New Goals

This website is one of my new goals. I want to create a space that celebrates uniqueness. This blog is only the smallest part of the true vision. I’d like to showcase some original art, online shops that celebrate inclusion and diversity, some humor, and some helpful articles related to so many issues that are close to my heart. Maybe it’s an outdated concept to blog. However, writing it all down is something I’ve filled many journals with, and it’s been so helpful. Maybe sharing some of it here can be helpful to others. Anyone who wants to understand me a bit better can possibly find some answers here. It answers the question of who I really am, when there have been a multitude of different versions of me that weren’t. So many times I have acted out of character or been guarded. I have trust issues and fear of abandonment. Trauma responses and triggers. I’m still only beginning to understand the reasons behind them all. I’m not afraid to share them because I’m not the only one who is struggling to understand why they are the way they are. Struggling to convince themselves that being different and being wrong are not the same thing. It’s ok to be the person you want to be and live the life you want to live, as long it doesn’t hurt anyone else’s ability to do the same. To not value the opinions of those who would say otherwise.

That’s enough for now. Like I said, I have some things to say. I don’t know what will come out when.

Today it’s a NEW YEAR!

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca