Healing Out Loud: Going back to the beginning.

Healing Out Loud: Removing The Mask - Step 3 - Going Back to the Beginning - Over a picture of broken glass with a Trauma Warning, that this one could make you cry.

Growing up I never thought I had it too bad. My family loved and cared for me. I was provided with everything I needed to survive. That was more than a lot of people around me had. My ex’s family history were both stories of single mothers struggling. They had to step up or grow up in ways most didn’t so early. One of them chose sleeping on the streets over being in his house as a teen. I had presents every Christmas. I never really worried where my food was coming from. I did well in school. I had friends. I thought I’d had a good childhood.

But that was part of the mask too. My parents did their best, it’s not their fault they weren’t shown the tools they needed to heal themselves in their life. My father is still living in survival mode at 74. And my mother’s too scared of darkness to ever see her own, or how it bleeds onto those around her. I’m sorry for the truth I’m about to show us all, but it needs to be seen to be healed. I hope you follow my lead into a better future. We’ve all been stuck in these cycles for too long. 

In 2022 I was on a business trip with my dad in St. Louis. At dinner one night he recounted to the table the story of my mother’s accident. I was sitting across the table shaking, quietly realizing, while I had defined myself by that moment I hadn’t actually thought about it. And then I lost Eva while on that trip… She was hit by a car and my whole world shattered again.

I told myself that was the price of life. I always had to lose something to move forward.

What kind of fucked up way of thinking is that? I refuse to be that way anymore. I’m going to live with hope. Hope that things can work out without having to lose pieces of yourself in the process. Of course… I am having to lose my whole past self to do it. Everything I was, and defined myself by will be redefined. But the new me is going to be the true me, and then nothing will be able to stop me or take what belongs with me from me ever again. This is the “death” everyone’s so scared of. But I know it’s going to be worth it on the other side.

So I asked my sister for the stories she and my mother had written about it so I could read them and hopefully remember. I was not prepared for the feelings that would come from reading those stories. Yeah, remembering the accident sucked, but that was the least of it honestly. While I do not have the ability to visualize in my head (aphantasia), I did remember the surrounding details well enough to put the puzzle together if that makes sense. Explaining “how” I think is so hard.

This is what I now remember…

When I was 11 my mother had an accident. Earlier in the summer we had won an old manure spreader at an amish auction. They wanted our 2 percherons to pull it and get some practice for the fair. It looked like it was about to fall apart to me, but what did I know?

It took months before my mom found a day we were all “free” to help.

In reality none of us were free, we all had other things we wanted to be doing. But she insisted and when she made up her mind it was done. You went along, there was no other option.

There’s always another option.

So they got the horses in their harnesses, hooked them up to the thing, and rode around the paddock behind the barn for a bit. After everyone was satisfied and comfortable with moving forward we headed up the hill. My sister said it was a mile walk uphill. If I tried to do that now I’d probably pass out before I got to where the accident happened. Back then I lived for that stuff. I was of course in gymnastics 3 days a week and had a freaking 6 pack so no need to compare myself now other than for entertainment.

Anyway, we made it to the very top of the hill. Beautiful views of sprawling fields and hills in either direction. They turn around to head back down and I remember now the relief I felt. We were past the half way point. The end was closer than the beginning. I just had to make it through this last bit.

“One step too late and I never told you, never told you that I can’t take another disappointment. Breathing and grasping all leads to another messy ending.” Asking Alexandria has been helping me process this since I was 18 and I didn’t even realize it.

As the hill flattened for a short bit of the road they decided we should test the rotating blades in the back of the wagon to see how they reacted. My dad flipped the lever and the blades started spinning so loudly and so quickly. It all seemed to happen at the same time. The horses were running as my dad was flipping the lever back and then my mother was jumping. It was that or be knocked back into the blades by a coming tree branch. The seat was nothing but a seat on a metal bar. Nothing to keep her in it or safe.

She hit the ground just in time for the wheels to use her hip as a ramp as she curled into a fetal position. We all sprinted to her as the horses continued down the hill toward the sharp corner before the middle field. The spreader continued to make a racket behind them, scaring them more. My dad got into control mode, told her to stay still. Me to stay with her, and my sister to help him get the horses and help. 

Okay break Go Team! (Sorry, comedic relief?)

I remember her looking so small and scared. She was just laying there in the small stream curled into a ball. She moved her helmet from her head to between her knees. She tried to look brave but I knew better. I’d be brave for her. I sat with her, both curled in a ball, me on my feet, her on her side, for 30 minutes just saying “hurry” under my breath. Willing them to be faster.

When I read her account of this I had the realization that I had been hurrying ever since… that one broke me a little bit. But I figured out how to slow down and breathe after.

My sister saved the horses. My dad cleared the path. And then they were there with a pick up truck to get her to the ambulance at the bottom of the hill. They were trying to do their jobs and help her. She was arguing telling them her neck didn’t matter, she knew where she was hurt. She always knew best.

Then I remember her clothes shredded on the floor at the small town hospital and hearing there was nothing they could do for her there except help with the pain. She’d go in a helicopter to a hospital in Binghamton where they could do the imaging needed and find out more. Back to the car we went. The hour drive felt like forever. I felt like I had to be present the whole time. I couldn’t just space out listening to music like I usually did on car rides. 

At some point my dad got frank with us. He always prepared for the worst first and the hoped for the best. “She could have internal bleeding. There could be nothing they can do for her. We need to prepare for the possibility that she could die.” That’s not an actual quote. I remember the vibe, my sister probably said it better but I don’t want to look right now.

Before that drive I always LOVED drives to Binghamton. It meant I was either going to gymnastics or that we were going on one of our monthly big grocery trips. I don’t know why but I’ve always enjoyed making a grocery list and crossing things off and then putting it all away and seeing the full cupboards. It’s like a full day activity these days but it’s so satisfying.

Anyway, when we got to the hospital they told us the worst.

“There’s nothing we can really do for her.”

Okay not actually the worst.

“She’s just going to need to heal in time. She’s going to be okay.”

She had fractured and shattered a 2 inch section of her pelvis.

I don’t know why they couldn’t have surgically stabilized it for the healing, it looked like pieces were all over the place in the x-ray. But this was 2003, I know nothing about where “we” were at with this stuff then.

She was bedridden for months. My dad and sister took care of her mostly. And I did my best to take care of them. I had learned how to cook with grandma. I always loved spending my time with her in the kitchen when we visited. I just gotta say… Tiger Woods… She would be ashamed of you…

I did my best to cook for us, and clean up around the house. I took care of the dog, cats, and ferrets. My sister took on the responsibility of the horses at 13. She also went into school late and came home early when she could arrange it in her class scheduling. And still she graduated a year early.

My dad took on more work to cover the extra bills. It felt like he was away as much as he was home for a few years there.

It took a year before the first time my mother “ran” a few steps across the living room. She used her time in bed, once the pain got bearable, to work on her art and writing. She was always so talented at both but they never seemed to go anywhere or bring in sufficient money. I don’t say this to shame or anything like that. 

I’ve just come to believe that the universe truly responds to where you are internally. If you refuse to confront yourself, you’re going to spend your entire life living the same cycles over and over because you aren’t learning your lesson.

My mother demands what she needs because she “knows” life will never give it to her. It’s taught her that repeatedly from childhood. And every time she demands it she reinforces the cycle and it continues. I can’t show you the path any farther than that really because it’s a long one and you need to take it in your own time. But this is a good place to start. Find the times in your life that made you feel that need until you get to the start of the loop. And then forgive yourself, for everything you had to do to survive since then.

The loop continued a few times throughout my life so far. Now all of this is what I’ve found in healing MY TRAUMA. I only know the pieces of reality that I have been privy too. From my perspective it seems she is oblivious to all of this. It’s so deep in her subconscious I don’t think she’s ever thought it could be true.

But there’s this shared trauma my sister and I have…

My parents have told this story our entire lives as a light hearted joke. How when they got together my dad DID NOT want kids at all. But my mom wanted ONE soooooo bad.

So they had my sister. My Mom was happy. And my dad loved her so much he decided he wanted another one. (This was my interpretation.) So he begged and eventually my mom gave in and they had me.

So in my eyes I was always wanted by my dad and tolerated by my mom.

She has said and shown she loves me my whole life. I know she does. I did doubt it once, but I refused to stay in that headspace. I kept reading and researching about trauma and how to heal. I read When The Body Says No and the pieces started to click together, but it wasn’t until starting The Body Keeps The Score that the picture started to get clearer. 

Somewhere inside my mother is a small scared version of her whose inherent needs were never properly met as a child. When that child feels threatened she lashes out and digs her claws into what’s “hers” no matter who it hurts. It’s how she survives. So the cycle continues.

When I was 19 my dad picked me up from college after I finished my freshman year. I had loved it so much, I had so many dreams for my future. I finally saw a path to working with the bands I had always dreamed of. About 20 minutes into the ride he broke the news.

“Your mother has decided to go back to school. It’s some class that’s only offered once every 4 years at UNL and she can’t miss it. So she’s going to be moving to Nebraska.”

There was more to it than that on her end but that’s her business. What was my business…

“Unfortunately, you’re tuition has gone up and I’m not sure how to afford it or your mother’s tuition. I don’t know what to do.”

I don’t remember if he actually gave me a choice or not, but in my head by now I decided to make the choice on my own and drop out of college. I’d figure something else out. I had started a youtube page and had already interviewed some of my favorite bands. I’d just go all in on that.

I helped my mom move to Nebraska. My sister and I road tripped the 14 hour drive out with the car packed FULL. I think she was just home from college, but that summer is probably the closest we’ve ever been in our lives. I hardly remember it though, but blurs and locations.

When Frozen came out I immediately related to Anna and Elsa was her. I can’t watch the movie without those facts BEING. When I read her recount of the accident I felt like I hardly existed, which was valid from her perspective of the day. But it triggered that I had felt like I didn’t exist to her for most of our lives. We actually talked about it recently, and she confirmed that I really didn’t. Which sounds like it would suck, but was actually a release. I wasn’t imagining it, I was just seeing past the mask.

My parents were two BIG personalities. So my sister felt like she needed to be a big personality too. When I showed up I just watched. I saw how people reacted, I made myself fit into the spaces that were left. The ones that didn’t draw negative attention or reactions. From the outside world, each other, or myself. That’s the start of my mask. It wasn’t anyone else telling me I did something wrong. It was me watching society react to 3 people who were so unashamedly themselves that others couldn’t stand it. 

It was ultimately me living with 3 undiagnosed examples of what not to do to be accepted by society. My pattern recognition kicked in and said “save yourself kid”. So I did. (Theoretically of course, I do not remember being a toddler.)

This habit of suppression was reinforced by EVERYTHING. When my sister did acknowledge my existence and deign me worthy to play with, I usually ended up getting hurt. I would cry, she would get yelled at because “she’s older and she should have known better.” I didn’t want her to get in trouble and stop playing with me so I learned to suppress my pain too. The longer I could go without crying the longer we could keep playing if something happened that hurt. It was NEVER intentional. We weren’t sitting there wrestling or fighting. I’m talking about playing basketball and I trip, or she boxed me out a little too hard. Or the basketball hit me on the head. We were kids, shit happened regularly. I’m hypermobile… which means I’m prone to injury. I actually made it out of childhood relatively well considering the potential for injury in my tree climbing, gymnastics, and other crazy antics. 

My entire life I’ve equated phone calls to sticking my hand on a hot stove.

And all my life everyone rolled their eyes and told me to get over it, phone calls are a part of life. If you want to be an adult you have to make phone calls.

Unfortunately, THEY WERE RIGHT. But I have built a life that involves as FEW phone calls as humanely possible. I run both bars almost exclusively via text and Snapchat honestly. Only the owner calls me because he’s “too old to read the texts”. It’s an excuse but I let it slide cause he’s my boss, and after 9 years of working for him it’s more like a slightly warm stove that’s just a little annoying.

If someone does not respect my dislike of phone calls I used to suck it up and suffer. So now dealing with actual pain is really confusing, because it affects me the same as the mental pain. My heart races, I get sweaty and uncomfortable, there’s sharp pain, and I usually want to cry. I broke my ankle and didn’t go to the hospital for 4 hours. I just sat there watching TV with an ice pack hoping it was a sprain and trying to figure out how I was going to bartend next weekend. At midnight…on my 32  birthday, I went to the ER and had it X-rayed. I’d need surgery to get it back in place but it was too swollen now so we would have to wait a week or so for the swelling to go down. So I went home with my happy hydro’s and confronted the stairs I had broken it on.

Being laughed at and rushed up the stairs as I struggled broke me in a different way. It wasn’t that first trip, but it did happen. The unwillingness to do anything for me unless I expressly ASKED for it, almost had me starving. I hardly had an appetite with my anxiety. But I needed to eat with my meds so I kept crackers and snacks in my bag to survive on. I had never been good at asking for help. I’d never been good at needing help. I took care of myself… even with a broken ankle. Even though I “had help”. I couldn’t drive for 3 months. Being trapped like that also broke me. By the end of my “healing” I felt like I was shattered on the floor looking at all the pieces of myself from before not knowing how to put them together.

I thought back to how my mom was cared for after her accident. How the entire house had been reworked to suit her needs. How we all bent over backwards to make sure she had everything she ever needed without asking. I’m probably fantasizing about it of course. I know it wasn’t perfect for any of us, but the comparisons were glaring.

This is when my relationship started to break. The pieces of me no longer fit with him. They forced him to look at himself in ways he wasn’t prepared for. And it got to the point that it was clear. One of us wasn’t going to make it out alive if we kept holding on so tight, we were driving each other too far into depression. We both just wanted to be happy. To be ourselves. Why did the pieces that fit so well before hurt all of a sudden?

I really didn’t feel like I had changed. I thought I was still myself but he kept accusing me of lying more and more. It was so frustrating for both of us. He knew me sooo well he KNEW I wasn’t telling the truth before even I did. He had met my whole family and seen the way we all interact with each other. Everyone interprets him so negatively, still to this day. But he’s just misunderstood on a fundamental level and I think that’s his cycle. But he’s so intuitive. He can feel and sense things just like I can. So we both could feel the offness that we refused to admit to ourselves. He was never going to leave me. I was too good on paper and in comparison to just about every other relationship he’s ever had in his life, everyone would have looked at him like he was an idiot including himself. So I did it for us. I knew we could both be happier if we finally just suffered the pain right now instead of putting it off for another worse cycle.

But it literally took a gun to his head and a trigger pulled to get that message through my skull.

Thankfully the universe jammed the gun. People don’t understand how we stayed best friends after spending so many years together. How we stayed on good terms. It’s because we went to hell and back together, and found ourselves in the process. And at the exact moment when it all could have exploded and destroyed us both, the universe saved us.

I stayed long enough to build him back up. Until I was sure he could survive without me. I didn’t even realize it at the time. I thought I was still in it completely until just a couple weeks before the end.

“You suck the life out of everything.” Were the last words I’ll ever let break me.

That was when I knew it was over, and when the time came thankfully he chose to end the cycle too, and in that moment we started to truly heal together. Even though we were now about to take on life separately. 

That was when I thought my healing journey began. Last April, but it’s really been going on since the day I met him, if not earlier. He helped open my eyes to all the ways I was abandoning myself. For a long time I thought it felt like abuse. Why won’t he just let me do the things that make me comfortable? Because he saw they were survival responses and not my actual wants, He just couldn’t figure out how to express that. He just wanted me to do what made ME happy. But it came at the cost of confronting all my pent up family emotions. It wasn’t until my dad started asking me that too that I actually started to figure it all out. 

Now I’ve avoided talking about my dad in detail throughout all of this because I have not fully confronted my baggage yet so the picture isn’t as clear for me. He’s always been my hero, and he will continue to be after this. I’ll just see everything a little more clearly.

He actually clued me into the last cycle…

I started this business in November last year with the intention of purchasing property in Lincoln to provide Pet Friendly rentals so no one else had to go through some of the struggles I did when I first moved to Lincoln with a German Shepherd, and a German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix. He wanted to invest money from his business into this so we could work on building a system of support for my mother after he’s gone. He was going to loan me $35,000, which should have been enough for the down payment on my first property.

Around this same time construction started on my mom’s house. She was getting her bathroom and kitchen renovated after YEARS of living in a cramped little space where you could browse the fridge while you peed if you were bored. It turned out sooooo good.

Unfortunately issues in business happened and things have been tight so my dad hasn’t been able to find the money to invest. So I started thinking of other things I could do with my already established business to try and make the start up money for myself? And well, here we are. But my dad called me the other day. He’d done the math on my mom’s house renovations. They were $35,000.

So now it’s time for me to end another cycle.

I need you to heal yourself Ma.

I need you to look inside yourself at all the dark and scary parts that you don’t want to see. Find all the things that cause you anxiety, or sadness, or pain, or fear. And forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for every choice you HAD to make in life to survive. It’s going to be a messy and ugly journey, but on the other side of it I truly believe that you will find a path forward that can support yourself. I can’t live with that weight on my shoulders anymore. I’m sorry but it is no one’s responsibility but your own.

Now I’m not saying you deserve no support, because you ABSOLUTELY DO. But until you heal your wounds you are going to continue to weigh down and drain everyone around you even though you do SOOO MUCH to spread nothing but LOVE and LIGHT. I see how hard you try to fight it. But unfortunately, you’re looking for the answer in the wrong direction.

I love you. And I forgive you.

Just like I’m forgiving myself for what I’ve had to do in survival since I was 11.

If you made it through all that thank you. <3 I’m sorry for putting that weight on you. But sharing my truth is an important part of my story moving forward. I hope you maybe learned somethings about yourself in the process. Now you can ask yourself some questions to figure out the own cycles in your life that you are participating in. Let yourself see the part you play and readjust. I promise you’ll be rewarded with drive and conviction as you figure out where this life is trying to truly lead you.

Lets all try and spread some positive Khaos this week what do you say?