A Little Further Down The Road

It is almost almost eighteen months further down the road since the stroke. A lot has happened. And a lot hasn't. Yesterday I had one of my “off” moods, the kind I used to have all the time about a year ago. The moods that would make me want to stay under the covers, turn off my phone and just hide out until everything passed. As usual, I have no idea what triggered it. Nothing major happened. I actually woke up in a very good mood and had a great morning. And then, like so many times before, I felt the gathering of the emotional clouds and the slight change in myself. I tired to ignore it and occupy my mind with other things. I cleaned a room. Vacuumed the house. Went for a walk. Watched some videos and even took a nap, but nothing helped in any way and soon, I felt the all consuming mood swing I still don't understand or know what to do with. While I wanted to hide out and avoid people, I decided not to. Everyone could tell something was going on and so I just said I had a bad stomach and left it at that. I don't know how to explain what happens and that makes it all the more frustrating.

To make it worse, when those moods hit, I feel I am back to the beginning. The fear of another stroke, the before and after comparisons. My balance goes and I find myself having to hold onto walls when I walk. My vision makes it hard to read and I find it difficult to concentrate. The mood swings come by very rarely, but the intensity hasn't let up at all. What has changed is now there are people around and it really scares me. I wonder what they will think and how they will react and I find myself getting angry at them for not understanding something I myself don't understand.

The mood has passed now, but not the memory of it or the fear of it coming back. I know it will come back since it always does, but I really don't know what to do when it is happening. I don't know how to avoid it. I don't know what I need to do to get through it faster. Logically, I know what is going on, it is the emotional part that baffles me.

A year and a half ago, I thought this would all be over with by now. I thought I would be back to me but instead I am still discovering who that person is. I still catch myself doing things or reacting in ways the “old” me never would. I mis parts of myself and I want them back. Aside from the ability to feel hot or cold on my left side, I want parts of my personality back. My confidence seems to have gone someplace and I wonder where the guy is that went to Iraq on holiday or did so many other things people said were not possible.

I have written a lot about vulnerability and being out there emotionally and open to things, but so many times I don't know if I really believe it or if I am just using it to try and give some sort of meaning to the things going on around me. I am trying to find an explanation and there just isn't one.

And what really gets me, is that I know how far I have come in the past eighteen months. I have gotten back so much and again, the logical part of me knows this, but the emotions just don't always connect. Kind of like when I get hurt on my left side and I know it should hurt, but I don't feel it. Its both there and not there all at the same time. I am starting to feel like I might be alienating people or maybe just alienating myself and I really don't want that to happen.  

May 25

This past week has been nothing short of an emotional hurricane and while the winds have tapered down a bit, they are still blowing and I find myself being hit by the debris of my life. The voices in my head seem to have found megaphones. I feel as though I am looking in on myself, trying to connect the I to myself. I feel I have lost myself somewhere in all of this. As I sit here writing, I am fighting the urge to shut down, build my walls and hit the road. It feels like no matter where I step or which direction I move I end up in some sort of emotional quicksand and I can't figure out how to get out of it at the moment. I am trying to stay in the moment and see what there is to learn, but all I feel right now is fear, sadness and disappointment. Even writing is not bringing any pleasure and it just feels like so much work to even hit a key.

I want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head and wait for it all to go away. The only problem is that I know it isn't going anywhere. The only way through is, well, through.

In the Fire of Vulnerability

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.” - Brene Brown

Two months ago, I met David while walking on the beach. In an instant here was there and before we even said hello, I was gone. I can't say exactly what it was or why, it was just sudden and certain. I won't go into a lot of details as I want to keep certain things about our relationship private. The reason I am blogging about it at all, is that he is an incredibly important person in my life. He is one of those people that radiate joy from the deepest part of himself and to be in his presence is to be in the most incredible space. He is the kind of person that gives himself freely, without reservation and because of that, makes me want to do the same. That is the other reason I am writing about David.

Back in late February or early March, I got introduced to Brene Brown. I saw two of her videos on TED (Video 1, Video 2) and what she said resonated so much with me that I had to watch each video several times and then I had no choice but to buy her book “The Gifts of Imperfection” and read it immediately. If you aren't familiar with Brene Brown, she has spent the past decade studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. While reading the book, I found myself all but screaming “Bring on the vulnerability!” I need to be careful what I wish for.

Almost immediately, I was in situations that required nothing less that complete vulnerability and authenticity. I had to have a difficult conversation with my sister. I had a very bumpy road with my room mate. I had drama with my mom. I had my own things going on in life. And then there was David. I can't think of anything more vulnerable than having massive feelings for someone, letting them in and then stripping off the layers and standing there emotionally naked. I quickly realized I have a love/hate relationship with being vulnerable.

“Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.” ― Brené Brown

Fortunately or unfortunately, shame and vulnerability go hand in hand. Of course, I didn't believe that when I read it. I was sure I could be vulnerable and emotionally open while leaving shame out of it all. I wonder if there really is anything scarier than taking something that we feel ashamed about and laying it out in full view of someone we love, someone with the power to hurt us. Normally, I like to keep things hidden and to myself. When things go wrong, I go inward. When things get tough, I shut people out. When I get scared, I put up walls. With David, I choose not to do those things. He is amazing at letting me be emotionally bare and making me feel safe. Seeing my own fears and insecurities and walking into them and standing there in full view of someone is beyond daunting. The more I feel I want to run, the more I force myself to remain still. The more I want to build a wall, the more I force myself to remove a brick. This, of course could not happen without the support and safety I feel.

“If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm. - Brene Brown, from The Gifts of Imperfection

There are a few people in my life I can really share my story with, without any fear of judgement. David is one of those people for me. He not only makes me feel safe and protected, he makes me want to tell my story and let him in to places that I had long ago closed off. Every time I face the fear, every time I ignore the voices that start to play and tell me to keep it all to myself, every time I decide to open up, I feel not only closer to him, but freer in myself.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.” - Brene Brown, from Daring Greatly

David and I recently had our first real issue in our journey together. Sitting across from someone and talking open and honestly, without the intention of doing harm, but with the intention of healing was one of the hardest things I have done. When I feel fear, confusion or insecurity, I tend to hurt others. It is one of my “go to” places. So is running. There was a time not long ago when I would have gone. Gone to another state, gone to another country. I have never had an issue leaving one life behind in an instant and starting a new one. Not this time. I chose to face one of my biggest fears head-on. I chose to be honest and I chose to listen without judgment. It wasn't easy. When I felt threatened, I had to tell myself not to shut down, not to react in anger or pain, but to listen and hear what was really being said.

It is easy to tell someone we love them when things are going great. It is easy to reach for a hand when walking on the beach or sharing a wonderful moment. It is terrifying to say I love you when things are hard, and almost impossible to reach for a hand when we have no idea if it will be pulled away.

David's grandma has been married almost 60 years. I asked her a few weeks ago what she felt was the secret. I asked her how she kept it together for so long. Her answer was both simple and complex. She said you just have to stay with it. She said that leaving is easy and staying together is difficult and at times almost impossible. But running, for her, was never an option.

“Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky” - Brené Brown

Yesterday, I said “I love you”, ready to not hear it back. I reached for a hand, ready for it to be withdrawn. I wanted to run, but instead I did those things. And David, being vulnerable and emotionally bare, was there. And because of that, we are still here and we are going to be ok. Actually, we are going to be amazing. 

Life and Death

It all started with a Facebook update shortly before my forty-second birthday, and suddenly I was transported to another place and time. A time when I was a different person and life was something to survive and dread. Since seeing the update, my thoughts have been preoccupied, reviewing the past, remembering things I had intentionally forgotten, or more accurately, decided I would not think about again.

It was via a Facebook update that I learned my stepdad had suffered his fourth heart attack and would probably not make it. He was on life support with possible brain damage and multiple organ failure. I was stunned when I saw it. I read it so many times I had it memorized.

See, as cold as this may sound right now, I had been waiting for this to happen. Not willing it or wanting it, just waiting. For over half my life, I had been waiting for it. After over twenty years, the moment had arrived and I was surprised to discover I was not so prepared for it. I thought I was, but seeing that update, I realized I wasn’t. At least not as much as I thought.

When I was seven or eight, my parents were divorced and my mom remarried the day after it was finalized. My mother meeting my stepdad was an event that would change not only my life, it would change who I am and who I would become. It began well before they were married. It all started one night when I forgot to take my allergy medicine. I used to have horrific allergies that would come in extreme waves of attacks, causing me to sneeze almost to the point of suffocating. But, like any child at that age, I would sometimes forget my medicine and the most severe punishment I got would be an attack that would normally last ten to fifteen minutes. But that night, things would be different. It was the first time I ever had a busted lip. It was that night that the violence started. It was physical and emotional. In the swing of a hand, I was no longer myself. I was outside myself. I was living in a war zone. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that is the view when I look back. Like so many other families in the same situation, we looked perfect on the outside. We went to church, we were well turned out, well mannered and behaved. But in the privacy of our house, it was beyond a nightmare. Life was a minefield and I was forever stepping in the wrong place.

My sisters and I would be pulled out of our beds in the middle of the night, made to rewash all of the dishes in the kitchen at two in the morning because one glass had a spot on it, or worse, we would all be questioned about who ate one of his cookies and then made to pay the price in some way. The punishment usually fell on me. I knew I would get it anyway, so would sometimes just lie and admit guilt, just to get it over with. There would be beatings because ten cents worth of change would be missing after I went to the store. My sisters and I became servants in the house. We would clean, do laundry, wash the dishes and pick up after him. If he came home and found so much as a piece of lint on the floor, there would be hell to pay. I have been thrown across rooms and there were slaps, kicks, whippings with a horsewhip, or whatever else happened to be within close grabbing distance. Busted lips and bruises were the norm. I failed gym class because I refused to wear the uniform. What nobody knew, was that I was hiding the marks, welts, cuts and bruises all over my body. I went from being a straight A student to making Ds and Fs. I no longer dreamt, I had nightmares of being chased, stabbed, shot and burned alive. It was then I also started poking needles and pins into my skin, to see how far I could push them in without feeling.

As time went on my stepdad became more inventive. He would make up “games” that he thought would help me be a better person. A personal favorite was one where he would say a word and I would have to say the first word that came to mind. He might say “light” and I would say “dark”. There would be a sharp kick to the ribs and we would start again until I said the right answer. And these were not isolated incidents. This was daily life and anything would set him off, as though he was looking, searching for a reason to lose his temper and it could be something as trivial as the TV being on… Or off… Or the traffic. Or the neighbors. Or me knowing the answer to something he didn’t. Or being beat at a game. Or anything at all, really. Life was spent constantly on guard, on high alert, waiting for the bombs to go off. And he did all this in the name of God, always talking about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. We would go to church and I would to pray to God to let me die, all the while playing the part of the cute little boy with blond hair and big blue eyes. I knew all the right lines. I knew every possible excuse for any bruise or cut. The funny thing is, I was never taught those things. I was never told to make excuses, it all just came naturally. It was just what I did. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Sure, he would apologize every once in a while and promise to never do it again, which usually resulted in a bit of a break for a few days, maybe a week. Then he would start again, a little worse than before and it was never his fault. I “made” him do it. If only I wasn’t so stupid or smart or lazy or energetic or whatever. If it wasn’t for me, there would have been no problems in the house. Everything would be fine. I was disgusting and should not have been born.

This was before there was a word for it. Child abuse didn’t exist. There was nobody to tell. I did tell a friend once, that my step-dad hit me and his mom confronted my step-dad. I was twelve years old and after what happened, I only told one other person until I was in my twenties. It happened when I was fourteen. Things had gotten so bad, I decided to kill myself. I had it all planned out and had picked a date. I was a huge bookworm and had read a medical encyclopedia. I knew that a big enough air bubble in the bloodstream would kill me. My stepdad used to make model cars and airplanes and had some diabetic syringes he used to apply glue on the tiny pieces. I swiped one of them and learned how to find a vein. I would practice every day, making sure I could do it easy. I knew I had hit the vein when I could draw out blood.

It was just a few days before I was going to go through with it when I got arrested at FedMart for shoplifting. They were going to call my parents and for some reason it all started coming out. I started and it was like floodgates opened. The security guards at that store saved my life. They didn’t press charges under the condition I left the state until I was eighteen. It wasn’t really a legally binding agreement, but one that would get me away from my stepdad. Three days later I was on an airplane to Oregon to live with my dad and stepmom.

A few years later, when my dad was moving to Kuwait, I went back to California to live with my mom and stepdad. It started all over again. Only it was worse. After two years, I moved out and went back only when I absolutely had to.

A lot of my childhood I have blocked out. I have some memories, but there are many blanks. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and spent years working through it. It took me a very long time to get over it. In fact, I would actively do things to numb myself so I didn’t have to feel. I was so good at it, I could go for walks in sub zero temperatures in shorts in Colorado and Ohio. I stayed out all night, standing with no coat in a rainstorm in New York in November. Just willing myself not to feel. The only thing I knew how to do was hate. I spent years hating him, wishing him dead and dreaming how I would kill him. When I first learned he had a heart condition, I used to think about meeting him someplace where we were alone and getting him angry enough to have a heart attack. And then I would watch him die.

And then I realized that even though he was not in my life, he was still controlling it and I decided to let it go. Looking back, I can’t even remember the moment, I just remember that it happened. I saw his life and everything he said would happen to me became his own prison. He always told me I was a nobody, that I would never have a life, that nobody would ever like me or love me. And that is what happened to him. He is a miserable person and I doubt there are many people that will genuinely miss him. I won’t.

So yes, I had been waiting for that moment, waiting for him to die. Not willing, not wishing, just waiting. And when that the moment seemed like it had arrived, I felt relief, like it would finally, finally over. I would never have to see him again or get the odd emails asking if we can talk, only to be subjected to more insults and misery. He was on life support and close to death, but then pulled through and from what I heard, was quickly back to his old self.

This morning, a couple of months before my forty-sixth birthday, I received a call from my sister Stephanie, telling me that he passed away. The mix of emotions that went through me are still swirling around and I am not yet sure what I really feel. Part of me feels relief. Part of me feels sad that there was never an apology. Part of me is glad that I had learned to forgive him years ago. Part of me feels that things are finally over. I also feel sad that he chose to spend his life being angry and bitter, missing out on his wonderful daughter and her amazing children.

Most people who grow up like I do fall into the same trap and repeat what they have learned. They become the very people they grew up despising and hating. But not me. For me, the cycle is broken. I have tried very hard to make my life a different place. I try to be kind, giving, compassionate and live my life to the fullest. I try to make a difference where and when I can. This is why I need to see the funny side of things. I know from experience that there is too much pain in the world, too much suffering. I don’t always succeed and I still have a long way to go, my temper can be violent and sometimes quick, surprising people around me, but I have learned to control it for the most part. I have also learned that life is only what we make it. It is not about being defined by a past, but about making a choice for now and for the future.