#but i deeply grieve what i know ill lose in my lifetime

[dfnkt]

What pill makes you feel okay about the fact that anyone under 30 is going to see either hell on earth or the beginning of hell on earth in their natural life span (if they live that long) barring an absolute miracle

[jellydishes]

dragon age characters as gods: origins edition

the first post in this series, which ironically covers dragon age two characters, can be foubd here

the warden is not actually the name of one god, but a title shared among a group, and their individual origins’ differences impact the way their stories are sung or whispered. they are just as often worshipped as psychopomps, carriers of the dead to the afterlife, as they are a source of comfort and guidance for those who had to grow up too soon; whether to war or illness or abuse or the loss of a parent or a thousand other personal stories that can fit within two syllables. warden. guard and guardian, those who sacrifice everything in order to carry the hope for others. how much more can i give? ask the weary and the grieving. “always at least once more,” say the wardens. “one more inch, one more battle. and then one day you will look up to see you have walked a thousand miles in single steps.”

in many ways, alistair fits what some call the classic ideal of a demigod; an isolated youth spent unknowing of his true parentage, one that made him humble and hungering for true respect. many turn to him for this reason alone, including orphans and the abused. many more sing his name in the dark times of their lives because of what came after that- a lifetime living with a brain that operated just a few steps to the left of the rest of humanity. a life filled with doubt and grief and loss, one filled with moments in which he could have given up. but he didn't, and he didn't, and he kept on finding beauty amid the horrors of war and the heartsick times of rebuilding that come after. “it seems so much easier to lie down and die,” he whispers to those who chose him, “but there is work to be done, and you can do it. but not alone. you are never alone where i can walk with you. when you chose me, i chose you. you earned a hand in the dark. all you need to do is reach out and hold tight.”

morrigan is a goddess in flux. in one aspect, she is a goddess of magic and of vengeance, of turning your pain outward to protect yourself when no one else can, has, or will. some say the doubters are the hopeful who've had their hopes dashed time and again, and that both is and isn't true with morrigan- she would insist to anyone who cared to ask that hers is the domain of realism, of looking at a harsh world and seeing truth. all the same, morrigan looks kindly on abused children and adults, on the lonely and broken hearted. she is a goddess who will rarely reach out first, until she knows she can trust there to be someone ready to catch her, too. in her second aspect, morrigan is the protector that she never had: a mother. she has learned that trust now, if has yet to lose all of the wariness that came before it. that wariness bleeds away when she recognizes one of her own, one she might not walk in front of, but has no issues walking beside. “the world may not be brighter for my presence,” says morrigan’s voice at her pilgrim’s ear, “but i will ensure that the night’s terrors have good reason to fear us back. it is my turn to give back the courage you kept inside, the same way i did. you have me, and i have you. that might not seem like much, but i would say it's a damn good start.”

leliana is yet another goddess who is underestimated by many. she's seen as a minor deity favored in the cities and temples belonging to the rich and comfortable, which she often is. however, thinking that is all there is to one who began her existence as a death goddess would be a mistake, one that some only made once, many years ago. as harsh and unforgiving as the smiles she was often depicted with used to be, these days leliana has grown to value finding the small joys in life when others would become bitter and withdrawn. of enjoying the creature comforts, of loving to sing and dance and marvel at the beauty of a shoe or a creature often ignored or considered a pest. these two aspects are not mutually exclusive- leliana lives in pain borne just as she is in pain transformed, as many of her faithful do. “not everything must be an uphill battle,” softly calls leliana’s warm voice. “being kind, and extending a hand with outstretched fingers can be an act of courage, when all you want to do is form a fist with it. take a breath when you're going through your darkest hour, maybe two, and come out singing with me.”

sten is a deity that many find frustratingly inscrutable, if not impossible to understand. his is a religion that seems to be very rigidly bound to duty and rules and observances and a hierarchy that dominates the conversation of almost everyone who comes across him or his worshippers. and to many, that is all there is. it takes a very determined soul to grow to understand that there is a sort of comfort in routine, in knowing what is expected of you and who you are, in knowing exactly who you can turn to if you question or need help. in sten’s service, you are considered to be undertaking a journey to understand the world in which you live, either writ large, or your own. rigidity can bring comfort, confidence, and a chance for many who had been lost to breathe. it is discovering new things, change, spread out to a pace that is less overwhelming to many for whom change in routines or simple fear would make it daunting. he approves of surpassing expectations, of growing within a box that used to bring you comfort before seeking out one that you yourself have picked out that means you. those with borderline personality disorder and autistics and the abused are common worshippers of him, and he extends a hand right back, just within reach. “i cannot pull you up,” he would say in a voice that sounds as sure and solid as the sun, “i cannot reach for you. but i am here as a wall to brace against whenever you have need. and in return, you remind me why i have respect for the lost and the heartsick. together, we will find better ways to be.”

wynne is a quiet diety, one who seemingly performs the functions expected of her and little else, but in truth wynne simply works in quiet ways, helping to inspire quiet victories over troubles large and small. it is known that in her own legends she was a prisoner for many years simply because of a trick of birth. that she lost and lost and lost again, all of her life, and had been tempted to give up just as often. and yet, wynne never gave up on those around her who couldn't speak for themselves. the children and the dead and those who had become too traumatized or afraid to lift their voices any longer. wynne is a warm presence for prisoners and the institutionalized and the disenfranchised just as often as she is for the physically and mentally disabled, and those with any sort of neurodivergences in general. she understands, whispers her worshippers, and she still, always, loves you. “i cannot save you on my own,” she whispers back to those who call her name. “it is up to you to take the first step and the last and all of the ones in between, but i will be right beside you with my hand in yours. together, we are stronger for each other, and that is how it is meant to be.”

zevran is dismissed but many who don’t care to look beyond the stereotypes assigned to both him and his worshippers as a harvest deity, one associated with sex and death and glorying in temporary joys. some do indeed turn to him for such things, but that only behind to scratch the surface of all that zevran and his worship are and have become. zevran does indeed preside over death, but just as often the deaths he presides over are more alike to changes. endings that lead to new beginnings, or how one can gradually move from being locked a suicidally depressed state into a journey towards recovery. the death of who who no longer wish to be, and the birth of who you wish so much to become. as often as he is depicted as smiling atop the coins that are both his symbol and currency, his worshippers know that smile to be a sad one, and press that currency into the hands of the abandoned souls who most need it. the orphans and the slaves and those lost to the ravages of their own neurodivergences/trauma. he looks kindly upon those who struggle with relationships ships of any kind after a life where that always meant danger. “life is full of risks,” he murmurs to an orphan warily eyeing their new foster family. “it is up to you to decide whether those risks are worth it, but you cannot say ‘no’ forever, or one day you will look up and you will be surrounded by high walls with no one left to hear you on the other side, save for me. let me help you, the way others helped me. the way you helped me, and we will emerge from this together.”

oghren is defined by contradictions. many see him as a simple god of drink and revelry and battle, of simple pleasures that exact simple joys and sorrows. however, as with many from his pantheon, that is not nearly all ghay he is. oghren is, first and foremost, a god for those who grieve and those who are afraid. those who turn to alcohol or drugs or other addictive behaviors in order to cope with a life that took and took and took from them, with a life where they are deeply unhappy. he does not judge those he presides over, no matter how often they backslide or break something that may never be fixed again. “you're mine, and i'm yours,” he says to the suffering in a gentle voice many wouldn't think he had. “and that means that i will stick by you every time you can't reach where you want to go. and you know why? every time you can't quite make it is proof that you can come this far, and can do it again. you are mine, the heart of my own heart, and i will stay with you for as long as you need and want me to. know that i am proud, and that together, we will see this through.”

shale is an impatient deity, and one with no patience for insincerity or creating and spreading cruelty. transgender and nonbinary people in particular turn to the steadying presence of shale in their lives, as do prisoners and the poor imprisoned by society into overwhelmingly literal chains. her comfort can be a stirling thing, as all of her tales whisper of how she moved from one prison to another and so learned distrust and fear externalized as anger. but so, too, did she learn compassion. shale listens just as deeply to a prayer by a child sentenced to prison for a crime that they had no chance to avoid, as she does soldiers who know that the acts they will commit will be frozen in time in their memory. “everyone is born in a box,” shale tells those who ask for her watchful gaze to settle over their shoulder. “it is inevitable that eventually you will grow and change, where the box will not. it will grow uncomfortable, then stifling, and then a wound. i cannot give you the key, because you already have it. the only thing to do is to stand beside you, ready to catch you if you fall, to steady you as you feel the turning of the world beneath your feet again. i cannot bear this for you, but i can make sure that you do not have to be strong all the time. not when i can give you the time and safety to put down your burdens for an hour, a night, a day. breathe, because you can. because you must.”

loghain is an old god, and his stories changed along with the shifting values of the societies around him. as they did, his devotion to duty above all else fell out of favor. instead, the tales took on a darker tone of disloyalty and treachery. kingslayer, they called him now. even so, voices still called out to him. soldiers and conquered people, children who have seen war and the furious, wearied people those children grew up to be. “the beat of your heart is the lifesblood of everything that defines you,” says loghain’s voice from between the clench of your fist. “stronger than blood, stronger than love, stronger than your very bones. do not give it up, or everything you have seen and done will be for nothing. do not give up. i am the hand on your shoulder, the hand clasped in yours. comrade and father and traitor, i am what my duty needs me to be and so are you.”

[baelaniaa]

anger;

an emotion i’ve become all too familiar with in the past year and a half, but not your typical anger. a terrifying anger that drowns you, makes you act irrationally, and your thoughts become dark. so dark. you learn how much you truly are capable of and the horrible things you can feel, think, and act upon

that was me just a few months ago and i don’t know who that person was, i don’t recognize her when i look at old photos of myself. i shocked myself, i did things that i’d never do now. things i do not respect or find tasteful in any manner. things i will never be proud of ever in my lifetime. i never want to find myself angry like that again, never and i won’t allow myself to be drowned by anger in the way i was, i do not want to ever be that person again

i had a moral crisis unlike any other time in my life, i had to ask myself regularly if i was a sociopath, evil, a narcissist, or truly just a spiteful human being. now, the only thing i can say? it was valid, i understand why i said and did the things i did and i’m not ashamed. i’m not proud but there will never be a day i’m ashamed, i had every single right to find myself in such a dark place that i didn’t care who i hurt. i didn’t care about how much i hurt the one person who made me discover what i was capable of

i wanted to hurt them and cause them as much pain as they did me, but i realized that was impossible. there is nothing that can replicate the pain of someone taking it upon themselves to be so selfish, to play a victim when they abused you, they used you, and they unapologetically disregarded your consent and did what they desired to you. to me

what started off as someone i liked, turned into a nightmare and a nightmare i still haven’t begun to process was real. that it really happened. everyday i try and when i try, i immediately stop because i’m not ready to accept it was all real. i know obviously it was but, non of it feels real. they don’t feel real to me

it’s been two and a half months since i revisited photos of me and them, i still can’t look at photos of us and when i did, i didn’t recognize myself or them. i choose not to look at them because it is so difficult, it doesn’t hurt, it makes me feel sick to my stomach

in march, i had to make the hardest and most heart breaking decision of my life. i had to let go of what made me discover a love that i didn’t know was possible, the love of my life. only to lose them so shortly after because i had to let go for their sake and my own

i didn’t tell them i had done it, originally i was terrified to do so. i knew i couldn’t bring it up to them, their mom was deranged and insane (i can’t even talk about her, she’s probably the worst person i’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, trusting, and confiding in. i can’t help but give them the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that their mom is the reason they are who they are. that it isn’t their fault they’ve become who they are. i find comfort in knowing i’ll never have to speak to her again, ever again)

anyways, their mom had told me that they didn’t have any reason to feel guilty for what i had voluntarily chose to do. that is true, yes. however they do absolutely deserve to feel guilt for being the reason i ever had to be put in the position to make that decision, it was their fault because they disregarded my consent, i only consented to protected sex to avoid ever having to make that decision

i wanted to avoid it. i didn’t want to be pregnant. i tried to avoid it, but they chose to not avoid it. they didn’t care; they were selfish and the cost was the worst heartbreak i will ever know, the loss of my child and falling so effortlessly in love with them just to lose them; to let go of them because i love them more than anyone or anything in this world. that will never change

there was a belief between them and their mom, that i had these deep intense feelings for them. that i was “bitter”, “insane”, “unstable”, “psychotic”, and god i can’t remember all the other labels

it took me until about a month ago that i never loved them, i was never in love with them. i was in love with a person i created in my head and wanted to believe existed. that was the only made-up thing in my head. they were incredible at lying, convincing me that i was everything i wasn’t, projecting, victimizing themselves, and convincing me that…i should of been sorry for saying they raped me. convincing me they didn’t actually do it and i believed them. i really did. i realized that somehow they managed to brainwash me and i don’t know how.

they created a version of me in their head that didn’t exist, a version of me that was merely a mirror of themselves but worse and i’ll never understand why

i know everything they said was never true. it never ever was. nothing they said defines me, nothing i said defines me, i find such such comfort knowing that they only knew a version of me that they created where as; they were who they were, that’s who they were and always had been

they’d use my body as their own toy and viewed it as property. that they could have sex with me when they pleased, they never asked. i realized that was never okay. i thought it was, but i know now that a relationship (if you can even call it that), does not equal automatic consent. ever

i was in-denial about not being pregnant anymore, because i was suppressing so deeply that i felt a massive amount of grief. i didn’t think i was allowed to feel grief because it was voluntary, but i absolutely was and am now. i grieve everyday, some days are harder than others. guilt and regret? absolutely not and i never have

i’ll never forget being in an emergency room bed, sobbing and hyperventilating finally believing them when they said i was insane. the look on their face, they told me i was embarrassed but it wasn’t embarrassment, it was pure fear

i’d never felt so sad, scared, and alone in my whole life. it is one of the worst memories i have with them, one of the worst memories of my life. when i got a psychologist/therapist, i was finally able to understand that i was never crazy. i was in-denial and it’s so common, and it’s painful, so damn painful

then i so fucking stupidly once again, trusted their mom. their god damn mom, god i could say so much; i asked her to go to the obgyn with me that following day because i was scared. so scared and alone and feeling so fucking crazy. we sat and talked, where she just completely shit on them. saying that if she were my parents, she would hate them too. that she wouldn’t let her daughter be with someone like them. that she hated having them in her house making everyone on edge, i mean just so much morbid shit about her own child just to pretend she didn’t.

i shared with her something their sibling had shared with me. the kindest human ever. i think about her sometimes, and hope that she’s doing well. we became close and i’ll never forget one night when she was crying profusely and i sat next to her, rubbing her back for 20 minutes and comforting her. she said that no one had ever comforted her when she cried. she’s just the brightest girl i’ve had the pleasure of meeting and knowing. i’ll never not think about her sometimes. all their siblings deserve the best and the whole world, i cared so much about them. so so much and i wish i could tell them i’m sorry, that i’m sorry for coming into their lives just to ultimately leave shortly after

originally; the only reason i ever got close to her and kissed her ass more than i’ve ever kissed anyone’s ass is because they told me how horrible she was to them; that me saying good things about them would make their life easier, that getting close to her would make their life easier. i hated her from the beginning, for who she was and still is. she’s sick and disgusts me

anyways x2, after that everything came crashing down and i mean crashing down into the core of the earth. i don’t know what happened after that, but i know horrible things happened

here’s the misconception, i do not hate them for what they did to me, they did not break my heart, i did not have “strong” feelings for them. they asked me to be with them, i only agreed to a relationship for the sake of my child i wanted so badly. i was willing to do whatever for their best interest. i never wanted to be with them. i just wanted them to be there for me, that’s all i wanted. but i got a fuck load more than i ever imagined

i hate them for making my child collateral damage to their disturbing selfish act(s), emphasis on my because it was never theirs or “ours” it is mine. it always will be mine. that is why i did terrible things to them, why i bent my back over to do everything to hurt them, why i went to extreme lengths to do so. i still hate them for it, i will always hate them for it. i will always hate them for being the reason my child never got the chance and neither did i

everyday i try to find forgiveness within myself and some days that feels impossible. but i’ll continue to try for my own peace, my closure. i’ll keep trying but it will take a very very long time

i’ll never understand why they did the things they did, why they lied about every aspect of their life and hid so much knowing i wouldn’t of judged them (at the time.) and would of taken it to the grave. ill never understand and i will never get answers which i have accepted and made peace with. i have vivid dreams about them sometimes actually; it’s funny because i couldn’t recognize them in photos; but god damn does my brain do a good job at replicating their face and their voice. those dreams are the worst because they feel so real and i don’t know how i’d feel if i faced them again, if i heard their voice again, i don’t know

sometimes i wish i could face them one last time. to tell them what i want to say, for them to speak to me; someone they do not know. to possibly even find some understanding behind it all. but at the end of the day, i know that won’t make me feel better and if anything? it’ll make all the healing i’ve accomplished go down the drain i think

but the possibility of them ever coming forward to me is very very little to zero; because they’re terrified of me because they only know the me they created; not me now. they would have to take accountability and be honest with themselves and me. i don’t believe they’re capable of that

i do know though, they’d be starstruck finding out all of the things they didn’t know; aka some of what i’ve shared in this rant. they’d be in awe

realizing how damn wrong they were

funny fact that makes me laugh whenever i think about it; one time their mom messaged my…mom (we are both grown by the way.) i pretended to be my mom and i was the one who responded on some utter bullshit haha. i loved doing that. i loved watching her make a fool of herself and completely lying, a fever dream

i don’t know what their life is like now, how they look, what they do or say, i don’t go on social media nor care to check anyone’s. i haven’t been on their social media since may. despite all, i hope that they’ve found some individuality, not being told what to do or say by their mom, and doing what they want without her approval. that shit is bonkers to me. for them to not be capable of making their own choices. not being allowed to feel a way that is opposite to her. it’s sick and it’s gross hence the benefit of the doubt i give them, it isn’t their fault they are the way they are and it’s sad. she enables it, normalizes it; and never acknowledged their mental health because she doesn’t believe in it. she’s the most disgusting disgrace of a mom i’ve ever known and it’s baffling to me she convinced me so much shit that wasn’t real. so much. i’m embarrassed about the fact i fell for it

i don’t wish the worst on them or hope their life is bad, i hope they manage to give themselves a second chance at being a normal, mentally healthy human. i really do. because it’s there, there is an actual human in there that sometimes would pop out but it’s so overshadowed by this morbid human that is the result of neglect, mistreatment, and abuse. (non of that changes my hatred for them.) they punish other people for it, and believe their own made up reality. the expense? other people, especially me

what they’ll probably never know is, i spared them of a life that only their parents wanted and not them. because i knew; and they didn’t, i chose to let go of my child i wanted so damn badly, so badly, for the best of me, my child, and something i hate to admit, but them (they also would of made my life a living hell forever so, that’s the biggest reason i took them into consideration)

that’s it for now

2:55PM 10.06.2021 ; reflecting, feeling, and an attempt at processing while laying in my bed listening to it rain outside, tired and have to finish my seminar class presentation final

[thingscometogether]

Dear J --

9/20/20

I know this letter is unsolicited, not a response to anything you’ve written, but if you’ll indulge me I have some thoughts I’ve been wanting to share with someone for a long time.

J, I’m not good at losing people. I’m so terrified that people will leave me that I desperately try to hold on to them, far past the point when other people move on, past when it’s no longer healthy and it’s to my own detriment. It’s why I’m so insecure in my relationships with other people. I’m afraid I’m going to do or say something that will make them not want to be my friend anymore, not love me anymore.

It’s been 17 years and I’m only now understanding the depth of damage my parents’ divorce had on me. I was 16 when it started, and you’re still very much a kid at that age, even though I didn’t understand that then. I was the oldest still in the house and felt it was my responsibility to keep everything together for my younger siblings while everything around us was falling apart. My parents were so destructive -- would have explosive arguments in front of us, would put me in the middle of their own fights. I couldn’t stand being in my mom’s house while she was going through her own anger and grief, so I chose to live with my dad, but then she did and said some deeply hurtful things to me that left scars that still remain. And then my dad, for all the support I thought he was giving me, told me over the phone the day after I moved into my freshman dorm that he had move to another state to take a new job. Just like that. He gave me no indication he was planning to leave, even though I knew it took months to find a new position for what he does. He knew he was going to leave the whole time and never told me. He just left. Checked out. ‘I don’t want to deal with this anymore.’ See ya. Bye.

My life was a story of complete instability for a long time, so many things falling apart at different points despite my best efforts to keep them together and keep moving forward. (Add to it a burgeoning mental illness I didn’t know I had.) I walked without a steady foundation underneath my feet, not even a safety net, and I now understand that the whole toxic maelstrom was a trauma in my life.

Three and a half years ago PTSD burned through my brain like a fireball. I remember the exact moment it opened up. I was walking through a neighborhood in the city where I went to college, a neighborhood through which I’ve walked a thousand times, and all of a sudden I felt this oppressive anxiety. My lungs were constricted and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like a thousand needles were poking at my lungs just underneath my skin. It stayed that way the whole night. When I finally got to bed, I collapsed face-down on the bed and started crying deep, guttural sobs. I remained that way for 20 minutes before I finally choked up enough to get myself a glass of water. But this is the thing that’s so strange to me now: I wasn’t crying about my parents.

How do I explain? The psyche is a complicated thing.

***

The only relationship I’ve ever had was in college with a guy named ___. He was my first boyfriend, and our relationship meant a great deal to me. He was older than me, already out of college and working. It wasn’t that great of a relationship, honestly, although I didn’t know enough to know that at the time. He was patronizing and dominant; he was very good at making me feel very small. But I was with him because he provided the feeling of security I desperately needed in my life. (He was literally the physical embodiment of security, short and stocky, a wrestler; you couldn’t knock him over with a dump truck if you tried.) 

At the beginning of our relationship ___ told me he was looking to move to another city. He had interviewed for a new position, and a few weeks after we started dating he found out he got it. He would be leaving in six months. Truly naive, I didn’t see this as a problem, and I spent the next six months playing the role of supportive girlfriend and cheerleader. I sincerely believed our relationship would last, that we’d have a future together, and all we had to do was wait out my senior year until I could move there to be with him. ___ didn’t feel the same way I did and had no such intentions to stay together, but he never told me the truth about this, about how he felt, about what he didn’t want. Before, during and after our entire relationship, he was never once honest with me about his feelings.

When the day came for him to move, once again I was being left behind by a man whom I loved and depended on. I simply couldn’t lose ‘him’ again, so I held on as tightly as I could. The next eight months depleted me of every spindle of energy, emotion and spirit I had. For what I’m sure was a result of his own emotional mechanisms, he could not end our connection. We were not officially together but we were still in touch, and I desperately wanted things to work out, so I held on. 

Despite all the little things he said and did that hurt me, I convinced myself that if I just held on tightly enough for the both of us, things would work out. But my self and my condition steadily deteriorated to something well beyond mere depression. I wasn’t sleeping or eating. I wasn’t going out to see friends. I was spending my days entirely in bed, my nights mindlessly watching television eating whatever food came from a bag that I didn’t have to cook. I lost enough weight that my usually tight skinny jeans were falling off my hip bones. I couldn’t get out of my apartment enough to attend classes which, by the end of the semester, I had abandoned anyway. My life had, once again, completely fallen apart.

Shortly after the new year ___ told me he had met a new girl who he was now dating and said, quote, “I don’t think we should talk anymore.” It felt like someone had shot me in the chest with a bullet. All I could respond was “You broke my heart.” Three days later I woke up with the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had, the sickest I’ve ever been. I could no longer take care of myself. A week later I was headed home on a Greyhound bus. I had withdrawn from school, left my apartment, left my friends, left a city I loved, completely broken and a shell of myself. My spirit had died.

***

I didn’t remember any of this for a long time. If you’d asked me the details about my experience with ___, I could have told you we dated and that it ended because he moved, but I couldn’t have told you anything else. My brain had packed everything about the experience into a box and tucked it away far in the recesses of my mind in order to survive and keep going. It was too painful to remember them. But then, eight years later, that day in the city when I had the anxiety attack, I realized it was brought on by a memory I had of ___ and I in that part of the city when we dated. The memory itself was benign, but for whatever reason it was enough to release the dam waters of pain and memory, and I drowned in them. (Terribly overwrought metaphor. My apologies.)

For three years I spent every. single. day. with pain in my chest -- sometimes heavy and suffocating, sometimes an anxious tightness and pulling, sometimes an acute squeezing. I would have fierce, violent adrenaline attacks that would erupt into punching and hitting and screaming into pillows or blankets or anything I could find that I knew wouldn’t hurt myself. Then I would collapse in exhausted fits of sobs on the floor or the bed. I would become irritated by the tiniest things: high-pitched noises, too-bright lights, dog barks that would startle me, being unable to open a jelly jar and throwing it across the room. The worst of all of them was an inability to escape reminders of him in every single facet of my life, however benign and mundane: shopping trips to Target, watching the Super Bowl, pumping gas into my car. I put ___ into the context of whatever medium was in front of me: movie plots, books, songs, other people’s stories, anything. I saw a vacuum commercial on TV one night and immediately wondered what kind of vacuum ___ owned. I couldn’t escape it, and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop any of these things. It was torture, and I was miserable, but no matter how much I tried, I found no relief.

***

In my first therapy session, when I realized that I needed to see someone about my PTSD, my therapist told me that most relationship problems have something to do with our parents. My therapist said both our individual relationships with them and their relationship with each other models for us what a relationship is supposed to look like. My reaction was “What. That has nothing to do with this.” All my PTSD symptoms were about my relationship with ___. But with the help of therapy and through a lot of fucking hard work, I now understand that the original trauma in my life was my parents’ divorce, losing my family (which was my safe space) as I had known it, and losing my dad. It was so foundational in my life that I couldn’t even see it; I was walking through the trees without realizing the entire forest was on fire. Only by reliving the secondary trauma of losing ___ did all of this come into focus. (The psyche is a complicated thing.)

Mercifully, after three years that felt like a lifetime, my symptoms waned to a slight whisper of existence, and now I am left with the task of rebuilding myself. I grieve the lost time and opportunity my traumatic experiences cost me, the things I would have been able to accomplish if I had had a secure and safe foundation upon which to build my life. I miss my family as it used to be -- whole -- which I will never have again even as I have new iterations of one. I miss my dad. His leaving left a hole in my life, one I’ve spent every day since trying to fill but will never be able to because no one can take the place of one’s dad. His departure left me believing I’m not worth keeping, that no man will be ever be there for me when things get tough, and that I’m not worth fighting for.

***

This letter is much longer than I intended it to be. Thank you sincerely for reading it. I don’t expect you to know what to say in response; most people don’t. Knowing that you read it means enough.

I don’t know what this means, J, but do you remember how I said I spent every day for three years feeling constant pain in my chest? When I saw your face, before I could even register a thought, I felt a full, warm sensation in my chest, in the exact spot where I always felt the pain. It happened so quickly, so instantaneously, I could not have manufactured it. It came from somewhere other than my brain.

The spirit makes imprints on the body we’re not always conscious of. So I don’t know what it means, but it was the first time in a long time I felt something other than pain in my chest. And not just not-pain, but something good, something whole and secure. People leave imprints. Maybe that’s why I decided to tell you all this stuff.

[erraticfairy]

Podcast | Abandoned: Loss of Friendships

The feeling of abandonment can span through all types of relationships and in this episode, we focus on friendships. Have you ever had a close friend abandon you or have you ever exited a friendship without notice? The emotions and actions surrounding the abandonment of friends can be complex and hurtful, but they are very real and can hurt deeply. 

In this episode, Jackie recounts friendships that were very important to her and how she’s handling the loss of them.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Abandoned’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Pay attention Not Crazy fans, right now Not Crazy listeners get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at Calm.com/NotCrazy. That’s C-A-L-M dot com slash Not Crazy. Forty million people have downloaded Calm. Find out why at Calm.com/NotCrazy. 

Gabe: Hello, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Not Crazy. I want to introduce my co-host, Jackie Zimmerman. She’s married to an aspiring rap artist and she lives with depression.

Jackie: And I would like to introduce you to my co-host, Gabe Howard, who lives with bipolar and is also my husband’s number one fan.

Gabe: I love him so much.

Jackie: He’s a really good person. I love him too.

Gabe: I like to brush my teeth and go to bed on time. It’s really cool. It’s a good song. You should check it out on YouTube. What’s his rap name?

Jackie: Ben Holmes, but it’s not under that. I think it’s on my YouTube. Rewinding to let everybody know we’re talking about. We made a rap video for my nephew’s fifth birthday. And it is on YouTube. It’s called ‘Bout to be Five. If you’d like to look it up, it’s a jam. It really is.

Gabe: It is really, really cool. One of the reasons that we’re talking about our spouses so much is because, one, you know, Christmas is coming and we want to make sure that we do well this year, but two because people tend to think about romantic relationships as the only thing that can really cause you like abandonment issues or trauma or, you know, your parents can mess you up, family can mess you up and love can mess you up. But then there’s this whole seedy underbelly that can mess you up. And that’s our friends.

Jackie: I couldn’t agree more, and actually I have been talking about this in therapy a lot because I have a few friends or I guess former friends now whomp, whomp who were like family or were really close. These were people I developed very lengthy, intense, in-depth friendships with who I loved very much, who are no longer my friends. And I have had a really hard time dealing with this. So this is something that hits home with me right now. A lot.

Gabe: There’s many ways that friends can exit our lives in some of these things are healthy. You know, I’m not friends with the people that I was friends with in kindergarten. I’m not friends with the people that I was friends with in middle school. And honestly, I’m really not friends with the majority of people that I was friends with in high school. Really, relationships tend to kind of go with your station in life. It’s one of the reasons that parents always seem to have friends who are also parents and their kids just happen to play together like, you know, these are the things that bind us in. And after school, for example, you know, you tend to move away. You know, I graduated high school in Pennsylvania and I moved to Ohio. Well, nobody followed me. So distance became an issue. The world is getting smaller. Distances is less of a reason to end a friendship in 2019 than it was in 1999 and especially in 1979 for our older listeners. But some of these reasons are healthy. They’re expected. It’s part of growing up. But we want to talk about the reasons that are unexpected and the ones that well, they cause pain.

Jackie: Not only do they cause pain, but it’s a sincere sense of loss. Right? So it’s not just, oh, I had this friend. They were really cool. We’re not friends anymore. It’s like a void in your life of this person that you had. And it almost parallels a romantic relationship in terms of the role that they played in your life. Like how big the role was. You know, maybe you called them every day on your way home from work. Things like that where people play this role in your life. And then when they’re not there anymore, it’s very clear that they’re not there. There’s a very clear hole there. And not only do you miss them, but then it turns into the abandonment part, which for me is always, what did I do wrong? How is this my fault? They left because I did something.

Gabe: Let’s hit this hard on the head. So obviously a friendship ending prematurely or in a way where one party doesn’t want it. It’s going to cause trauma and some of that trauma can be worked out just in grief. You’re grieving the loss of your friend. That’s not what this show is about. So fuck that. Forget it. Move it to the side. When that happens too much, that’s the abandonment issue that we’re talking about, right. Because you visit that sensation on to other people. See, grief is very localized. You’re grieving the loss of Bob. Whereas an abandonment issue is widespread. You’re grieving the loss of Bob on John. You’re the grieving the loss of Bob on to Jane. All of these other people are starting to see the effects of

Jackie: Mm hmm.

Gabe: What you and Bob went through. It lingers. Our show is about lived experience. And Jackie and I are going to tell you what we went through and how we handled it and share with you. But just to let you know exactly what we’re talking about from the medical establishment, the definition of an abandonment issue is?

Jackie: Before I give you the definition that I have right now, I want to put it out there that there are a boatload of different definitions about abandonment. There’s also different kinds of abandonment. There’s emotional abandonment. There’s physical abandonment. The definition that I’m going to read right now says that abandonment fear often stems from childhood loss. This loss could also be related to a traumatic event, such as the loss of a parent through death or divorce. It can also come from not getting enough physical or emotional care. But to be clear, although a lot of abandonment issues are thought to stem from childhood issues. It’s not always the case. You can have abandonment issues that were started late in life and the catalysts could be something that happened well past your childhood years. If you want more details on abandonment and how it works and where it starts and the different kinds, I would recommend checking out PsychCentral.com. They are a lot more eloquent and also factual than I am.

Gabe: I always love it when you give a plug to PsychCentral.com because it makes the people that support the podcast extraordinarily happy. Thank you, Jackie.

Jackie: Also, they’re smarter than I am. So, I mean, that’s definitely worth going there for.

Gabe: Jackie has a compelling story of losing not one, but two friends to her abandonment issues.

Jackie: Oh, this is so sad already.

Gabe: On the Not Crazy Lifetime movie, Jackie Zimmerman, a woman lost.

Jackie: Without going into excessive detail as an adult, I have had two very close friends who were long term friends from high school. I am no longer really friends with either of them. One of them ended on a poor note. One of them just kind of faded into oblivion. And there is definitely a void in my life where these friendships once existed.

Gabe: Let’s break that out a little. Let’s talk about the friendship that just sort of faded out, because when I hear the friendship just kind of faded out, the thing that I think of is that natural causes thing. You moved away, you went in different directions in life. Maybe they got married and had children, whereas you stayed single and that just sort of made you grow apart. But for you, it’s more than that, right? Even though there didn’t seem to be like a big blow up and fight and I’m not your friend anymore. You still see this growing apart as problematic or impactful or traumatic.

Jackie: The root of that friendship’s fizzling was one conversation. I remember it in detail. I know that is exactly the moment when it started and it was when I was questioning a relationship that she was in. It didn’t go well. We’ll just say that. And we stopped talking after that and we tried for years to kind of rekindle this friendship and start over. And actually all these terms that you use in a romantic relationship. Right. Let’s to start over. Let’s try again. Give it another shot. Go back to how it used to be. All of those sort of well intentioned things that can literally never happen once a trauma happens in any kind of relationship. I am a firm believer that you can’t just go back. You can’t just pretend like it never happened. So we spent years trying to fix it, trying to rekindle it, trying to change it and make our friendship grow with us because we were changing as well. And it just didn’t happen. And over time, we checked in less and hung out less and saw each other less. And I just kind of faded off because I think we both really wanted the friendship we had and we know that it will never be that way ever again.

Gabe: Do you think that the two of you would still be friends if you never questioned her romantic relationship as her friend?

Jackie: Well, as it turns out, I have put some thought into this. The reality is probably not. I think we would not have fallen apart so long ago as we did, had I not questioned that relationship. But she’s still with this person and that alone would have driven a wedge through us because I don’t think that it was necessarily a good person at the right time. But also stepping back from that friendship now, I’ve had a chance to assess it and look at it and look at us as individuals and what we brought into each other’s lives. And I’m not convinced that it was anything that is irreplaceable, as awful as that sounds. Right? And if she happens to be listening to this and I already feel guilt for what she’s going to feel about saying all these things, but I’ve looked at who she is as a person and who I am as a person. And I think we have different values now that we’re older and things have changed. And I think we would still be acquaintances. I don’t think we would ever be besties again.

Gabe: It’s an interesting thing that you said there, because you said that you think that the friendship would have just grown apart naturally on its own. But if you didn’t bring up that conversation about her love interest, then you wouldn’t feel guilt. So even though you would have ended up in the exact same place, you wouldn’t have anything to blame yourself for. You would have felt like the growing apart was equal. So you’re going back to one moment in time and saying, A-ha, this is my fault. But now in retrospect, you’re also saying, hey, I think the die was cast. I think that we were growing apart as we reached our 30s. And that’s just something that just happens naturally anyway. So that’s very interesting to me, because on one hand, you’re acknowledging that the relationship was already growing apart. But on the other hand, you’re also acknowledging that you blew it up. You’re a bad person and it’s all your fault.

Jackie: Correct.

Gabe: Those two things don’t coexist.

Jackie: They don’t.

Gabe: Why are you blaming yourself?

Jackie: Because in this version of the history, which is what happened, I was the catalyst for an explosive conversation slash argument that we had, and I can’t undo that. And even though I didn’t try to undo it, but I tried to clarify it or I tried to assuage it a bit when she and I talked after that, the damage had already been done. So if you look at it from this perspective, this was in essence in a dramatic way. My fault. I was the catalyst. It was never the same because of me. Even if we were headed down a path where maybe we weren’t gonna be as close, that sting is a lot less than I am the reason we don’t talk anymore.

Gabe: Let’s flip the script entirely, Jackie. Everything happened exactly how you said it, but you were just being honest. You were looking out for your friend. You saw a concern and you voiced it. And she, ugh, she did not respect your opinion. She just ignored you entirely. Didn’t thank you for your concern. Just didn’t even care about you at all and just abandoned you and ran off. Why isn’t that the truth? Why didn’t she cause the crisis of breaking up the relationship for not respecting your honesty? Because after all, you were just being honest with your friend. Isn’t that what friendship is based on? Honesty and good communication?

Jackie: This version is something that I have thought about, too, and when I was really angry and really mad at her for how our friendship had fallen apart, this is the version that I told myself was it’s all her fault. She really fucked up here. I’m such a good friend. I am such a good friend. Like, what is she thinking? But that version, the anger goes away when the hurt creeps in because the root of anger a lot of times is fear or sadness or something like that. And in this situation, it is it’s much easier to be angry at her. I would love to be angry at her, because then I would feel I think I would feel better. Maybe I would, but I’m not angry at her. And instead, I’m just really, really sad about it.

Gabe: We will be right back after we hear from our sponsors.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy fans, this is one of your hosts, Gabe Howard. Are you struggling to sleep these days? Did you know that a good night’s sleep is like a magic remedy for the brain and body? When we sleep well, we are more focused and relaxed, and best of all, sleep makes us happier. And that’s why we are partnering with Calm, the number one ap for sleep. If you want to seize the day and sleep the night, you can with the help of Calm. Right now Not Crazy listeners get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at Calm.com/NotCrazy. That’s C A L M dot com slash Not Crazy. Forty million people have downloaded Calm. Find out why at Calm.com/NotCrazy. 

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Jackie: We wouldn’t abandon you. We are back talking about abandonment issues.

Gabe: Do you think that for you, that hurt is a more prevalent and stronger emotion than anger? And that’s why the hurt has risen to the top and the anger is sort of diminished.

Jackie: Yes, for me, I think anger is one dimensional for me, and I hope that I explain this correctly. When I’m angry. I’m just mad. I’m like seeing red. Looking forward, I’m angry at the one thing that I’m seeing that’s making me angry. And when I’m hurt, it’s almost like it opens up this space for all these other emotions, for guilt, for loss, for regret, for all of these other feelings. When I’m feeling sad or feeling like somebody has hurt me personally, all those other things come into play as well. It’s not as one dimensional, it’s more complex. And it allows for me to blame myself in that mix. And also it allows me to feel things like abandonment and then maybe I’ll get angry about the abandonment, but then I’ll just be really sad that I lost my friend again. It’s like a sad cycle.

Gabe: And that’s, of course, what’s important to realize, right? That’s how you process this. That’s how anger and sadness and loss. That’s how it all exists inside little Jackie’s head. But for example, me, if that exact same thing had happened to me and I could just be angry the entire time. Like loss wouldn’t even come into it. I mean, loss would come into it because loss would be driving the anger. But that’s how I manage my emotions. But other people aren’t. And that’s one of the reasons that these things are so difficult to work out, because you could explain this story to 10 different well-meaning people and get 10 different pieces of perfectly accurate and honest and well intentioned advice. And none of it could be true for you. And that’s really complex. And I know we sound kind of like a broken record, but that’s where therapy is very helpful because you’ve worked out a lot of this stuff in therapy because it helps you decide the best path forward on an individual personalized level. And I think a lot of people with abandonment issues don’t realize that they think that they can emotion their feelings away.

Jackie: Well, the other part of it, too, is I think even when, you know, it’s a we’ll say overreaction or not an appropriate reaction, when I can identify my anger is not warranted or even my sadness and my guilt is not warranted. It doesn’t mean it goes away. So I think people who are maybe opposed to working this stuff out in therapy are like, well, I know that this is ridiculous, so that means that I have solved it. I’ve gotten to the root of it. It’s done. It doesn’t matter anymore because I know that it is the way that it is. But not for me, even when I know the way that I’m feeling is not the appropriate reaction. I still am feeling that way and have to get over that.

Gabe: And you have a twofer, because that’s the one that you said the wrong thing, you remember the moment, it just kind of flitted away and you have very strong feelings about it. You don’t know what to do. It’s all living inside your head and it’s causing you to be bummed out.

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: But then you also had the eruption, the more stereotypical dramatic television moment where everybody’s yelling each other. And in an instant, you go from we’re friends to we’re not. There’s no wonder, there’s no slowness. It’s Hiroshima.

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: What happened there?

Jackie: With the other friend?

Gabe: No, we’re talking about baked goods now. Yeah. What happened with the other friend?

Jackie: This one is more complex because even I don’t really know what happened. And that’s part of why it hurts so much and why there’s such a void there. And it’s also a major part of why I blame myself so much, because it’s much easier to tell myself a narrative of what I did wrong or to rethink my steps or to think about how I could have handled it differently or what I could have said differently, because I don’t know the reason why we are no longer friends anymore. There was a catalyst that I’m not interested in talking about. But it wasn’t a clear catalyst. It wasn’t like after that she was like, Go fuck yourself. And I was like, you go fuck yourself. And then we never spoke again. It was something that felt on the outside of our relationship that affected our friendship in a way that I never dreamed was possible. I never dreamed that we would not be friends at the end of what happened.

Gabe: Do you think that there was ever a point where it was fixable? Because, you know, to my Hiroshima joke, you’re kind of saying that never happened. Nobody dropped a bomb on your friendship, but there was a moment. And I know it’s difficult, you know, to protect the privacy of the people you are, you know, part of public sharing is to remember that we can only share our side of the story and we can’t necessarily share the side of others because we have to protect their privacy. But as best as you can, what was that moment? Were you in person? Was there yelling? Was there screaming? Did somebody say, lose my number and never call me again and you did? I mean, how did you know that it was over?

Jackie: It was an email, which feels like the ultimate breakup move, right? Send somebody an email or text that says we’re no longer together. At the end of this event, we’ll say that was pretty toxic, I thought. At no point did I ever think our friendship wasn’t fixable. We had been friends for almost 20 years at that point. We had been through all of my sickness. She supported all of that. She supported the death of my father. She was family. My family considered her family. We were family. So I never dreamed that we couldn’t fix it because you can almost always fix something with family. Even when it gets really bad. And she sent me an email that basically was like, I’m about to go through a massive life changing thing. She was pregnant at the time and I don’t have time to handle this. I don’t have the capacity right now to handle all of this, which I respected. So I will talk to you maybe after my baby is born. And that was two and a half years ago and I haven’t heard from her. So the email that I got from her basically stating that was so unexpected because it was the first time she’d ever said, no, I don’t want to be around you.

Jackie: I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you right now. But maybe in the future, I will. And now that we are in the future, I have still not heard from her. And that’s probably the hardest part. That’s the part that that’s the part that kind of breaks my heart. Oh, I’m crying. I’m crying because it’s still a very real pain. Like, I miss her a lot. But there’s also a lot of anger there now because it’s been so long. There was the opportunity for her to reach out to help maybe rectify this or even to tell me this was never gonna get better. But here’s some closure. Not that she owes me closure. Second guessing, right? She owes me this, she doesn’t owe me this. I feel guilt, I shouldn’t feel guilt. All of the things where I do feel heavily abandoned by her. And I’m sure her version of what happened is very different. And that’s I would love to know her version. I’m not sure I have the right to know her version, because whatever she’s feeling is probably just as much hurt as I’m feeling. The worst part is that I don’t have a chance to rectify it because I don’t know what happened.

Gabe: Let’s hang on to something that you said for a moment. You said that, you know, that her version would be much different and that you don’t know what her version of events are and that you don’t believe that you have any right to know it. I think that’s a very interesting statement because so many people are trapped in this cycle where they’re constantly telling themselves, if I only knew what happened, I could get better. And the reality is, is that’s not a lock. You can know what happened from another person’s perspective and it can become much worse. Now, it is true, it can also become much better. But forget about both of those things. The thing that I want to make sure that people understand is that there is a path forward without ever talking to the other person. And so many people believe and we talk about these traumas that involve our friends. And when we feel abandoned by people, we believe so strongly that our only path forward is hand-in-hand with that other person. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a path forward for you and you alone, because ultimately, they’re your emotions, they’re your feelings. And whatever the other person is thinking, feeling or doing has little to do with you. And it’s a bit egotistical to think that what they’re feeling and doing and thinking has something to do with you anyway. If you think about it that way, you have to be in control of your own emotions. You have to be able to move forward and you can’t expect somebody else to fix you. And that’s kind of what that sounds like to me when people say that. Well, as soon as they explain it to me, I’ll be fine. Really? So you owe your happiness to an outside source. That doesn’t that doesn’t sound right to me. You’ve already gotten there. Can you tell us how?

Jackie: Do you mean that I am moving forward basically knowing that I’m never going to talk to her about what happened?

Gabe: I mean, you’ve accepted that you can get better without her involvement, that you can move forward without her involvement,

Jackie: Yeah.

Gabe: That there is life ahead that is emotionally and positively fulfilling, that you don’t need her to unlock or achieve.

Jackie: Well, part of it is what you said, where I know that if I talk to her and let’s say the way that she remembers this, I am horrible. I did awful things to her. And she remembers it in a way that I don’t. That’s not going to help me heal from this at all. That’s probably actually going to make it worse. And I’m not saying I don’t want to hear it just so I can continue to feel better about myself. But her version of the story very likely will not help me get through this, even though I really want to think that it will. In reality, it’s probably not going to. The other part of this is that I have accepted that I probably will not completely heal from this. This is a devastating loss. And I talk about this a lot in therapy. Another plug for therapy because it feels like she died. That’s the loss. It feels heavy like she died, but she didn’t. She’s still out in the world living out there. And I am not a part of her life. So it’s almost a double whammy, right? It feels like the heavy loss of a death, but it’s not. It’s worse because I could talk to her and I can’t. I know that that devastating loss is not going to go away 100 percent.

Jackie: It’s just not. It’s like when you do lose someone to death, you never completely get over it. But what I have committed to doing is continuing to just move forward and know that her friendship is not the only friendship I’m ever going to have in my life. I will have other friends. It’s not going to be 20 years friendship. It’s not going to be the same kind. It may never be as deep and meaningful as that one was, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna be sitting at home in my house really wishing I had people to hang out with all the time. Part of being someone who commits to mental wellness of myself means that I don’t let myself continue to mull about it over and over and over again, because I know I’m not going to get anywhere. I’m not going to get the solutions. I’m not going to get the closure that I want because she’s not a part of it. And like I said, even if I did have her, I probably still wouldn’t get it. So it’s understanding that closure may never happen. And choosing to say, OK, well, that sucks, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

Gabe: Jackie, thank you so much for your candor during this episode. One of the takeaways for me is like the Rolling Stones said, you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need. Thank you, everybody, for listening in. Here is what we need you to do. One, we always put a funny after the credits. So if you’re not listening to them, you’re really missing out because Jackie and I mess up a lot. Wherever you downloaded this podcast, there’s this thing called rankings. You can give us as many stars or dots or bullets or hearts or whatever as is humanly possible. But also use your words. Subscribe to our podcast, tell your friends about our podcast, do everything that you can to shout Not Crazy from the social media rooftops. And we’ll see you next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Not Crazy from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. To work with Jackie, go to JackieZimmerman.co. Not Crazy travels well. Have Gabe and Jackie record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details. 

from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2q0zHkl via theshiningmind.com

[penumbra-rp]

Congratulations Ricci, you have been accepted for the role of Marlene Mckinnon!

Thirty’s a dirty word for a young woman. Simultaneously, she’s failed to grow up yet succeeds in decaying. Grief doesn’t die, and nor does guilt, but kinder feelings perish slowly, driving Marlene to sigh through Order meetings, feeling hope’s rotting carrion reek a new stench of cynicism. She admits to nobody that she doesn’t believe in any of it. Still, she tries to cling to their ideals, praying that she might earn something for herself as a witness to the sincerity of their hope, waiting for a spark of life to reawaken amidst their earnestness of their idealism.

Admin Becky: Marlene has shaken off her past and shed the weight of perfectionism like a creature determined to find a new, more comfortable skin to grow into. Her stubborn cynicism will undoubtedly help keep the Order grounded, whilst those who dream of cutting corruption out of society may provide her with sparks of hope to alight the kindling of blind rebellion in her chest. I adore how she has formed a sense of maternal kinship towards all those looking to do the same, turning her into something of a figurehead, a beacon, for all those who are lost in the world as she had once been. It makes her so perfect for the Leaky Bucket, her sharpness enough to defend a place that is much a home to some people as it is a refuge.

Please check out our checklist for joining Penumbra.

01. Out of Character

NAME: Ricci

AGE: 20

YOUR BIRTHDAY: 01/25/99

PRONOUNS: she/her

TIMEZONE: GMT+8

02. In Character

CHARACTER: Marlene McKinnon

CHARACTER’S PRONOUNS: she/her

FACECLAIM: I’d like to play Sonoya Mizuno because having no titties is integral to Marlene as a person.

CHARACTER’S BIRTHDAY: 05/27/89

PERSONALITY:

[ + ] Diligent - Though most may assume such based on the careless with which she carries herself, Marlene isn’t lazy, just selective about what matters to her. When she finds something she cares about, she puts her all into making it work. Seeing the fruit of heartful labor is incredibly rewarding for her.

[ + ] Understanding - An unexpectedly sharp mind accompanies a secretly tender heart, and the combination allows Marlene to easily see situations through the eyes of others… when she wants to.

[ + ] Maternal - Deny it she may, but behind her mask of recklessness and flippancy is a woman that cares deeply about the people in her life. She notices that Order members are getting younger and younger and is overwhelmed with the desire to protect them, wanting to save them from suffering from the same cynicism she regards the world with.

[ + ] Bold - Whether it’s feigned or not is up to debate, but Marlene carries herself with a certain kind of confidence, unwilling to expose her vulnerabilities to anybody she isn’t close to. She isn’t afraid to take risks if it’s for something she cares about or believes in.

[ + ] Self-destructive - Her past history with family deaths and abandonment has left residues of self-loathing within her. Though not explicitly self-hating, Marlene occasionally regards her life with very little care, preferring thrill and adrenaline over her own welfare and safety.

[ + ] Hedonistic - When the working day is done: girls – they wanna have fun. Girls just wanna have fun. That’s all they really want.

[ + ] Irresponsible - It’s the first thing anybody notices. Laid-back and free-spirited as she is, Marlene prefers not to take herself, or life, seriously, preferring to face the tragedies of the world with a sharp wit and a strange, vulgar sense of humor. If life’s a joke, be the first to laugh, she says.

[ + ] Turbulent - Though never easily angered, Marlene is prone to bouts of mania and sadness, her emotions as ever-shifting as the earth’s climate ( thank you, Carrow energies ). She is driven less by ambitions and more by impulses, riding the next new wave of excitement whenever it comes.

BRIEF BULLET POINT BIO:

- Marlene McKinnon is twenty-six years old when her mother takes her own life. Midori, she says, nervous fingers flicking the corners of a page she has yet to read as her gaze lifts to meet the pairs of eyes stare, with scrutiny or with pity, at the newly-orphaned woman standing behind the funeral parlor podium. It should be easy to talk about a woman so many had loved (West End loses its angel to heaven, the obituary had said,) — but Marlene knows her mother has never been one for platitudes. So she tries harder. Midori was a great woman. A great mother. A pause. A breath. There was this time, when I was a kid, I remember —  she starts, and doesn’t finish, because in the precise moment Marlene scours her mind for a happy memory, she comes up empty.

- After half a lifetime of striving to crawl out of her mother’s shadow, it is ironic that death makes Midori’s already pervasive presence near inescapable. Tabloid writers and so-called journalists  hound Marlene with questions and interview requests in some futile attempt at digging up whatever was left of the story her mother failed to bury. Marlene denies them any answers. The facts they pry out of less trustworthy sources are somehow mostly correct:  Her husband’s death years ago had devastated her, but the marriage was tumultuous. She has not spoken to her daughter in more than five years. She left her with nothing.

- Nothing material. That much is true. The pain of abandonment stings but the blow hardly hurts her financially. In fact, she’s proud to say that in half a decade of estrangement, Marlene has built herself a place she could call her own. London isn’t the kindest to neophyte businesswomen, yet the Leaky Bucket has only blossomed under Marlene’s management, slowly growing into a home for scrappy university students and young adult delinquents, far rowdier than the upper class crowd her mother once surrounded herself with. It’s chaos, but it’s hers. Sometimes, her self-made success bears fruit to kinder daydreams. In the best of her imagination, she gets to greet Midori’s disgusted scowl with a grin and a sardonic, “Love me yet, ma?” In her worst, it’s Midori that smiles. The woman’s expression softens at the sight of her daughter’s work, her small lips forming words she would never have spoken outside of this contrived daydream: Marlene, I’m so proud of you.

- Midori leaves no will, no note. But all mothers, in some way or another, leave their daughters an inheritance of scars.

- What is hard to love is even harder to grieve. If the world remembers Midori for her voice, Marlene remembers her for her silence. Wide-eyed and love-starved, a child Marlene had begged for her mother’s affection in the only language the woman seemed to speak: achievements. Thus began a childhood of ballet and piano and voice lessons she hardly enjoyed but felt she needed to pursue, insatiate heart seizing whatever scraps of love she might find in her mother’s smallest of smiles. The harder she tried, the harder it got, because the more she strove to become her mother, the more she learned to accept the impossibility of growing into her mother’s insufferable perfection. The child will spend ballet recitals staring at two empty seats, silently praying for an audience she knows will not come. When Midori does come home, exhausted from hours upon hours of theatre rehearsals, Marlene will have her Clair de Lune rendition be dismissed with a cold frown and the words: You can do better. Outside her family, she will receive more appreciation, but her efforts will no doubt invite the disappointed gazes of her mother’s peers, matched with hushed remarks that the demons lurking within Marlene’s mind will later on replay: not as talented, not as charming, not as electric, not as beautiful, not as poised — she’s not her mother.

- Grief, complicated and disquieting, writhes within her bones. “My ma’ named me after Marlene Dietrich,” the present Marlene half laughs as she addresses the funeral visitors. “Guess she knew I was gonna grow up wanting to wear suits and fight Nazis.” This is the the truth, but not the one her gut feels it needs to spit out. Family, she thinks, is synonymous with fracture. Once, she was content with neglecting the word’s brokenness, but death shatters it past the point of repair. Stammering out a eulogy feels like choking on the shards of whatever it was she failed to fix. Inside, the fragments wound her. Later on, the tabloids will speculate the reason behind Midori McKinnon’s death and come to ill-founded conclusions that a self-loathing Marlene will find herself agreeing with: It was her daughter’s fault.

- The desire to become worse than the bad daughter her parents seemed to believe her to be exacerbated during her college years, ignited by the unexpected invitation to a selective extra-curricular club headed by a certain Albus Dumbledore. Eighteen years old and already far too jaded to fully believe in their fanciful ideals of change, Marlene accepted the invitation half-heartedly, less for their causes and more for the new warmth of knowing she belonged somewhere. Still, in their presence, she found herself braver. The long stirring spark of anger finally turned flame, triggering a new pattern of explosive dinner rows with her father, which pushes an already silent Midori deeper and deeper into her shell. The Order of the Phoenix brought about a new era of rebellions: against corporate giants, against her family, against expectations.

- Mostly, she rebelled against herself. Graffitied a body that failed to be perfect, needling ink stains over skin she always loathed wearing, singed her insides with liquor and passed-around party pills. Here is the revolution against the girl who got it all wrong. Staring at the mirror, she made peace with the woman behind the glass — an unwanted daughter who will make herself repulsive if the only alternative was accepting that she was unlovable. Michaelangelo said: I saw an angel in the marble in and carved until I set him free. With the new knowledge that she was not made of marble and possessed no inner angel, Marlene stopped carving herself in her mother’s shape.

- Too many scandals. Too many arrests. They told her she couldn’t come home anymore. She wanted to tell them it never felt like a home anyway, but her anger was quieter than her grief. The stammering of her heart and her eyes’ threat of tears reminded her later that the daughter who craved their love hadn’t died in a revolution fire as she suspected. She just became quieter. The urge to beg for their acceptance was too loud to ignore, but she willed herself to forget it, and with a pocket full of too much borrowed money and her sights on a burnt wreckage, she set off to carve herself a place of her own.

-Only years into adulthood does Marlene learn to blame herself less. It happens sometimes. Some people are built with their atoms all wrong, their fuses too short, their gears too rusty. Brilliant as the public claimed her mind was, to those close to her, it seemed Midori’s brain was short of the ability to process happiness, to register hope. Perhaps it’s merely genetics, or the high stress of nightly West End performances, or perhaps her mother, and her mother’s mother, and every mother that preceded, had all starved their daughters of love — this is their heirloom, this absence — and none of them learned to give what they never received.

- The child Marlene’s dream of becoming her mother sees fruit later on, albeit in all the worst ways. Her eyes are her mother’s. The way they see the world in sepia tones. Her heart is her mother’s. The way it feels bone-hollow and restless in its hunger for colour. Her exhaustion. Her cynicism. Her loneliness. When she hears the news of her mother’s passing, all she can think of is that college summer spent driving a breaknecking Volvo down vacant roads if only to have that adrenaline-roused daydream of collision burst against all her empty.

- Thirty’s a dirty word for a young woman. Simultaneously, she’s failed to grow up yet succeeds in decaying. Grief doesn’t die, and nor does guilt, but kinder feelings perish slowly, driving Marlene to sigh through Order meetings, feeling hope’s rotting carrion reek a new stench of cynicism. She admits to nobody that she doesn’t believe in any of it. Still, she tries to cling to their ideals, praying that she might earn something for herself as a witness to the sincerity of their hope, waiting for a spark of life to reawaken amidst their earnestness of their idealism.

- The younger Order members, with willingness to throw their lives away for impossible ambitions, terrify her to no end. But they awaken something in her, a new protective instinct, a maternal spark. She wants to save them from her fate, defend their youthful optimism from whatever threatens it. Family, she has always believed, is synonymous with fracture. As the Leaky Bucket bustles with the liveliness of young rebels, they sweep up the shards of old and construct a new definition, one that allows hope to blossom, slowly and organically, within Marlene. If she cannot save the world, she will protect every bold soul that has the audacity to try.

INTERVIEW

i. How do you feel about your current occupation?

Marlene lays her back against the wall of the Leaky Bucket’s storefront, offering a wide grin to the video camera in front of her. Turning away, she crosses one leg, plucks a cigarette out of a pack tucked in the small pocket of ripped black jeans, and sets the tail end ablaze with a lighter, less because she feels like having a drag and more because it might look cool on video.

Perhaps it doesn’t, but the inhale of smoke feels good anyway. “I feel incredibly lucky. Enjoying what you do isn’t a privilege everyone is afforded.” Marlene folds her arms, letting her cigarette dangle between two fingers. “My Ma’ used to say that life in late capitalism is like a Japanese claw machine. All the opportunities are laid out in front of you, seemingly within reach, but the chances of getting anything are actually slim to fuckin’ none.” Her mother never actually said that, but the metaphor was too good to go to waste, and attributing her own words to somebody else makes her seem far less pretentious than she feels at the moment. A knife of a smile cuts through her face. “So let’s fuck up all the claw machines, yeah?”

ii. What song would you say describes yourself?

The drums come first. Then, a single chord. Then, the abrupt, unwanted stab of truth — MY GOD, I’M SO LONELY, SO I OPEN THE —

“Off the top of my head?” Marlene laughs a little, a flippant shrug rolling off her shoulders. “No Scrubs?”

Despite her words, a different song plays in her mind without her warranting, echoing from the memory of having it on repeat weeks earlier, a day before her monthly cycle was due. In her hormone-induced despair, Marlene had drowned herself in cheap wine and the honesty of an annoyingly catchy pop song, all at the expense of any perceived rationality. No, she forces her mind to sing, I don’t want your number, no— nobody, nobody, nobody — I ain’t gonna give you mine and no — NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY —

The Marlene of memory sang along as she stared at the bathroom mirror, dragging cotton pads over the streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. Through her tears, she laughed about the melodrama of it all — the runny makeup, the snot on her nose, her being alone, her naked reflection, her illogical emotions — angry and amused when the more practical side of her mind had made an unglamorous acknowledgment of Maybelline eyeliner’s waterproof quality and interrupted the movie-worthiness of her misery, all while she adjusted the seriousness of her expression to validate herself to a nonexistent voyeur that might have found something poetic in her PMS. “I’ve been big and small,” she blubbered through snot and laughs and half-breaths, “And big and small… and big and small… again and…” And still, nobody wants me. Still, nobody… wants… me… “Give me one good movie kiss… and I’ll be…”

NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY! NOBODY!

The Marlene of present tilts her head, leaning back to take a long drag of her cigarette. “Nothing comes to mind, really.”

iii. Does reputation matter to you?

The chorus of tiny Mitskis fall silent in her mind as a new thought interrupts their melody, prompting her fingers to click against her skin with one abrupt snap. “Bad Reputation!” she says, grin falling open in excitement. “Joan Jett. What a fuckin’ banger. Bit cliche,” she adds, dismissing the notion of her own predictability with an expression of mild disdain and a noncommittal wave of her free hand, “but succinct enough to answer both questions. You could say it’s two birds with one Joan.” Marlene punctuates her sentence with a laugh that rings hollower by the second, ever mortified by her own cheesiness, then raises her chin to greet the camera with a wide, self-loathing grin. “Edit that out or I’ll stab somebody.”

iii. …Does reputation matter to you?

The breath she inhales comes out through her nose as a quiet chuckle. “What a unique question. Genuinely.” Her palm strikes her chest, above her heart. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked this before.”

Marlene’s smile fades as she presses the tip of her cigarette to her lips. After one long drag, she exhales, letting a now pensive gaze rest on the wisps of dissipating smoke.

It’s hard to be honest when it comes at the risk of being known. Past the smoke tendrils, Marlene’s brown eyes linger on the camerawoman in front of her. Small ashes rain from the tail end of her cigarette. An expression of uncharacteristic earnestness sweeps over her features. “It’s a bit…” she trails, biting her lip. “Complicated.”  

If thirty years of life taught Marlene anything, it’s that most women spent their existences doing less growing, and more outgrowing. It’s a hasty generalization that she draws from the narrow pool of her own experiences, but sometimes, she thinks it’s true. Sometimes she looks at women and tries to guess what they hate about themselves. What they like, too. The camera operator is pudgy and small and square-jawed, but she carries herself with confidence behind the lens, as if she knows she belongs  there. The girl is beautiful. Marlene wonders if she can tell it to herself without doubt.

She thinks of a younger Marlene, sixteen and tightening a belt around her waist as far as it could go to create proportions that would distract from the absence in her chest. This younger Marlene is overcritical of her reflection: narrow eyes, a flat nose, small lips.  Reputations, Marlene thinks, stem from appearances, and appearances are all any girl is ever taught to care about. I think all women grow up hating themselves, she doesn’t say.

“The world we live in carries far too much prejudice,” she says instead, though she wonders if serious words carry any weight if they are said by a person that seems to never take anything seriously. Marlene furrows her eyebrows. “I’m a woman of colour and a lesbian. You get things like catcalling, sexism, homophobia, microaggressions. Not all the time, obviously — people aren’t as bad as we make them out to be — but you have all these unpleasant experiences scattered throughout your existence.”

The younger Marlene doesn’t look anyone in the eye. She keeps her head down, afraid that if anyone looks close enough, they’ll discover the dirty secret lurking in her gaze. In the rare occasions where one does find it, it’s not bad, because they’re ecstatic to unearth a glimpse the same irreverence reflected in somebody else’s. The younger Marlene lets another girl slip a hand under her Catholic school uniform and finds that her touch makes her hate herself less, but the thought of being seen sucks the air out of her lungs harder than a belt tied too tightly around her waist.

“Women like me,” she says, drawing her words out slowly as not to let any useless emotions spill out, “all we have to do is exist, and people of more small-minded worlds automatically draw their own conclusions.” Feeling a new load weighing down her shoulders, Marlene shrugs. “We’re born with bad reputations.”

She doesn’t know what she can do for the world. She doesn’t know how to pry the hatred out of women. How to help them outgrow the unnecessary need to be beautiful. She thinks of other, younger, smaller Marlenes out there, wants to teach them to laugh at the absence of mass on their chests and point instead to the pulse heaving against it — there, she will tell them. That’s the most beautiful part of you.

And she thinks of the Marlenes who are afraid of this pulse and what it wants to love. Her heart swells with the urge to save them, but she doesn’t know how. If she could build a world where love was easier, she would. “Does it matter to me? I like to pretend it doesn’t. But I know —“ she pauses, nervous, afraid of being misconstrued, and wills every bit of sincerity to leak through her words. “I know I don’t want anybody else to suffer. So it matters.”

iv. What is your relationship with your parents like?

With a scoff of relief, Marlene decides that her quota for serious answers has been met. “My Da’s Catholic. My Ma’s Asian. I’m a clinically depressed raging homosexual with sixteen tattoos, five piercings, two terminated pregnancies, three previous arrests, zero university diplomas, an alcohol business, a nicotine problem, and a mild to mildly severe addiction to being a little bit of a cunt.” The corner of her mouth curls into a small smirk. Marlene turns to the camera, shooting a wink that brims with both impishness and affection. “Naturally, I’m their pride and joy.”

v. What languages can you speak?

A length of sleek black hair falls over her face as Marlene throws her head down, hand hovering above her mouth to conceal the quiet laugh of a scoff that escapes her throat. “Trickiest question that’s been asked thus far.” Leaning back, Marlene raises an eyebrow, mouth quirked into a flippant smile. “Because I’m getting this sinking feeling there’s a secretly correct answer, and if I don’t give it, the Duolingo Owl will find my address and set my house on fire.”

vi. If your home was on fire and you could only save one item, what would you choose?

Brown eyes widen in mild horror. “…Russian For Beginners.”

vii. Which Hogwarts University faculty did you study at? The Gryffindor School of Applied Science, the Ravenclaw School of Humanities, the Slytherin School of Social Science, or the Hufflepuff School of Art?

“When I was younger, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to do something good. So Environmental Science.” The fact that Marlene McKinnon studied in Gryffindor surprises a lot of people. The fact that she never finished the course surprises less. “It’s funny, because I think I did a lot more harm than good. In my second year I ended up dating someone in the non-renewable energy industry. I cheated on her — not my best moment — and it pissed her off — understandably so — and long story short, I guess it’s half my fault that there’s now a hole in the ozone layer in the shape of my pussy.”

vix. What is your social media username?

“I don’t want strangers on my personal accounts but —“ Marlene pauses to snag a slip of paper from her pocket, reading off a spiel she had prepared moments ago. “‘Follow The Leaky Bucket on Instagram at Instagram-Dot-Com-Slash-Capital-T-The-Dot-Capital-L-Leaky-Capital-B-Bucket for a chance to access our secret menu.’” Throwing her hand to her forehead in one lazy salute, Marlene turns to the camera and offers a smile and one last farewell wink. “And review us on Yelp, while you’re at it.”

[lovehealthlaugther-blog]

Break Ups </3

Most people at the end of break ups curl into a ball and die inside.

Yes I did this. 

Yes I also did this with multiple large amounts of chocolate and tissues at my disposal. 

But I felt so much better doing the simplest of things. I thought it rather extraordinary, that after so many nights dwelling and crying into my pillow, I was actually happy after doing a small everyday thing that otherwise I would of took for granted.

My simple thing today was seeing my nieces. 

I felt so low but after seeing them I felt as though my woes were lighter and my heart was smiling. 

Family can be a strength. Although many people have different strengths, mine is absolutely family. 

When the naïve-thought-impossible event happened the first person I ran to was my mum for comfort. I remember half stumbling into the living room, my broken heart on my sleeve and I reached out through almost infant-mother instinct for emotional aid. 

Family is a gift and I will treasure it always.

Sorry I went off on a tangent there, but these ‘simple things’ giving you strength during a break up is highly important. Even brushing your hair or eating a substantial meal can help so much when your feeling emotionally drained. People can sometimes not understand how an emotionally draining event can have an impact on your body. 

Some changes I experienced through emotional stress:

1) Lack of appetite

2) Lack of sleep

3) Stress acne/eczema

4) Low self-esteem

5) Thoughts of self-harm 

6) Depressive/angry mood swings

7) Worsened immune system (more colds and feeling ill)

8) Nausea and headaches

9) Overthinking past situations

10) Pushing important people away

11) Losing interest in things that I used to enjoy

I know many people are like ‘you’ll get over it don’t be a drama queen’ and ‘time will heal you he didn’t deserve you anyway’. Like my previous post, this highlights people rushing the emotional process one takes to get over a devastating event.

Although to other people a break up is hardly deemed to be a ‘devastating event of significance’ it is however significant to you. Especially if it was a particularly serious relationship that took up most of your life and energy. Also there are the circumstances around which the break up was centred  that other people may not understand, and also how deeply you felt about that person. 

You cannot ‘just’ get over this person.

Referring again to my previous post, it takes time to get over something that affected you so deeply your whole perception possibly not only on love but on the world has changed. 

It changed how I trusted people, how I first view people, it knocked my confidence, it removed my naivety and innocence. Of course I have had other break ups, two others to be exact, but being IN love is an entirely different matter.

You felt when you were with them that they were the one, that they were your future, you were the happiest you’ve ever been and have never felt more secure. With the others I felt none of that. It felt more mature and therefore new and deep and I fell so deeply in love with this individual.

But then it happens. The break up.

And everything, as I’ve said, changes. 

The slow and steady crawl to salvation seems a long and painful one, but I promise you if you take your time and do what's best for your mental and physical wellbeing you will thank yourself for embarking on that long journey. 

My long journey started just under a week ago, and being surrounded by people I love and doing the things I love has helped enormously. I promise you, sitting in your room (as much as you think that will help) will not in fact help. By not taking control of your life, such as going to work as normal, looking after yourself and socialising will actually make you feel worse.

How? You ask. Can anything make me feel more worse than I am right now?

The answer for me was quite simply that if you can’t try and normalise your life, how can you move on? Sitting in your pit eating Ben and Jerrie’s cookie dough ice cream, in three day old pyjama bottoms and a sweatshirt that has vague Spaghetti Bolognese stains on it (Yes I’m disgusting I know I was still grieving) and not washing yourself is not exactly going to make you feel any better is it?

Yes ‘grieve’ the loss of your short lived love, but you can’t grieve forever. 

I have tried to create a series of stages for the process of getting over a break up:

1) GRIEVING (Try a month)

Try to not grieve for more than 3-4 weeks. This stage is the most extreme stage for emotional distress, from the day you break up. You MUST still go to work and do the most IMPORTANT jobs like laundry, washing up...etc. But you are allowed to cry and break apart at any time you want to, and take things in your stride. If you want to watch a whole box set with a load of chocolate DO IT.

DO NOT be ashamed.

2) UNDERSTANDING (No set time)

In this stage it is kind of like dwelling, but dwelling more on how YOU feel and how YOU think. Disregard what the other person has said and how THEY feel.

There is no set time for this, this could possibly last until the day you suddenly wake up and think ‘you know what I’m over that, that’s old news’ and realistically that seems like a lifetime away I’m not going to lie. But...

*Think about how you felt in the relationship. Was it worth it? How did they make me feel? Would I let them back into my life again as a friend? How close were we? What did they do that benefitted me? How did they treat me? What did my friends and family think of them?

**Once these personal questions have been addressed think about the relationship as a whole. Think about how it would of fit into your life plan, for example: would a long distance relationship have worked in like five years time for me? 

***Lastly, understand that even though you feel these awful emotions now you’ve survived possibly worse things than this and other break ups, if you can get through those you can get through this. 

3) SEEKING (Three-six months)

This is the nicest stage I must admit. This is predominantly about finding new hobbies and interests and trying to expand your social network and circle, seeking new opportunities and ways to develop a sense of security and to help to create a new and fresher you. This will be a hard thing to do when your feeling crappy, but going to groups and trying to seek fresher ideas will make you feel as though your taking control of your life and creating a new one without them present in it.

MAKE NEW MEMORIES!

4) DISPELLING (No set time)

This again like the UNDERSTANDING stage has no set time limit. Removing them fully from your life and trying to move on is no easy task. This is why this is the hardest stage. I mean removing anything you possess that they've bought you or holds any link to them. REMOVE IT. 

I still have my ex’s hoodie, and as pathetic as it sounds it hurts to remove it from my wardrobe and throw it in a bin or give it back to them because I still want them in my life as more than friends. 

This is why I’m not in this stage yet. 

5) MOVING ON (No set time limit)

The fourth stage is very hard, but this one due to the previous stages is made slightly easier. There is no set time limit as everyone’s finality to their past can still take some time. 

By GRIEVING, UNDERSTANDING, SEEKING and DISPELLING this stage should be a breath of fresh air. 

All you have to do is agree never to look back and to no longer hope they come back into your life. It is like a wave goodbye. 

More like a final gesture. A stamp. As the fourth stage should of done the hard parts for you. 

You can allow yourself to be sad, but try and shake it off and be hopeful for the future.

6) NORMALITY

You have finally reached the stage where you are absolutely 100% not fussed with/about them. They can have a new girl/boy for all you care. You might possibly have a beefcake by then. 

*wink* *wink*

According to this creation I am still in the grieving stage, but I am hopeful that things will better. This list is simply a guide, it may work for me but not necessarily for you, the human brain and emotions are very complex and not everyone deals with things in the same way. 

Remember when life gives us lemons...make lemonade!

Love you all. Goodnight!

[bintaeran]

The Reality of Grief

The Reality of Grief Nina Zolotow by Lisa Wendell

Love and Grief by John Holland*

I will be 65 in August. I started doing yoga when I was 18 in 1970 using the black and white pictures in an old paperback copy of Richard Hittleman's book as a guide. Even given lengthy breaks, I have practiced yoga for more than 40 years, mostly on my own, supplemented periodically with classes and several private sessions. And I practiced yoga two to three times a week with a wonderful teacher throughout my second pregnancy in 1986 with my son, Maxx. He was my "yoga baby." 

The shock and trauma of Maxx’s diagnosis, illness, and ultimate death from T-Cell Lymphoma in 2007 at the age of 21 was completely unexpected, swift, and utterly annihilating to all of us. Diagnosed on July 11, dead on December 6th—one day a healthy, vibrant, funny, intelligent college junior looking forward to the rest of his life and just 17 weeks later, after physically and emotionally undergoing grueling treatment, gone from this world.

I felt that my life was over. Being on this planet without my son was unimaginable. I wanted no part of it. I continued to work full time only because I had to, but beyond basic household tasks and the rare outing to a movie or a visit with my daughter, I was psychologically immobilized by anxiety, remorse, guilt, and fear. A full year passed before I was able to return to intentional physical movement in the form of deliberate exercise, something I had done regularly all my life and an interest that Maxx and I had shared and enjoyed together. My first effort was to return to my stationary bike. Pedaling and often crying, I started with 10 minutes a night. Soon thereafter, I was able to lie on my back, legs propped up against the wall, arms stretched out to either side. Slowly, I began to add back some of the familiar poses I had practiced several evenings a week before he became ill. 

My practice was halting, abbreviated, a haphazard mix of soothing, improperly aligned poses. My body was stiff with sorrow and non-use, any former flexibility gone. My spirit so flattened, sometimes I couldn't even bring myself to the mat unless I'd had a glass or two of wine—an approach I called "Drunk Yoga." But my practice was becoming more consistent and I continued.

I was unable to sit for any form of breathing meditation because quietly focusing on the sound of my breath was an excruciating trigger for a panic attack. We had watched Maxx struggling for air just before he had been intubated only hours before he died. The memory of him lying in a coma, a ventilator down his throat, precluded me from taking a conscious cleansing breath for the next eight years. 

Now, ten years later, I still practice yoga, though much has changed in my approach. Early on in my grief, I mistakenly believed yoga would prove to be a way "out" or "through." The only time I was ever able to find a few moments of respite was when I was moving or resting in a yoga pose. I developed a short series of floor poses that seemed to calm me—all were essentially restorative in nature. 

During this time I also took medication for anxiety and depression (still do), was in various forms of talk therapy, read, wrote, and tried in whatever fashion I could to find a life of some sort after losing my son. Yoga played its part, but yoga was not—could never be—a panacea for either the grief or intense anger I felt. In fact, I feel that the current emphasis on yoga for grief—meaning in the past decade—is misleading and ultimately deeply disappointing for anyone encouraged to think it is a way “out.” Grief for a lost child or a beloved other is a pain that one carries for a lifetime. There is no "out." There is no "through." We ultimately learn ways to shoulder the burden, to live with the weight of our sorrow. A regular practice seems to allow time and space for that lesson.

As with most ideas or concepts that "trend" in our popular culture, yoga in the mainstream has become a particularly lucrative market for studios, teachers, fashion, authors, businesses, and health-care entrepreneurs of every type. It is touted as solution for everything from alleviating back pain to promoting world peace. In many ways, yoga has become a snake oil for our time. Caveat Emptor. My point being that the bereaved are an extremely vulnerable population. 

We are prone to reach for anything we think will give us some momentary respite from the agony of loss. Yoga can, and does, help. For some, practice can become an entire lifestyle with far reaching effects. In my own experience, however, yoga was not the only approach to finding a life after losing my son. Rather, it is one of many choices for activity that I have attempted to cobble together in the last nine years. find that both practicing and learning about yoga is more beneficial in smaller, more digestible doses. Too much of anything, too quickly, is counterproductive and anxiety provoking.

So it is important to remember that the experience of grief and the manifestation of sorrow are unique to the person, specific to circumstances, and dependent upon so many variables as to be impossible to categorize or mitigate. 

Despite my reservations, I can say that yoga (asanas and breath work) has had a positive effect on my state of mind. This takes different forms and can occur both during the practice and on my moods long after. I am a realist. My practice is what works for me given my own temperament and my own experience. I offer these few suggestions in the hope that others may benefit.

My poses are primarily seated and I emphasize any hip-openers as well as shoulder and back stretching, as that is where I hold my tension. I move very slowly, breathing as deeply as possible. I do not force or push my body, and my motions are never vigorous. Powerful, yang-type asanas make me anxious and seem counter-intuitive to my needs, which are for extended, calming movement and breath. My flow is ad hoc, extemporaneous, flexible. I try to follow the sensations in my body, which will let me know what to try first and what comes next. 

In addition to these yoga movements, I also ride a stationary bike every evening for 30 minutes and do light hand weights to strengthen my upper back muscles and improve my posture. The bereaved tend to hunch imperceptibly forward (over their hearts) as the years pass in an unconscious broken posture of self-defeat. 

The combination of all three kinds of movement has admittedly been very helpful when I am experiencing some of my deepest sorrow. I did the same few poses over and over again with little variation. The sameness of the routine itself was comforting. Now, I am able to more easily change the sequences, add new poses, and remove others. Essentially, I do what feels best in no particular recommended order, but according to what my body seems to be requesting at the time.

Cat/Cow Pose: Breathing appropriately and very slowly (several times to loosen low back). See Featured Pose: Dynamic Cat-Cow Pose.

Dynamic Downward-Facing Dog: Moving in and out of Downward-Facing Dog pose with my breath from the all-fours position or from Cat pose, repeating a few times.

Lunge Pose (Vanarasana): Both high version and low version, with back knee on the ground. See Featured Pose: Lunge Pose.

Child's Pose (Balasana), with arms extended: Hold for several seconds. See Featured Pose: Child's Pose.

Reclined Arms Overhead pose (Supta Urdva Hastasana): Breathing slowly in three-part breath, stretching as much as I can into shoulders.

Thread the Needle Hip Stretch: See Opening Your Hips Without Knee Pain. Friday Q&A: Opening Your Hips without Knee Pain.

Reclined Leg Stretch (Supta Padangusthasana), all three versions: Leg straight up, out to the side, and twisting. See Featured Pose: Reclined Leg Stretch.

Wide Angle Seated Forward Bend (Upavista Konasana) and Sideways Wide Angle Seated Forward Bend (Parsva Upavista Konasana).

Frog Pose (Mandukasana): For an inner thigh stretch.

Legs Up the Wall Pose (Viparita Karani), with no support. See Featured Pose: Legs Up the Wall Pose.

Gentle Twists: Any kind, seated or reclined. 

For breath practices, because sitting cross-legged for any length of time is not comfortable, I sit in Hero pose (Virasana) on a bolster, hands resting in my lap or on either leg. See Featured Pose: Hero Pose.

I will also practice in a reclined position once in awhile. In both poses I will occasionally place one hand on my heart and one on my belly. This calms me and helps me to concentrate on breathing in and out slowly. It feels reassuring to feel pressure in these two areas. Frequently, I listen to tonal meditative music. I am easily aroused and agitated by any noise, and find that listening to this type of music helps greatly in facilitating concentration.

I believe that people who are grieving, or suffering from any intense emotional distress can eventually be open to, and will try, in small steps and with gentle persuasive nudges to move in the direction of something that offers a non-competitive, non-judgmental, accepting opportunity to turn down the volume of despair. I think yoga allows for this flexible, individual approach.

Though I am not a teacher, a celebrity, or an expert, it is likely that I am representative of the majority of grievers who simply must find ways to survive after suffering great loss. I am a proletariat practitioner in the front line trenches and as such, I believe my own experience to be as valid as any "grief expert"—possibly more so. 

Lisa Wendell is originally from Southern California, and she moved with her husband, Steve, and their children, Megan and Maxx, to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986. Recently retired from her position as the Acquisitions Director in the library of a private university, she is hoping to take more time to write, exercise, read, garden and develop her yoga practice. Since the death of her son in 2007, she has devoted singular and concentrated effort toward accepting, understanding, and living with the significance of her loss.

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Major Life Changes

Quite a few of you have been inquiring as to what is going on with me, and a few of you have been a part of the more intimate journey.  I have debated how much to share publicly because it would mean speaking out about my shame, embarrassment and current declining emotional state. I haven’t felt very social as of late and have grown exhausted of inquiries of “how are you?” I have been struggling with some pretty major depression for over a year now.  I had a series of spiritual experiences starting at Arise two years ago that were followed by an intense phase of darkness. I recovered briefly last summer after my trip to Witch Camp and the Red Wood forest.  Traveling has often been immensely healing for me.   In August of 2016, I had it all (in my opinion).  I made the most money of my 2 year spiritual practice and business working less than 2 weeks that month.  I attended Mystery School and connected many dots of consciousness and had a teacher who could actually help me develop my abilities as a Seer.  I lived in my dream location out in the woods West of Boulder in a solar powered cabin by the creek.  I was making it running a spiritual practice working minimally and traveling extensively.  I was able to take a trip a month at the beginning of last year.  Running my spiritual practice over the last 2 years was the first time I had ever been proud of what I did to make money.  Despite its ups and downs, in the first year I was independently able to afford my life living alone in Boulder.  Life was magical and synchronic even in its unsteadiness.   My Mystery School Teacher recognized my sensitive nature in class and recommended I receive a session from him which I did the day before he returned to Italy.  As soon as he took his hands out of my energy field, a respiratory sickness set in and a cough began that lasted in that round 8 weeks.  I was too sick to work and then embarked on the journey to Standing Rock where I witnessed so much hatred and love and unwell spirits that I came home harboring even more collective crud and my sickness increased.  I had by far the worst month of my practice in October with only 1 client.  After 8 weeks of bed rest and healing by myself in the woods, I was ready to go once more, thankfully, I had been able to live off the reserves of my great month of business. In November, I was offered what seemed like a great client opportunity online.  It seemed like the financial break that I was looking for.  It ended up being a scam that drained me of my remaining thousands of dollars. I was left with no means to pay my bills and a broken heart. Thankfully a friend rallied for me and raised $1,500 via crowd funding which helped get me through.  The shame I felt from having to ask for help was huge.  Soon after, someone I had been working with for a while offered me more work and I began to dig into that welcoming the financial break that it offered. In addition, I had been in and out of a relationship for the past year with a man who I loved/love deeply but our dynamic didn’t operate in a way that felt emotionally supportive of either of us (I assume) and I went through repeated cycles of feeling mentally abused and abandoned and so confused about the love/leave repeat patterns of our relationship. Each time we went away from each other I experienced full blown physical and emotional withdrawal symptoms as if he had been a drug and maybe in many ways he was.  It still feels like getting over just this piece will take some time. Add increasing heartbreak at all points. On Christmas Day, I moved into the bigger cabin on my property with elation.  It felt like the ultimate upgrade and gift to self. I had more space for guests and friends and personal expression.  I had loved my little cabin but the big cabin was something even beyond that.   I was completely at peace with where I lived, rent increase and all. I celebrated New Years as an independent woman in angst surrounded by beloved community members who held space for me while I kicked and punched and screamed saddened by having to be there uncoupled with my love.  I spent a few more weeks sick with the respiratory infection/withdrawal and grief/trauma symptoms that have been a consistent companion as of late. I was seeing clients less as my un-wellness increased.  After a time, it became clear that I was in no place to be holding space for others and I let my healing practice dwindle.  The one thing I love and actually am good at, I no longer felt able to do and I have been grieving that loss as well.   For months, I have been sitting in the inquiry of what else is there?  And who am I if not this?  The answer to that seems to become further away with each day. At least I had a part time job that was keeping my head slightly above the water and a home that I loved.   At the beginning of February, I was informed by the woman who was taking over my side job that I no longer had a job. It was sudden and done in a way that felt like the year of work I put in prior to that was valueless and not even worth an explanation of why.  I still didn’t panic, grateful that the 2 personal relationships where I felt “not good enough” had faded away however painfully. I had some figuring to do.  My rent had increased $600 and I still didn’t feel able to hold space for the healing of others in practice.  So I put it out there that I was looking to rent my extra room to a friend and was elated when the perfect souls showed up.  I still cried every day but found relief when looking out my windows at the moon and aspen trees and thinking at least if this is where I live, everything is okay. My beautiful friend Jill came to stay with her dog Bella and her presence was life changing.  Mostly, because it kept me from the darkest throes of my depression.  Even if she didn’t always know how to deal with my pain, just her natural presence and giving nature had a huge impact.  Things were looking up though, I had my extra room rented and installed a beautiful door and took a big breath knowing that my rent was covered for the time being and I got to stay in my mountain oasis. Then the two by four smack against my soul struck again.  The landlord found out (I totally own my part in not communicating proper) and I was promptly and without conversation evicted from my tree house.  Talk about devastation on top of devastation.  I loved it up there.  It was in the woods away from people, I had a dance studio with pole set up, I did ceremonies on the creek.  I frikin adored where I lived.  So having it ripped away felt like I was losing an integral piece of my inner peace. Just when I thought the depression and trend of my life couldn’t get worse, it did. I packed everything up even though I had just literally finished unpacking from the move from the little cabin. I was in the big cabin less than 2 months when I was asked to leave.  AND THEN, I moved back into my parents’ house. In the city…surrounded by all the people that live here. I do love my parents but after being on my own since I was 17 this felt like a major step back.   Then I promptly got sick again, this time with the worst throat and lung pain yet.  I literally couldn’t breath and every time I coughed it felt like shattered glass on the inside of my throat.  My depression was also at its worst and I became very suicidal in mind.  The suicidal thoughts wouldn’t last super long usually 20 minutes to an hour but during those times I was so low that I became really frightened at the state I was in.  So finally, I took myself to Urgent Care.  Traditional care appointments were booked weeks out and I needed help right away. I was given a breathing test which I failed and told I had asthma and that my allergies were causing the chronic coughs. I have since undertaken an allergy test which indeed showed me that out of 66 common allergens I am HIGHLY allergic to 52 of them.  This is what was causing the illnesses, this too was what was causing the high levels of inflammation in my system leading to the severe depression.  Both the depression and my coughs started simultaneously after I left Burning Man in 2016.   Finally, I began to have an idea of what I needed to address in my health.  Still not feeling up to running a healing practice I began driving for LYFT as part of their new driver incentive program. I needed flexible work that I could partake in in a new location while I figured out my next move.  Talk about a humbling experience.  I went from making $100-$150 per hour working less than 10 hours per week to making $10-$16 per hour working over 50 hours per week.   It’s been real.   Currently, I have been misplaced from my beloved mountain home and life as I knew it for about 3 weeks.  In that time, I have cried more than I ever thought humanly possible, visited the darkest mental places I have had the pleasure of experiencing in this lifetime and at the same time received monumental levels of support from my friends, community, and family. I have decided to take a soul break in Mexico for a while and Holly and I are leaving for a wedding mid-April on a one way ticket.  That thankfully, has been a spot of light amidst all this darkness.  In addition, I have decided to get serious about my health and healing my heart.  With this much upheaval I KNOW that something bigger is moving in my world.  Life as I knew it is over.  It’s time that everything changed.   Two of my life’s greatest loves are subtle energy and movement.  Since I stopped feeling able to show up in my healing practice I have been sitting in the inquiry of what else is there?  If I am not doing this then who am I?  What do I do? I have to tell you that being a taxi driver isn’t it!   I’m the type of personality that can’t exist for very long participating in activities or relationships that don’t feel aligned with my soul.  I can survive within in them for a while but usually these things don’t last long term at least my happiness doesn’t last.  I try to live a life that I love and while running my own business was a huge challenge it provided me with the freedom I desire and also was the first career of my life that I was genuinely proud of.  I’d like to get back to that place.   What is clear is that my health needs to come first.  Until I feel better, things can’t take their full shape. I’ve been lead once again to myself.  How do I develop myself in such a way that I move forward in attracting the life that I desire?  Freedom, financial stability and doing what I love as much as possible. I have made a decision to join with Beach Body as an online fitness coach.  I have been using Beach Body programs for many years with great results.  I usually focused on the workout and not the nutrition and this time that piece is going to change.  I will be focusing on my own personal fitness and health transformation while helping others do the same. This avenue is great because it provides me with the flexibility that I desire, I get to work on myself in the process, it’s doing what I love and am already doing anyway and I can utilize my skills as an energy practitioner all at the same time. Win Win. While I am away in Mexico I will be putting my focus into some serious soul rest and also building my online businesses. Beach Body is great because you can achieve great results all from the comfort of home.  I certainly have loved it over the years and am very excited to bring it into my world as a level up in self-care and financial prosperity. I know the work that goes into creating your own business and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I keep trying to find other opportunities and I keep getting led back here to helping, to healing and to cultivating self.  In order for me to be great I have to feel great and this feels like a step in the right direction.   So, if you would like to join me in your own personal transformation. If you would like to work out from the comfort of your own home, if you would like great resources on eating right and nutrition feel free to reach out and I can guide to how you too can have all of these things. It’s time to level up.  ENERGize! I will be coming out with a series of videos on exercises that you can use to develop your subtle energy skills, mindfulness practices and also to shift energetic collapse (depression), trauma and anger. If you’ve read this far, thank you for staying with me! I look forward to connecting with you soon.

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