RealTalk

So... I'm not okay. I'm honestly barely hanging on, and every day that the virus spreads and I have to be in self-quarantine, that grip slips just a little more. And I know I'm not alone in this. I know we are all struggling to hold on, to keep going and be strong. And I usually am a decent pillar of strength, should anyone need to borrow some. But today, instead of a pillar, I feel like a toothpick. I'm gonna need to borrow some strength and support from whomever is willing to share. Please, help me get through today. Thank you in advance. ❤️ #CheckInWithMe #Roughday #Anxiety #Depression #PTSD #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #needhelp #badmentalhealthday

It’s hard to start the conversation
But not any conversation
The hard conversations
The walls getting torn down kind of conversations
The emotional stripping kind of conversations
The ones that make you vulnerable
The ones you have at 3am
When it’s too dark to see your face
Too dark to see your tears
But just late enough
To let you open up
Just late enough
To let your darkest secrets out
To let your deepest burdens disappear
The difficult talks
The ones that are often our biggest relief
The ones
https://Every.One.Of.Us.Need.So.Badly
The 3am, kind of talks

#Poetry #RealTalk #Depression #vulnerbility

#RealTalk

Last night I dreamt that I fell off a train and got partially run over, followed quickly by being beaten to a pulp for an hour by a group of strangers. This is the latest in a series of dreams wherein my mind tries to explain all the pain I am in as I sleep.
I feel all my pain in my dreams but it is harder to control in there. While awake, after 12 years of pain I have gotten decently good at simply shoving most of my pain to a dark dusty corner of my mind so I only focus on the worst. It is extremely useful in that if I stub my toe, dislocate a joint like I do multiple times a day(Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) or something else minor, I feel nothing because I have a lot worse of pain to deal with.
Sleep is more complicated.
Waking up from that dream was excruciating. Broken bones, concussion, bleeding, etc. and yet none of it is there when my eyes actually open-all except for the pain with the usual more besides.

It truly is fascinating how minds work. My disabilities with my hands etc. always are in my dreams with everything else so I am used to waking in the fetal position with a wet pillow, crying from the excruciating pain that is as constant as air in my lungs. Complete normalcy to me.

It HURTS. There are no other words I can find that truly express it.
But yet, there is always hope, faith, and humor in the little things to keep me going.

The latest one I came across after I got into the car and turned the radio on.
"Wish you pain." by Andy Grammer. 😂😂
The universe sure has impeccable timing!

#Fibromyalgia #EhlersDanlosSyndrome #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #GastroesophagealRefluxDisease #Insomnia #Arthritis #Lupus #Depression #AmplifiedMusculoskeletalPainSyndrome #HypothyroidismUnderactiveThyroidDisease

Leaving home to travel the state seemed like a vacation for me. I love to travel, and I needed time away. But as it turns out, grief follows you. So, I had to grieve; I took time to grieve that my relationship with Dad had reached such a low point, I grieved that I screwed up big time with that friendship and grieved that I had intense feelings that hadn't gone away, even after a year of trying to change them at that point, I grieved that I had spent so much of "The Best Years of My Life" in agony and now I'm in adulthood. It was painful, to say the least.

But this is where I want leave it, with pain (how else is a good story supposed to end?) Seriously, this was one of the hardest experiences I've ever had to go through. Reaching a boiling point, seeing how I spent the past 4 years as a suicidal, self-harming, overwhelmed, anxious and over-caring hopeless romantic who followed feelings instead of choosing to, you know, actually feel feelings. I know that must be confusing. All my life, I've been afraid of feelings, while still following them. I'm a romantic, so I live by feelings all the time, but that doesn't change the fact that when I had feelings, I acknowledged what they were, and then jumped right to moving on. That didn't give me enough time to explore them, or really feel those feelings. It made me numb, and when those feelings piled up, it made me overwhelmed.

This is what I want the takeaway to be from my story. Not only is it okay to not be okay, but it is necessary to experience grief for what it is. The biggest downfall in my life is I didn't process my emotions until this past year. Once I learned that I need to feel the pain, I started to thank God for it and asked to let it keep coming if it meant I could still learn more about myself and about His Glory!

It's a cliche, but sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom before someone actually reaches out to God. It's important to live in rock bottom, not just look for ways out, because hitting the lows will be meaningless if we haven't learned anything from it!

Like I said, I'm in a better place now. I'm off of one of my meds, I haven't self harmed in a couple years now, and I've learned to manage, live and experience life as God gives it to me, not just watch it go by while taking notes.