Strength is not Immortality

My grandmother is a rock.

The things she has endured in her lifetime, and come out even stronger on the other side, are huge. Still she soldiers on.  She's a matriarch no one messes with.
She's also 83.

She my biological grandmother and she lives in California.  I try to see her every year but, I admit, it's been a couple years.  And with every visit, I see the frailty seeping in.  She needs a walker to get around.  She's on oxygen 24/7 and still can't get enough air.
She's my link to my past.

As I contemplate her mortality, I'm awash in emotion.  What will my life be like without her?
She is the one person who loves me unconditionally.
She doesn't place expectations on her affection. She doesn't try to manipulate me in any way.
She doesn't look at me with blame.  She doesn't see me as a symbol of all that went wrong in her life, her daughter's life, my life.
The thought of losing her overwhelms me.

She instilled in us the importance of being a strong, independent, self-reliant women.  My aunt, my cousin, my sister and I have all achieved this to varying degrees.  Sometimes it serves us well, sometimes it interferes in our relationships.
But we always muster through, using her strength.
We persevere.
We trudge through.
We survive, maybe even thrive.
I wonder how that will change when she is gone.

She's just always been there.
Taking us in after my mother's death.
Keeping us together as a pair when we entered the foster care system.  Visiting us in our new home.
Phone calls, card and gifts throughout the years of separation.
Always maintaining the relationship, the connection with her and my past.

As I've aged our relationship has changed. We talk about deeper things, and I feel the guilt she carries.  Guilt over things she's not responsible for.
I feel her sadness and her loss.
I feel her loneliness.
I feel her love.
And I feel her undeniable strength.

Strength I can only hope to live up to.

Live with Purpose

Four weeks ago, I almost died.

I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack.  It turned out that I had a perforated ulcer on my intestine the size of a quarter.  It was leaking air into my abdominal cavity.  The doctor kept asking how long I'd been having symptoms, amazed that I'd felt nothing until that day. He said most of this type of perforation are the size of a dime, and patients are in excruciating pain.  Why didn't I feel it?   I was in emergency surgery within 2 hours of leaving work that day.  Had I waited one more day, the results would have been very different.

I have a freakishly high pain tolerance.
I've trained my body to not feel any thing.  Emotionally or physically.
Call it a coping mechanism.

I have complex PTSD.  To deal with all that "stuff", I learned how to just shut down.  That means blocking pain and emotion, good and bad.  As a kid, I actually forced myself to not be ticklish in order to avoid attention. I learned to deadpan, to not allow my face to show emotion.
Just absorb it.  Just get through.
Just don't feel pain until it almost kills you.

I spent a week in the hospital.
I have an incision from my sternum to belly button that needed 25 staples to close.
I've been home, recuperating, for 3 weeks and I still feel like a bus ran me over.
Sleep is my only escape, but that's becoming harder to do.
I'm malnourished and dehydrated.  All my plumbing has been re-routed and it's not happy about it.

Up til now I've been too busy trying to heal to even begin to deal with how close I came to dying. This week, feeling a little better, has given me more time for reflection.  I've come to believe that the excruciating pain I felt that night, the pain I could not ignore, was the finger of God.  Stay with me.  I know not everyone believes this way, but I do.  He could have let me just continue to ignore whatever was going on inside and die.  Or, as he did, put me in so much pain that I had to pay attention.

There has been many tearful moments this week, realizing how close I came to not being here.  I guess I've been kept here for a purpose.  Strangely, that brings a lot of pressure.  It also brings clarity.
No more just coasting through life, hiding from the hard things, believing the lies people told me just to hurt me, neglecting the gifts I have been given.  It's time to live with purpose.

It's time to feel again.

Silent No More

Shame.
That's a word I don't have a lot of experience with.  I can say that I haven't really done many things that I'm ashamed of doing.
I don't shame myself.
But I'm finding out recently how heavy is the weight of the shame others put on me.
I don't like it.

"If you hadn't been born, none of this would have happened."
Shame on you.
"You were illegitimate?"
Shame on you.
"You were molested... abused... thrown away?"
Shame. Shame. Shame.
"Why aren't you like everyone else?"
Shame on you.
"Can't you just make it look like everything is alright?"
Shame on you.
"Why do you have to talk about those things?"
Shame on you.

Well, I refuse to carry that anymore.  That shame is yours, not mine.
My story has a voice and it refuses to be silenced.
I don't want your hand-me-downs, and I don't need your pity.
I'm an adult.
None of this was my fault.
I refuse to continue to kowtow to the powers that be, allowing them to define me as they see fit, rather than BE strong, to be me.

From now on, I'm making my own way.  I'm following my own rules.
I'm going to continue to not fit in or be like you expect me to be.
I've been through things, and that has changed me.
It makes me different.  That's good.
I wouldn't wish it on anybody to be like me.

So you have a choice to make.
Choose wisely, not like in the past.
Don't label me.
Don't misjudge me.

And if you do, shame on you.

Make a choice already

I've spent the majority of my life deciding what I didn't want to be.

I didn't want to be a victim.
A victim like my mother, brutalized by someone she loved.  A victim like my grandmother who fought the demons but lost.  A victim like that lost little girl that men touched and kissed and based her worth on her looks.

I didn't want to be dependent on a man for... anything.
I didn't want a man to tell me if I could spend money or not.  Not like my mom.
I didn't want to need a man to fix things, open things, protect me from things.

I didn't want to be different.
Not the shy girl who couldn't meet your gaze.  Not the adopted girl who didn't look like the rest of the family..  Not the girl who scratched rashes or had non-stop cold sores. Not the girl with the past so scary that she couldn't talk about it.

I didn't want to be used.
Not by any one.  Least of all by a father who treated me like a possession. Or an uncle with disgusting motives. Or any one of the boys who tried to lure me away into dark rooms and wooded trails.

I didn't want to be afraid.
Afraid of an abusive father with a quick temper.  Afraid of turning out like my mother.  Afraid of being less than.  Afraid of not being able to protect myself and the ones I loved. Afraid of the dark.  Afraid of the silence.  Afraid of closed doors and unknown places.  Afraid of people and afraid of myself.  Afraid of making the wrong choice.  Afraid of losing everything... again.

I didn't want to be alone.

The problem is that while I was so focused on not being something, I didn't choose what I did want to be.  I just let my life morph me into someone hard, jaded, solitary, non-trusting, fierce, abrasive and wildly independent.    I built walls greater than the ones Trump has planned.  I learned to disconnect from my body, to not respond to touch.  I learned to free myself from external emotion, to pace my breathing and maintain control.  I learned to hide all emotion and project a blank canvas that didn't belie the turmoil just below the surface.

They say if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.  I'm not sure that's the case.  I think it makes you harder.  People stop trying to get in, stop trying to penetrate the fortress that's been reinforced with fat and sarcasm on the outside, hurt and loneliness on the inside.  People pull away-- or are driven away-- and every fear about people is realized.

People suck.  People leave.  People hurt.  People disappoint.  People are... people.  And supposedly I need them.  Well, that's what I'm told.  I don't totally buy into that.  I'm skeptical.  But maybe I don't want to be.

Another Year... Yippee!

I'm starting 2015 on the edge of depression.

There.  I said it.

It's been a steady descent, but I'm unable to identify it's start.  But I do know that had I not yanked on the brakes and brought this thing to a screeching halt, I'd have gone over into the abyss. I just don't know how long the brake is going to hold.

I'm a fairly pragmatic, no-nonsense kind of person so I usually just barrel through things, especially emotional things.  It's messy.  Too much touchy-feely kind of things.  It's not working this time.  I feel like I'm treading mud.

It's not that I feel sad, or even down.

I feel nothing.

There are no highs.  No joy, no laughter. And what would normally be considered low -tear producing- was passed long ago.  There are no more tears.  So, I can only go up, right?

Yet it doesn't feel that way.

I feel like I'm teetering, and how it goes is beyond my control.  "Beyond my control" isn't something I handle well.  Maybe that's what's helped to hang on so long.  But is it truly possible to have a strong enough mind to just keep hanging on?

I've decided it just might be.  Maybe it's not enough to pull me back up, but it might just be enough to keep me from falling further.

I'm Strong enough

It's amazing how a person's off-hand, insensitive comment can send me back to childhood and, seemingly, undo years of emotional progress.

I'm an adopted foster child.

The early parts of my life were very traumatic, filled with abuse and suffering.  As a result, I was a shy child, always trying to stay hidden and blend into the background.  It also meant emotions were pushed deep down inside and never expressed.

Eczema also ran in my family, and I had it.  Bad.  Stress caused it to flare up, and I was in a constant state of stress for most of my childhood and young-adult life.  And, of course, it couldn't be somewhere hidden on my body.

It was on my arms the most.  I'd be nice and tan most places, except the white patches where I'd scratched off the skin.

The it moved to my neck.  The skin would peel off, exposing gaping cracks in the flesh.  That really made the guys want to ask me out.

I also developed cold sores, and spent most of high school with perpetual cracks at the  corners of my mouth.  People spread rumors that I had herpes and several mature high school guys called me "crusty".

All this just created more stress, which spun the vicious cycle.

My adoptive parents didn't handle it much better.  I was punished for scratching and for breakouts.  I was forced to memorize countless scripture verses about healing, and told I wasn't healed because I didn't have enough faith.  I was dragged from doctor to doctor, enduring scrutinizing doctors, shots and countless creams and lotions.

I felt judged, and punished, for something that was beyond my control.

I grew up, moved out, got married and had children all the while enduring questions and sneers when people saw my skin.  About this time, the eczema had settled on my hands, making it all but impossible to hide.

Thankfully, as I aged I learned better ways to deal with my stress and also received much counselling to deal with all the emotional turmoil I had been in for so many years. Ever so slowly, my skin healed.

The cracks closed.

The blisters disappeared.

The itching was gone.

I have been symptom free for several years now.

Then we got a new color shampoo at the salon I work in.  Several of us are having a bout of contact dermatitis because we use it so much.

So, I've been nursing my hands, attempting to get them back to normal.  Apparently, I'm not doing it so well.

As I was perming an older ladies hair today, she asked me if anyone had complained about me working on people with how my hands looks.  In that instant, all the pain of my childhood experiences came rushing pain.  I wanted to cry, but I pushed back the tears that were stinging my eyes, and instead asked her about her own cracked knuckles.  "Dry skin" she said.  Well, duh. 

Again, I'm being judged for something I have no control over.  The emotions are high, and my nerves are raw.  I'm a little girl, trying to hide.  Wishing to be invisible.

But that doesn't "fit" anymore.  I've grown, matured, healed.  I don't fit in that mold anymore.

I'm stronger now.  I know who I am.  I know what is my responsibility and what burden I truly bear.

I'm strong enough to let go of all the pain from the  past surrounding my skin and how people have viewed me because of it.  I choose to move forward, out of the pain (both physical and emotional) and just. let. go.

Weight is a Mind Game

I just had my five-year anniversary of gastric bypass surgery.
I lost 106 pounds, became a "new" person and gained a whole new lease on life.

Life is hard when so much focus is placed on your weight.  It doesn't matter if you're morbidly obese, borderline emaciated or somewhere in between.  When all the comments you hear are weight-related, it begins to be all you think about, too.

Do my rolls show in this shirt?

Are people judging what I eat?

Will my butt fit in that seat?

After losing all that weight, I still had those type of questions in my head.

How bad does my loose skin look in this bathing suit?

Why is everyone commenting on when and what I eat?

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have that weight off.  I feel so much better.  I have less stress on my joints, my fibromyalgia is under control and several other issues have subsided.  But I'm still fat in my mind.    Actual weight doesn't change what you see in your mind when you look into the mirror. You see, some of us use that weight as a buffer.  I used it to deflect attention.  I used it as a buffer against physical relationship.

Without it, I'm exposed.
Weight is just as much a mental issue as it is a physical one, and people don't understand that.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm oh-so-glad to have that weight off.  But, honestly, it's a struggle to not go back.  I know that won't make sense to many of you reading this.  Have I gained some weight? Yes, tho not much.  I'm only up one jean size.  Could I have done better?  Absolutely.  But I also could have done much worse.

I'm learning.  My life isn't defined by how much I weigh.  What others think or say, especially those I don't know, shouldn't carry any weight in how I feel about myself. What I see in the mirror is the reality, not the voice in my head.

So, thank you to those who've been on this journey with me.  Your support had been, and continues to be, immensely important.