I've been keeping a lot of things inside me lately, things that I've always let eat at me and eventually destroy me, and after today I'm done with that. I've spent my whole life walking an edge trying to keep everyone happy, do it right, smile despite the pain, I hurt myself in a sick way to protect everyone I love, and in the process not having a voice pretty much lost me a place with my family, friends, and in life. I'm not that person anymore, I have opinions, I have feelings, and I have a son that has my full heart and protection, and part of protecting him is making sure he never feels the way I have felt. I am not blameless, I spewed my fair share of poison, I helped aid in the destruction of the body that God so preciously gave me, and I'm not asking for people to change who they are because I've changed who I am. I am not that weak, broken soul, too scared to stand up and be heard anymore...I don't have the time to do it anymore, seconds are precious in all lives and I just happen to know that mine are ticking quickly and with uncertainty there is no time to wait to fix what has been broken.
Whether you are raised in a Christian house or not one of the first things that are instilled in us is that family is what you value first, what you depend on, they love you when you are good and bad, in the light and the dark, there is no secret too big, and the list goes on from there. Unfortunately, things are that black and white and we sometimes cause hurts in each other that the space just gets bigger and bigger and Christmas becomes more and more awkward, and before long you realize you feel alone and hurt, unsure of who you can run to when you fall down. Families become broken, sides are taken, people spew poison to cover their own pain, forget that core value of what comes first, and it seems to happen somewhere in even the best families...I've come to the conclusion that it is my time to try to heal my wounds, give those I love the answers they never had, prayerfully find a common ground somewhere, and most of all to show my son that he never has to feel the way I have or do what I've done because my sins will not be his burden to carry.
I've twenty seven years old and only in the last few years have learned how much of a gift life is and how much I really want to be the old lady getting all the gifts from her grandchildren at Christmas (I mean those homemade pinecones covered and glitter and stuff like that I truly love). Before the light came on in my head I was lost in my own destruction/annihilation. I started trying to be a different person for everyone I cared about pushing the real me as far down as possible, I smiled when I wanted to scream, I quit eating, I started cutting, started trying to be perfect to fix things that were never my job to fix, and tried to carry the burden of struggling parents doing what they could. I've discovered being a parent that at the end of the day you do what you hope is best and some times it blows up in your face and you don't need to have it thrown in your face years later, letting go has been hardest and yet the most freeing. I tried to take my own life and thanks to God, a good friend, EMTs, and ICU docs I woke up the next day. I couldn't see that blessing then, but now it is a debt I can never repay fully to the people that saved me. We are all going to die and spending our time refusing to forgive those who hurt us, reach out to those who we've hurt, and down right just pushing through all the wreckage to find someway to mend what is broken leaves us left questioning when we lose loved ones with whom we've had unresolved issues. I will never have peace with my mother's death she died with us both lost in our own darkness never mending what was broken. I can't do that anymore...no more time.
Fact is, by the time my mind could wrap around not starving, purging, cutting, swallowing every pill I could grab, and dying my body was already in pretty bad shape. I didn't stop the darkness when they told me the disease I have was so severe they were removing over 95 percent of my stomach and putting in another surgical feeding tube to possibly help save part of my stomach, I didn't care, wouldn't hang my tube feeds, just kept on cutting, and pushing my many, many meds meant to stop the PTSD and night terrors. I was about as dark as it gets, I was screwed up all the time, would just sit there and bleed when I needed stitches, and made no attempt to change. Two days after meeting the man who is now my husband he was calling an ambulance after finding me pretty much passed out in bedroom with a major death cocktail shoved directly into my guts and they wouldn't let him ride with me because he wasn't really anyone who knew me yet, so he rode a bike with broken brakes to the ER to sit with me. That was day one of a very long battle to regain control of my mind that included a definite re-evaluation by a psych doc who wasn't keeping their patients snowed out of their minds, I gave up control of what meds I was kept on, I slowly became more willing to increase my intake (sometimes requiring restraint to stop behaviors), I very slowly began to stop myself when I was slipping into the, for lack of a better description "cutter's trance", I learned to use a voice that I didn't know existed, and eventually it got easier to get through a minute, then five minutes, then an hour, and pretty soon I made it to bed without using any behaviors. The screaming got quieter and the light could finally made me see that I had a life to live. It has been over four years and I still have dark moments and even dark days, but I've learned how to reach out and how to stop myself, that doesn't mean there aren't lapses because there have been and I get through them without falling back and holding on to a husband and son who love me. Like I said, all of this happened and I decided it was time to have a life and my body decided it wasn't sure how much more life it had in it.
I've been blessed to have a beautiful little boy that they told us was impossible and despite being sick I have lived, laughed, cried, and loved him with all my heart and will until it stops beating. The problem is I never mended when the people who were around when the darkness found it's way inside me, I've never said my piece, and despite thinking it, I've never let it go. These relationships are about as broken as they can get and as we get more and more bad news my emotions go from sad to pissed that they aren't around and that blame and hurt starts getting in and all those why's that I never had answered start pushing their way into my mind, and I can feel it all coming back like I'm going to shatter suddenly. I refuse to die with all of this inside of me, leaving so many questions unanswered, and leaving my brokenness with my child. He will never be made to felt the way I have because he is far from worthless and will never feel like he is. I have to know why he has a family that doesn't want to know him, why the only parents I have left seemingly have no interest in addressing the fact that they are going to lose a daughter far before they thought, I want to know why I was raped and nobody ever acknowledged it, why I lived in a shelter and went to court with a stranger to support me and not my family, I want to know why when they knew their teenager was sitting in her room cutting herself and starving herself to death they didn't open the door, and most of all I want to know why my voice went away as a little girl, why I felt like I was worthless, and nothing I ever did for them was right? That is just a little bit of my darkness, my dirty laundry they say you shouldn't speak about in public, well I say speak about it before you die with it. I want this slate clean, I want a family there when I die whether it be in a week or three years, and personally I've not found any better way to do it than to just frigging say it.
I am done with all of this, this game playing and blaming, I'm done with awkward dinners or holidays, and huge elephants in the room. I will admit my own mistakes and I have no interest in passing judgment I just want healing. I don't mind that you can see my where my pieces have been glued back together after damn near turning to dust because at this point there is no time. I am who I am and I've done things I can't take back and I'm not proud of and I dare you to find someone who hasn't. I'm sick, it doesn't define me but I won't let my loved ones continue to ignore it like if we don't talk about it that it goes away. I sometimes need a person to listen on the phone when I'm having a bad day and feeling like crap and I want to complain about what the doctors are doing, I'm not asking for it to be all the time, but sometimes it is going to happen. I'm not perfect, and neither are the people I love and I know that we will still disagree and sometimes down right fight, but I don't want it to end without the mending, no more whys even if I don't like the answers I get I need them.
Fact is, we are all dying the fact that I have a team of doctors that remind me of my mortality every week it can be anyone's last day, last second on this Earth even when they are perfectly healthy. We put off everything hoping to have the strength to do it later, that it is somehow easier, or with the thought that maybe we will never have to do it and it gets put on a shelf. All that hate, rage, guilt, sadness, and pain just gets stored up and it either comes out in a way that is more damaging or you learn that you have to let it go. I was damn near consumed before I was twenty three years old in darkness, can't imagine what it feels like to go fifty or sixty years just stewing until one Christmas you have to many drinks and it comes out with broken furniture and blood and people pulling you away from someone who you love and leading you both in other directions whether it be father and son, mother/daughter, brothers, sisters, whoever. Despite what you think nothing is impossible until you are dead, you aren't broken beyond repair until you are buried in the ground, and if you reach out and say your piece and the other person is too lost in their own head to realize that it is time to pick up the wreckage you have to be able to let it go and breathe through the fact that you did something you couldn't do. I won't lie, I have damn panic attacks in confrontations, it is best for me to have someone there who is able to almost mediate and keep me from getting too upset because then that trance comes back and all I can think is "must get out, must run away from everyone, can't breathe, can't think, have to bleed"...that is me and I know that about myself which is a good thing. I wrote this very long blog mainly for myself and my current situation, but I've come to realize that sometimes my ramblings can make a small difference in someone else's life and I pray that is the case with this one. Letting go and learning to use my voice and my feelings is new for me and scary as hell, but it is a thousand times better than what I was before. I am sick, but I'm sure as hell not dead yet and I didn't die the thousand times I've probably should have over the years, so I figure I might just be strong enough to face all of this stuff and learn what it is like to be able to breathe and take a walk without falling over wreckage. When we have a tragedy like a tornado and this is disaster and wreckage everywhere we all work together to pick it up and put things back together, maybe not the same, but we mend them...I believe wreckages in life can be picked up and mended even if they turn out a little strange.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Scared and Fighting
My mom will be gone six years on December 8th and there are still times I wish she were here. Last night I would have given anything to have my mom sitting there with us at the hospital. We had to go because my pain had become unbearable, my ostomy output has increased way too much, and running a low grade fever. I was lucky to have an amazing doctor who sat down on the bed and talked everything out with Me and Josh explaining what was in my charts and how serious the situation has gotten. As he spoke I would have given anything to have had Josh on one side of me and my mom on the other demanding out of the doctor despite there was no way she would sit back and watch her daughter die, believe me Josh does it well on his own. It is simply the point that most of us want our mommies when we are sick even when we are twenty seven years old.
My doctor was amazing every time he came in to discuss things with us. Initially he came in to examine me and see what our first concern we needed to address. He ended up staying the first time for almost an hour just listening. He said he had worked under my surgeon and that he is the best of the best when it comes to critical care, but it was unfortunate that me being so young is considered a critically ill. He was looking through my book of a chart and going over it with us. I need major surgery for them to close the fistula and remove some severely damaged intestine and they are feared to do it because I am so weak if anything goes wrong I am going to not have the nutrition/strength to fight post op infection. They are considering a shorter course of TPN to get my nutrition levels up a little more for surgery, but medicine is fighting because my body took a hard hit with that last infection having all that yeast in my blood stream and if they started TPN and couldn't get it in time it would for sure kill me. Come to find out my organs had been taking a much harder hit than we knew. We knew the long QT was worse, we have already had one bout of acute renal failure and my muscles are wasting quite a bit.
I broke down and started crying by the end of the night scared of my odds, knowing that whatever way they go we are facing a dangerous complications, but our choices are to take a risk and don nothing or trust the doctors and I made a promise to a certain to a certain two year old that I wouldn't give up on him, so bring on the pain and I will take it for my husband and son. I just wish I had my mom around to help, chasing after the grandson I know she would have loved, curling up with me and taking care of me. Josh does all of that, but he isn't my momma. I believe that she would have been able to put that bottle down if she had gotten to see Damien and had to join the fight to save her daughter, at least I like to think she would. Josh runs around changing diapers, cleaning up my puke, and all the while working full time. I wish so much that I hadn't black listed myself with my other family. It is generally Josh and only Josh wheeling me around the hospital, sleeping on ER floors, and so many other things. Maybe it is childish and I have no one to blame but myself, but there is a good chance that I won't live to walk Damien to kindergarten, but I'm sure as hell going to fight because I made a promise to him the day he was born that I would fight with every fiber of my being to be with him as he grows up.
Is it selfish that I want my family back too, that I want them in the waiting room when I go to major surgery or battling another massive blood infection? I'm scared on so many levels and one of my biggest fears is how vulnerable I feel, I've never been good being fragile or asking for help. I do for myself when I can and now I am expected to tell everyone my limits, I'm suppose to be in my wheelchair when I'm up and about not at home, some days I can't get out of bed and I have to send my son to the sitter, and I feel like a burden. My husband has to take care of me all the time and at this rate he always will, all the wild adventures we've dreamed of taking are now either crossed off the list or having to be modified to accommodate my new normal. The doctor yesterday, who was wicked cool as previously stated to me that I have to listen to my body, that I can't do all the things I use to be able to do. He even told me not to let anyone tear me down because I'm doing a hell of a good job being a mommy with how sick I am. I can still be a good mom even if I can't run him around the park, we sing, we dance, we play with toys, arts and crafts, and other things. I wish I felt like that I still want to push myself farther than I should to play with him.
I keep looking at my phone and I want to call my mom and I can't because she is gone and my dad and step mom don't want anything to do with us either just like everyone else. I've apologized repeatedly for the things I've said, but I just don't fit in. I'm just scared right now and finally admitting it. I'm fighting a battle for my life and I want more people on my team. My husband is wonderful, but I want my parent's that I have left to be there too, to understand how bad the situation is. How do I make them see how serious this disease is and that they are going to have to give me all new organs eventually. I plan on writing another blog less depressing than this later, but since my meds are kickin in and lil man is passed out napping Mommy has to get some shut eye she didn't get last night. I just want my family to see if they read then that I do love them and I wish I fit in better with them, that I wasn't so awkward. My closest family member that loves me round the universe a thousand times and does everything she can we protect her from some of the bad news because she is older and sick and I can't lose her right now.
I know that my fears aren't going to go away, but eventually I know that I can adjust to this new life just like my husband and son have already done. I can't do it all anymore and that being sick doesn't make me less of a person and I don't have to let anyone treat me like I am. Things are over until they are over and I have a lot of fight left in me and I am pretty sure that wherever my mom is up there she is screaming at me to keep fighting, that I still have a difference to make in this world, and by writing, vloging, and becoming an activist for eating disorders, self harm, along with digestive tract paralysis , and not forgetting home schooling my beautiful lil guy every chance I get. I'm sick...not dead. I can make a difference from my laptop or from my desk and wheelchair. I will not be ashamed for having a disease. As long as this heart is beating whatever jacked up rhythm it decides to make I'm going to keep going, the pain subsides with proper medical care, we will face TPN and surgeries as a family even if it is just me Josh and Damien.
I will end with the phrase that my wonderful husband tells me every time I have a breakdown moment and the pain makes me want to quit and I want to hide in a dark room and feel sorry for myself because I'm sick...."TAYLORS NEVER GIVE UP"! I'm knew to the Taylor clan, but I know I won't give up either.
My doctor was amazing every time he came in to discuss things with us. Initially he came in to examine me and see what our first concern we needed to address. He ended up staying the first time for almost an hour just listening. He said he had worked under my surgeon and that he is the best of the best when it comes to critical care, but it was unfortunate that me being so young is considered a critically ill. He was looking through my book of a chart and going over it with us. I need major surgery for them to close the fistula and remove some severely damaged intestine and they are feared to do it because I am so weak if anything goes wrong I am going to not have the nutrition/strength to fight post op infection. They are considering a shorter course of TPN to get my nutrition levels up a little more for surgery, but medicine is fighting because my body took a hard hit with that last infection having all that yeast in my blood stream and if they started TPN and couldn't get it in time it would for sure kill me. Come to find out my organs had been taking a much harder hit than we knew. We knew the long QT was worse, we have already had one bout of acute renal failure and my muscles are wasting quite a bit.
I broke down and started crying by the end of the night scared of my odds, knowing that whatever way they go we are facing a dangerous complications, but our choices are to take a risk and don nothing or trust the doctors and I made a promise to a certain to a certain two year old that I wouldn't give up on him, so bring on the pain and I will take it for my husband and son. I just wish I had my mom around to help, chasing after the grandson I know she would have loved, curling up with me and taking care of me. Josh does all of that, but he isn't my momma. I believe that she would have been able to put that bottle down if she had gotten to see Damien and had to join the fight to save her daughter, at least I like to think she would. Josh runs around changing diapers, cleaning up my puke, and all the while working full time. I wish so much that I hadn't black listed myself with my other family. It is generally Josh and only Josh wheeling me around the hospital, sleeping on ER floors, and so many other things. Maybe it is childish and I have no one to blame but myself, but there is a good chance that I won't live to walk Damien to kindergarten, but I'm sure as hell going to fight because I made a promise to him the day he was born that I would fight with every fiber of my being to be with him as he grows up.
Is it selfish that I want my family back too, that I want them in the waiting room when I go to major surgery or battling another massive blood infection? I'm scared on so many levels and one of my biggest fears is how vulnerable I feel, I've never been good being fragile or asking for help. I do for myself when I can and now I am expected to tell everyone my limits, I'm suppose to be in my wheelchair when I'm up and about not at home, some days I can't get out of bed and I have to send my son to the sitter, and I feel like a burden. My husband has to take care of me all the time and at this rate he always will, all the wild adventures we've dreamed of taking are now either crossed off the list or having to be modified to accommodate my new normal. The doctor yesterday, who was wicked cool as previously stated to me that I have to listen to my body, that I can't do all the things I use to be able to do. He even told me not to let anyone tear me down because I'm doing a hell of a good job being a mommy with how sick I am. I can still be a good mom even if I can't run him around the park, we sing, we dance, we play with toys, arts and crafts, and other things. I wish I felt like that I still want to push myself farther than I should to play with him.
I keep looking at my phone and I want to call my mom and I can't because she is gone and my dad and step mom don't want anything to do with us either just like everyone else. I've apologized repeatedly for the things I've said, but I just don't fit in. I'm just scared right now and finally admitting it. I'm fighting a battle for my life and I want more people on my team. My husband is wonderful, but I want my parent's that I have left to be there too, to understand how bad the situation is. How do I make them see how serious this disease is and that they are going to have to give me all new organs eventually. I plan on writing another blog less depressing than this later, but since my meds are kickin in and lil man is passed out napping Mommy has to get some shut eye she didn't get last night. I just want my family to see if they read then that I do love them and I wish I fit in better with them, that I wasn't so awkward. My closest family member that loves me round the universe a thousand times and does everything she can we protect her from some of the bad news because she is older and sick and I can't lose her right now.
I know that my fears aren't going to go away, but eventually I know that I can adjust to this new life just like my husband and son have already done. I can't do it all anymore and that being sick doesn't make me less of a person and I don't have to let anyone treat me like I am. Things are over until they are over and I have a lot of fight left in me and I am pretty sure that wherever my mom is up there she is screaming at me to keep fighting, that I still have a difference to make in this world, and by writing, vloging, and becoming an activist for eating disorders, self harm, along with digestive tract paralysis , and not forgetting home schooling my beautiful lil guy every chance I get. I'm sick...not dead. I can make a difference from my laptop or from my desk and wheelchair. I will not be ashamed for having a disease. As long as this heart is beating whatever jacked up rhythm it decides to make I'm going to keep going, the pain subsides with proper medical care, we will face TPN and surgeries as a family even if it is just me Josh and Damien.
I will end with the phrase that my wonderful husband tells me every time I have a breakdown moment and the pain makes me want to quit and I want to hide in a dark room and feel sorry for myself because I'm sick...."TAYLORS NEVER GIVE UP"! I'm knew to the Taylor clan, but I know I won't give up either.
Friday, September 13, 2013
A Mile in Another's Shoes
Everyday we pass people on the streets moving from one destination or another, some running, some talking on phones, and doing a thousand other things. How many times have you stopped and wondered what that person has gone through or is going through?
I knew this girl, really someone I was close to who would walk around smiling and making nice with everyone she could. No one bothered to look into her eyes because if they did they would show more pain than any young person should have to endure. She was gossiped about and criticized even by her family for being strange, but she just kept walking and smiling praying no one could see that she was dying on the inside.
If someone would have asked her to dinner they would have noticed that she never put a bite of food in her mouth, if they hugged her they would feel that those layers of clothes were covering not much more than a skeleton, and if they looked under those long sleeves they would see the wounds caused by her razor so she could bleed the pain out and keep the smile for everyone else. No one looks up and she keeps walking hiding the pain that she is carrying inside.
To everyone around her she is just some girl not doing anything with her life, they label her a failure which only makes her feel more worthless and takes another piece of her will to fight for her life. Part of her wanted someone to wrap their arms around her and tell her that it was going to be okay and she didn't have to starve and cut herself anymore, that she was worth so much more than that. She wanted it to be okay if she wasn't perfect all the time, if she couldn't keep that smile on her face. She wanted to scream about everything that was happening to her....her mother was an abusive alcoholic, her dad liked to pretend nothing was wrong, she lost her virginity while some slime of a man raped her, and eventually her mother was lost to alcoholism. But, she dealt with her pain and rage by taking out on her body every night there was more blood and less food because no one wanted to see her pain, no one wanted to break the façade that the family was perfect, so the girl felt more and more alone.
Even going to college she simply walked and walked hiding from anyone who might question her secret and eventually figured any that found out would just give up and leave like everyone else. Eventually the blood wasn't enough to allow her to breathe again so one night she took a couple bottles of pills some psychiatrist had given her. She woke up in an ambulance with an EMT hitting her face trying to keep her awake. She found herself waking up in the intensive care unit surrounded by doctors asking why and the girl just looked the other way. She couldn't be what the world wanted her to be, she even failed at suicide, she was nothing to anyone but a disappointment.
After nine days in the hospital the girl found herself once again walking the sidewalks watching as others smiled and seemed fine. She couldn't understand why she couldn't just be normal, she couldn't accept that you make your own normal. One day it finally hit her, she wasn't going to hide anymore, slowly but surely the layers came off revealing a very sick girl, then the bracelets slowly disappeared, and she stopped pretending that she was fine. It was only then that she could heal. She is far from completely healed, you can see the cracks where she's been broken and put back together, but most days she finds a real smile that even her eyes show that she is happy. Will she have an easy life, no, but now she knows she doesn't have to be that girl on the street anymore that people judge without ever even trying to get to know her. She has learned that the anorexia, self harm, abuse, and rape weren't her fault and she didn't deserve punishment and most days she believes that. There are still nights where she wakes up screaming only now there is someone sleeping beside her to hold her and tell her it is ok not to be ok.
The next time you see someone walking down the street before you make a snap judgment stop and think about what you don't know. Maybe the guy running by that pushed you just found out he is a dad or his loved one is injured. When you look at a girl walking with her head down think that someone has damaged her, she isn't just emo or weird. That homeless man that begs for food lost everything fighting in a war, that girl with the "silly wig" is just trying to hide the fact that the chemotherapy has taken her hair, and that young woman pushing a baby in a stroller made the choice to be ridiculed and not have an abortion that her family pushed for.
Every person you pass on the street has their own story, their own pains, and we have no right to pass judgment on them. I was the girl walking down the street in the layers covering up the almost skeletal parts of me and hiding the bleeding wounds, smiling when I wanted nothing more than to die. People tore me down, told me I didn't pray hard enough, didn't try hard enough, did care about my family, and it was all my choice. Finally, at twenty seven I know that it wasn't my choice...I didn't make the decision to have an abusive mother, a party dad, I never wanted to be raped, and I never woke up one day and decided to become anorexic or a cutter. My path was dark and it took a lot of fighting and falling to find the light again.
So, my challenge to you is the next time you are walking around or wherever stop and look around, you pass sometimes hundreds of people in day and they all have their own pain and their own shoes to walk in. I'm not asking you to be their best friend, or save them...I am asking for you not to give that look that you think no one notices (we all see it though), don't call us names or degrade us because we are doing the best we can, and remember you have never walked a mile in my shoes or theirs, you aren't God and your job isn't to judge. Just think about it when you go for a walk next time.
I knew this girl, really someone I was close to who would walk around smiling and making nice with everyone she could. No one bothered to look into her eyes because if they did they would show more pain than any young person should have to endure. She was gossiped about and criticized even by her family for being strange, but she just kept walking and smiling praying no one could see that she was dying on the inside.
If someone would have asked her to dinner they would have noticed that she never put a bite of food in her mouth, if they hugged her they would feel that those layers of clothes were covering not much more than a skeleton, and if they looked under those long sleeves they would see the wounds caused by her razor so she could bleed the pain out and keep the smile for everyone else. No one looks up and she keeps walking hiding the pain that she is carrying inside.
To everyone around her she is just some girl not doing anything with her life, they label her a failure which only makes her feel more worthless and takes another piece of her will to fight for her life. Part of her wanted someone to wrap their arms around her and tell her that it was going to be okay and she didn't have to starve and cut herself anymore, that she was worth so much more than that. She wanted it to be okay if she wasn't perfect all the time, if she couldn't keep that smile on her face. She wanted to scream about everything that was happening to her....her mother was an abusive alcoholic, her dad liked to pretend nothing was wrong, she lost her virginity while some slime of a man raped her, and eventually her mother was lost to alcoholism. But, she dealt with her pain and rage by taking out on her body every night there was more blood and less food because no one wanted to see her pain, no one wanted to break the façade that the family was perfect, so the girl felt more and more alone.
Even going to college she simply walked and walked hiding from anyone who might question her secret and eventually figured any that found out would just give up and leave like everyone else. Eventually the blood wasn't enough to allow her to breathe again so one night she took a couple bottles of pills some psychiatrist had given her. She woke up in an ambulance with an EMT hitting her face trying to keep her awake. She found herself waking up in the intensive care unit surrounded by doctors asking why and the girl just looked the other way. She couldn't be what the world wanted her to be, she even failed at suicide, she was nothing to anyone but a disappointment.
After nine days in the hospital the girl found herself once again walking the sidewalks watching as others smiled and seemed fine. She couldn't understand why she couldn't just be normal, she couldn't accept that you make your own normal. One day it finally hit her, she wasn't going to hide anymore, slowly but surely the layers came off revealing a very sick girl, then the bracelets slowly disappeared, and she stopped pretending that she was fine. It was only then that she could heal. She is far from completely healed, you can see the cracks where she's been broken and put back together, but most days she finds a real smile that even her eyes show that she is happy. Will she have an easy life, no, but now she knows she doesn't have to be that girl on the street anymore that people judge without ever even trying to get to know her. She has learned that the anorexia, self harm, abuse, and rape weren't her fault and she didn't deserve punishment and most days she believes that. There are still nights where she wakes up screaming only now there is someone sleeping beside her to hold her and tell her it is ok not to be ok.
The next time you see someone walking down the street before you make a snap judgment stop and think about what you don't know. Maybe the guy running by that pushed you just found out he is a dad or his loved one is injured. When you look at a girl walking with her head down think that someone has damaged her, she isn't just emo or weird. That homeless man that begs for food lost everything fighting in a war, that girl with the "silly wig" is just trying to hide the fact that the chemotherapy has taken her hair, and that young woman pushing a baby in a stroller made the choice to be ridiculed and not have an abortion that her family pushed for.
Every person you pass on the street has their own story, their own pains, and we have no right to pass judgment on them. I was the girl walking down the street in the layers covering up the almost skeletal parts of me and hiding the bleeding wounds, smiling when I wanted nothing more than to die. People tore me down, told me I didn't pray hard enough, didn't try hard enough, did care about my family, and it was all my choice. Finally, at twenty seven I know that it wasn't my choice...I didn't make the decision to have an abusive mother, a party dad, I never wanted to be raped, and I never woke up one day and decided to become anorexic or a cutter. My path was dark and it took a lot of fighting and falling to find the light again.
So, my challenge to you is the next time you are walking around or wherever stop and look around, you pass sometimes hundreds of people in day and they all have their own pain and their own shoes to walk in. I'm not asking you to be their best friend, or save them...I am asking for you not to give that look that you think no one notices (we all see it though), don't call us names or degrade us because we are doing the best we can, and remember you have never walked a mile in my shoes or theirs, you aren't God and your job isn't to judge. Just think about it when you go for a walk next time.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Just because you fall does't mean you can't get up again
Recovered is a word that you will never hear pass through my lips, unlike some I don't believe that you fully recover from your demons and spend your whole life learning more and more about recovering, which doesn't always make for an easier road to travel. I have people who look up to me and call me brave for fighting all of this, but I'm not brave and there are times when I still find my weakness. Recovery in my opinion means that you are brave enough to face the challenges of each day and stand up when you fall.
I have been ashamed about what happened that last few months that I have decided not to write about until now. I came dangerously close to losing everything I love because of a predator that I didn't know existed. I thought he was my friend and before I knew it he was having my, now husband arrested, stealing all of my money, holding me and my son hostage under blackmail, and playing hopscotch in my brain. He was worse than a rapist, when I was raped once it was done he left and didn't come back, which this guy just refused to leave. He followed me every time I tried to go the other way or reach out for a friend's opinion he was right there. He actually locked me out of my facebook an destroyed my fave pink laptop, I was blessed to get this new beauty I have now. If it weren't for some very good friends stepping in I don't know what would have happened.
Each day that passes things get a little bit easier, the night terrors have gone from every time I shut my eyes to once or twice a week. I've been scared and not wanting to be touched, but for the most part Josh has been understanding. My mind took most of the hit, anyone's would after dealing with all the things that stupid puppet master put in my head, but with support we are getting through, but I was so happy to become Mrs. Josh Taylor within two weeks of us getting back together. I'm lucky to have him stand beside me and see me through the tough moments.
Now, to my opinion on recovery, it is not never falling flat on your face, it is simply about getting up and pushing forward. I lapsed recently by giving into an edge. For a short few minutes I felt nothing and then I felt the immediate guilt and realized that bleeding doesn't solve anything. I was almost ashamed to admit to everyone that I slipped back in my recovery, that four years of being perfectly free from it I feel backwards when I was alone and upset. It was after the car accident, after the mean txt message from my step mom, a cranky Josh, and a lot of other crap that had been building for so long. I'm twenty seven years old and I'm facing a death sentence and though I seem to be braving it and not giving up it scares the hell out of me...leaving my husband, my son never knowing his mommy, and honestly, terrified that the faith I've held for so long in my God and Jesus could be wrong (go ahead and judge me, but tell me how you feel when you are facing death without a miracle. I picked up that edge and I tried to bleed all of this worry and pain out, and it didn't work. I threw the edge away and cleaned up my mistake and then woke up and stood on my feet again, getting the support I needed to stay on my path of recovery.
I wrote this mainly to all of you in the same situation, you are struggling for your recovery, but you just can't help but fall down and make mistakes. You shouldn't let anyone judge you for falling, and you shouldn't judge yourself. Falling doesn't by any means make you a failure, you only fail if you don't get up and fight another day. A quote that I heard from a girl on the eating disorder statement has always stuck with me, "I made a mistake, I'm not a mistake". Don't let anyone make you feel worthless or a failure because you fell down one time after standing on your feet for so long. The point of recovery is to keep pushing and climbing, you aren't going to be perfect, which is just fine no matter what someone says. Perfection is an absolute impossibility and we have got to stop striving for it. . Please don't let your parents, friends, or anyone drag you down and make you feel like you are beneath them, lapse or not you are just as good as them. Worthless and pathetic are words we should remove from our vocabulary because everyone has the potential for greatness, turn a mistake into a learning experience.
I could have lied and said that I hadn't had any troubles, but I have told my readers from the beginning that this is me being raw and honest. The last few months have been hard on me and I made a mistake. My husband has gone out of his way to be supportive and we have dealt with way worse. I refuse to hold my head in shame right now, I am back on my road to recovery and I managed to pull back up out of the darkness that comes with a lapse. I took a step back and found my way back on the trail and I am hoping that this shows you that you are capable of it too no matter what your lapse is if it is with cutting, restricting, purging, drinking, using, taking laxatives, etc you have the ability to get back up and keep recovering because you deserve it. Please keep fighting.
I have been ashamed about what happened that last few months that I have decided not to write about until now. I came dangerously close to losing everything I love because of a predator that I didn't know existed. I thought he was my friend and before I knew it he was having my, now husband arrested, stealing all of my money, holding me and my son hostage under blackmail, and playing hopscotch in my brain. He was worse than a rapist, when I was raped once it was done he left and didn't come back, which this guy just refused to leave. He followed me every time I tried to go the other way or reach out for a friend's opinion he was right there. He actually locked me out of my facebook an destroyed my fave pink laptop, I was blessed to get this new beauty I have now. If it weren't for some very good friends stepping in I don't know what would have happened.
Each day that passes things get a little bit easier, the night terrors have gone from every time I shut my eyes to once or twice a week. I've been scared and not wanting to be touched, but for the most part Josh has been understanding. My mind took most of the hit, anyone's would after dealing with all the things that stupid puppet master put in my head, but with support we are getting through, but I was so happy to become Mrs. Josh Taylor within two weeks of us getting back together. I'm lucky to have him stand beside me and see me through the tough moments.
Now, to my opinion on recovery, it is not never falling flat on your face, it is simply about getting up and pushing forward. I lapsed recently by giving into an edge. For a short few minutes I felt nothing and then I felt the immediate guilt and realized that bleeding doesn't solve anything. I was almost ashamed to admit to everyone that I slipped back in my recovery, that four years of being perfectly free from it I feel backwards when I was alone and upset. It was after the car accident, after the mean txt message from my step mom, a cranky Josh, and a lot of other crap that had been building for so long. I'm twenty seven years old and I'm facing a death sentence and though I seem to be braving it and not giving up it scares the hell out of me...leaving my husband, my son never knowing his mommy, and honestly, terrified that the faith I've held for so long in my God and Jesus could be wrong (go ahead and judge me, but tell me how you feel when you are facing death without a miracle. I picked up that edge and I tried to bleed all of this worry and pain out, and it didn't work. I threw the edge away and cleaned up my mistake and then woke up and stood on my feet again, getting the support I needed to stay on my path of recovery.
I wrote this mainly to all of you in the same situation, you are struggling for your recovery, but you just can't help but fall down and make mistakes. You shouldn't let anyone judge you for falling, and you shouldn't judge yourself. Falling doesn't by any means make you a failure, you only fail if you don't get up and fight another day. A quote that I heard from a girl on the eating disorder statement has always stuck with me, "I made a mistake, I'm not a mistake". Don't let anyone make you feel worthless or a failure because you fell down one time after standing on your feet for so long. The point of recovery is to keep pushing and climbing, you aren't going to be perfect, which is just fine no matter what someone says. Perfection is an absolute impossibility and we have got to stop striving for it. . Please don't let your parents, friends, or anyone drag you down and make you feel like you are beneath them, lapse or not you are just as good as them. Worthless and pathetic are words we should remove from our vocabulary because everyone has the potential for greatness, turn a mistake into a learning experience.
I could have lied and said that I hadn't had any troubles, but I have told my readers from the beginning that this is me being raw and honest. The last few months have been hard on me and I made a mistake. My husband has gone out of his way to be supportive and we have dealt with way worse. I refuse to hold my head in shame right now, I am back on my road to recovery and I managed to pull back up out of the darkness that comes with a lapse. I took a step back and found my way back on the trail and I am hoping that this shows you that you are capable of it too no matter what your lapse is if it is with cutting, restricting, purging, drinking, using, taking laxatives, etc you have the ability to get back up and keep recovering because you deserve it. Please keep fighting.
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