Thoughts from Therapy

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - Clubs and failures

I went away camping with the fiance this weekend. Lean-to site. I had camped on them before but never in one. Always in a tent or a pop-up camper next to one. I wanted to experience sleeping in the lean-to without the tent.

It was really good but the last night wound up being a bit of a break through for me I guess? I’ve been struggling hard with my mental health since we went into pandemic lock down. My job allows me to work comfortably from home, but I am somewhere around 25-26 weeks now, of working from home. Most of it solo.

It caused old old feelings to come up. Feelings of isolation and questioning if I should even be alive right now. These are feelings I had pushed as deep down as I could in order to survive. Going on a decade and a half really since I last had to deal with them. Feelings and thoughts I used to have every single day of my adolescence.

Honestly, it was extremely difficult to face them. I sobbed horribly the first time they hit me. I was alone with my fiance and I couldn’t keep them down. I then attempted to talk about them again with my therapist. I began to cry and I was so uncomfortable I told her that I honestly didn’t feel ready to talk about it. I tried to approach these old feelings a few more times and the results were the same.

The hurt feels so, so, so deep inside me. Like a festering wound that I can’t even begin to heal, and it consumes me every time I approach it.

Apparently, over the weekend, my mind decided to wander in the middle of the night. To the first time I slept on a lean-to site. Back in school I didn’t do many things, especially not after school stuff. It wasn’t safe.

Except...that I did once. In grades 6 and/or 7, my early pre-teen years, I had been a part of an after-school adventures program for children. It was three adult counselors engaging children in outdoor activities. I think maybe a dozen of us or so.

I have some fond memories. I enjoy doing outdoor stuff. I just...didn’t always enjoy who I was doing it with. A lot of my peers turned out to be bullies of mine. And they did bully, a lot. The nature of these adventures required you to trust your peers. Rock climbing, repelling, traversing caverns strapped into a harness clipped to a rope you are using to pull yourself over, camping, and even trekking alone on a mountain in winter without your counselors beside you. 

These kinds of things that I tried my hardest at. Tried my best to assist. And people would always take the assist but at the end of the day, would continue to bully me.

Despite all of this, I had grown to trust my counselors completely. I didn’t begrudge them for ignoring the bullying, at that point everyone else in my life had. It was the norm.

But there was a meeting. A regular meeting, we did them weekly when we weren’t going on a big event. One of the kids was laying in hard, even in the middle of the meeting, my counselors there, and I don’t really remember my state of mind but it must’ve been bad, because I decided to try and get physical about it. I was frustrated, and mad, I remember that much. And I wanted to hurt this kid.

And the lead counselor, who had all of my trust, grabbed me and told me to leave. Told the bully to sit back down and get back to the meeting, but me? I had to go. He didn’t try to talk to me to try and figure things out. He didn’t offer to pull me aside. Very firmly and very harshly, told me to grab my pack and get out.

He didn’t even bother to call my mother. I wouldn’t own a cell phone until a few years after this, and as a child in his program, he was directly responsible for me.

I walked several miles home alone, no one knowing where I was. When I opened the door home, my mother utterly shocked by my presence, I knew I wouldn’t be returning. Never mind that he had utterly crushed my trust in him and, subsequently, my trust in ANYONE from that point on, but he had also crushed my mother’s trust in him to protect me. And she made sure I knew it and he knew it.

And this is what my mind chose to focus on. I believe this was the last time I ever trusted an adult put in charge of my well being. I never joined another after school program. I never allowed myself to get to know my teachers, counselors, or anyone in a position of authority anymore. I avoided as many as I could, and those I couldn’t...I don’t remember their faces and I don’t remember their names.

They are blank background characters. Actual NPCs in my memory. Because they did nothing of import and gave me nothing of value. Only more pain and helplessness I couldn’t escape.

So I cried this weekend. I cried about this for a while, lying in my sleeping bag, wondering once again how I never wound up a statistic for high school bullying gone too far. And absolutely loathing every single person who had a hand in raising me, directly or otherwise.

Honestly? Fuck all of you. Every single one of you made a decision to work with children and every single one of you had the responsibility to make sure I was safe.

You failed. Some of you failed so hard, that if I was ever given the chance to tell it to your face, I would. And I would let you know, that when you die, I wouldn’t shed a goddamn tear over your passing. Because you were no great loss.

Fuck you.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy Thoughts - Understanding Chronic Illness

So as someone who has been cosplaying for a few years and someone who really recently wanted to get into the historical costume scene, I have been watching CoCoVid on youtube for the last few days. One of the live streams was a panel on costuming while having some type of chronic illness or disability.

One of the panelist even suffers from Fibromyalgia like I do. But what I want to share today was something I just learned, called the “Spoon Theory”. If you want to read it, this is the link they provided: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

For anyone who is looking for a way to describe your situation to others, or someone who knows someone with a health issue and wants to understand it but doesn’t know how to ask, I really recommend reading it yourself.

After reading it, I just couldn’t believe how accurate it describes my own situation. My fiance has been very good. He understands that I have bad days more often than not and that some of my bad days are worse days. I usually use terms like “my battery didn’t charge right last night” or “i’m running lower than I thought I’d be”. He gets it. Frankly, I’m not poor enough in health that people question me about it, so learning how to describe it to him was (and still mostly is) my only focus.

But it helped to reinforce that I can’t plan to do everything every day. A terrible part of general anxiety is that I have trouble NOT trying to do everything in a day and often pushing myself to the point of misery to try and do it.

But as someone who sufferers from Fibromyalgia, I have a limit to what I can do. I do have to sometimes think about what can I realistically do on that day. And some days, I can do more than usual. Other days, very little. I have, at this point, already had a few “stuck in bed days” which is a terrible burden on my mentality, I have to tell you.

So it was not only eye opening as a way to describe to people what I’m dealing with but it served as a reminder that I can’t always do everything I want or my mind tells me I need to. And I’m still struggling to find my comfortable spot, as I still do push and push out of frustration. 

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy: Sleep paralysis vs Shadow People

For a long time as a child, I had a very FIRM belief in the afterlife. I was raised in a predominately Catholic home. My father is a Protestant, however my mother’s family was the closest to us when I grew up and they are all Catholic. Neither my father nor my mother would agree to give up the “religious right” to their children.

My brother and I have never been baptized and are even bastards to my mother’s church as my parents were married outside of the Catholic church (in fact in no church) due to my father’s refusal to join the Catholic church. For other reasons, this has caused strife in my family as I have never been religious and my parents seemed to think they raised me differently. That’s a post unto itself.

However, while I have never grown to have a belief in a singular sect of religion or in a God(dess) of any sort, I did, 100% believe, there was a life after this. Of some kind. And that ghosts and spirits were real.

I also used to believe that I had proof. Experiences of supernatural origins that couldn’t be explained in any other way...

That was until I got older. We’ll get into that.

I have always been afraid of the dark. Until I was 15 or 16 years of age I would not sleep in the dark. My parents would compromise with leaving a hall light on and leaving doors open. As it was, when we finally stopped that, I started sleeping with a stereo on. This stereo had a bright blue led that lit my room up entirely. To this day I despise being in a room in the complete dark and have “episodes” where I actually feel like I’m being hunted in the dark and cannot sleep unless the light in the room is on.

When I was very young, elementary age years, I used to wake up in the middle of the night, just about every night. Sometime after midnight, before early morning hours that my parents would wake up for work. Probably between 2 to 4 AM. And I would stay up all night, in the living room, because it was where I felt safe. I would turn on every single light surrounding me and watch TV because I couldn’t stand the silence. Or more specifically, the noises in the silence.

When I entered my teens, I started sleeping more through the night, but still had a common occurrence of waking up in the middle of the night. I would just stay in my room until sunrise. One night, when I was 14 years old I woke to a noise.

My bedroom at this time was laid out as such:

The scale isn’t perfect, but I had a full size bed (hand me down from my parents when they replaced theirs), that I shoved in a corner because I couldn’t feel safe enough to sleep if my bed wasn’t in a corner. I slept up against a wall. When I sat up and leaned over the other side of the bed, I could see clearly into the hallway. The light to the hallway was immediately outside my door, as my room was nearest the steps to the downstairs.

I heard this noise, as I said. It sounded like it was something right outside of my room. I sat up and leaned over. And there was a figure under the light in the hallway. A bright, white light, and this figure was humanoid and black.

The stereotype non-human black. A shadow black. It wasn’t much taller than me or my brother, so older child/teen sized. It’s shape made me think male but what terrifies me still to this day were glowing red eyes.

I shoved my ass into the very corner so my back was against the wall, upright and facing my open door. I pulled my legs up and hugged them as I waited to see if this picture of nightmares would walk into my room.

I stayed there for hours, until the sun came up. Only then did I dare look again. There was nothing. I tried to tell my parents about it. They wrote it off. “You were dreaming”. “It might’ve been your brother using the bathroom” (when they heard how tall). Yes my room was across from the bathroom, but I knew it wasn’t him. His eyes didn’t glow red.

My next memory was when we moved. My parents got their own house finally. A one floor, three bedroom, not that far from where we used to live; where I had the first “encounter”. I’m about 16 or 17 now. My new room looks like this:

Again not to scale. It’s smaller than my old room, I had to trade that full sized bed for a twin. I also had a closet, which had a shelf next to it. It was a wire shelf with a bar for hangers. I had some every day use items hanging from it. Coats and such.

It’s early morning, but not night. It’s like, people are awake and I can hear them. It’s what wakes me up, them moving around and talking. There’s sun coming through my window’s curtains. I don’t wake up suddenly, it feels like my normal return from sleep. Slow and easy. Comfortable. Until...

I can’t move.

Not a single finger or toe. I can’t talk. I can breath and I can look around with my eyes and there is a little shadow girl by my closet door.

Again, the figure is completely cast in black. Shadow black. But there’s a shape that makes me think girl wearing a dress, with a poofy skirt. She’s just standing there, across from me, just in front of the things I have hanging from that shelf. I can’t move and I am terrified.

I have this strangely clear thought of “move my toes”. Like that Kill Bill movie, but before that came out. I manage to move a toe, then my fingers, and just as I scream for my mother, who I can hear moving around, the shadow is gone.

My mother is there in seconds, fully dressed. My brother and I are the last to wake, mom and dad already had a friend over. I tell her what happened, she looks suspiciously at my closet then tells me to get dressed and come get something to eat.

This time, she takes me a bit seriously. She believes in an afterlife. She had been getting strange feelings from the house. She confessed to me well after I moved out of the house (my parents still live there) that while she was having medical problems that were affecting her sleeping, she stayed in my old room so not to disturb my father. She woke up with an intense feeling of being watched. She never slept in my old room again. That feeling had scared her so much.

I felt a little validated.

But then...I left for college. I met my fiance who does NOT believe in an afterlife. He’s very science oriented and without my parents around I’m not being exposed to religion anymore, nor do I have anyone who listens and believes when I talk about the afterlife.

Years go by. I have night terrors/nightmares. I am working through this in therapy, as it has apparently caused me to have full conversations with my fiance while I’m dead asleep. I mention my old “encounters” and how I used to think they were something supernatural and how I do kind of mourn that lost piece of my childhood. I had a belief in something and now I don’t. 

She tells me about sleep paralysis. How it’s common to see shadow people during that. I do some research and apart from the first time, it makes perfect sense to me, scientifically.

And some months after this I have my third experience. We’re in our new room, significantly larger. 

I’m alone, it’s not very late at night and my fiance is still downstairs. Sleeping nearest the dresser on a king-sized bed that, at the time, was on the floor as we hadn’t invested in our frame yet. At this point, I have finally moved past the sleeping against a wall necessity. I wake up to a feeling of being watched and open my eyes. I was expecting to see my fiance.

I’m sleepy, but I realize I can’t move. I have a very short burst of fear as I see a tall figure at the end of the bed, looming over me. A shadow wearing a hat. Like the Indiana Jones type hat, maybe a fedora? The hat is also shadow but I can make it out as well I could make out the dress on the girl. Again, despite being all black, the shape makes me think this is a man. 

And I’m just...done. I’m still recovering from constant pain and anxiety. My sleep is precious and needed. The fear goes away and I tell myself “this isn’t real” and I blink. I can move and he’s gone.

This is, as of right now, all the sleep paralysis moments I can remember. I don’t recall if I had them before, but I have a vague-ish feeling/memory of possibly seeing a shadowy someone sitting on a chair that was in my childhood bedroom. Which is why I may have kept escaping to the living room way back then.

I expect to have it happen again.

There are still nights that I have to talk myself out of the feeling of being watched in my own room when the lights are out. There are still nights I wake up anxious and feeling not safe.

I don’t know what it is. There’s a part of me that still wants to believe in an afterlife. That these are other entities and that my life is more than the time I have on Earth. 

But at the same time, there’s serious doubt that this is anymore than my brain fucking with me. As I already know that I have anxiety and depression, which are indicators that my brain chemistry and functionality is already different.

So take from this what you will. It just was a curious exploration into old memories and recent memories.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Random Thoughts - Be careful what you wish for...or not?

So I have already done a brain dump on my anxiety surrounding the COVID-19. I suppose it’s only fair I do a dump on surprisingly pleasant things that have come out of that.

Following our trip to PAXEast, I had gained quite a bit of weight. Where I was struggling to get under 340, I had returned at 360. It was honestly a punch to the stomach, though I accepted full responsibility for the part I played in getting there.

I came back to work, with this “I don’t want to be here” attitude, wanting nothing more than time to myself. I wanted less stress in my life so I could actually just work on myself. Mostly I meant physically, but it would be nice if I could pull my shit together financially as well.

Backstory: even though I used to be extremely poor (I posted about it before) I didn’t come from a home with good money management skills. My father bought what he wanted when he wanted as long as we had a little extra cash. My parents credit cards? Almost always maxed out. My parents savings? Never heard of the word until mid-high school when a teacher mentioned it. That is to say, they never had one and never planed to have one.

I was taught by passively watching them that the standard for life was to borrow money you couldn’t pay back and just ignore any attempt to collect.

It got me into trouble later, as I had a private loan out of college that no one had advised me previously on the best practice for dealing with. It defaulted due to my own negligence and caused me literal years of stress and included me grabbing the “help” of a sketchy financial assistance company because my mother jumped in and said I had to. I was 22 at the time, but I didn’t know better, and of course mom would understand financial things, right?

After those stressful 3-4 years of a defaulted loan and a “helpful” company that wasn’t actually helping, I enlisted a lawyer, got separated from them, and started doing my own research. I was able to pull that together and about a year ago, finally got that paid off.

But during this time, I started racking up credit card debit. $500, $750, $2000. My fiance and I were trying to go out, travel, live a fuller life, but I wasn’t very good managing money and every time we went and I wasn’t sure I could help pay, I just extended my credit card line and used that. It was less anxiety inducing than telling my fiance I couldn’t help financially.

It happened more than once.

And despite me getting a better job in that time, that immediately got me a 50% pay increase upon starting (my first job paid me less than $25K/year), I wasn’t doing any better about managing things, paying off things, just seemed to never have money and never could make a dent.

Well we started talking seriously about a house and even went to a local Credit Union to start talking fiances. I was feeling fairly comfortable. I had a lot a debt but I was making fair amounts of money. My credit score was “good” and I thought that was enough.

Nope. The financial person said I was the problem and that if we pushed forward now, we’d have to pay way too much. We also had been trying to save at this point and after years on our part, and a sizable addition from my fiance’s father who had inherited most of the money from his father’s passing, we still were only about $5K in savings, with a possible push to $8K if my fiance’s mother gave us a bit more.

She had given her daughter an amount of money to put towards her wedding. She’d been planning the same for us but offered to give it early to get the house instead if we wanted, but we had to understand that it was her wedding gift and if we took it now we wouldn’t get anything later.

We sat on it, we haven’t received the money yet, and we’re hoping to hold off if possible. It’s there if we need it, if not, well we’ll get that wedding gift at the wedding then.

So we backed out of buying a house. We turned to our financials and really started to work on ourselves. But by now, I had been publicly exposed to my fiance and he wanted to know how bad it was.

I lied.

I was so ashamed of where I was compared to him. I was anxious and just really beating myself up, that I downplayed how much I was in debt. He thew some money my way to get it paid off and I told him it was a sizable dent and we’d be great to go.

I stayed in that lie for months, fretting every time he spoke about getting the house. I kept thinking I’ll never get us there. Here we are, more than a year later, and it took COVID-19 for me to stop being in a lie.

Not going anywhere, not doing anything, and I have stopped spending so much. Where I was throwing $500 here and there each month towards my debt, I now had literal thousands each month. I threw it all into my debt and I finally can say, if we ignore my federal student loans, I’m under $800 in debt. My credit cards paid (with the exception of one which is low enough I could pay at the end of this month), my credit score is higher than I ever imagined possible. It should be more than cushy enough for the bank this time.

We, collectively, put more money into the savings on our own than we had in years prior. We more than doubled what his father’s gift had given us, and we’re still going.

I’m a bit saddened by the fact that it took a world pandemic for me to get it together. But I’m mostly just happy that I could do it. That everything aligned in a way that I was able to take advantage and work towards a personal goal that affects, not only me, but my fiance and our life together. And, I’m losing weight again. Finally under 340, which has been a goal I couldn’t obtain for months prior to COVID-19.

It makes me feel less like my father and more like a healthy contributing member of our relationship. I wished I had time to work on myself, and I got it. In the worst, possible way (because COVID-19, holy shit...). But I’m utilizing the opportunity to improve myself regardless.

None of it will ever make up for the fact (or erase the fact) that I lied to him. But I think I’m finally in a financial spot that I can work with towards making it up to him. By bolstering our savings, putting more effort into our house together. Finally getting married and not feeling like I’m just bringing a burden of debt to him.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Random Thought - Promotions

Promotions! Yay!

Right...?

You know what no one ever told me; That I never hear people talk about? How sometimes promotions suck...

My entire life all I ever heard through those around me or on media, was how important it was to get that promotion. How its so much better to be a manager than it is to be a worker.

What no one ever told me was that all my school years were wasted. That I would be thrown into a career I never was prepared for.

I’m a computer technician. I have a combined 6 years of undergrad training to be a technician (2 years vocational school completed during my junior and senior years of high school in preparation for 4 years of college for a Bachelors in Science).

I spent years preparing to be a computer technician. I worked my butt off for it. I’m good at it (one of the things I’m proud of), I like doing it, users seem pleased with my work and commitment based on my survey results.

2016, three years into working with my current employer, and my Lead Help Desk Tech leaves. Additionally, the only other tech in help desk (we’re small, like 13-17 people in the whole company at any given time), is promoted to the project department. I’m running help desk solo.

I’m fine, I have struggles but I am thriving. THIS is what I went to school for.

Finally hire two new people and become their mentor. Get them going. 2017, an official promotion. I’m Lead Help Desk Technician.

And for the next three years, my duties as a technician are greatly reduced. I’m doing more paperwork, more HR work, more supervisor tasks, more client communication and meetings than I ever expected. Starting to see why maybe my Lead left, as he left not for another Lead position but for a high-tier tech position.

I’m struggling to stay afloat sometimes. I’m so out of my element and lacking the self-confidence I had as a tech, that my anxiety blows up in my face constantly. I seriously considered quitting just so I wouldn’t have to be Lead. I told my boss I’m not sure if I’m comfortable in this role, but would continue to try.

I’m learning, I have some confidence, but I’m still not sure that I’m happy. And I wish someone, anyone, had prepared me for the eventuality that 6 long, hard years of work, wouldn’t benefit me in the long run. I’m a tech running a business without a single class in business.

Bleck.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - seeing what is there is harder than you think...

So, thanks to YouTube algorithms, in an effort to understand more about my mental health and chronic medical conditions, and maybe also curiosity to the number of other people who might have this, I have stumbled into this odd place in YouTube popular channels that I’m not sure I ever had an interest in before.

Mainly around watching educational videos about other mental health conditions that are more complex and extreme than mine. And learning more about how people live with them and manage their lives with it. One question that popped up on a particularly complex disorder repeatedly, shifted my own internal thoughts about my past. And with that new line of thinking, I was re-reading my old stories and it stuck out to me suddenly that maybe that particular question couldn’t apply to all mental health issues.

The question: “how didn’t you notice it before?”

I downplay myself internally a lot (and usually externally). I latch onto the reality of my trauma and my mental health problems are not the worst that could be. Other people have had much worse happen to them. I focus on it a lot, and my therapist has to constantly remind me that it doesn’t invalidate my feelings, but I do often feel over dramatic or even less like a person because of it.

When I first heard this question, I didn’t think, for once second, that it would apply to me.

Nostalgia hit me today. I haven’t been writing stories a lot lately. It used to be a thing I did a lot. It was a form of coping I hadn’t realized I had before therapy. I wrote about young women who were always abused by those she trusted in her past and the people around her not supporting her. Often in extremes that I never experienced (more of my self-inflicted invalidation?). But I have a bunch of these stories complied over years and years of needing an outlet before therapy (fewer after therapy).

But I noticed something. I have stories before therapy, in which I try to describe my young woman trying to convey panic and distancing from a terribly emotional situation and....it doesn’t ring true. It doesn’t draw you into the reality of a panic attack, it’s very distant and vague. Like I’m trying to imagine what a panic attack should feel like.

I’ve had several at the point I wrote these stories.

In the stories I wrote after I began therapy, I see something more grounded in reality. Something that reads like what I felt in my panic attacks. Something that draws you in and lets you experience it through someone else’s eyes. Like I actually know what a panic attack is.

It made me realize that I hadn’t identified the first time I had a panic attack until after I started therapy. That I thought I only had experienced “a few” (my exact words when I started therapy). I just didn’t see it before. After we dug in and started working and I was given tools to recognize and deal with my anxiety and panic attacks, that’s when I started seeing it more in my past. And I started identifying more in the past. 

It’s apparently really easy to ignore the obvious. A form of dissociation. Because it does hurt think about. It was utterly disheartening to remember my past ones. Like I deflated inside. I can see why I ignored them before. Because as long as I ignored it, then I was still fine.

And what a strange thought that is. Having to reconcile with the fact that I’m not fine and seeing more and more of my past that I ignored, or pushed away, because it didn’t align with my “fine” status then. 

I suppose if anyone is reading this, all I can do is encourage a little bit of self exploration. Maybe talk to someone. You might find something you ignored before.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - breakthrough or break down?

Here we are in the midst of COVID-19 “lock down” - isolated to our home for me, 3 completed weeks of it - and I had a bad??/good?? night.

I didn’t eat dinner, I realized I hadn’t planned anything for myself and I started feeling frustrated and upset because I couldn’t just run out and get something. So my brain just kept going “don’t eat”. And I was like that for hours. I’m writing this at 10:30 at night and my last meal was sometime before 12 noon.

We were also watching Steven Universe Future. The Steven Universe cartoon has always dealt with some hard life situations and this new season has been harder as it deals with a teenage Steven who isn’t dealing with past trauma.

I think everything compounded and I started feeling ill. Which I thought was just hunger. But it grew. Then I felt light headed and disconnected from my body.

By the time I went upstairs for bed, I did not feel good at all but I wasn’t willing to tell my fiance. 

He came up to tuck me in, as he usually does, and checked in. He knew something was wrong. And I started opening up about how I didn’t feel good and about my struggle with dinner. I was holding onto him kind of tightly, not willing to let him go. His presence against me was grounding and I needed him; like an anchor.

Then I confessed Steven was a bit hard to watch and as we talked that out a bit my physical sense just shifted. It unloaded. Suddenly I wasn’t disconnected from my body. I wasn’t light headed. The overwhelming hunger I felt was diminished.

I started crying and just held him and that made things escalate. I didn’t have any of my usual pain. My touch sensitivity, the muscle tissue ache, all gone. He could lay on me and I didn’t feel pressure points or pain, I just felt him. In fact, I don’t even feel my full 300+ pounds of weight right now.

I feel lighter, I feel great. I haven’t felt like this in years. I started sobbing and holding onto him because I didn’t want the feeling to go away.

Right now I’m up, typing this, because I’m afraid if I go to sleep, I’m going to wake up in pain tomorrow. I don’t want to go back. I had forgotten what it was like to not be in pain all the time, but now that I feel this, I don’t want to let go.

I’m so afraid to let go. It’s still bringing tears to my eyes thinking about losing this feeling. Because this feels normal. This feels how I think it should always feel. Fine. In control. I have some aches - genuine muscle pain from disuse and overworked exercise pain, but not the body-wide, muscle deep ache I always seem to have. Nor the heavy burden of lugging 300+ pounds.

I want to freeze this moment. It’s like my whole reality shifted and I’m afraid for when it shifts back. I don’t know what to do other than to capture this moment.

And eat some toast. 

Going to try to sleep after that, unfortunately, the world doesn’t pause because I have some kind of mental/physical breakthrough/break down? I don’t know what’s going on but I can’t just linger in this one moment. Life doesn’t work that way.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - Living in a pandemic

So I thought I had been handling it well. But I think I either am past all the planning and preparations (which I’m strangely very good at focusing on?) and now sinking into the “what ifs” side of my brain which is always a pit of anxiety and, in some places, a panic trap.

Careful where you step...

A month ago, I was at PAXEast 2020 having fun with my fiance, my roommate, and a friend of ours. We were half laughing (the other half nervous) as Sony straight up refused to come. We gave strained smiles at the sheer amount of disinfecting, mask wearing, and glove wearing that was going on. But we were all actually quite relieved. Or I was at least.

Then I came back. Literally first day back, after being gone for a week, and my co-worker walked into our office an hour before we closed, having spent all day with a client, to “jokingly” say “I’m no longer on the coronavirus watch list”.

The client was small, maybe 15 people. Their owner had been on the list due to being in the same room with a confirmed case. I don’t have the whole back story on when he learned he was on the list and why he thought this was a great idea, but had pulled my co-worker and all of the employees into a small conference room WITH HIM to announce that he was on the list and now, by proxy, they were too.

They never contacted my office.

Thankfully it turned out he missed the person with the positive test by a few hours (being ahead of him). He hadn’t been exposed at all and they found out the same day.

But what a fucking scare that turned into.

We’re also a small company, our owner was on a much overdo vacation (the man works very hard). And no one else in my office was stepping up about it. So I started to be the voice.

My reasoning? My fiance.

He’s immune-suppressed due to a medical transplant when he was younger.

We’re always going on about the elderly. I almost never hear about this demographic. Or really any demographic with a weakened immune system (like the elderly). He’s just as much of a high-risk as the elderly are!

So for a week I’m writing up policies, corralling the rest of the management team into talking with people. My boss comes back and asked for an action plan that I also draft up for his review. It isn’t until HE HIMSELF is in a 14 day self quarantine because he had been on planes that he realizes that we need to take this seriously.

By this point, the whole nation is in ramp up. My state is reporting their first positive tests, two in serious condition in hospitals. Other states, which have it worse, are talking about lock downs and so our state is starting to consider it to try and get ahead of a bad situation.

I’m in it, I’m helping my boss lay everything out. We decide to drop the office to skeleton crew and organize it so that none of the three people we leave there are anywhere near one another. They are in separate offices on different ends of the building. 

Everyone else goes home. My fiance was on a work-from-home status three days before me.

We’re both fortunate enough to work in fields where we CAN work from home. Where we can receiving a paycheck. So we’re fine.

I go into lock down. Not crazy, not doomsday prepping, but thinking about how to protect my fiance and not let us go crazy or get worried. Now, because of my own mental health issues, I’ve had things in the house like gloves, reusable masks with N95 filters, lysol wipes, already. I don’t have an abundance of TP. I don’t think about that until after the shortage.

Alright, well cheap tissues are the same thing. Buy that and find some flush-able wet wipes. Good, stocked up on that, have even more in the basement on the off chance the TP situation remains dire.

Then I stock up on food. Which did cause an anxiety attack. My usual store, at this point, wiped clean. No produce, no frozen foods, no chicken (I have a red meat intolerance but pick up some for my fiance and roommate), and I get the last gallon of milk.

Luckily, with some shopping around the next day, I find everything I need. I have an air vacuum sealer and I divide everything up and put into the freezer. All set.

Help plan the office’s remote work, help plan my fiance’s remote work. Check and check.

Day 4 of my work from home status...and I’m starting to just feel the fear. We’re looking at high, high, HIGH, numbers of infection. Of death. We’re thinking there will not be a vaccine in 12 months, maybe longer. Local businesses are shutting down and my boss is already talking to my team about things we can do to postpone any economic hit we might take. And now it’s all festering in my head with no place for me to put that energy.

We can’t work from home forever. And I’m terrified of putting my fiance back into high exposure without a vaccine. One that I’m not even sure he CAN take right now. Being that he’s immune-suppressed. I’m hoping best case scenario, that it’s like the flu vaccine which he can have.

I’m worried I won’t have a job in several months. I’m worried that my savings will be drained. I’m worried we won’t have access to food, or housing.

I’m also baffled about this world we live in right now. Like, I know it isn’t impossible for a pandemic, that it’s even very likely (here we are). But I just remember growing up with this naive thought of pandemics and plagues, and whatever other bad medical things don’t happen where I live. Mostly also thought of them as a thing of the past and not a thing of now. But it’s here and there was never a point in my life where I thought, I’m going to have to be ready for that, and that scares me.

I don’t have any solutions right now, I’m mostly just scared and trying not to linger on it. Trying to stay strong for my fiance because while he’s always putting on a brave front, I know he’s also very worried about the what ifs too.

I hope everyone out there stays safe. And remember to step outside, even on your porch, once in a while. The house will drive you insane.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - Old feelings

Therapy has been going well enough that we’re shifting our focus to another section of my emotions that I hadn’t spent a lot of time focusing on. Anger management. I have some issues. I’m not throwing things, punching people, calling names bad. But I lose my cool over the littlest things and snap at people trying to help. Which feels bad man. All around.

However, this post is really about my dream last night and how it made me feel.

I don’t sleep that well most of the time. Used to be all of the time, had started making progress towards bettering that. Between my anxiety, my chronic pain, and my occasional night terrors and rare sleep paralysis, I averaged maybe 4-5 hours a night of restless sleep.

Well because things have been getting better, it hadn’t been on my mind lately. Well, last night, I had a very vivid dream of being 3 hours late to work because I slept through it. And just getting to work and my (very kind IRL) coworkers just gave me shit all day. And I felt this old feeling that I used to actually have.

Worthless.

Stupid.

That I didn’t deserve my job and I should be fired and fearing that I would be fired.

It’s throw off my whole day and I don’t feel well. I feel groggy. Like I didn’t sleep at all. I’m already tired of work and I’ve been here only 2 hours. I want to run and hide from my coworkers and they did nothing to me!

I know I can move past it, but it’s hard to have those old feelings return. Especially knowing I felt pretty well past them before and how could they just return like this. In my sleep no less? It’s made me feel a little vulnerable.

Here’s hoping the rest of my day shapes up.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Physical - Pain

I started this particular blog to focus on my mental health. But today is a bad pain day and honestly I need somewhere to put down my thoughts about it.

Frankly, this is entirely my fault. I haven’t been keeping strictly to my diet nor exercising for almost 3 weeks. This morning I finally got my butt back into the gym.

And now all I have is pain. It’s in my lower back but almost entirely on the right-side. As well as in my right knee. You might wonder what I did to cause this? I walked on the treadmill. For 20 minutes. Less than 3 mph.

That’s it. That’s all it takes to hurt me. I have been using recumbent equipment but not losing a lot of weight. I was encouraged to try the treadmill instead, working my way up to 60 minutes. But here I am, in serious pain, wondering why I did it.

It’s frustrating, and just draws all my attention to it. I’m drained and it’s only half-way through my workday. Honestly I just want to go home and lay down in hopes that it’ll relax.

Bleck. I need to get my shit back together.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - Checking in

Haven’t had much to say lately. Things have been hectically busy at work. Though each day that passes there the more I wonder if I’m in the job I actually want to be in. Not in a dramatic, woe is me way. Just a slow realization that I may not be as happy as I could be.

Been trying to focus more on doing more stuff for me. Games and such. But recently turned to wanting to get off my computers more and do more hobby sewing and maybe leatherworking, as for Christmas my fiance’s family got me a beginners tool kit for it. 

It has been an interest of mine but not one I thought I would pursue anytime soon as we’re currently in a tightly-packed apartment and I don’t have a lot of space for things. But I found some cheap leather scrapes I intend to use for practice and I can worry about actual projects when we move. For not, I can play around and learn my tools.

For now, we’re heading out for some light shopping. Homebrew tomorrow. I intend to work on some sewing projects today and maybe a fire in the snow.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - A budding hope

So over the last week I have had my first glimpse of some progress in therapy. About a year ago I, through youtube wanderings, stumbled on this community of Just Dancer gamers. One in particular seemed to draw me in. I just really enjoyed watching her dance.

I was inspired to go get Just Dance 2018 for the Switch and maybe try it myself...

Only to fail horribly. 

I couldn’t bear to be in front of other people so attempted to do it all alone in the basement of our apartment and I still couldn’t succeed.

I made one pitiful attempt and felt horrible shame and hate for my body and I put the game away wallowing in self hate. I didn’t touch it again. Until about a week ago. 

I’ve been working out at the gym. I’ve been having fun, we’ve been playing games. And I was inspired by my fiance getting the Ring Fit game on Switch recently and I was like, “I spent sixty duckets or so on a movement game...let’s see what happens.”

And I LOVED it.

It was so much fun and even though I am not coordinated for all the moves and I’m still a big lady, I was able to dance and just have fun. So much fun that I’ve taken to waking up early to do it in the morning. Easily getting 30+ minutes in when sometimes my other exercises make me just struggle to get there. Having to convince myself to stop and get showered and changed for work before I ran out of time!

Finally an understanding of why people dance to exercise and why this game is so popular. I was also just so blown away about the difference in my mindset. How the shame isn’t there and I’m not embarrassed. In fact, I have even invited my fiance to join me.

I’m just so incredibly happy with this moment. I hope it can inspire other, still dark parts in my life.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Bobolinks

Saturday, September 28, we will be participating in the 2019 NAMI Vermont MINDWalk in Burlington, VT.

So, throwing this up here, but if you’re local to Vermont, my fiance and I will be participating in a mental health awareness walk.

The National Alliance on Mental Illiness will be doing their MINDWalk on September 28. MIND standing for Mental Illness Non-Discrimination.

We’ve started a donation page, but we’re mostly just trying to participate in something to get the word out about it.

Mental Health has affected my life in many ways, and it’s important to me that people learn to be aware of it and take strides to help others and themselves in seeking help.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - Energy levels

Had a hard time yesterday. My energy levels just never seem to be the same as everyone else and it’s just dragging my mentality down a bit. 

Getting into bike riding proper and my fiance and I think, oh, we’ll ride to a theater and watch a movie before riding back. A total of 15 miles. I was actually pretty excited.

Only for all of my bad luck start to bare down on me and just drain me.

Thursday, my back tire pops. Okay, no problem. Cheap and easy fix. I work on computers for a living this is nothing. Friday, go to the bike shop, pick up the tube and go home and put it in. Also bought a proper bike pump so I can get the right pressure in my tires.

Take a short bike ride with my fiance; a couple miles around the neighborhood to test the tire, no big deal. Only for me to fall off my bike.

Not that bad. My fibro is making things feel bad, but I go home, use some marijuana tincture, ice and hot pack my ouchies. I’m still ready to go.

Slight change of plans, we’re taking the bikes into town for the farmer’s market. Our roomie wanted to go too but had no bike. So we go in together, then my fiance and I take our bikes and send roomie home with our farmer’s market goodies.

Now the 15 mile bike ride is maybe 10. Whatever. Ride to the theater, watch a fantastic movie called “Ready or Not”.

If you like horror and like comedy, this is a great one. Highly recommend it.

Then start’s the longest trip back home. And it’s all up hill.

Ugh.

But! I make it! I’m barely standing when I get home, some how manage to shower through the cramping and sheer exhaustion, then tincture up for the rest of the night.

Then, the next day, my fiance wants to also do a short hike. Nothing strenuous, more around a local sanctuary than an actual mountain. But I was so fucking exhausted.

Went anyways. Did an hour or so. Came home and promptly sat on my butt for the rest of the day. I just couldn’t convince myself to do much until later in the evening. I got some gaming in then went to bed.

I just...I cannot fathom how people are able to do this every day. I hate it. I wish I didn’t have to. My life is just one long “I don’t have enough time” or “I’m too tired”.

I wake up around 5-530AM every morning. Sometimes I can get a light, quiet chore done, or take a morning shower if I don’t bother with my nightly one. Mostly though, it’s just so I’m awake enough to actually go to work and be productive. It takes me that long to be ready.

Dressed around 6:30am. Out the door no later than 7:15 because of traffic.

Arrive to work anywhere between 7:30 and 7:55. Start work at 8. Leave work at 5 and head home.

To exercise, for a minimum of 20 cardio intensive minutes, but usually more than 1 hour, with at least 20 minutes of intensive cardio in that hour.

Figure out dinner, which sucks. Do I shop? Do I cook for all? Do I cook for me? It’s terrible. Usually eating around 8:30PM or LATER.

By then I have little to no time for anything else. No my sewing, not my gaming, not even really my serious chores. That’s even if I have the energy to do any of it.

Then off to bed after 9, sometimes 10. Only to do it all over again.

I sleep in on weekends, get up, go to farmer’s market, exercise, and then I get a few hours to myself before we’re gaming with friends or even just my fiance, roomie, and I. But I never want to do much in those few hours.

But I have to. I don’t have time elsewhere.

I just always feel low energy and stressed, and it made me cry yesterday. I don’t know if this is my physical health or my mental health, but whatever it is, can it sort itself out already?

I just need to get things done...And I’d like to feel good while doing it.

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - The Concussion

I don’t recall how much I mentioned this, but I had suffered a serious concussion from a snowboarding accident in 2016. I have never actually spent any time digesting the events around that. I would like to spend some time here outlining what happened, what I experienced, and how it affected me then.

For background, a few things I feel important to note are:

I never grew up doing any snow-based sport. In fact, I grew up in a home that didn’t believe in rough or extreme sports of any kind. If you could be seriously harmed, you didn’t do it.

In contrast, my fiance grow up skiiing and, eventually, snowboarding

When my fiance and I moved in together, he confessed to wanting a snowboarding buddy and I tried to learn.

I have a history of hurting myself with snowboarding.

I fractured my tailbone the first season.

Sprained my wrist the second season.

Hyper-extended a ligament in my leg for the third season.

We did not go often enough for me to get the hang of this.

My fiance’s birthday is early December. For our New England area, it usually falls within the first week or two of ski season. Despite not being good at it and not doing it often, I would try and make his birthday gift a trip to the mountain somewhere. We had plenty to choose from.

And so begins the story. I had gotten, what I thought, the ideal birthday gift for my fiance. It was a special event weekend. The package included two nights stay, two-day lift passes, and tickets to a one-day brewfest for two people, all happening on his birthday weekend. The start of the ski season for 2016.

I had taken Friday and Monday off to give us plenty of time to get there and a day of rest following my, undoubtedly rough, snowboarding trip. I was ready.

We drove the few hours, stopped for a late lunch during the trip, and unfortunately got delayed so couldn’t get up on the mountain on the first day. Oh well. We snuggled in, played games. It was fine, we’d get an early start the next day on his actual birthday.

The weather was good but I was struggling with my snowboard. My balance was off, I was scared. My last trip had ended in the hyper-extended ligament and that had been painful, humiliating, and lasted a couple weeks. Up we went, I had a rough dismount from the chair, but did okay coming down.

We were going to do it again, take a short rest as we were both out of practice and tired. Up we went, down we came. I was feeling great. Tired but great. I wasn’t falling as much as I feared. Got to the end of the trail, started to break as I saw the large orange sign telling us to slow down as we came to the lodge.

Nothing…

Well, not exactly nothing. I dreamed, actually. I dreamed everything we had done on the trip so far. From leaving home, eating out, to checking in, to snowboarding that day.

Then I became aware that someone was talking to me. I know that a question was asked but I don’t know what the question was. I do know I said “I don’t know.” Then the second question was “What is your name?”

It was like my mind woke up. I gave my name. They asked me how I felt. “Okay?”. I wound up asking “Did I fall?” Their response was “You tell me.”

I laugh about it now. But not in a “that’s so funny” sense more of a, “I wouldn’t have asked if I knew!” sense

It took a long time for me to open my eyes. I couldn’t quite get my eyes to do it. I was slowly aware of my body. My head was throbbing, mostly on the back of my skull. I was wearing a helmet and based on the location, I think I took the brunt of the impact right where my helmet sat on my head. A sliver of my back was freezing! My coat had hiked up and taken my shirt up with it. My bare skin was against the snow and ice.

They were flexing arms, legs, fingers, toes. Did I feel that? Could I flex this? Was there pain? What did I last remember?

Eventually I was put onto a stretcher and carted to the first aid office. I sat on the bed as they asked me more questions. Everything felt slow and dull.

Does it hurt anywhere? 

My head, base of the skull. My back. My left thigh.

My helmet was covering my skull and the edge of it was right at the base of my skull. They said they thought I came down on my helmet, it was cracked in the same place.

My back, I had a mild frostburn. It was going to hurt for a bit. It did and even scabbed over.

My left thigh had a huge, heart-shaped bruise. It covered almost my entire thigh. No idea where it came from.

What year is it? 

2016

Who is our president? 

Obama

Remember the word “Alligator” I’ll ask for it later. 

Okay?

Who is this with you? 

My fiance

What’s his name?

Give his name.

How long have you been together? 

5 years

My fiance nearly shouted “What?” 

FYI, that was the wrong answer. I corrected myself.

No, we’ve been engaged for 5 years. We got together 8 years ago. April, 2008.

He relaxed.

A couple more questions were asked that I couldn’t remember, then I was asked. “What was the word I asked you to remember?” 

Alligator.

They told my fiance that nothing I did or said gave them cause to force me to go to the hospital. Asked him what our plans were for the rest of the weekend. Advised that I do not go back up on the mountain and that I do not drink at the brewfest. Also, when I returned home, to see my primary doctor. I let them talk to him because, honestly, I didn’t care and couldn’t focus on the severity of what had just happened.

We made the most of it. He kept me awake for the rest of the day. We swam in the heated, indoor pool. We ate lasagna I made for his birthday and brought along and played games for as long as my brain would let me.

The whole day was foggy but I do remember being warm and comfortable, even when I was outside. For some reason my whole body was just “soft”. It felt pretty great honestly. Perhaps a bit like I was drugged.

What I learned from my fiance was that no one saw me crash or fall, at least, no one who stayed to report how it happened (more on that in a bit). We don’t know what happened or how it happened. All I can remember, even to this day, is starting to lean back on my edge to slow down. I realize now that I was facing the wrong way when I woke up. Either I flipped, or when I dropped my body turned. My head was towards the bottom of the mountain when my feet should have been if I had simply fell back.

I will say, in my fiance’s defense on why HE didn’t see it. I was anxious about snowboarding and only felt comfortable if I saw him boarding in front of me. I realize that the novice should be in front, so that the experienced boarder can keep an eye on them, but I just kept crashing if I couldn’t see him. He was at the end of the trail and trying to unlatch before he realized I wasn’t next to him. When he turned around, I was already laid out.

When my fiance saw me and called out to me a few times - and I wasn’t answering - someone passed him on their board and said “she fell hard” and then kept going. This man didn’t stay and talk to anyone about what he saw, so I may never know how the fell happened. 

My fiance ran to my side. I was unconscious for a few minutes, but for the last minute or so before I woke up, I apparently was responding. But I was only saying “I don’t know”. I don’t remember any of that other than the very last “I don’t know”.

He tells me he wasn’t scared. But his reaction when I initially answered our time together incorrectly and when I tried to joke about the incident in the time following...I think he was very scared. He just doesn’t want me to know.

We went home and I scheduled an appointment with my primary for the next morning. I was actually feeling okay! Slow, pains in the areas I outlined before. But okay.

I wound up seeing the Nurse Practitioner for the practice I visited and not my actual primary. She asked me a bunch of questions, asked how I was feeling, and at the time I was still feeling fine. She told me I was lucky, most of the time this ends more severely and said that she would have my boss put me on half days for the week and we’re reevaluate how I was feeling at the beginning of the next week.

I went to work. Passed on the news. Went home. Usual routine.

Next day, I had a headache. I went to work still. Within the first two hours of my day, it started to really hit me. The lights were too bright. My mind was spinning. Nothing I read was making sense to me, I couldn’t focus on what I was doing.

My boss’s business partner walked by and paused when he saw me. My head was on my folded arms, I couldn’t handle the light. He walked 5 feet into my bosses’ office and told him I didn’t look good. We might need to send me home.

I was put on a couch, an ice pack to the back of my skull and lights turned off while I waited for my fiance to get me. I called my doctor and my fiance took me straight to my nurse practitioner to re-evaluate now.

I was told not to return to work. I was told not to subject myself to lights or electronics at all. No phone, no computer, no video game consoles. Maybe light reading, but I wasn’t to tax my brain. No alcohol, no special diets (I was keto at the time). I was to drink LOTS of water and eat whatever my body told me to eat - which turned out to be almost exclusively pasta. A note was sent to my boss; until my doctors released me, I would remain on medical leave.

I was sent for a CAT scan. Nothing was found on the scan that was alarming. I was sent home to begin my temporary life as an actual potato.

My fiance stayed home with me initially. For the first week or so. I spent a lot of time in the dark, passing in and out of consciousness. It was embarrassing and depressing. I barely have any memories of this time.

What I do know is that around the second week, my fiance had to return to work. I was being left alone for long hours and my brain started to wonder. What if I was actually in a coma? What if everything I was experiencing right now was a vivid dream. I had one just before the questions. What if this was still part of that dream? It really messed with my mental state. I was scared to be alone. 

I hinted at it to my fiance. He gave me a large plush King Poro - from League of Legends - and this plushie became my life line for the next several days. I was literally holding it’s little hoof - like you would a hand - whenever a dizzy spell hit me. I was still getting them frequently. It helped with my loneliness.

Around the end of the third week I started feeling better. I was getting on my laptop, I was anxious to get back to work. I didn’t want to be home anymore. My doctor wouldn’t release me yet though and I didn’t understand why…

Until a few days later. 

I spent all day on my laptop. My fiance was on the big TV playing a brand new game. Then he was going to go work out downstairs in the basement. I closed my little computer and hopped on the TV when he headed down and stopped.

The screen was fuzzy and - worst of all - doubled.

I fiddled with the settings, tried turning it off and on again. I went and fetched him, frustrated. Could he come and fix whatever he did to make his game upstairs work?

He trudged upstairs, annoyed because he hadn’t done anything. Sat down, stared at the screen and shortly asked “What’s the problem?”

“What do you mean, what’s the problem? Can’t you see that?!” I snapped, pointing at a doubled icon. He shook his head. I paused, the frustration leaving me and fear building. “You don’t see the doubled image?” I was pointing at several points of the TV now.

He was growing concerned and told me no. I realized at this point, it was me. Double-sight was a symptom of concussions, but I hadn’t had it before. It was a new symptom for me. Additionally, it only appeared to be the screen. Not my environment. We tested my little laptop that I had been on all day. It was there too now.

He told me to go upstairs, turn the lights off, and rest. I did, feeling utterly defeated at this point. I wasn’t better. I was seeing new symptoms weeks after the initial injury. I spent the rest of my week worried that I’d never be able to go back to work. I would be permanently disabled.

I kept off all electronics for several more days, bored out of my mind but mostly afraid. When I checked in with the nurse practitioner again, she reluctantly released me to half days. She sent my boss a new note letting him know this was a trial. If my symptoms got worse again I would be removed from work.

I spent the next couple of weeks running only half days for work. It was hard and, because of timing, I wound up coming into an annual review. Which was great. I got a raise and a promotion. One that I was now thinking I didn’t deserve. I had been out for so long. I still thought I was damaged.

My mental state took a dive. For months following the concussion all dizziness and eye soreness made me think it was lingering damage and that I wouldn’t be able to keep my job. Down and down my mentality went.

In addition, my pain levels were increasing. My relationship with my fiance became strained.

I had terrible anxiety. I was experiencing panic attacks. I was convinced I would lose my job and my fiance and everything I ever earned for myself would be lost and I’d be some middle aged, disabled person living with her parents again.

A failure...

Change came slow. With my fiance’s gentle insistence, I got a therapist in 2017. 

With my therapist, I sought help for the pain in 2018.

With the professionals who helped me with my physical help, I got a dietitian in 2019.

Slowly and surely, I’m getting better. I’m on track. If I took anything away from my concussion and my medical leave time, I think it’s that I should’ve seen the therapist sooner. That was a seriously traumatic event and if I had started sooner I might’ve gotten ahead of some of the stress and pain I felt coming out of it.

But I can’t change what happened. I can only be grateful that I have my fiance who encouraged me to make the first step for help. He made me feel safe and loved and it gave me the courage to say “he’s right, I need this”.

He really brings out the best in me...

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - relationships

I don't know if anything I did was in the "norm". I do know that I've been extremely lucky. The man I am engaged to has been my first in every sense of the word. And I feel very happy for that.

In my time growing up, I learned to distrust everyone around me:

Boys at my schools often used "confessions" as another way to bully me. I fell for it once and I was ridiculed for believing them. I stopped believing them.

Then I was molested when I was about eleven. He was seven or eight years older than me. An adult in the eyes of the law, regardless. He kept telling me nice things and then would touch me even when I said I didn't want that. Thankfully I had a close relationship with my mother because he wormed his way into our house by befriending my younger brother. I told her what he was doing before it progressed very far and the police were involved. He went to jail and I didn't even have to testify. Turns out, I wasn't his first...

Then my parents...I can count on one hand the times I saw my parents being sweet to one another. More often than not, it was always a fight. Or dad yelling and calling mom names. Then he would turn around and loudly, in front of his children and his wife, compliment how "sexy" a woman we passed on the street was or watch movies specifically with the intent of seeing a man and woman have sex. Even if his young children were in the room. I knew whatever relationship I had it would not be this.

Enter my fiance...and his ex.

Nothing about how I came together with my fiance was normal. In ways, I feel guilty about many things, but it was never my intention for the way things played out...

My fiance met me and asked me out. He had a girlfriend back in high school but broke up with her when he left for college. I’m not clear on the details of that break up, he mentioned something about they deciding the long distance wasn’t going to work out. But they were still friends.

I rejected him initially. I wasn’t over the “confessions” bullying and didn’t fully trust him. But I thought he was cool to hang out with. We played World of Warcraft together. We watched anime together, joined the Anime Club at college, that kind of thing. Ate lunch together, studied mutual classes together.

Well in the midst of all of this, he was telling her about these things. She got super jealous really quickly. She pressured him back into a relationship, telling him how she thought it was wrong they broke up. I think he was lonely and they’d been together for a few years. I can’t fault him for having feelings. So he asked me one more time if I was sure I wouldn’t date him. I said I wasn’t ready.

What followed was every stereotypical “drama” filled love triangle. In which I had become “the other woman”. Not my intention and this is where my guilt starts. Even my old friends told me I was in the wrong but couldn’t tell me WHY it was wrong.

Wrong that I hung out with him? That we went to club together? That we studied together? I wasn’t taking him back to my dorm-room or following him to his, we were always in public. We weren’t having sex. He was just a cool guy.

His girlfriend didn’t treat it as such. If I was his friend I had to be her friend. Okay? I added her to yahoo IM and tried my hardest. She spent the entire time telling me “he’s my soulmate” and “we’re engaged” and how I was “stealing” him away. Meanwhile telling him how I was the one being mean and distant and didn’t like her.

Truthfully I didn’t. She made me super uncomfortable. But I tried. I didn’t want to tear them apart!

At some point, I don’t even remember why, I told her that I didn’t want a relationship because of the bullying and the molestation. She sent him an email within minutes of me telling her about the molestation to tell HIM about it.

I hadn’t told anyone about it until then. Not outside of family. To this day I’m not even sure any of my friends know about it. I’m super ashamed and don’t want to talk about it. I was mortified when she told him.

I only know about it because he told me and showed me the email. I told him I was done. I couldn’t talk to her anymore, this was a piece of me I was trying to trust her with and she turned around immediately to use it against me. Too many had done that before. 

He was getting frustrated, being in between the two of us. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to make her happy, but also enjoyed hanging out with me and she kept pressuring him to “make a choice”. Her or me.

It escalated to the point where I said to him “I won’t make you choose. If you can’t be happy with my being your friend and her your girlfriend, I’ll step away. I won’t ever bother you or her again.”

It seemed only fair, who was I to step between them? In a way, I think this did the exact opposite.

He seemed emboldened by my mature stance. I was trying to take the pressure off of him that she seemed to be putting on him.

He told her in no uncertain terms, he would not stop being my friend and he would not make me interact with her again. We were all adults and if she didn’t like it, she could dump him right then and there.

She didn’t.

Things were “calm” for a while and then she came to visit. I asked plainly, did she want to meet me or not? The answer was no. I said that’s fine and I stepped out of the picture.

The first night, I received a call from an unknown number I didn’t answer. It was her and she had left a voicemail...

Threatening my life.

I called him and told him what she had done and told him plainly, if I saw her I was calling the police. I tried to get through my weekend, but I was so scared that someone accidentally touched me (not indecently, just on the shoulder) in the public cafe and I jumped and gasped as if he had attacked me.

I may have scared him more than he scared me...

My fiance later told me he confronted her. The story was she told him she was getting ready for their romantic dinner. Stole his phone, found my number, and called me. He told her to “get out” and refused to talk to her for an entire day. So much for their romantic weekend.

When he finally spoke to her, he told her she WOULD be apologizing and came to find me to warn me he had her and asked if I wanted to see her for the apology. I told him fine, but if she starts anything, I will involve campus security. He agreed.

She came, she apologized, he sent her home...

And broke up with her...

He was single for a few months as the semester wrapped up and two weeks before it ended, we had grown close enough that in a spur of a moment situation that I can’t fully describe, I wound up kissing him.

I was so elated I cried and asked if he still wanted to date me.

We’ve been together ever since...

It’s had ups and downs. We’ve fought several times in our eleven years together. I had issues to work out. He had issues to work out. We try to remain relatively drama free.

He never liked having that with her and I didn’t much care for it myself. I was so isolated in school I never really had it until I met them. But it’s everything I always wanted...

He knows exactly what he wants. So he’s not afraid to cuddle me. To kiss me. To tell me sweet things. It emboldens me to return these things.

He never calls me names. Or tells me I’m stupid. Even in the midst of our fights he’s never once “slipped” in that fashion. It’s more than my dad ever did for us. It makes me happy to have this.

He doesn’t tell me how he find other women “sexy” or openly stare and make suggestive noises, comments, or movements. If he’s looking, I don’t know about it and it makes me feel secure that he finds ME attractive still.

I love him and I want us to succeed.

It may not have been a normal way to find love. May not have been even as innocent as I thought it might be (I still feel guilty over being “the other woman” despite not wanting to be). But it seems to have worked out. And I’m all the better for it...

[lyesera-thoughts]

Therapy - perhaps I am doing better...

Saw my therapist yesterday and we were talking.We were chatting about goals - I had made some a year or more ago with her - and after talking it out with her, I noticed that things are going better. Some goals have been met.

My depression has been pretty under control. I get discouraged, but finding the motivation to bounce back is easier. I’m working out, have energy, and I’m sleeping better. My anxiety is still present but manageable with the tools she gave me.

She asked if I thought I felt confident to move to every other week sessions. Which seems like a big win for me. It used to be hard to miss sessions with her. Now we’re talking about only twice a month or so to meet. And I feel great about it.

My choice for picture is kind of related. After a pretty heavy session in the past, I was heading home in my car. I listen to a lot of music of all varieties, including cartoon and animations. One of my most beloved cartoons is Steven Universe and I’m absolutely in love with as single song; “Love Like You”. 

It was playing on my way home and I had already heard this song a dozen or more times but suddenly that day, it had a whole new meaning that brought me to literal tears, which I kind of want to break down and discuss as to why I’m thinking of it right now. Here are how the lyrics mean to me in this moment:

If I could begin to be

Half of what you think of me

I could do about anything

I could even learn how to love

When I hear this, I think about my fiance and finding someone who loved me for me. He saw an overweight, insecure woman who liked games and anime and thought, “I wanna be her friend” and then “I wanna date her”. I’ve never had that before.

When I see the way you act Wondering when I'm coming back I could do about anything I could even learn how to love like you Love like you

Kind of a neutral part, but learning to live with my fiance and changing my personality as I enter a safe environment.

I always thought I might be bad Now I'm sure that it's true 'cause I think you're so good And I'm nothing like you

Becoming really depressed and constantly comparing myself to my fiance, always unjustly. We were nothing alike and I thought that meant that I was unworthy of his time and love. That I was a burden.

Look at you go I just adore you I wish that I knew What makes you think I'm so special

Kind of returning back to him deciding to like me for me and I’m unable to grasp why that is. Continuing thoughts of not thinking I’m worthy, my spiral into depression.

If I could begin to do Something that does right by you I would do about anything I would even learn how to love

I realize somethings wrong with how I feel, and not necessarily with me. So I start seeking help.

When I see the way you look Shaken by how long it took I could do about anything I could even learn how to love like you

Recognizing that it’s been hard on him! He’s struggled with me as much as I have struggled. He can’t fix everything, there’s no magic “get better” button. And he knows it has to be on me to make the change or nothing will change, but still being there to help coach me if I forget or hug me when I need it. Just my absolute gratitude for it.

Love like you Love me like you

Love like you. Love me like you. As in, learning to finally love myself, like he already loves me. I used to hate myself, so deeply, I wanted my existence to end. There was nothing that convinced me I could be anything different until him.

I’ve gained some self love finally, I think. It’s not perfect. I hate things about myself still; but I understand I can change them. Frustration mostly out of it not being a quick fix. But starting to look at myself and tell myself, “it’s okay. You’re doing well” and just being happy with the changes I see myself.

He inspired me. I made the change.

I just feel like I have the affirmation. I’m better now. Now I get to enjoy my life. With him.

Together, we are awesome.