[torchedtrauma]

The Inevitable

So the inevitable happened to me last week...I failed. I set out to do something with great expectations and a bullet proof plan and...still failed. The reason I consider failing inevitable is quite simple...when you are trying, you don't always succeed the first time. In fact, the best success is built on a mountain of failed attempts. My most recent failure was a small success as well. I am the type of person where my goals have goals. My main goal was/is to be consistent with movement each day - that means at whatever costs. Each day the movement can look different depending on what my body tells me it needs most that day. For that goal, I am succeeding with flying colors. But inside that goal is another more pointed goal - ruck 50 miles in 30 days. This has been my goal twice now and twice I have fallen short. I did a challenge which involved rucking 1 mile everyday and upping weight each week - cool. In that I set a goal to end at 20# and ended at 30# - cool. BUT I set a goal inside that to reach 50 miles during that challenge...I finished at 41.89 miles when the challenge officially ended - OUCH! I saw a clear picture of where I could have pushed more here or given more there so I set the goal yet again. This time there was another new challenge on top of that one - SPECIFICALLY SET FOR 50 MILES IN 30 DAYS! I could hear the angels singing - “Jenna, here is your chance!” Welp, I started well but was still hurting from the first challenge that was more “challenging” than I previously thought it would be -- more mental than physical...but then, aren't those one in the same? So here I was at the starting line, semi stalling out. I knew there would be ground to make up on the backend as I allowed my mind and body to recover so I set the pace and set a clear line to get to my goal. Each week I modified as needed and added in PT (which I have always resisted since injury) to help me meet my miles when my body or mind said “ENOUGH”. Thus I began doing PT 3-5 times a week because 20 minutes of PT = 1 mile per the challenge rules. I began setting a new plan to add one long ruck to help offset the days I rested and did some type of recovery exercise. Then, like it wanted me to fail, my body gave out. I started having EXTREME migraines and my body went so tight I wasn't able to do anything to untangle the web. Getting out of the bed was difficult, focusing at work was difficult, being around others was difficult...let alone working out. So, I started trading rucks for chiropractic appointments and medicine. I removed all 20# and just rucked with consumables to help with the recovery. At the end, you probably guessed, I fell short of the 50 miles...by 4 miles. WTF! You mean I can have a rock solid plan, revisit and revise it regularly, be focused, want it and still fail? YEP! What is interesting about this particular failure is it came with a lot of success. I have needed to begin PT again for my own mental clarity. I truly love to pick things up and put (throw) them down. It helps clear out my agitation, aggression and pure rage some days. I used to pretend to be a little ray of sunshine all the time but the truth is I have deep rooted anger from multiple deep rooted traumas. I am sunshine sometimes but a lot of the time I am in processing mode and need to filter through some life that's happened. Nothing does that for me like lifting weights or throwing a sandbag or hitting a sledgehammer into a tractor tire. I needed PT and I started and haven't stopped. I also rucked consistently. It wasn't to 50 miles but it was regular and I only missed two “I said I would” rucks. I have been really diligent with doing something because “I said I would”. It is a powerful thing to follow through and show up for yourself and others simply on your word. I also started chiro which I have needed for a long time but didn't want to put the extra line item on the budget. Turns out eventually your body fights back if you neglect it...with that also came stretching, bc why get my spine aligned if I am not going to honor my muscles around it. I gained consistency and clarity through failure. So here I am again, going for 50 miles starting June 1st. My goal is 50 miles in 30 days with a micro goal of PT in between each mile I do. If I fail, it’s inevitable but when I succeed it will be earned and deserved bc I have built that success on a mountain of training and knowledge that I couldn’t have gained without the inevitable. 

[torchedtrauma]

Weighted Scars

Today I carried a weighted pack. I carried it in hopes of removing some heavy things from my heart and mind. I used to run until my legs or my lungs would give out and then run some more. These days my body just isn't able to do what it used to...it can do much more. 

Today I carried a weight of a family member who lost someone dear to them. She was close to the family for a long time and although she had been disconnected for a minute, it hurt just the same. The young girl had a lot of life to her and left for her. She was light in a way that made you feel lighter too. She was always kind and slow to pass judgement. Today, we found out she was dead. Today I saw a strong young man hurt deeply due to it. I watched him be in immense pain. I watched someone who is slow to show emotion, break. Loss does that to you. It picks you up and body slams you to the ground. If you try to get back up, our big friend loss kicks us until we are unable to move. Loss is debilitating.

Today, in lieu of what happened, I was slow to share my personal grief of this day, this month, and the following weeks to come. I am slightly uncomfortable sharing past pain that still hurts like it happened today because it seems like I should be past it by now. Isn’t it funny how we place a timeline on mourning...

Today, two years ago, I had a secret. I had a HUGE secret that a few days later I would share with A LOT of people. It wasn’t an ugly or bad secret. It was a beautiful, special secret. 

Today, two years ago, I had officially taken THIRTEEN pregnancy tests. I had taken all those tests without a single negative. Thirteen is my lucky number...correction...thirteen was my lucky number. Now I am slow to believe in luck and honestly, slow to believe in many things I used to in 2018. See that's another thing loss steals from you...HOPE. The thing is I am a highly intuitive human. I had absolutely zero reason to believe anything was wrong after 13 strong positive tests, yet something in my gut said “worry”. I tried to shake it, I even journaled how silly it was that I was worried when I didn't need to be. 

Today is a day I mourn not only the loss of my first baby but the loss of hope. I mourn the girl who was already in pain but her world turned right side up at even the first glimpse of a future with our baby. That baby gave me purpose and for a lot of reasons fundamentally changed who I am today. I was always a super hopeful person and generally aired on the side of optimism. I am grateful I am not like that anymore. Not for the reasons you probably think though. I am grateful that I am no longer a person who hopes for things but who DOES things to get what she desires now.

Unfortunately, I can DO a lot to get a lot but that doesn't happen when trying to conceive. It either happens or it doesn't. I have gone after new goals but I have also broken as a person over and over and over again over the last two years. 

Today, I still have no babies here on earth with me and I still think month after month that this might be it; this will be the month I carry a viable pregnancy. I guess I do still have hope after all...but I also have gumption now. I lacked a key piece to who I needed to be for this next journey. A journey that I am not even sure where it is leading but I trust it. 

In this journey, I needed drive. I needed the kind of drive that can't be cured by a happy marriage or a thriving family of 3 or getting fulfillment from other things outside of myself. I had to find the kind of give a damn by my own raw self. 

Y’ALL! It has been an extremely ugly and rough two years. It has been full of downhill slopes with a few sunny days. Sure, I still went through life and tried to make each day its best but I was hurting and it showed. Everyone who has met me and gotten close to me in these two years basically has gone through my journey of infertility with me. I can't not let it show. IT HAS BEEN EVERYTHING!  

Today, I got a cut on my wrist while rucking and have no idea how I got it. It hurt like a mother but then the pain subsided. See, this cut will heal within a day or two. Within the week you won't even know I was cut to start with. Scars are different. Scars last. 

A scar can heal but it will always leave a mark.

Have you ever had a physical scar on you and someone asks you how you got it? That’s basically the same thing I have been asked for the last two years...”Hey, is everything okay”. Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, but I am still hurting like hell! I hurt when I see pregnancy announcements, I hurt when I see baby photos, I hurt when I hear a baby laughing, crying or doing anything a baby does because I want a baby of my own so deeply. I yearn to clean a dirty diaper, I yearn to lose sleep because my baby needs me, I yearn to give birth to a living being, I yearn to be a mom. 

This two year old scar has healed but not without a lot of cleaning it out and wrapping it up. I have had to cover my scar at times because some people can be cruel when you get hurt. I felt the need to protect myself and my family from the opinions others may have, so I kept it mostly quiet. Regardless of how invisible this scar has been, it has taken a long time to nurture it back to health. 

Today, I carried the weight of an unborn baby that was loved the day it was conceived. 

Today, I carried the weight of a young girl who deserved to live much longer than she got to. 

Today, I carried the weight of my husband who wants to be more than that, he wants to be a daddy. 

Today, I carried the weight of people aching around me and not being able to help because I had to nurse my own wounds. 

Health looks different for different situations:

Today health looked like, wearing a weighted rucksack and I rucking it off because its all I had to give the world at this moment. I wanted to give myself to so many people today and I just didn't have it. I had to prioritize and place EXTREME boundaries which is not easy for me. I had little to give and I gave it to my family. I gave it to my husband, I gave it to my brother-in-law and I gave it to myself. 

Usually I try to tie my posts up with a bow but don't want to do that tonight. 

Today, I just need to express and purge sadness on a good day. Because it was a good day. Good days don't always look sparkly. I healed a bit more today and that makes it a day worth having. 

Please pray for my brother-in-law, myself and my husband.

[torchedtrauma]

Tainted Truths

Tainted: (Verb) affect with a bad or undesirable quality.

A common factor between most people who have gone through rough and painful traumas is that they often feel tainted. By the age of 12 years old that is a word I would regularly use to describe myself. Tainted is a word I’ve personally seen used to demean another person for being unbecoming or less than ideal in a situation. I believe I have many things about me that are now tainted; my reputation, my dignity, my self image and my innocence. One thing I have been considering lately is the fact that I have something else that has been tainted as well: The Truth, My Truth.

Truth: (Noun) that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

I get my feelings hurt easily by the opinions of others. I can be harsh with myself based on what others may assume about me when looking through their lens and seeing me in a moment. One thing I have come to find about myself is something I think may apply to more people as well. When others are trying to be hurtful, especially those who know me well; their lies don't nearly hurt as much as the truth does. 

Let me lay the ground work for you:

On one hand, it would be hard if someone were to say “Jenna, you aren't a kind person” because I believe myself to be very kind and compassionate. I would then question what would lead them to think that of me, KNOWING that isn't true. It would bother me to have done or said something to act out of my character but I can fix someone’s wrongful impression of me by showing them the truth, even if that takes time. 

On the other hand, if someone were to say “Jenna, you are an overly emotional person” that would be a pain I would carry for quite a while. This statement would hurt MORE because the reality is, I DO feel things very deeply which in turn does make me more emotional than the average person. I, myself, find it frustrating to always feel others emotions and wear them day in and day out. On top of feeling others emotions, I also have my own emotions and thoughts to cope with. To hear someone use that is one things, but then I throw a negative spin on it and this can be something I can't put down for weeks, months or even years. The new tainted truth would read something like this: “Jenna, you are an overly emotional person and that makes you look weak, annoying and vulnerable.” 

YIKES! 

The thing is, people so often talk about “knowing your truth” but they never discuss what to do with the truths that are tainted. What do we do with the truths that are so distorted from what we've been told by others and now pick up and put on daily and FULLY believe.  

To further this point, I am going to list some truths for you and then I am going to throw the tainted part around the truths in bold for you to see how it can distort our self view, esteem and love. 

My (Tainted) Truths:

I have been abused, therefore, I am tainted and unlovable.

I am imperfect, therefore, I am a failure.

I fail at things, therefore, I will never succeed.

I have trouble controlling my anger, therefore, I am undesirable.

I have been taken advantage of by men, therefore, I am used trash.

I get depressed and am not always the life of the party, therefore, I won't be accepted and liked if people know that side of me.

I am broken, therefore, I can't be fixed.

I feel lost sometimes, therefore, I have no purpose.

I am overweight, therefore, I am ugly and undesirable.

So, what's my point?

At some point we have to acknowledge that some of the truths we are telling ourselves have been screwed up along this bumpy road called life. 

Some of the things you believe may have been said by others who believe ill of themselves. 

Some of your adapted truths may have been said in a moment of anger by someone you trust. 

Some of them are ones no one knows you believe because you haven't even shared them with anyone. 

Those “truths” are the worst of all because they are the ones you tell yourself in secret and believe the deepest. 

All of these truths, because tainted, are now not fully TRUE. 

In order to clean up the debris these ugly truths have left on your heart, mind and soul, you must first acknowledge who you are at your CORE. Who are you day after day when you are alone? Who are you when you feel lost and isolated? 

I encourage you to look within your own mind and see if there are any truths up there that you are believing that have a little lie attached to them. 

Free yourself from your own opinion and those opinions others may have placed on you as well. 

[torchedtrauma]

Rebuilding with Residual Debris

The main thought from this entry is going to be the basis of this entire blog; I imagine I will be expanding on it for a long time to come.

Trails and Traumas:

Recently I had something happen that was Earth shattering. The bigger internal conflict for me was this wasn't the first time I’d come in contact with adversity that brought me to my knees and crushed me. My last occurrence with the idea of ending my existence was in July 2015. It was the first time I not only had a thought and plan but actually attempted to execute said plan.

Since 2015, I have work diligently to rebuild myself in a way that I would be undeterred by forces outside of my control. I cannot begin to count how many times I reflected and brought myself back to center, only to begin depleting again. It was a constant loop of the highest of highs and lowest of lows. It took YEARS to find my grounding. Once I was able to get to the other side of that situation, I saw I had been down much longer than I previously realized. I couldn't figure out how I drained all my resources but thought if I just paid closer attention to myself moving forward, I would NEVER return to that dark place again. I thought I had built strong enough armor to withstand any bullet coming at me and was sure the worst was behind me.

I was WRONG!

This next part is what created a new path for the person who is typing this entry today, so listen closely: 

It DOES NOT matter what walls and defenses you build when planning for an attack when the enemy is within the walls AS you are building. 

Girl, what are you evening talking about?

Let me say it louder and more clearly:

If you are against yourself, you will always be at war and you will NEVER win.

In the past, I always acknowledged my part in the path I took and how it all devolved but I never fully acknowledged because I never understood WHY it devastated me so deeply and inevitably would be what destroyed me.

Death on Demand:

Here is the REALLY ugly and uncomfortable truth:

On February 18, 2020, Jenna Marie Diaz died. She went into a therapy session that she meant to but forgot to cancel. Her brain was full but her mind was completely empty. For the first time, she wasn't able to hide from the honest truth: She didn't want to die but was hopeless and tired; so she didn't want to live either. She wanted it all to end - the pain, the frustration, and the exhaustion. She was over this cycle. She knew even though there were good things that “could” happen, it wasn't enough to make her continue on anymore. She realized that if she stuck around for the really amazing times she hasn't experienced yet, it would without a doubt, come with more hard times too. She felt too weak and depleted. So she made a choice to change her semicolon to a period and finally call it a damn day. The past 4 years had been grueling and although she recovered, she never truly healed. She had already been through hell and made it to see the other side. Everything that lead her here was a part of that healing. Once she realized that fact, she immediately refused to go though it again. Her therapist talked to her and tried to counsel her but before she walked in, she made a decision to turn her self-worth and rationale in at the door. This created a barrier and a disconnect so that as she was being talked to, she couldn't even hear the words being said to her. She only focused on one singular thought: she didn't want to be saved. 

This may lead you to ask the question of who is typing this blog if the publisher died? The short answer: I don't know, yet. I can tell you that Jenna died on February 18, 2020 - I know because I watched it happen. What I didn't tell you is what happened next - 

From Ashes to Flames: 

I watched as Jenna began breaking and growing weak. I noted a few months before that she didn't seem herself. She looked tired, less focused and driven and overall...less human. One day without warning she burst into flames and disintegrated right in front of me with only her ashes remaining. At that moment, I wasn't able to process what happened but am now ready to share what I saw looking back:

On March 3, 2020, exactly two weeks after her death, I surprisingly caught a glimpse of someone who looked identical to Jenna walking the Riverwalk Trail. Even though the resemblance was uncanny, I immediately knew it wasn't her because, unlike Jenna, this person was ignited with purpose. It was written all over her and impossible to ignore. From her goofy grin to her quick, bouncy pace; I knew that I NEEDED to have a conversation with her. It’s hard to explain the amount of discomfort I felt from seeing someone look identical outwardly but being so different inwardly. It was clear, however, that she had something in common with the girl I once knew; life had crashed onto her like a wave hitting her, knocking her down and taking her under. If that was true, then how was she okay? It was her mindset; this girl believed life was happening FOR her instead of TO her. This trailblazer of a person began telling me how she had been hospitalized in February and how it changed her entire belief system. She explained how she came to the end of her road but instead of stopping when the road ended, she went on to create a new path. At first that didn't make sense to me but she went on to explain that she knew going back wasn't an option. She told me she had come a long distance and turning around would just be silly. I was dumbfounded when she said although turning around might seem easier, it wouldn't be. She said turning around would create doubt. She expanded simply by saying, “What if the end of that road wasn't her end but the perfect place to start a new direction or path?” Our walk ended and she began leaving. As she did, I realized I didn't get her name and called out to her. She retorted back simply with her name, Phoenix. 

After she was out of earshot I replied, “Welcome back, Jenna. This rebirth will be the reason you never have to die again”  

Phoenix:

phoe·nix/ˈfēniks/

noun: 

a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

a long-lived bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor.

a person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect.

[torchedtrauma]

AJR - 100 Bad Days [Official Video]