Every time I dissolve into tears and those tears, instead of cleansing, dissolve into more tears and a spiral down into depression and anxiety, I realize I’m worrying about the same things. I’m stuck. It’s the SSDD syndrome: Same Shit, Different Day. I KNOW worrying about the future is pointless. I KNOW accepting myself is crucial. I KNOW I’ll…
Scary
Everything is so damn scary for me these days. Just speaking up and saying what I think feels like too much of a risk. It’s as though my confidence died with Dave. I know I’m courageous only because I can see now that I acted many times since Dave died despite nearly crippling fear. But I don’t feel courageous. I feel so scared that I want to curl…
Letter
I was looking through my miscellaneous writing pieces and found this letter I wrote myself during my writing workshop circle many months ago. The prompt we’d be given was to imagine you’re yourself from the future writing to the present you. I think I may have posted this before, but once is not enough for this one. I wish my internal voice always…
New Brain
I love memoirs. I read a memoir a week, I’d estimate. The last one I read was not one of my favorites in regard to writing style, but it was about a woman who’d had an aneurysm and her subsequent healing. In the book, she lists the mental symptoms she and other aneurysm patients often struggle with. As I read the list, I realized with a shock…
Phoenix
Last Wednesday I had a session with an amazing healer right when I thought I couldn’t go another step in this life without something major happening to lighten the pain I was experiencing in my heart and soul.I had hit a wall and wanted to be done feeling heartbroken and sorrowful, uncomfortable in my own skin and completely terrified by the…
Dark Shadow
Depression. It’s my dark shadow. I’ve been living with it since my late teens. Even so, it can still trick me. For the last few weeks I’ve been under its spell and up until today I didn’t realize it. Instead of seeing the depression as the REASON I feel as though everything is hopeless and life sucks, I have been thinking that I’m depressed BECAUSE…
I Remember
I have plunged back into the cold, dark, hopeless place I felt buried in the first few weeks/months after Dave died. I’ve been struggling to eat, sleep, clean up after myself, and find comfort in anything. Everything feels like sandpaper against raw nerve endings. I can’t stand to be alone. I need help. I’ve reached out. I’ve especially sought out…
Far Away
I dreamed of Dave the other night. He was alive, now. It had all been a trick. He had actually survived the heart failure and somehow I hadn’t known all this time. He was solid and real, but very changed after his near death experience and I was so relieved that he had survived. The Dave I knew was Mr. Practicality. In his opinion tattoos were…
Redwoods
I spent the morning yesterday hiking alone in Forest Park. I started at Hoyt Arboretum which has acres of trails lined with groupings of tree plantings. I walked through hemlock, fir and oak groves and eventually came to the redwood and sequoia forest. The light barely filtered through the canopy and the giant red trunks seemed to muffle sound. I…
Proud
After two weeks living in my new place, my new city, my new life, I am feeling at peace most of the time. The anguish of living in “our” house has lifted. My new life matches the new me a little better.I’m meeting wonderful new people and finding new ways to heal. I’ve been sleeping through the night more often, a reflection of the peace I’ve been…
Blessing
I’m sitting in my new apartment while I type this. Soon, I’ll have to go get ready to leave. Today I have to drive back to the house and work on clearing what I want out of the place before I can have an estate sale. I don’t want to leave my new place, and this surprises me. I’ve lived here a week and already it feels like home. It’s amazing how…
I Think I Do
It’s so strange how much easier the holidays were than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been easy, just easier than expected. I’ve been feeling almost spooked by the lack of horrific pain I’ve felt in the last week or so leading up to Christmas.For one thing, Dave and I never made a big deal out of Christmas. We’d hit his parents’…