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Oct 23

Icebergs and Admirals, Part 1: Melting

This post is going to attempt to explain how the mess of trauma operates in the mind. There are players in this post: the iceberg, which serves as a safe place to store the trauma, and the loyal soldiers who are assigned to defend the fortress on land, or the mind. The soldiers send the trauma to the admiral, who is in a boat by the iceberg. The admiral is a gatekeeper who lets trauma in to be stored inside of the iceberg and can alert the players to the situation as needed. The therapist is a neutral facilitator of the healing.

Walking out of trauma is tricky. We believe that trauma is completely “land based,” guarded in our personal land fortress, as we explored in “Soldiers of the Mind.” But that isn’t the whole story.

While our “soldiers” have been busy protecting the “battlements” of our minds, the real action has been going on out in the blue ocean waters, where “icebergs,” the storage centers of our trauma, have been building over time. On the surface, they look steadfast and serene. The trouble lies beneath the surface, where they grow and expand, slowly but menacingly. The beauty of the iceberg is deceptive, and each time more growth occurs, it is at the expense of its beauty. Underneath is where the ugly resides. Below the surface, jagged edges form, and they pierce anything that touches them. It is bloody and painful.

On constant surveillance of our iceberg is our “admiral.” Sitting on her ship, she tries to forestall the inevitable: the heat wave that will cause the iceberg to melt in an uncontrolled manner. Melting happens, and it happened to me.

Melting, or the discovery of how significant the trauma below the surface is, caused me to sit in my living room on my sofa and sob. Sobbing was the awakening of how ugly the underside of my iceberg was. It took three more months to commit to a step that led me to do the work of healing what was below the surface. The jagged edges had to go.

I’m all about rubber-meets-the-road solutions, so I’m going to tell you how to find what you need to heal the iceberg.

I had to talk to a great many therapists to sift out the right therapist from wrong fits. This is where my journey began.

I wanted someone who was reliable and intelligent, someone who had done their own deep soul work, and who understood trauma. I wanted someone who would call me out if I tried to raise walls and distract myself from the process of the work. I quickly established the places where I would not find this person. I finally found the right person, wrote an email, and had something set up when, kerplop! I broke my left femur and I had to delay the onset of treatment.

Who and what I found was someone who was qualified, had done their own work, would be able to treat me like the client in the relationship, and hold me to this role. While I am a therapist, this is about me doing some hard work. I didn’t need someone who could not hold that boundary. Adam (not his real name) could do all of this. Gender wasn’t an issue for me with finding the right person. Qualifications were the top priority. And so, with the admiral guarding the iceberg both above and below the surface, the work of reconfiguring the iceberg began.

The admiral’s role in all of this is to serve as a safety while the real work beneath the surface occurs. The therapist is going to take things apart in a safe manner and move cautiously to rebuild what soldiers on the iceberg’s mass have defended, while the soldier’s job is to defend on land what is actually occurring beneath the iceberg and out at sea.

The best way of explaining it is that while the trauma happens on land, it sends out messengers who can deliver the needed information to be stored in the iceberg. Trauma is a two-front war.

How this all happens with things getting sent to the iceberg is not our fault. If we did not send things to the iceberg, we’d be in an even larger mess.

Healing from trauma is going to destabilize the iceberg. It is a good thing, this shrinking of the iceberg. Lots of stuff that has been sent out to sea to be protected is going to get knocked free, and with the freedom, a healthy, pretty iceberg will float proudly on the surface of the water.

So, with the admiral controlling the iceberg, the job is to alert the mind to when critical mass has been reached. Once again, and this time in reverse fashion, the admiral contacts the land forces, alerting them to the fact that the iceberg is in a dangerous situation, and that destruction is certain should things go any further.

In a very real way, this is what caused me to sob on the sofa, and to finally, after decades of filling my iceberg to dangerous capacity below the surface, let the admiral know that it was time to clean the mess out.

I think what most people do is bargain with their subconscious and strike a deal to coexist and believe that they can stuff things away. The crazy of it all is that we are not at fault for trying to survive. There comes a time when stuffing away no longer works. If we look at the iceberg as a container for what we are not willing to take apart, then it will all eventually blow apart on us.

The reason people don’t seek treatment is that they have come to believe that they can get by without addressing the pain. They keep telling themselves, “I’ll just do what I normally do with my inner pain and let it sit below in my iceberg.” The thing is, the iceberg just wants to be a beautiful part of the ocean landscape, and it didn’t ask to be made a most ugly thing: it got assigned to that role. Not our fault, in so many ways.

Oct 14

Dear Joyce

Dear Joyce,

I remember all too well the day you dropped dead in front of us, and as I ran to call 911, Mom ran to you. That was in 1977, and the decades have passed, and now the conversation my brother and I have is about what Joyce would be doing now. It is strange how you left breadcrumbs for us to follow.

You were only fourteen when you had the heart attack, and we’d hoped that the pacemaker you now lived with would give you a long life. We couldn’t have predicted what happened that hot July day. The beginning grief was about the loss of our sister. With time the sorrow diminished, as months, and then years, expanded into decades. Now I think about the forty-eight years that have passed, and I imagine.

I think that, with your love of small children and your medical curiosity, you may have gone into pediatric nursing. You got little children far better than I ever did. You loved their quirkiness, and they loved you.

Your braces were off, and you had contacts. You were feeling happy about your appearance, and I was glad. You were one of those people who had a healthy love for yourself. That is rare for any time. Most people struggle to love and care for themselves.

You were having to do the hard work of life. As Richard Rohr would put it, you were doing first-stage and second-stage work at fourteen. The book Falling Upwards explains what I was seeing with you way back when. Rohr explains that things like disability cause us to sort out stuff sooner in life. This sorting process is also true for the LGBTQ community. You were tuned into needful things at a young age.

It saddens me that so many people feel that bringing up the dead is a no-no. Please do! It was delightful to talk with my younger brother about you. I loved hearing what he thought about where you’d be. We know you’d have children.

I think about you and Daddy working with you on pitch on the flute. You couldn’t hold a tune, and you really wanted to be a good, solid musician. Daddy worked with you and taught you to find and hold the right pitch. I gotta tell you, your lack of pitch drove me nuts! We were at opposite ends on pitch. I couldn’t understand how anyone could not carry a tune. I’d been singing before I could talk, and I wind up with a sister who had to learn to do what many people can do. That’s OK—you had gifts I didn’t have.

You were saying “have a nice day” before happy smiley faces were a thing. Remember the year you made dinner plates with art on them for the family? You made one for yourself, and it said “have a nice day” on it.

People who haven’t lost anyone might think that this is a strange post. A letter to a sister who is long gone. It is good to think about the good things, and that bad stuff. It is part of the process, and it will play out at different times in our lives.

Yes, you could be a real brat at times. I love you—even if at your birth I couldn’t figure out what this thing that cried, ate, and generally did nothing to enhance my world was good for. Then you grew, and we sisters got matching dancing dresses. You became fun, and then you got all the bold, cute clothes. Not bad, considering that Beth and I never could have pulled off what Mom knew you could do with cute clothes. Just so you know: we told Mom all about it when we were adults, and she said that we lacked the personality for cute and bold. Mom was right.

I’m so glad I wrote this to you. It has been a lovely walk in the past. I need to do it more often. I wonder what you’d say about this?

Love you,

Gail

Oct 9

They’re Leaving the Table

Yesterday I spent my day writing a post. Today I need to rethink it.

Sunday, I spent over two hours talking with my younger brother. It was about our family, and then it morphed into family in general.

I’ve spent time thinking about the days of the past, and I’m realizing as I gather my thoughts that the days of the past weren’t so good for everyone.

I’m a product of my parents, and the boomer generation. My parents lived in a simpler time and yet were closely connected to two world wars and the Depression. This affected how parents raised their children. While others I knew got cars, and credit cards, I didn’t have that experience. I grew up in a middle-class home and lived a simple life with little travel. But we never went without the essentials.

My parents had talked before they married about the option of my mother working versus staying home full time. They chose the one-income option. This turned out to be the choice that enabled my mother to be at home with my younger sister, who had cardiac issues. It was the right choice.

It also meant that we learned things that other children didn’t get a chance to learn in the same way.

I learned to dress up, go out to eat, and display proper table manners in public, and my mother didn’t have to deal with her kids having a meltdown in a store. It was a different time. It was a time during which there was more social and familial civility. We gathered for family dinner and ate what was served up. That was the plus side.

When I think about the not-so-good-days of the past, I think about all the suppression that was occurring in so many homes. The song “Saturday Morning Confusion,” recorded by Bobby Russell, keeps going through my head. This wasn’t my family; it was many families. This thought causes me to return to all the secrets that were held by my generation and older generations: the physical, emotional, sexual, and other abuse that got hidden because bad things didn’t happen to good children, or in nice families like yours and mine. Oh, what lies were told! The reality of it all is that the family isn’t what it once was. My generation, like my parents and those before, didn’t tell the secrets of that past, and so they festered until the 1980s rolled around. What good old days?

Let’s face it. As the above song speaks of it, Daddy tells his children that Daddy is ill after going out for a beer with the boys—a beer that went into several beers—and now he’s dealing with a hangover instead of enjoying the kids he loves. Meanwhile, Mom is trying to make it all good. It wasn’t good then, and the kids had to deal with the issue of Dad drinking, even though he knew he shouldn’t have gone out with the guys. The confusion of Saturday is that kids were forced into dealing with dysfunctional parenting, and the show was the break from reality.

How it Worked

There was a time when conversations happened around a dining room table, and we’d learn to hold differing points of view and remain civil with each other.

Children learned to listen, and to explore differing viewpoints, and while it might have gotten heated, it would remain civil (well, in mostly functional families). People held respect for each other (well, for the most part—like I said, in families that understood healthy boundaries).

Children can’t be guaranteed that their parents will have the tools to raise them to think and to become peacemakers and tolerant. We’ve lost the ability to communicate with each other and to hold differing views.  

Researcher Jonathan Haidt nails the issues down in his multiple books that cover the effects of social media and the smartphone on Western societies’ children and adults.

Families have left the dinner table for life in cars as they run from lesson to lesson to create the child that might look good on paper for the application that will hopefully get them into higher education. But the child is rude and spoiled, as well as anxious. The result is a child who has little respect for others, or the ability to manage themselves in life.

OK, we’re not sweeping the issues that were once swept under the carpet or tossed into pretty box concealers to not be discussed anymore. We’re not holding conversations.

Now the concealment is all about a different type of neglect, and the old abuses are still present because we haven’t wiped them out. I think Bobby Russell needs to add some verses to that piece of music.

We’ve become connected to devices and disconnected from each other.

Did the damage of Covid and children being cut off from each other help or hinder? Did it help our families?

My point is that the family is dismantling itself, and that means society is coming apart because we’re not able to hold conversations like we once could.

If we can’t talk in our homes, and learn to hold civil discussions at the dinner table, how will we do it in classrooms or boardrooms? How will we come together as we must to grapple with society’s need to come together? We scream for world peace, and yet we can’t set our smartphones down to smile and engage with the person next to us while out and about. Children might be texted to come to the table rather than being a part of getting things on the table—if that even happens.

Let Op!

At this point in time, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had close calls at a train station because someone is not watching when they’re out and about. If I get bumped, my white cane that should serve as a warning is disregarded. I’ve stopped being polite. “Let op!” means watch out or look out or pay attention—you get the English idea of the Dutch term. “Let op!” is now my response to rude travellers glued to phones. More confusion, and this is why I’m not able to be sure I’ll be safe in a train station.

This is about two things: parenting a generation and setting some common-sense boundaries, as well as manners for people.  

As a therapist, I shouldn’t take things too far. As a member of society, I’m excused.

As a therapist, I hear the sad tales of families that don’t work, people seeking a healthy relationship and hoping to get it all fixed. The solution is conversation on all levels. It begins with one person saying hello and smiling at someone they don’t know. Maybe, just maybe, we can get to less confusion.

Oct 1

Ripples

A woman screams a deep and damaging phrase to her partner, and he responds in kind, hurling at her his own demeaning phrase. It goes on for minutes until, worn out, they both turn away from the argument. Though they apologize and make up, the damage is done. There is now a ripple in the pond, and it is spreading outwards. You can’t take words back. It doesn’t work that way. Words said in anger damage the soul.

Apologizing can help, and yet I’ve come to understand that the words may never fully be gone. We’re each human, and as such, we can’t wipe out our memory. Short of a medical catastrophe, the memories remain, and the words that were spoken continue to spread out in the pond of life. There is no taking them back.

I got thinking about all of this while dealing with someone’s actions that affected my life, and several others. In this case, it was an event that sparked things off. The consequences of that period of time have spread ripples on the pond. A rock got thrown into the water, and the mess will never completely go away. Just like the couple who are fighting, and who really aren’t using their heads to think through what their words and actions will mean, the ripples spin out of control in all directions.

I’ve learned to let things die down, and then go in and salvage what can be salvaged from the damage.

There is no good way to clean up in a pond where the ripples have spread out to parts unknown. That pond might have other sources where the water enters and exits, causing what might have been seen as just a wee bit of damage to become an ugly mess; looking at it becomes the stuff that nightmares are made of.

With years and the wisdom that comes from living longer, we can learn to clean things up in a better way. With that comes the realization that there are consequences for foolish choices and behavior that, if we’d kept our heads together, we might have done differently.

What do you do about the ripple? How do you sit with pain? How do you begin to break the cycle of familial violence?

On my desktop there is a folder that holds a great deal of pain. It contains writing that made up posts presented on this blog. I avoided going to these places until I realized that not going there was making things worse. I came to realize that I had to take the risk that healing some deep wounds would entail, or else choose to not move forward in my life journey. There are times when going through it is the only way to get beyond the damage that ripples and other life obstacles have caused us. Change is hard. The big issue with some of this is that if, for example, families pass down their dysfunction to the next generation, it has a way of becoming larger, and as it grows, helplessness develops. This is why breaking the cycle of poverty is so difficult. It is why breaking the violence in a family system is such a challenge. This is why we, as humans, want to avoid pain, and when we’re in emotional pain, we become desensitized to the pain, and think that a life without this deep, horrible pain is a fairy tale, as if we’re wanting unicorns to appear. What is really happening in practical terms is that we’ve gotten so used to being in pain that we can’t see how we’re being affected in negative ways. Emotional pain has a language of its own. Sometimes we can only relate to someone if they speak the same messed-up dialect that we learned. This doesn’t stop the cycle of dysfunction: it causes it to thrive. 

You and I both know that unicorns and other fanciful creatures do not exist. What does exist is a pond where ripples spread out. To break the flow of the cycle, we have to create the desire to step into the body of water with both feet and take the first step forward. Doing the first step confuses things, and we can begin to create new patterns in our lives that enable us to sit with the pain constructively. And, as I keep telling people, it’s hard work, and not for wimps. Stop the ripple.

The practical side of stopping the ripple is to find a therapist that understands you and that you can connect with. This may require some time and research. To do the work might not take as long as the search itself. On the other hand, a good therapist will be able to help you to figure out what issues you need to explore that you aren’t seeing on the surface of things. Things can get pretty murky in the ripple.

The fact is that the ripple might seem dormant when it is actually teeming with life that we have become oblivious to.

The ripple didn’t happen in a short time period. This means that shutting it down will most likely mean overturning all the rocks you need to look under that are in the pond. This might take some time.

What this process teaches us is that, while there aren’t unicorns, there are realistic solutions when we thought that nothing could be done. We no longer seek the unicorn; we seek the open doors that allow us to pass into new places. This isn’t magical; it’s hard work. The doors may seem closed at first glance, and then they open.

Speaking for myself, I’d say that I just do what needs to be done. If I speak professionally, I’ll say that it is about conquering fear. Ripples in our lives stop when we dare to interrupt the flow of things, and contemplating doing this can bring up all kinds of angst in our minds.

Change is scary. It is the great unknown, and it is an existential issue. When we move towards change, we are risking something unfamiliar. We’re used to our warm blankets and fuzzy slippers, and disrupting the ripple requires us to do the hard thing. Giving up old ways of thinking and being in our lives is scary, hard, and uncertain. I get why people don’t want to take the risk, but I’m saying that it is a worthwhile risk. It may sound like I’m talking unicorns. What I’m talking about is a new and better way of greeting your life… without ripples.

Jun 3

The Burden (Revisit)

This post was originally published on November 7, 2022.

The disabled carry so much inside. On a daily basis we are challenged with what we let people know about our lives and our needs. Is it a good day or a bad day? Do we need to ask for help, and if so, how much of that help might be robbing us of our dignity? You may be thinking that we need to get over it. If you aren’t in our shoes, please think twice about that remark.

I like to think of myself as independent, though as I’ve lost more of my vision, I’ve had to ask for more assistance. I try to do as much as I can, and I’m noticing that the abled world is making it more difficult to do so. It adds to my daily burden. 

At first, I was going to write a regular post. Sitting here, I’m going to do this differently. Here it is: 

What I Do

As I 

wake, I notice

My legs

And

Scan the rest of my body.

I’m rested.

I move from the bed realizing that I can walk when others can’t do this.

I engage in morning listening to a book because

I can no longer read print easily. 

And,

I give thanks that I still can hear.

Today should be a good day. 

I think of those I know in wheelchairs 

or 

struggling to walk this day.

I hold them in my heart and hope that they will have the help they need to survive

Another day.

My mind travels to those who must have assistance in all things.

We don’t think about that much unless we’re directly affected by someone in that situation, and

I hope that caretakers will treat them with dignity on this day.

I leave the house to run errands

And

The sun shines in my eyes.

Even with sunglasses 

I strain to make sense of the path that

Is covered by foliage.

It is beautiful and crunchy and 

I love it.

But

I can’t make sense of the path with my cane.

How would I explain my reality? 

I try.

But

It is so different from yours.

You can’t really understand 

This life of mine.

Then I must explain to the abled that 

I can work, 

because they can’t imagine me doing what I do.

Should I do nothing all day

When I can do something I love? 

More of a burden

That I haven’t created.

I feel: 

Judged,

Enraged,

Worn out,

Like screaming!

I want to cry.

To protest.

To yell at people.

But

WHY? 

The disabled person’s greatest burden 

Is

That

We get lost in the shuffle 

And

Are not seen when we need to be seen.

May 27

The Route to the Root (or Changes Happen When We’re Prepared) (Revisit)

This post was originally published on January 11, 2023.

As I journey into my seventh year of being alone, I marvel at where I am, where I was, and still cringe at where I need—and want—to go. The process of grief is also the process of growth. Growth hurts. If growth is not hurting you, think, look, and observe your life because you might not be doing your best work. Growth is a combination of insight and forward movement.

When I think about what it takes to engage this process called growth, I’m taken back to the basics of what we need to survive. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs serves as a great framework for why growth works, and what it takes for growth to work. I would propose that personal growth and discovery cannot even begin to be considered until the two basic tiers are secured. The reason for this is that in a crisis situation, which much of growth tends to stem from, we need to first secure physical and safety needs. Looking within can’t begin until we do the prep work. Once the bottom rungs are established, the freedom to build the upper rungs becomes possible. 

People talk about doing grief work, and the fact is that until you are in a safe place, with your basic needs met, you can’t go there. In a real sense, no matter which route you might want to take to do your needed work, it won’t work unless the basics are firmly established. 

Looking back over the years, I can see that it took the first year to establish and secure the first three rungs. While I had food, clothing, and shelter, and I was “safe,” I needed to feel as I was safe in the new situation. As I began to be able to feel that things were stable, I could move forward and look at the third rung. In looking at my need to belong, to be supported by friends, and to know that I had the love of people I cared about, I could sense that it was time to move forward. Grief is movement in motion, and if we aren’t ready to engage in the forward motion, seeking professional help will not be helpful unless you know you need to do the work and are willing to engage in the process at a lower level of readiness.

I don’t talk about doing therapy or spiritual direction much. I hardly ever mention either. The route I took to get to the roots of my own grief issues began in one way and ended in another altogether different manner. 

I’ve talked about the “Please Do’s” and some do nots. I’ve seen people face their hell with powerful honesty, and I’ve seen others run like a bat outta hell from the work that needs to be done. This past week, I heard the “How do I?” question again. It’s all part of the route to the root. 

A therapist should converse with, question, and guide people to discovery. Short-term therapy is the quick fix. You might gain a skill or two. It will work, and you can learn to manage the basics. Short-term therapy won’t fix the deep-down stuff because the deep-down stuff is buried and in need of being discovered. The discovery conversations take much longer and are centered on enabling you, the client, to understand yourself fully. These conversations happen when we’re able to move up the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of Maslow’s needs pyramid, which is where deep changes happen.  

My first therapist stirred it all up. I did a great deal of growing and learning about life. It would take other therapists holding space for more mature work to be done. All therapists listened, and the really good ones called me out on my stuff. I learned, I hurt, and I grew.

Insight therapy is about a process and involves creating a relationship with someone. Hopefully that relationship will reflect the reality of our lives when we’re engaged in the outside world. What insight work offers us is a chance to understand how we relate to the world in better, and possibly healthier, ways. Sometimes it is sobering, and at other times delightful. The lightbulb moments are the best. 

I’m thankful for insight work. I’m thankful that I’ve been called out on my stuff, and for the professionals that walked with me into uncharted personal territory. 

After Jon’s death I returned to the model I knew and discovered that I needed to do a different form of growth work. Four years ago, I was tapped out. The psychological road was too familiar and worn, and I realized it was time for another type of insight work. I didn’t need to be fixed, which is what much of therapy is focused on. I needed to do the work of the spiritual, and I had found a great spiritual director who listened and called me out in new and wonderful ways. It has turned out to be an amazing growth route.

Direction focuses on the spiritual. For some people it is about where God might be leading or guiding us. It is not about organized religion or any church; its goal is to accompany the person on their life journey and not fix anything. I began the process in 2019 and the growth from direction has been a gift. I’ve done much of the same work around grief and loss and have been led in my once-per-month sessions to reflect, grapple with a new life, and navigate the storms the changes of 2016 offered me. 

Over the years I’ve spent time in chat rooms, seen people rush to find solutions, and have noticed a trend to escape the crying jags, the uncomfortable, and want it all to go away soon. I watch, do some head shaking, and realize that as much as it is normal to want to avoid pain (physical or emotional), we get to the route of what ails us by committing to the wrestle within. As much as I would have liked to feel more control over when the crying jags hit me, letting go and letting tears come naturally sped the growth and discovery along to a better place. I discovered in the tears that I was crying for any number of reasons. The tears took me into looking at our relationship and opened a gateway into understanding the positive and the negative of all of it. 

The struggles of the first two years enabled me to do the work of the last four years. I wouldn’t alter the path. Had I not sat with some really hellish things and dealt with the crisis, the fear and the uncertainty, I could not have gotten to a point of deeper insight. 

In this age of instant gratification, the challenge is to wait for the good stuff, and to trust that it will arrive at a good and healthy time. Grief and loss work is done in layers and can take years. The areas of my life I’m working on now are things that I could not have dealt with in the beginning. There are reasons for where I’m at now. What I face now are is what I would term “essential but go slowly and uncover safely” issues. The route that has taken me to my root has been spectacular!  

May 20

Where Were You When… ? (Revisit)

This post was originally published on July 28, 2022.

On July 27, 1977, my life stood still as I watched my younger sister fall to the ground dead. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and we were in Paradise, California, at the 76 gas station. During the next two or three hours, word spread in our church community. People would later tell me where they were when they heard the news. No one asked where I was: I was living it.

That was forty-five years ago! The memory is still present, but the pain and trauma of what happened that sleepy summer afternoon stand in my mind; the wound of that past experience healed but will never leave.

To this day, those who knew Joyce remember where they were and what was happening. They tell me where they were, but they don’t ask where I was when it all went down. The code of “don’t ask” slammed it all shut. They don’t need to know. To this day, I don’t know what was said about where my mother and I were. We witnessed it all in its horror.

The truth is that our trauma was not for public consumption. My younger brother never got to say goodbye to her. I left with two cousins for school, and he was now home alone having to adjust to being an only child—when that wasn’t the plan. You never plan for something like this, and yet I had thought about it because I knew she could die.

Her death messed things all up. We had to re-group, re-think, and adjust to life with no Joyce. Forty-five years later, the memories of people telling me where they were surface. Today is her death anniversary.

My mother and I talked about it when we were older and had distance from it. Death was riding with us that day and somehow my mother knew it. She thought it was going to be her that would die. We finally talked it out and realized that we were glad we’d finally said the words—late as they were to our journey of loss.

The truth is we all remember the “Where were you when…?” question. Those of us who are old enough know where we were when JFK, MLK, RFK, and others were brutally cut down. We remember the Apollo 11 landing, Challenger, the other shuttles, and now school shootings. We stand as witnesses to personal and societal pain.

We’ve taken to gathering at impromptu memorials to share as a community, and yet there is still stigma around personal trauma.

We’re not quite there yet with personal trauma; it’s like the accident that everyone drives by slowly in hopes of seeing the gory stuff. It’s about people wanting to be voyeurs into pain that they would not want seen themselves.

The catch here is that the “Where were you when…?” question enables us to talk through our own trauma around the incident. So many knew my sister, so many loved her, and no one had expected her to drop dead in a phone booth in Paradise, CA. So, the collective mind was collectively blown. Because of the collective trauma, we process it how we can.

For whatever reason, all of this came up forty-five years after the fact. I now live in The Netherlands, I’m far from family, and so, I’ll put this up instead.

Today I purchased flowers for myself and they turned out to be her favorite color: yellow. I’ll enjoy them for her.

I look at the clock and think about the fact that at this time forty-five years ago, we all had to eat. Some of us went for pizza and some stayed home at my aunt and uncle’s place. I went for pizza. I know, weird. The next day, my parents and my younger brother got into my father’s car and drove home and planned the service and all that went with it. Where was I? I was assigned to clean the house and so, like the dutiful daughter I needed to be, I vacuumed and answered the door for people paying respects. I think I’d rather tell people where I was when JFK was assassinated. Where were you when…?

May 7

Dancing with Brokenness

This year I’ve had the opportunity to serve in a leadership role. I’ve been doing this role for several years, and this year I’ve become more prominent.

I thought it would be more of the same, and as it turns out, it is teaching me new life lessons. I’m not opposed to learning them though. I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m learning not only about others—they are teaching me about myself.

As a therapist, people come to me broken, and as a spiritual leader, people can present in the same way: broken in the soul. Yet I don’t see someone in that way at first. I’ve always maintained an effort to see the whole within, and I’m learning that sometimes, to see the whole, you must also understand the broken.

And so, it has been my task to open my eyes to the broken in order to heal it into wholeness.

Some time ago, I wrote a post about one such person. I was thrilled when this person had a huge light go on! I am thrilled to know that the light is slowly becoming brighter with every passing month.

What is it about wholeness that causes us to not see the broken, and the broken to not see wholeness within?

Are we as humans so afraid of our inner selves that we choose to not look at them? Has society sent such a strong message of the correct image we should see in ourselves that most people won’t look at the real image, and when we are forced to see the broken self, it then repulses us? Do we put up a mask in hopes that no one will see the real us? Do we then become fearful of removing the mask we placed on our faces, and hide from ourselves?

Jon said that he was flawed, and worked to correct what nurture had put wrong. He was an example of persistence in healing himself. I learned from him to look inside in ways I hadn’t done before.

I arrive back in my circling to the leadership lessons I’m learning. Maybe it’s because I’ve dwelt in the margins most of my life, and have been mistreated at times. Maybe it’s because I had to grow up in ways that other children weren’t faced with. I did have to sort out what disability meant in an abled family and society. While I’m a happy person, I’m not always positive, and so I was amazed to discover that I naturally see the whole in others. How does that impact everyone I encounter? My attitude might also stem from walking the battlements. What came from doing the work around trauma was peace of mind. What also emerged from this healing was the ability to see the entire person in a clear light. I realize the hole that was deep down can now be understood. The brokenness that is felt, and sometimes seen by the person, and others.

The catch is that we can’t see others in a clear light until we see ourselves in that clear light.

At my almost midway point in this year’s experience, I’m understanding that good leadership is about perspective and being open to the lessons we’ll learn from others, and becoming open to learning ourselves.

We do a dance with our brokenness.

The gift to ourselves is to be able to emerge to heal the brokenness, and to see and feel the release into the healing light. Sometimes the emergence is rapid, and at other times slow and painful. In the end, and with the right vision, we heal. The process is gradual, until one day we wonder about how we got to this new place, and how it is that we find ourselves resting gently on a new shore. We see ourselves new, and feel the wholeness, and ask where did the feeling of brokenness go?

And so it is with lessons. We slowly heal, and with the pain of learning from our errors, we grow. We learn what we can and can’t do. We learn how others are affected when we change. We learn our way into a new understanding, and as we understand, we learn to think it through in new ways, and with new whole insights. Lesson learned.

Apr 29

Purge

I got mad, and I yelled at someone. I don’t like myself when I get that angry, and this weekend it happened, and I’m feeling it.

As I began to focus on the “why” of my anger, and where it came from, I realized that what I’d done to someone I care about was deeply hurtful. Could the healing between us take place? 

I’m still in contemplation and prayer mode around this, and in sitting with what happened, the answer is yes, and you must care for each other to heal the pain, the wound, and the heart.

Learning about Relationships

My mother was big on keeping peace in the home. So, like with most parents, “say I’m sorry” was often used. The problem with that term is that most kids just say it and move forward. Children aren’t really taught about what it really means. I was told that if you say that you are sorry for something, you should work to not do it again. In theory, that is a nice thought. With most humans, we have to learn it by doing it wrong a few times, and then getting it right eventually. My mother also told me to think about it. That was actually helpful, and I could pocket it in my head and let it percolate on low and quiet until it made sense to me.

What does sorry mean? It means that you’ve thought about it, and you won’t do it again. Working towards what will become an apology means that you go deep into the soul and do the work that will enable you to purge your behavior of the wrongdoing. Jon was really good at this. Before I met him, I had the ability to go deep within and do the thinking, and to sit with my thoughts. What Jon taught me was the ability to root it out of myself. He taught me about purging oneself of one’s flaws. When he said that he wouldn’t do it again, he meant it. He’d purge himself of the behavior.

My mother might have wanted me to say the words and make nice. She wanted me to think about things. I needed to purge myself of the behavior and mean it to the core.

Some Rules

Forgiveness is a process of recognition and acceptance: recognition of what we did, and the acceptance of why we did it, and how we’ll work to repair it. It should be done between those affected. When we put it out for public consumption, it creates more damage. Keep if off threads and other forms of social media. There are some hurts and pain that need to be dealt with quietly and in private. Think about what you are posting, and why. To forgive each other is a process, and it takes time and deep thought. I don’t post things that are super personal. It tends to backfire!

Take your time to think, and to act. You most likely got into the mess you’re in because you didn’t think, or because you acted rapidly. Fast action creates further issues. Fast action is often impulsive. Sleep on it, get some distance, and then when calmer thoughts prevail, thoughtfully respond.

Reflecting

The sun is out today, and I am inside thinking and doing the work of Monday. I’ll take a walk, and I’ll focus on what I did that is causing me to feel awful: I got angry at a friend when I should have shut my mouth and listened. It wasn’t a good thing. Getting yelled at isn’t a good thing; doing the yelling isn’t a good thing. Being able to contemplate and forgive is a wonderful thing. Saying, and writing an apology is a needful ability in our lives. Accepting the apology will keep peace and purge the soul of the negative feelings. It’s all about the deep, inner purge.

Apr 21

Author’s Pick: No Life Hacks

This post was originally published on February 7, 2023.

The Quilt

In 2017 I traveled to the US to attend a conference, to see a friend, and to spend time with my family. 

My mother had died on January 13th, a Friday. It came five months after Jon’s death. To be truthful, I was still crying for Jon; now I had to cry for her as well. I was numbed by Jon’s death; I did my best. I knew I would be bringing some treasures home; I didn’t know just how much.

My mother loved green. Her bed had this lovely green quilt, and it was filled with many other colors as well. The tiny flowers that danced across it brightened up a room. 

While at my sister’s, my sister and sis-in-law came bouncing in with the quilt: “You need to take this home, Gail!”

HOLD IT!! I don’t do green—I do blue. I didn’t have a bed that would work with that quilt. I took the quilt. What would I do? In December of 2017 I ordered a new bed with a blue headboard. The quilt would work with that bed. My mother would approve. Yes, I had decided to honor her with a bed large enough that the quilt would work. It felt good. It resolved something; seeing the quilt on my bed was just what I needed. 

Had I tried to force emotions around my mother, the gentle peace that came to the process would not have happened. The fun and delight in finding the bed would have been stolen, and the crazy part of all of it, the part that made it my mother, would not have come into being. The memory of it all is delightful! 

As I sit here writing this in 2023, my mind is taken back to the recent past. I’m thinking about the fact that grief does its thing on its own timeline. If we do our work with that in mind, things will surface when they are ready to surface. There was no need for me to “hack” it, or force anything to happen. 

While I’ve done a great deal of work around Jon, I thought about my mother, who was ready to go when she went. It is the two most recent sibling deaths that I haven’t fully processed. 

The Nightmare of 2021-2022

I was raised in a large family. I’m the middle child, the middle daughter, and now one of two living siblings. 2021–2022 is a time period I’d rather not relive. It was a time when I had to face the possibility that all three siblings could die. 

April and May of 2021 played out like a horror story. It began with a phone message from my sister, Beth. I knew. I knew that this call was to tell me she was dying. She was hopeful, felt they could treat the liver cancer. But I knew. Over the next year, it unfolded until an ugly death scene played out as her husband witnessed the end in a period of fifteen minutes. By the time the hospice nurse arrived, she was gone. A year of sadness ended. I miss her but am glad her suffering is over. Writing this seems to bring insight that, in many ways, the year of processing was what I needed.

My two siblings and I understood the fact that my brother wouldn’t live to the end of 2021, and, mercifully, he died that fall. A call from my sister-in-law alerted me to the fact that he’d been admitted to the local hospital late on a Friday evening. He never regained consciousness, and around Sunday at noon he was gone. When I got the WhatsApp message, I yelled into the cosmos; I was so angry at him for not taking better care of himself. I was at him: crying, yelling, and making peace with it was all I could do. Singing at his funeral was also a good thing. 

Returning to May of 2021, my younger brother had a heart attack. When the testing was done, he was facing a quintuple bypass. (As far as I know, the record is a septuple bypass.) I cringed. With that heart attack, and the surgery he’d face in July, I had to face the ugly truth, and I’d better face it full on. He might not survive it all. 

I didn’t want to do any of this grief work, and yet, it stared me in the face like the ugly monster in the dark. I could become the only living sibling. Yes, I have nieces and nephews, and even great nieces and nephews. The thought of being alone, thousands of miles from family, was terrifying to me. 

Fast-forward to 2023, I’m fighting the tears that for some reason won’t come, and need to come. There is no “life hack” for this. As much as I know I haven’t done all the work yet, I can’t force it. When someone forces things, the result is more work. If we allow our minds, our hearts, and our bodies to open to the process, the heart, head, and body will be much gentler in leading us to where we can release the emotions we’re holding safely. I find myself in a place of peace, patience, and willingness to sit with the stillness that whatever is needed will be delivered to me when it is needed. I don’t need to fight the unknown. It will find me. No hacks needed. This is super liberating. 

Once again, I realize that sitting, writing, and reflecting does the work for me. I don’t need the tears: I need the time to build peace within myself. It’s a good place to be. 

Support Sites at the Right Time 

In this era of wanting instant gratification, the art of waiting is messing up the soul. When I first started this process in 2016, I waited to look at support sites. When I did search out a site or two, I was stunned to see that people were coming to these places so soon after the death had occurred. 

It works differently for each of us. I sat with the pain; I had a friend who listened, and ultimately made my way through two years of hell. 

I took knowledge from the sites; I came to a realization that the path into the grief process would become my unique journey: no two paths are the same. Each of us face differing life circumstances. While we might each want the tears to go away, they go when they’re good and ready to do so, and not a moment before they have done their work. Learning to wait, getting support for it, and learning to live in the present moment with all of it is needful. Trying to push it disturbs the process. 

One of the gifts I took from the support group was that I was right where I needed to be. Being able to read someone else’s experience affirmed to me that I was doing well. The other gift of the support group was that I became less judgmental of myself and others. I learned to accept my own process. The online support groups served as a place of understanding and peacemaking for my own needs.  

I slowly returned to life, rebuilt, and am still to a great extent doing the work of creating the new life I desire. What I envision for myself in year seven is so different from what 2016 looked like. The deep spiritual and soul work I’ve done is nothing like I would have imagined it would be. For me, knowing comes with the understanding that I’ll continue to grow, reflect, and reach upward towards new places. Yes, once again the spiral moves me upwards. It is good. 

Apr 14

Editor’s Pick: The Rose Room

Originally posted on August 23, 2019, this piece is good reminder of how carving out one’s own little special space can help us find peace during times of struggle.

-Claudia

As some of my readers know, I’ve just painted and will be painting the rest of the space soon. There was one room that has gone untouched. It is a beautiful rose color, and in it there are many treasures. It is the Room of All Things Gail.

On the walls there are works of art, and each piece has a loving history.

There is a painting that my aunt Ruth did way back when that I treasure. I love it because she let me have it, knowing how much it meant to me. There is the counted cross-stitch that my friend Leann labored to create for me. It is beautiful, and I cherish it because she performed a labor of love when she stitched it.

Along with that, my older sister Beth has a place of honor with the picture that has been with me since childhood. It is a Gail version of The Princess and the Pea. She put me in a blue dress on top of many mattresses. Each mattress is a different color and design. I love this so much and someday it will go to one of her daughters.

Hanging in the Room, and moved from the bedroom, is another counted cross-stitch. My sister-in-law Peg made this for our wedding. It, too, was done with love. Shared love is the only requirement to be placed in this Room.

I also have two stained-glass pieces of art that my mother-in-law Mary made. I am so thankful to have them.

Hanging in another place of honor is the wedding bouquet that my three sisters-in-law Peg, Bev, and Rebecca created for me.

There are two parasols that Jon hung up. I’ve mentioned in “Sneakiness is Happiness” that he backlit them for me. That is a day I will remember forever. Oh, the love that filled the space that day!

The Room holds objects that span the years of my life and are sacred to me. It holds something from a friend who I came to know in the last five years of my life. That friendship has given me many gifts of thought and hope. Thank you, Betty. The Room is my place of healing and restoration. I can sit quietly, get ready for my day, and read in that room.

In some ways the Room has existed for a few years, but in other ways the Room is new. The Room in its present form emerged into its new role in my life over the late summer and early fall. It started with knowing that I wanted to place a new piece of furniture in the Room, and as I envisioned where it would go and how it would feel in the Room, The Room grew in purpose and my understanding of the space began to change. What I had used as an office during Jon’s life would be no more. My office was to move to the other side of the house where the sunlight can stream into it and I can see out into a larger world.

This Room called Gail is a place of healing and hope. This is where my heart is found, where the healing is strongest, and where, when I enter, I find the most peace.

For those of you who read “Raw” or listened to the podcast (Parts 1, 2, and 3) that I posted late in 2017, my healing journey has been both traumatic, challenging, amazing, and in some ways even peaceful. I suppose that it has been a combination of watchfulness, the love and caring of others, and the understanding that this type of pain and hurt only dissipate when faced head-on. It is my tiny sanctuary, however, that allows me to find what I most need in my heart.

It is the realization that I can say a loving goodbye to someone I have loved deeply. He is not in pain now. It is also an acceptance that I can hold on to his memory in new ways.

The creation of this space has done its secret healing and holds a place in my soul that I didn’t understand until I let go to find it.

I don’t think that there is any single or correct way to heal from something like this. I think that the best healing comes from following your heart and soul and listening to your gut. Healing involves talking and finding a supportive listener. For the listener, you need to choose wisely. Find someone who you feel a bond with, someone who respects you, and who you respect. If there is not such a person in your life, then find a good therapist who understands both grief and the loss involved with a completed suicide.

Healing is about recognizing that you will have really good days, really bad days, happy days, and days of hopelessness. Healing is about allowing the depression that will come because of the death that has entered into your life. Sit with the depression for a time, and if it doesn’t fade, seek professional help. Healing is about understanding that the pain will diminish and calm. Healing is about loving yourself. It is about seeing yourself in the mirror as “enough”: no more and no less than “enough.”

Healing takes strength and courage. It is your own unique journey.

As I spend time in this healing space, I’m discovering its complete power. It is the power of the lit candle in the darkness. It is the homing beacon that steadies me. It is that place that tells me that I’m loved, both by myself and by many others who I both know personally and who I only know because of the Internet.

To walk through the process of healing is also to be able to look out the window on a grey day and see the sun that the clouds hide. It is a knowing that you and only you can fully understand. It comes from traveling through it and stumbling along the way. It happens when you stand up once more and say “AGAIN!” You are never beyond, but you have moved on.

Forward movement takes on many forms. Sometimes it is a return to the old haunts, and other times it is the unexpected and unfamiliar that call to the soul. In many ways, the Room of All Things Gail was totally unexpected to me. It was a feeling that I had to create a place of sanctuary.

As I write this, I am in my new, blue office space surrounded by books, my sand tray collection, and hope. This space is one I’ve claimed as mine. As I look out of the window, I see the stormy skies closing in; I see the other homes in the area. Most of all, I see LIFE. It is good. It is peaceful and this is my space now. This is the room where he wrote the notes. This is the room where he spent so many hours. And yet, this is not “that room” any longer. The painter came one November day and covered the rich green walls with my beautiful blue color. The painter took nothing away but what had to go. It doesn’t hurt like it did a year ago. This is a place I come to work and to enable the healing of others. This room also holds some treasures.

While blue is the color of my soul, it has not been the color of my deepest healing. That has been rose. That Room is just a few steps away from where I now sit working on this, and I shall go there to feel the warmth of the sanctuary: the Room of All Things Gail.

As I sit here, I realize that I could not have created this lovely space without the Room of All Things Gail. It was the power of healing that let me say goodbye to what had been, and greet anew what was to be. It was the power in that Room of Rose that set me on a journey to claim the space I’m now working on. It was the realization while sitting in that space that I could, and should, listen to my heart and follow my desires to create what I wanted for myself. Thank you, Rose Room. I think I’ll go there now to pause, give thanks, and continue the journey.

Apr 9

Do it for World Peace

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that stress levels are rising. Prospective clients are seeking services because they “can’t calm down to think,” and taking deep breaths is becoming essential to all of us.

I understand that tensions are high worldwide, and laughing isn’t what it used to be.

I’m going to suggest a few things to help people in this storm that we’re in. You don’t need to spend money to do these things—you only need to keep it simple.

  1. You are not alone in this! Everyone is feeling this stress, and at this point in time, community is more important that ever.
  2. Take a look out your window and notice that there is a world out there. Then go out and find something in nature to be grateful for. A fallen leaf, the sky, the sun, or a tree. We learned this as children in school, and as adults our societies have taken it from us. It is time we restore ourselves to what sanity we can!
  3. Hold those you love close. Cherish the ones you love. You may not have biological family. You may have a chosen family. Share time together.
  4. Share a meal with others where you all contribute to the bounty on the table. Connection builds new relationships.
  5. Kindness goes a long way. Kindness done with an open heart can touch another person in powerful ways. Pay it forward because the person you touch with kindness may need your gift.
  6. Love your fur friends? Take extra time to pet, walk, play with, and nurture them. They can, and do, sense your stress. They’ll love you unconditionally if you let them. OK, I know, dogs have masters, and cats have staff; they will seek you out. My cat did, and in that time of need she curled up like the lovely fur family member she was.
  7. Meditate.
  8. Discover exercise because your body will thank you, and it helps with the stress levels.
  9. Try “grounding” yourself. If you can, go outside and take your shoes off. Stand in the grass and let yourself sense the earth. Notice what happens.
  10. Take a nice warm bath or shower. Notice how the water feels on your skin.
  11. Smile and say hello to someone that you don’t know.
  12. Share a treat with someone.
  13. Set boundaries. Say no, because too much on your plate it not a sign of anything but not being able to set healthy boundaries for yourself and others.
  14. Practice taking mental health days. Time off from everything will create focus for yourself and enable you to return to your life relaxed and ready to meet the day.
  15. Create time to enjoy your favorite meal. Have lots of it! If you can, share the meal. It is your reward, and rewards are important.

It is my personal belief that when we care for ourselves, we also care for others, and in doing this self-care the world becomes a happier and healthier place. So, if for no other reason, do it for the betterment of the world we all live in.

Apr 1

Legacies

The past few weeks have been centered on what I want to both leave behind and create as the leader of a small church group. My thoughts have taken me to the legacies we each receive and leave as we journey in life.

Over the years I had not given it much thought because I have no biological children, and aren’t legacies what you leave for them? I will leave this world as I came into it: unconnected. Maybe that is not an accurate way of looking at it. We can build deep connections during our lives. We may or may not exit with deep connections. It’s up to us to build connections, and to pass them on: legacies.

I suppose this is why we focus on leaving something behind, so that we can mark our connection to the world we’ve lived in. My thinking about all of this changed about seven years ago. Now I am preparing for a new life journey that is opening up, and once again asking myself what I’ll be leaving behind. It is causing me to explore new possibilities, and to think along new lines.

As I look back on others who have left their mark on this planet, I think of my parents. They touched many lives, and they never gloated about it. It was always done in a manner of simple quietness and generosity. I will never know how far their lives reached into others’ lives. That is a good thing, and it has served as an example to me: do it quietly and leave no trace.

I think of others who have touched my life, and it seems to always play out in the same manner. It is a quiet sense of doing something behind closed doors and out of the public eye. I owe these men and women so much.

Legacies can serve as gifts or not-so-pleasant packages of regret. I hope that what I leave will be the gift package wrapped up in a pretty, fluffy bow.

How does one leave a legacy? I think by doing the best they can. And in many situations, it turns out to be a neutral desire to do good in the world. Parents raise children who step out into the world and contribute in unforeseen ways. I’d venture a guess that most Nobel Peace Prize winners didn’t set the goal to win that prize: their work won it for them. At some point in a person’s life, the work that they are doing becomes bigger than they are. Mother Teresa is such a person. A lesser-known Nobel laureate is John Nash. His life was portrayed in the film A Beautiful Mind, and his greatest work was in mental health. That was not his area of expertise.

One legacy I cherish is the legacy of music my parents created in their family. My parents had decided before marriage that music would be a primary happening in our home. My father was a pianist, and my mother sang. We all sang. We each did other musical things as well. Of all the legacies left to me, music is the one that has affected me the most. Singing and the sounds of music have shaped my life. Even my wedding reception ended with music, and I found myself singing without a care on a cozy December evening in 1998. Music was just what my family did.

I’ve written about the different paths we travel in our life journeys. Each journey unfolds to teach us new thoughts about ourselves and our greater lives. I don’t know where I’m headed on this new path—I do know it will be a good place, and I’ll do my best to make it count. I understand that I needed to heal, and to leave the battlement to get to where I’m headed. The courage to heal came from my listening to my body, my heart, and my head. I followed that path of knowledge and now stand with a new path facing me. Where will I go? 

Mar 25

The Hard Things (Revisit)

Originally posted on July 3, 2023.

This past week has been a roller coaster of sadness, fear, contemplation, and soul-searching. I’ve had to step back and look at the last seven years of my life and reconnect with feelings that I thought were buried.

On August 29, 2016, I sat at my dining room table and wondered how I would get through life as a disabled person in a country where I didn’t have family or many friends. The fact is that I was traumatized, in shock, and trying to make sense of everything with no way to make sense of anything. And so, a journey began. 

I began to read and learn and discard the useless junk books. People spout Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s stages, workbooks on working through it. They said that if you do this, that, or the other thing, you’ll work through your grief, and all will be well.

I call BS. Grief can’t be fixed or cured. I stumbled on one book that I will recommend. The author went through traumatic loss and did what she needed to do to come through things. It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine is an excellent book that portrays the awful, the trauma, and the struggle to stand up again when grief and loss enter our lives. Death, unlike other life events, presents unique challenges for each of us. Someone’s death by suicide adds to our saying goodbye in unique ways. 

Devine’s experience was different from mine, and yet she touched on similarities: the inability to feed myself, to sleep, to drag myself into a new day or to know what to do. I’d had to shut work off and allow for healing time. I was compromised. 

The only thing I fully understood on August 29, 2016, was that for the next year I would not be making any major life decisions that could be put off. My father had taught me this, and it served me well during a time of tears, fear, trauma, and uncertainty. 

I was able to visit the US in the summer of 2017. It felt like I was in a foreign country. It wasn’t home. Europe was home. Going to the States was a chance to explore and connect with family, and to realize that I needed to find my own path. It was time to begin to do the deeper work of change. 

I needed to let go, and to trust that the process of healing would occur as it needed to happen in my life. I let go and engaged in trusting the universe and myself. I had to trust that I would walk a path that needed to be walked. At the end of two years, the type of tears I was crying had begun to change. My life was changing, and I had begun to trust my process. I was headed into new territories. It was a velvet road that I walked. Yes, the road was bumpy, and there was much to learn. The transition was done on velvet and I only realized after the fact that I’d been moving to a new place.

Newbies to this process often ask when the tears will stop, when the pain will stop, when the missing will stop. Things change; things don’t stop. You don’t get over people you love; you work through it all. Learning to walk through things is the real work of grief, loss, and an acceptance of the life we move into. And so, I began my education in standing stronger and finding how to heal from the awful, and unthinkable, of surviving my husband’s suicide. 

This last spring, I completed continuing education units (CEU’s) for my license renewal. The presenter on surviving a death by suicide had me until he played a snippet of a video on forgiveness. I thought about it and I asked why you would need to forgive someone for doing what they felt they needed to do in life. I realized at the end of those hours with him that he didn’t get it in the same way I got it. My husband’s death has never required my forgiveness. It never will. I digress. 

In 2023 I’ve begun a new soul journey that calls me to an acceptance that my vision is changing. Once again, I must face the fact that it is harder to read, to see what I once saw, and to figure out what the new path forward will be. Once again, I’m grieving the loss of what was, and sitting with the fear of how bad it will get. Once again, I’m wondering if I can do this hard thing.

How does anyone get on doing the hard things? I got thinking about this yesterday when I realized that I had a friend who hasn’t quite walked the life path I’ve walked and doesn’t understand the messiness of facing the hard in the same way I do. I hold out space for this person because they’ve had different challenges. 

I think some of us who have faced a constant stream of hard things tend to shortchange those whom we view as not having hard and challenging lives. I’ve had to call myself out on this. What looks like an easy, privileged life is seen from the outside. One of the things the past seven years has pounded into my head is that judging this type of thing is a trap. It’s a trap because we might look at ourselves as knowing more when it comes to doing life. I don’t think we know any more than others. We only know a different thing. 

I get that my clients and directees come to me for various reasons. I expect them to need to deal with hard things. I’ve had to learn that I need to cut a great many people a great deal of slack. We each face our hard things differently. 

I tell you all of this because I’m learning to graciously accept others’ sincere comments about my doing hard things. While it’s second nature to me, it isn’t to them. I realize that I want to respect their desire to support me just as I would support them. My journey is calling me out on being a judgmental person. Oh, this is a hard thing! This is deep soul work.

I think back to when I was in my twenties and I wondered how people older than I was got to where they understood all of this. It’s about not being afraid to call the old self out to the new self. That is what grief and loss are all about. 

Mar 11

Slipping into Chaos

I’m in mourning. As I sit here in The Netherlands and observe a nation I was once so proud to call my own, I can no longer utter words of pride. Oh, USA, where have you gone to? It used to be that I would want to visit, and to eat my way from one place to another. Now, I wonder what will be there for me when I board my flight in May to visit.

As an expatriate, I’ve chosen to live here because life is better for me here. I can get a bus, and then a train, and get anywhere. I can walk from point to point knowing that I can be independent.

I decided to stay here on this side of the pond after my husband’s death. I needed time to think, and this turned out to be a good place to do the thinking.

In staying here, I once again committed to put down my roots here. Now, here I am, watching from a distance as a land I was once proud to call mine slips into chaos. 

My heart is heavy as I watch in sadness as nations react and wonder about the why of it all. History is happening before us. What will we do about it? There are no easy answers to this question.

Maybe this is about choosing to look at the reality of it all and not deny what is happening. While we can allow ourselves to feel the sadness of it all, just mourning the loss of what once was isn’t enough. 

Earlier today as I scrolled my Facebook page, I became so aware of how those posts don’t change much. I’m placed in a position to feel compassion for many, and yet the words don’t help me to find a path through.

I’ve posted about our disappearing villages, finding sanctuary, and breaking away from the trauma of life events. As I write this, I know these things matter, and I also know it feels as if it is not enough.

Once again, I return to the things that guide my life: service to others, listening to others, and enabling others to look deep into themselves.

Right now, the Christian world celebrates Lent. Most people understand Lent as a time to give something up. What if we add more compassion, more service to others, and move charitable giving into the mix? This year, after much contemplation, I added rather than removed. I started a few days late, due to my uncertainty about what I needed to do for myself to grow in new ways.

As I sit here and write the words, I’m finding that while I’m mourning this loss of a nation, I’m able to face the collapse in a healthier way. I’m also able to act and not panic. Where we’ll all be in the future is an unknown. We may or may not be able to control some of the choices we must make.

I think about my passport. I think about how I used to look at it, and all the stamps I have in it from places I’ve been. I think about my past passports, and how they were also filled with stamps from wonderful places. There are places I suspect I won’t be visiting again. I choose to believe it can get better. I choose to believe that if I do my small part, it will help. I choose to hold my head high and face this all honestly. I choose hope.

Feb 25

One Wish, Please (Revisit)

Originally posted on April 4, 2023.

We watch as suffering comes over the world. A mother cries for her lost child. A father mourns the death of his son, who was sent off to fight a war that should have never been. A parent mourns the loss of the son or daughter they believed they had in order to discover the new trans child they will get to love. A child endures bullying at home, while another child becomes the bully at school. Somewhere in a police station, a human being’s rights are violated. Marchers descend on a capitol in hopes of bringing a message of solidarity with those on the margins. A young boy witnesses the death of his friend on the streets of the inner city. We become one of six. There is trauma in all of this. 

It seems that the cycle never ends, despite the cries of the injured and the questioning of parents, and others who care about the victims of what can’t be stopped. If only the emotional pain would end. Life doesn’t offer that. We protest the needless suffering, bigotry, senseless acts of violence, and raise the question of where and how it all began. Ultimately it begins in the home. 

If I could wish one thing for the world we inhabit, it would be to have functional homes, where each human being is loved, honored, respected, and has a recognized voice. A home where each child is raised to enter the world as a functional adult who is ready to take their place in society and contribute to making the world a better place. What a wish! I’m not wishing for utopia. I’m wishing for something better: a healthy peace for all. It starts in homes. Oh, I want to see this happen! 

A home with a loving parent(s) who offers up a platter of love, protection, and acceptance to a child so that they can become who they were born to be. I salute the courageous! I honor those who try to learn and understand what might be different to them. I honor the parent who says “I don’t understand, and I’m committed to learning” when their LGBTQ2s child comes to them with fear of the consequences of coming out: first to themselves, and then to others. 

I applaud the enabled person who struggles to meet daily challenges in an abled world. The parent who shepherds the child in the hard times as well as the good times. Homes need to be safe havens for all of us. 

I’m not building to a kumbaya moment here—that takes a great deal of work. I’m building to something else: peace. The peace-filled home that spills over into the neighborhood, then the city, and spreads out to all corners of all nations: it begins within our homes. 

Saying it is one thing, and implementing it is quite another process. My husband’s psychiatrist once made the point that all voices in a family need to be heard, acknowledged, and respected. Parenting isn’t about giving orders; it’s about guiding, setting boundaries, and being willing to have hard conversations with growing children of all ages. Parents create a micro-community in their homes when they commit to bring tiny humans to dwell with them.

It’s about accepting your child for who they are, and where they are, offering a safe space to explore their identity, speak their point of view, and explore their own values. Eventually, children need to make their way out of the home and into the world. Happy, healthy adults have experienced many of these things.

Mentoring begins from birth. Mentoring is about parents doing things with kids, making it fun, teaching them the value of working for something, and waiting for results. It’s about offering children healthy choices so that as they grow, they develop empathy, social skills, insight, and inner strength.

Boomers were raised by parents who dealt with the Depression and WWII. Their children faced the 60s and 70s and began to question the culture of parents and grandparents who came out of a more authoritarian view. And then, things started moving faster. I believe that with Gen X and beyond, we’ve never quite caught up. Time has sped up, society has changed radically, and with it, the home has been rocked on its foundation. There is a real need to re-examine relationships and to have hard conversations about what works and doesn’t work.

One of the consequences of this radical shift is that parents say “yes” when they need to say “no.” Yes and no have to do with setting a healthy boundary. It is about helping a developing child understand long-term choices and offering the mentoring to enable them to think it through for themselves. Now more than ever, children need the skill of thinking it out for themselves! The thinking starts when parents offer up limits such as a healthy diet that incorporates varied food choices, or reading to children daily and offering up experiences that teach the young child to choose good and age-appropriate things. It’s a confidence builder. It continues as the child matures and is able to make task-appropriate choices that will enable them to learn and grow. When a child experiences failure, with a parent encouraging them to give it another go around, they will! I also understand that some parents are faced with needing the village to step in while they work three jobs. Who we put in our villages can enable parents to have that needed assistance to raise the child to healthy adulthood. Successful single parents and two-parent families have a village to back them up.

I acknowledge that I’m speaking from a point of privilege. I grew up within a home where there were two parents, and they were able to provide the basics but not the luxuries. Money was tight and there was a village of extended family and community.

With the way things have sped up, it is essential to cultivate relationships that include extended family, friends, community members, schools, and charitable organizations. A parent may not know their village until a crisis happens.

My wish includes people sharing a meal and coming together to learn from one another: people who discover that in diversity, there are both differences and sameness. The sameness begins with recognizing that we are all humans residing on this pale blue dot. The diversity offers up the gift of human understanding, culture, and a differing world view that teaches us to learn, listen, and understand. In table fellowship, we offer up the gift of being heard. It is listening that bridges gaps, strengthens the person, enters the home, and moves forward to influence the neighborhood, the community, and eventually the world.

Feb 12

Two Dots and a Bouncy Ball

My world has been challenged by panic-out-of-control crazy. What do I do about this? It has to do with my ability to read. The state of overwhelm is handled by slowing it all down and being able to rationally think it out. When the thinking is done, the solution is clear, and then you just work the solution.

A friend with Ushers told me that the hardest part of her process is the daily trauma of waking up with just a little less sight, slowly saying goodbye to all of her sight, but not knowing when it would all go.

Last night I listened to a woman talk about the things she could no longer do. No longer doing what we could once do is the focus of the beginning stages of the process of loss, grief, and, finally, acceptance of a new life.

While the words are easy to type out, doing them is not so simple. The anger, rage, depression, denial—and the ultimate loss of what was, for me, easy—now turns out to be a long journey. This journey results in each of us finding out what we’re really made of. It is ugly, and in the end, it can be beautiful.

And so, my own journey was re-established as Kindle took out the text-to-speech feature. I don’t like voice-over for books. What other options did I have? After researching it, asking questions, and finding out that what I’d need to do was reasonably priced, I ordered my two little dots (Amazon Echo dots). Yes, Alexa has arrived at my doorstep! The blue one will be upstairs in my bedroom, and the white grapefruit-sized dot will reside in my living room. I can program the dots to serve me in all my listening needs. I’ll be free to read where I want to read! Now to see what I can read! My Audible, Kindle, and music will be at my voice command. Thank-you, adorable dots.

Or maybe not so fast. I have to set them up with the phone app, and the phone app is in that faint, small font that some kid with x-ray vision designed. Good luck, kid, when your parent or grandparent comes at you yelling that they can’t read it. NO, you’ve robbed me of my dignity—I’m disinheriting you for this savage act. Good luck, kid—you’re gonna need it. Wait until it happens to you. Ah, but I digress.

My bouncy, happy self is not bouncing right now because the world doesn’t yet fully understand that by not making things accessible, they leave me out of activities I need to be able to do. My joy over my dots has faded to frustration and sadness. Once again, I mourn the loss of pleasure.

Once again, I have to struggle to do what sighted people do so easily. I have to ask for help to do something I could do it if I could see the screen. The joy of the new dots has passed; the bouncy ball is deflated, and once again I must seek help for the simple things that low vision blocks me from doing. I listen, and I feel it all: the deflated ball and two dots waiting to be useful to me. There are no other words for my sadness.

Jan 28

Please Call

This week I woke up to discover that my vision is not working as it should. I’m scared. The doc that I saw said that no, I wasn’t going blind. The doc that I saw in October of 2024 told me then that I’d maxed out what anyone could do for me as a low-vision person. New glasses won’t help. So, this coming week I’ll talk to my regular ophthalmologist, and I’ll ask her if there is anything that they can do to help me read print better. I’m typing this in 24 dpi (dots per inch). If I need to read aloud, it has to go to 36 dpi.

The above being said, I don’t like to read to others. I read slowly, and things don’t always turn out right. I have gained confidence in my public reading, but since I can’t read at my talking speed, it is something I don’t do well.

I’m scared, and it can be heard in my voice. The thought of not being able to use the sight I do have is beyond words to express. Ever since the docs put glasses on me, the work has been mine. Now, I’m feeling it all! Now, I’m beginning to look at Amsler grids. The lines aren’t wavy… and yet, something is terribly wrong. PXE and being born with cataracts, are not a good combination, and I’m the one who must cope with it.

So, I ask again: Am I going blind? I guess I’ll need to talk with the doc, and most likely get there to see her ASAP. What is going on? I’m widowed; I’m alone, and I wasn’t ready for this to happen, and yet, something is happening.

Our stories of searching for answers have their own path, and this time the adventure is not one of excitement but one of great uncertainty. Sight is something those of us who have it are thankful for—we should be. When it changes, it is traumatic, and it is needful that we find safe paths through the process.

While I was at the Visio’s Loo Erf, I observed many residents with their own adjustment issues. Most people had the need of a good therapist, and there weren’t enough to go around.

I have sat at this machine with eyes that sting. The art of adjustment is to understand when to stop working and step away. When I start work today, I’ll be dealing with seven client hours, and mails. Most things are time critical. Balance is what makes it work. Stinging eyes will be on my list to prevent. The trick is to schedule things.

As of right now, no call from the doc. Does she really understand that until I have answers, even an “I don’t know” and “We can try this” is better than sitting with what I’m sitting with now? Please, call!

Jan 21

1 Comment

Author’s Pick: Dancing in the Sunlight

My greatest joy as a therapist is to witness as those I work with make discoveries that alter and transform their lives. This piece, originally posted January 27, 2024, was such a celebration of a client’s discovery. Come, celebrate in the sun with me! 

-Gail

The paths we walk are each different, and sometimes we are so engaged with our own selves that we are brought up short when others make fantastical progress. And so, it was a client this week, who went to that place. For some time, I’ve noticed that movement from the past and into the present. Then, like the wind carrying the leaves to new places, the miracle of change blew in, in its full color!

“I want to know more about…” The words caught me off guard. I’d hoped for these words, and as a therapist I understand that I can only watch, and lead, this person to new waters. Drinking is their choice. All a sudden, they were ready for the next step, and it was a moment to bask in, not for myself but for someone who has done some very hard work.

Insight therapy is about becoming acquainted with the you that is locked deep inside and for whatever reason hasn’t been able to dance in the sun. This week a client made the break to enter into the warm sunlight. This week, someone stepped off the old conveyor belt and into the unknown. They don’t know that yet; I do. I’ll continue to watch and to learn from them. I try to learn from everyone. Some of the lessons are easy, and others are hard.

There is something about growth that has always energized me. I’ve never been able to pin it down; I just understand that it causes me to burn with passion. Whether it is myself or others, it is the process and progress that ignite amazing things in our souls. It is a soul journey that takes us to new places of the heart and mind. Growth feeds our souls and our spirits. It causes us to gaze back for the WOW moments, and to look from our boats out on the river of life. Yes, we have crossed into new places: new territory that opens its arms to welcome us to a new and brave uncertainty. Sometimes, we’re on the river, and at other times we’re inland. It seems that our souls intuit where we need to be and move us to the places of exploration.

Growth is friendly, painful, and wonderful, and it is always a challenge. Growth calls us to the crossroads of being and enables us to question our past and our present, and then wisdom takes hold and we understand that we can’t go back. Going back is self-betrayal.

When you see this on someone’s face or hear it in their questions, you understand what this work is all about. It isn’t about the research, the studying you’ve done that has delivered you to this point in time. It is about the gift of standing with someone in their courage, and having your eyes opened to their sun dance. I can’t claim this dance; all I can do is witness what is now, and hope for what will become.

I entered therapy to grow, to change, and to discover my own path in life. I became a therapist for reasons I thought were good, and I thought that I would walk a different path than I have walked. Tonight, as I type these words, I marvel at my own journey and maybe, just maybe, I’m doing my own dance in the sun.

As I sit here, the tears come, and I’m gratified by them. They are tears of joy and thankfulness. I’ve been given a gift of a dance in the sun, and I feel alive!

Jan 14

Editor’s Pick: Eighty-Four Months

When mental illness takes its toll on individuals who are afflicted, caregivers can be easily overlooked or even forgotten. I’ve chosen this piece, which considers caregivers’ needs, originally posted in September 2023, as my Editor’s Pick for the week.

-Claudia

During the summer of 2016, I sat in my office and realized that I needed to make a hard decision: do I leave Jon, or do I stay? Leaving him would mean that I would be able to pursue my own path, and I’d exit the caregiver role that had taken up so much of my emotional energy for the past twenty-two years. I was worn out. Staying in the marriage would mean that I’d continue to do what I’d been doing for most of our relationship.

Leaving him when he was not able to stand on his own yet could mean suicide. He was doing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. DBT was created from Marsha Linehan’s work. I’m thankful that she had the insight to bring this forward for the mental health community. For Jon, it was a slow process, and one that would take many more years. The therapist needed to help him resolve family-of-origin issues, as well as provide him some life skills that would help during times of crisis. In the long run, I’d benefit from what he was doing.

What no one knew in July of 2016 was that in six weeks the horror of suicide would confront me. He was entering into another psychotic episode, and this was the one thing that would cause him to end his life. He wore a mask of fear around facing another psychotic episode and recovering from the damage it would cause. He had disclosed to me that if he felt himself moving in this direction, he would end his life. Not one of us who might have seen it coming saw things for what they were.

As I think back, compassion fatigue had burrowed deep into my mind. I was physically and mentally exhausted.

Looking Back

Where was I? If he told me to gather up the objects that would enable him to end his life, I would go through the house and do so. I would store them away until he felt safe from himself. When he stressed and had a crisis, I talked him down from it. Sometimes it took hours to get him to a point where he would swallow an extra dose of medication. Then I’d need to make sure he slept. When he overspent, I could no longer fight it. I had no energy to go up against the crazy. Everything combined took its toll on me. I felt like I was abused, and there were no bruises to show for the abuse I was enduring. If he felt something, I felt is as well. I was becoming nuts in my own way. How could I not feel for him? He was suffering in ways that cut deep into his soul. I couldn’t sense this in its fullness as it happened. Our humanity leads us to compassion for suffering of this magnitude. Compassion calls us to act when we can’t empathize with something that we haven’t experienced. I will never know what it is like to feel the level of darkness, dysfunction, and despair that he felt on a daily basis.

I asked questions to understand. It is one of the reasons I’ve placed his writing on this site in the form he constructed his blog Jon’s Hideaway. Jon struggled with sharing the little he did share. I’m glad he was courageous.

There were the comments, and the assumptions. I was told that I wasn’t putting enough into the marriage! Holy hell, I was dying inside! 

Being raised in a patriarchy and a high-demand religion wasn’t helping me in any way whatsoever. I raged inside as there was no place for me to turn. Had I gone full disclosure to my family, I would have been told to divorce him. I loved him, and I couldn’t see a path that would have served us both well. What I needed was mental and emotional relief from the situation. When you are dealing with compassion fatigue, you can’t understand the pulling apart of your own soul that is taking place at the time. The fatigue blocks it out.

The Needs of Caregivers

What do caretakers who deal with the bipolar population need? First, and above everything else, we need safe places that allow us to disclose our needs. We need a supportive friend who can listen and keep us objective, and also show empathy. We need someone to spell us off so that we can get out and get away from the stress when the stressful times increase. We need others to come in and help with housework or meals when our energy is low.

One of the huge issues I had with Jon was around keeping his dignity intact. Jon was a brilliant man. Mental illness robs people of dignity. As his caregiver, I fought to shelter him from people who didn’t understand. He was well aware of how mental illness is viewed. We talked about it often.

How do you explain to people that bipolar isn’t the person going creatively mad? Most of what bipolar brings into a person’s life is darkness, dysfunction, days and nights of sleeping, and not being able to care for yourself. Showering can be put off for days. Brushing teeth might not happen, and if a person is alone, they might not eat, or they might overeat.

During the time I was out of the home for a vision rehab program, I had people set up to deal with the crisis end of things. I didn’t have people set up to check in on him. At the end of one of my four days away from him, I walked in on a scene that scared me. He hadn’t fed himself, showered, taken out the trash for pick up, and had I not come home it would have become worse. I called the psychiatrist and got him in. Then, I took a week off from the program in order to stabilize things at home. I wasn’t worried about him attempting suicide: he didn’t have that kind of energy. I needed more help than I had.

What Else?

There is also the obsessive-compulsive factor that surrounds bipolar. Not all bipolars are also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); however, there are components of the disorder that show up for many people. For Jon it was being able to make his guitar. He needed to have the perfect neck for him to play. So, he never really played his guitar: he researched, purchased tools to “fix” it, and then never got to fixing it. There was also the thought that he would record his own music. So, he began to build his own recording studio. Trying to reason with him became a war zone. I stopped fighting with him. I didn’t want the war to resurface in our relationship.

Then the issue of me cleaning our house came up, and I wasn’t allowed to clean the house because I couldn’t see it all well enough to do the task right. He would put it off, and every once in a few months would take several hours and clean. I sunk further into despair. When we moved out of our home due to bankruptcy, and people came to help us move, I was the one blamed for the messy house. Once again, no one asked the why question, and it wasn’t safe to explain it all. As my mother used to say, “Assuming make an ass out of you and me.”

One thing led to another, and by the time he took his own life, I was beyond worn out: I was numb.

Aftermath

While I was able to understand on some level what the marriage had done to me, I wasn’t able to understand it in its completeness. It would take years for that to happen. It has taken over eighty-four months to write this post. It isn’t that I was unaware of compassion fatigue; it is about the fact that grief work involves sifting through so many aspects of life. For me to fully process this has taken almost eighty-five months. For some of you it will happen much sooner in the process.

When I look into the mirror, I see a face that isn’t stressed, a woman who can smile, and a life that is taking me along paths that I never imagined I’d walk. It is enough.

Jan 8

The Getaway

Happy New Year! I think I’m ready for 2025. The rain is falling. I’m in my cozy home; the wind is blowing hard outside, and I have new plans for the year.

Working more hours is causing me to need to take more time off to care for my own mental health. I figured this out over the Christmas holiday week. I decided to go to Norway for a tiny five-day break. What happened there taught me that I needed to treat myself as well as I tell my clients to treat themselves, and so, this year I’ll take more time off to care for myself.

Maybe last year’s learning about my own personal growth experience did the trick. When you deal with the deep stuff inside, you also come to accept the need for better self-care.

I had not taken a break in some time, and between falling and having to walk out of the rehab center, and everything else, I decided to brave the travel mess and get on a bird. Because I stayed on the continent, there was not the hassle of passport control. Norway was delightful, and so were my friends.

Why do we need breaks? The obvious response is to recharge and reset. There is nothing like doing nothing! Maybe I got too relaxed, and that is not helpful. Or, maybe I haven’t been that relaxed in years and forgot what it felt like. I think that’s what we need to do on a getaway.

The above statement causes me to ask the question: How much relaxation is the right amount? How do I learn to recreate and recharge, and to do it in a reasonable amount of time? As someone who wasn’t raised on vacations, I haven’t learned this vital skill. How do I learn this? Well, Gail, you learn it by doing it, planning for it, and building the new habit.

Staycations won’t work because I need to leave my place of employment—my home. I need to get out from my office. That means leaving, and going to a place that isn’t my bed. I need to not cook, to not see my office, and to find a place to be myself.

I’ll need to come up with some local, and not-so-local, places that offer me peace and a sweet break. The hitch is that I need to be able to much of it independently. I don’t see like I once did, and I think I may be scaring people. I know I need to have help, as that is the way my life is now. All I want to do is sit and veg out. I do enough at home! 

So, no crazy destinations with things to see and do. I need to teach myself to be still, and to be pampered. A spa is really sounding nice. You get pampered at the spa.

I have a lovely year ahead. I could take mental health days, and just sit outside! The glitch in doing this is that it can only be done in the summer, and when it is sunny and warm. I guess for this one I need a new umbrella for the sun. Hmmm… purple or blue sound like nice colors to consider for this.

The obstacle to all of this is that it has to be implemented by me. Isn’t that what it’s about? Taking charge of our own well-being? I’m learning to care for myself in new ways. I’m realizing that my clients need a therapist who honors her own needs, and who will get away.

I may take off not only US holidays: I may take off some Dutch ones as well. Yes, this also requires planning, and in the end, it is good for me. Setting boundaries is a good thing to encourage the wonderful time I need for myself to refresh.

Happy 2025, Gail. The new year is looking like a brighter year.

Jan 1

It Pays to Rethink Things (Revisit)

This post was originally published on November 28, 2023.

26 April, 2023, is the day I spoke my truth for the first time. I wrote about in “When Sanctuary is Offered.” I meant every word then. Really, I did. I was also willing to give up the social life that was so destructive to my mental health.

27 November, 2023: the day my hearing deficiency was dealt with.

I don’t do 9:00 a.m. appointments. If I have to walk, take the bus, and be out of the house that early, it doesn’t work. I’ve set that limit with people. Today I had no choice and arrived ten minutes late. As it turned out, 9:30 would have been soon enough. The Monday chaos of gathering, prepping for the day, and being ready for the first clientele was interesting, and frustrating, to watch. Oh well, with my morning caffeine in me, I walked into the room. I had an agenda: better hearing aids that would be covered by the insurance. I had a list of requirements. Was I nuts? I’d soon find out.

An intense trio of hearing tests confirmed my suspicions: I’d lost a wee bit more hearing. I wasn’t shocked by the news, as I was prepared to hear the number. What I wasn’t expecting was what happened next. 

I love the “gadgets” that I’ve worn for seven years. I’ve put off getting new ones because they were the best! Well, they were the best until they weren’t, and I finally broke down and made the appointment at the ungodly hour of 9:00 in the morning. UGH!

If one has to do the unthinkable, then I advise a list of the absolute requirements. If those can’t be met, don’t do it. This is how the second half of the appointment began.

The new ear molds had been made. My ears are even petite. First item: Are these things covered? Yes. OK, let’s move on. I want the chargeable, and not the battery, type. Now, here’s the crazy part. If you go with batteries, the insurance will cover some of the cost. At 90 euros per box, and a three-week battery life per set, you will go through some boxes. I’ll buy the charger, thank you. Personally, I think the insurance didn’t think that all the way through.

Moving forward: What can you do for my hearing in a social situation? How about a microphone that does a couple of things? It will link with your desktop, and it will serve as a microphone when you need to talk with someone in a densely populated social setting. I WANT!!!! The insurance covers it. Oh yes, I’ll do it. This is the answer to multiple issues. 

By now, I’m feeling like I just had Christmas, and Santa answered my every need and want. It is true that I just inherited more chargers that will replace the ones that will be given away, but it’s a good trade-off.

My bag had three boxes in it when I left some two and a half hours later. As I walked home, I noticed the feeling of gratitude that I was feeling and took the time to honor it properly. As the gentle rain hit my umbrella, I had to focus on the path I was on. My heart was full, and as I entered my home, I was excited to try out the new gadgets. I cried when the mic put the sound into a better hearing place for me. I was calm, relaxed as the stress of listening changed from difficult to much better. 

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. It is a day when people in the US give to charities. While I do have a co-pay on this new hearing aid, it is not what I would have needed to spend had the insurance not covered things. 

I have no more words for what happened today. They aren’t needed. The gratitude that I feel for what I have sitting in my ears is goon enough.

The sun set around 4:30, and I’m thankful to be in a warm house. It is time for some dinner and a relaxing evening. I need to start thinking social again. Yes, I just said I’d socialize again.

Dec 17

Closed Doors

My therapist said, “This is the you that you are without the trauma.” This is the person that I am now. It is a strange feeling. I notice myself reacting calmly to what once upset me.

It’s been twenty-four hours since I heard those words, and I find myself mourning the past, and wondering about the changes that have come about. It is a gift that I want, and yet I find myself asking the question: Would I change it if I could go back in time? That door is closed because I’ve been formed by life events. I’m a stronger soul for it. The trauma has vanished, and though I’ll know of what happened, I won’t feel the pain of it.

If the work around the trauma is deep and well thought out, the result is that it leaves our lives, and in its place a calm and quiet comes into being. I’ve not had this type of peace in my life… ever. The adjustment is mind-blowing and surprising to me.  

As I thought about things last night, after my client sessions were done and the dishes washed, that is when I let myself relax into the newness of what is happening to me. The soldier really left the battlement because I told them to go. The therapist keeps checking in with me, and at first I thought, why is this being done? I do this work. And I didn’t think it all the way through when it came to myself. It was the past talking. I’ve changed. In the beginning I told the therapist that I was presenting myself as a person who needed help, and that I was going to be the client/patient in this situation. I tried to leave the therapist at the door. Maybe I left just a tad too much at the door. I’m glad I did. I’m grateful that I didn’t try to become a therapist in my own therapy sessions. I believe it made all the difference.

The above doesn’t mean that I had not done much of the work before I entered the therapy process to discharge what I shouldn’t be discharging without guidance. You know the saying “Physician, heal thyself,” or the one about a lawyer defending themselves? Well, I’m not a fool, and I know better than to think I can see it all and be aware of everything. And so, I left my therapy hat at the door.

Some people who are receiving ketamine therapy for the treatment of depression say that they can’t remember the depression. They know they deal with depression; it feels as if it was never present. I’m not certain that I’d argue that depression in and of itself is traumatizing. On the other hand, I can argue that psychosis is traumatizing, and that being in a hospital mental ward is traumatizing.

The closed door that separates those on the outside from those struggling to relocate themselves can be traumatizing. When the brain tells us that our reality is off, and we know that the “off” thing is not supposed to be that way, it can get very confusing and scary, and the trauma of the inside ward might not be such a bad place for someone—if debriefing is a part of the after care. I’ve learned this truth from listening to my husband and others. Clearing trauma is the same way: debriefing is needed.

Jon and I had more than one conversation about the trauma associated with a psychotic episode. He shared with me the horrors of what happened to him during the single episode, and his recovery from it. He was never hospitalized. At the end of his life, he wondered if he should check himself into the hospital for a short stay. It didn’t happen.  

This brings up the question of whether it helps to seek hospitalization. Sometimes, the depression is so debilitating that the person needs to be in the hospital, and then process the results of the stay with renewed energy and insight. The risk is that, when the person is discharged, they have the energy to carry out a plan. When you can’t get out of bed, you can’t think well enough to formulate the way forward. That door is only open when energy is available for that type of thinking. A good discharge plan can serve to help someone through this phase. Remember that suicide happens when the resources run out. Two things that lower the possibility of suicide are a feeling of a sense of belonging somewhere, and resources that can help to support the needed issues.

Living without the trauma is new, and so, like someone who is getting good treatment for depression, good post-trauma work should include the adjustment phase of the process.

So why bring all of this up in a post about healing from trauma? Trauma alters lives and minds go to strange places, and while I’m celebrating the strangeness of it all, and moving forward in my life, someone else might not choose to cope in the same way. I can see how someone could become overwhelmed by it all. Now what do I do? I spent years stuffing it all down. I don’t need to do what I once did to cope. I understand how someone might feel a wee bit out of place in their world.

Accepting new things and new ways of being can be challenging for people, especially if you don’t like change in your life.

I sit here with my mind free of what was. I wonder where all this newness is going to take me. I remember the past life, where the trauma came to greet me so often, and I realize that the timing was just right for me to do the work I needed to do. What an open door.

Dec 11

The Man Who Never Hit Me

In the summer of 2016, I began to contemplate divorcing my husband. It was about economics, and my survival. I’d had to unofficially shut my life down for him. As I sat in my rose room and thought about the consequences of what I was thinking of doing, I had hard questions to answer.

I needed to work. My work enlivened me and brought me fulfillment. I needed to work because we could use the money. I needed to work because I missed seeing people and helping them to explore their lives.

He couldn’t deal with not having me in a constant support role. I was wilting on the vine, and it didn’t feel good. Once again, the narcissism of bipolar was rearing its ugly head.

So, why did I stay? I suppose you might say I stayed because I knew how sick he was, and what could happen if I left. I could have left and returned to the US and begun a new life. I stayed because my bottom line for remaining in the marriage was physical abuse.

Creepy? Yes, and no. He never hit me, but he had thrown things at walls and screamed at me. I had the emotional black-and-blue bruises to show for it; I had the environmental depression to show for it. But—he never hit me. I lived with a charged phone and a credit card that could be used at a moment’s notice to escape the marriage. I could grab my fully loaded purse and walk out the front door of the house never looking back. Like so many women, I’d leave with the clothes on my back.

He told me that he’d commit suicide before he would hit me. On August 28th of that year, he made his exit, and I didn’t need to return to the question of leaving him. And after twenty-two years of being together, he’d never hit me.

And yet, he did. I just didn’t have the photos of the physical bruises to show for it. He’d hit my soul, and my heart. Sometimes, the only way to see the damage is to see it from a distance. That view came after several years of being a widow, and before I returned to the work I love.

Now, eight years later, I know what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to hear the words spoken by someone. I get the hesitancy to leave. And yet, the urgency to do so is present. It isn’t until you’re out that you fully understand the scope of the damage.

Well-meaning friends and family often judge and urge the person to leave—to get free of that lousy, no- good-person. It isn’t that easy. It’s super complex.

Most abuse victims do try to leave, and wind up going back because they haven’t got a plan of successful escape. Unless they’re fortunate enough to have a strong support system, leaving fails. They return because it is better to have shelter than to live in the uncertainty of the “what if and what will I do” type of thinking. Sometimes nice things look better than the one bedroom or studio flat that you have to take to escape. A homeless shelter isn’t very appealing either.

How do people really leave for good, and how do they start over? I’ll offer up one starting point: https://www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/domestic-violence/leaving-abusive-relationship.

A Google search turns up many resources. Local women’s organizations are also a good place to begin to learn.

I’m not going to tell you how to leave. I am going to state that the bruises on the inside show through just as much as those on the outside. The makeup for the inner concealment tends to not work because it comes out in how one behaves.

I think back on the work I’ve done to heal my soul. It’s been a long, winding road of a soul journey to stare at the new woman in the mirror.

Dec 4

Reworking Narratives

Our lives unfold in ways we’d hoped, and not hoped for. The paths we walk may be scripted or unscripted, and there are times when we find out about our paths only when we go exploring to figure out the why of it all.

And so, the story of our lives unravels with the truths and the lies we tell ourselves about who we are. We act and we react, or we choose to ignore it all and do nothing, hoping that it will all go away. When it doesn’t go away, I see the person in my online office. And the narrative of their life is laid out for both of us to see.

I once asked my husband to tell me what one gift he’d give me if he could. The problem with his well-meaning gift was that it would have erased a huge part of who I am. Knowing that I am a person with disabilities is something I accept. What I wish I didn’t have to accept is the junk society saddles me with as a disabled person. And so, this is how it is with my life narrative: I accept it. I wouldn’t swallow a pill or anything else that would change it.

The paths we walk shape who and what we are. Accepting both the good and bad choices, and their outcomes in our lives, is hard. Dealing with it in therapy is hard, and the result can be powerful and liberating.

Powerful outcomes result in posts like the ones in “Discharging Trauma” or “Soul Journeys.” It’s the lightbulb happenings in “Dancing in the Sunlight” that enable people to grasp that things are worth it.

Therapy is about reworking our narratives and coming to terms with them as they are and not how we wish they were. What we can’t change is linked to our past and present. What we can change is created by the choices we make for our future lives. It is like good soup.

I don’t offer a quick fix, and I don’t want it for myself. I want to build relationships with people. I’ve found that when we dig into our lives, it gets messy, and the process of digging out of our messiness is often not pleasant. What people need in therapy are tools, listening, and understanding, and to be called out on their stuff. Therapy is not for wimps.

While turning over the blockages in our lives is hard work, the results are worth it! I’ve learned that mental health planning is a good skill to have. If I can think ahead to how I can plan for some possibilities, I may be in a better place to manage the unwanted outcomes. I accept what I can’t control. I wholeheartedly embrace what I can control.

I want to take the path of openness, and I want to be able to turn over the rocks in front of me that stand as barriers, and not the old ones that got placed in my past. I’ve looked at the rocks of the past. Forward is a much better way of doing things.

As I write this, I realize that I want to chase the fly; I take delight in the adventures that I can have. Our life paths are narratives that we can watch and create in real time. Don’t just sit by the lake: chase the fly!

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