the unraveling
I had been grieving for many years. I didn’t even realize that is what was happening until more recently. If I had to label the last 8 years in stages of grief, here’s how it would go:
2016: Depression and Bargaining…Trump election. Need I say more? We leave our church of over a decade and try a new one. It feels like fresh air and we think it’s what we were missing. The pastor seemed more open minded and talked about current events in a way that made us feel less alone.
2017: Bargaining…parents divorce after 28 years. I buy their home to redeem my childhood and try to make beauty from the ashes. My dad and I update the house and build a home studio for me. It’s all beautiful and was a fun project but I regress to feeling like a teenager like I last lived in my childhood home. It’s crazy how much our environment affects us.
2018: Denial and Bargaining…I’m sainting my lifelong everything is fine mentality, while my husband slips into a dark depression and intense anxiety. He is falling apart but I am somehow able to live in Lala land and remained busy and positive, clinging harder to my faith and the supernatural as a means of resisting most of the grief. He suggests we move and I find a new house immediately.
2019: Depression and Bargaining…we move out of childhood home after a year and a half. I start at a new job, pregnant with my fourth baby, and cannot stop crying every day before work. When it’s almost time to have that baby, I quit my career to stay home with my new baby and 3 other children…which provides some joy, distraction and relief for awhile. I felt like god told me I would find my identity in this new season of being at home.
2020: Bargaining and Denial…postpartum brings on a 4 year long bought of trichotemnomania (a rare obsessive compulsive disorder of frequent hair cutting). Mind racing all the time, my faith started shaking and my mind would loop frantically on all the existential question of life, faith, and figuring myself out (via the enneagram)…every night all through the midnight breastfeeds. Covid hits, and I convince myself everyone is going through this and it wasn’t a big deal. I get “saved” again, in a new way, come to Jesus moment of surrender. I get fixated on seeing the face of God and frustrated God is invisible. I fall in love with the concept of grace and even get a tattoo of it.
2021-2022: Still in Denial and still Bargaining…once my baby is a year and Covid is lifting slightly, I start missing work again. I find a new place to work and I love so much about it, but my body cannot settle. We had to wear masks and I was having so much trouble reading people and felt so anxious for no apparent reason. Convincing myself I was overreacting, I tried to remain excited to be back to work and doing something for myself and productive for our family, but I dreamed of quitting all the time.
2022-2023: Bargaining continues…I leave that job after a year and an half after finding a place to work in my neighborhood that was cozy and completely out dated. I cried with relief that there was somewhere low pressure and close to home so I took. I always wanted to own my own shop and this seemed practical and feasible for that dream. I non stop dreamed of taking it over and creating a safe haven for me and my clients. It was a breath of fresh air at first, but soon became a fixation to change it and daydreaming of my future space was all I could do. I could not stay present and nothing in real life could satisfy me. Tears and meltdowns constantly. I was convinced I needed my own little work space to be okay. Trichotemnomania is still going on as well. I start to consider maybe I have some ADHD and sensory issues. I started seeing a Christian counselor. The dream began to die of taking it over and I couldn’t stay there any longer without frustration and discomfort in my body. I last a year and half yet again at this job.
2024: Bargaining turns into Depression…I find a new job at a place I had known of and knew I would dislike. But I felt desperate, it was cute inside, and I gave it a shot. I went into a month long panic attack the moment I started. I was so confused because nothing was actually wrong, but my body was screaming to get out. The anxiety was through the roof and it all came to a head one evening when I could not stop weeping for an hour straight and had to cancel a client, which I never do. I sat in my car and cried like I had never cried in my life. The relief was palpable and once the tears stopped, I felt a glimmer of acceptance for the first time.
2024 continued: Depression moving into acceptance…I lasted one month at that job and moved 5 doors down to the place I first worked at in 2019 after moving from my home studio. It wasn’t exactly what I was wanting but the familiarity felt soothing. I was so embarrassed that I moved again. I had stopped obsessive hair cutting and started on antidepressants. My counselor referred me to get more intensive trauma and suggested the Zoloft for suspected OCD. I could tell she was starting to feel like I was not getting anywhere and the same issues just kept looping in my brain. My faith was only a flicker and I vacillated daily between Christian and atheist. I started seeing a new therapist who specializes in religious trauma and confirmed what I had speculated, that I had complex PTSD. I finally could put words to what was happening in my body and mind. I had immense self abandonment and was getting stuck in emotional and psychological flashbacks. I had never felt as seen and validated at the first time I met with this new therapist. It’s been 7 months since I started grief work for my complex trauma. My healing feels slow and rapid all at the same time.
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