Yes, the world is a bit of a mangled jigsaw puzzle right now. I don’t need to go into it and rag on it once again.

Much computer memory has been fried over the messy, painful and yet incredibly transformative time that is 2020.

(Also how the hell am I THIS OLD?! Don’t lie, you feel it too, my fellow Millennials.)

ACTION — Block with gleeful vigor.

Okay, so I grew up in a super controlling manipulative fundamentalist religious cult.

There’s literally hundreds of relatives and people in the church who would be furious to know that I wrote this sentence…but it’s true.

Someone is ALWAYS…

In which I get paranoid and pathologize myself to death.

Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash

I am such a paranoid control freak while journaling.

These thoughts, they just smash into my head with paranoia.

I mean, I have some good reasons to be paranoid. Like the Communist regime style childhood. Privacy was this concept that evaded my community.

But now, as a sane, healthy adult who has been through scads of therapy, self-help, meditation and self-acceptance …this should be easy and feel safe, right?!

It doesn’t.

You’ll be writing away and suddenly thinking, wait…THESE are my thoughts?!

No one…

I am not a victim

I carry mace, two tasers and an easily accessible fury.

I am not a victim.

I practice saying no, leaving people when they keep going.

I am not a victim.

I feel my feelings and turn them into art.

I am not a victim.

I make my own money, my own way and I never give up on the things that light my soul on fire.

I am not a victim.

I love in a fierce and tender way that will help heal you by knifing the dead parts that you hide.

I am not…

Anxiety. You silly wretch!

I thought that I had it under control with the right amounts of exercise, supplements and working hard to master my sleep.

Seriously, I’ve been killing it.

Or so I thought.

But the last three days? Man, it just hits out of nowhere.

I’ve been stalled and trying to power through.

It’s like trying to fight the steady creep of time. You put up a huge effort, a terrible show and raging fight but in the end, it does nothing.

Until I realized, anxiety is actually one of the greatest signposts!

It tells you:

• When you’ve…

I’m further down the path of self-discovery, healing and all that janky stuff than I have ever been.

Yet, I keep self-sabotaging. Doing the same old stupid things that throw me off.

Whether it is physical, financial, emotional or tripping myself up mentally (and that one’s easy to do. Just open social media and go look at a few of those people who are REALLY getting under your skin. You know who you’re thinking of!), I keep throwing wrenches in my own path.

Weeding through the self-esteem issues helped a lot.

Healing from the trauma has rocketed me forward.

Confidence…

There are things that help me during this recovery process from massive trauma.

(C-PTSD, PTSD, Bipolar, Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety…blah blah blah everyone likes to slap a label on it._

And it IS a recovery process! I’ve already made incredible strides and will continue to do so.

Because I choose to believe that there are employers who care about their employees' mental health above work performance.

I choose to believe that there are life partners who care more about who you are than the problems that you bring to the table.

Because we’ve ALL got problems.

We have all been…

You’re an upper middle-class kid.

Everyone thinks your family is perfect because your siblings are wearing matching sweaters.

You have photo albums full of memories and smiles. So carefully crafted.

Your mother believes in “modest dress” and “children should be seen and not heard.

Of course that works well to hide the bruises and welts on your 10-year-old body. And the brainwashing prevents you from ever telling anyone.

Because if you do, she screams at you, “THEY will take you away! And you’ll only wish that you lived here and just got beat. …

Pain is the greatest teacher.

(But also OW)

Because we humans are not gods.

(Well that SUCKS)

We don’t achieve this state of growth unless the pain helps us to remember.

(Enough that it sticks in your head like the SchoolHouse Rock theme song.)

Instead, we go after comfort.

(CHEETOS WHEREFORE ART THOU)

Numbness.

(Like getting stuck in those old fashioned freezers with no inside eject handle)

Apathy.

(YOU CAN’T MAKE ME MOVE)

A way to dull the pain.

(Woe, woe, woe…is nothing…)

I have been praying for a lessening of the pain.

(Full on Kanye style, yo.)

But you…