Sometimes I grow tired and in the battle between my good and my evil, the darker wolf inside of me comes to life.
When I am rested or in actual nature, rarely does this wolf present itself. There are moments, even then, when I grow frustrated over a battery dying on my phone and I get anxious and edgy and unable to be soothed by anyone, but myself and time.
I can beat that wolf away with just a glance. At most, it takes a strongly worded statement of certainty that the wolf would not be entertained, even if it was present in the background.
When I am tired or when I feel so scared that I scratch while I look for the closest, safe person; this wolf comes alive. I thank God I’ve identified it and can breath squarely or feel grass under my feet to make it walk away.
Since I got sick, I became fearful. When bruises show up for no reason and you fall down the stairs with tanking blood pressure, absolutely everything feels scary. The joyful part of me is hiding and I drag it out forcefully hourly most days.
That joy feeds my better wolf. Love, companionship, laughter, and stillness all feed the part of me that needs to live the most. Hands that could bat away haunting accusations or misunderstandings are busy rubbing bones that feel like they’re breaking, as some of them have been.
That dark wolf has a tongue and it doesn’t desire flesh and bone, it demands the final word and it demands immediate explanations that will never come.
The dark wolf exists in a nightmare. The things it truly seeks; those things do not exist. There is no resolution. There is no clarifying comment that will unring a bell that time has made sound more and more off key.
What was once a genuine sting became a gaping wound; no words can fix a gaping wound caused half by your own misperception.
Left to the course of nature, the worse wolf will live as it destroys those around it. Most worst wolves do not roam freely in the street.
Mine is hidden until moments of exhaustion or over stimulation. Anger sits like hot coals in my belly so those are the times I sink and grow silent and withdraw into a cave that feels distant, but cold. I erupted momentarily and killed that wolf; I hope.
That wolf’s fuel is poison and misremembers good because bad was so much more impactful. The worse wolf is a ferocious martyr, lying to itself about how to get off it’s own cross.
The dark wolf runs on feeling alone and cannot be honored in moments of uncertainty. Feelings make an amazing guide when you’re centered, but will devour your decision making skills if honored, when in doubt.
Forgiveness is funny. Some require a certain level of remorse or sacrifice in order to pencil in an appointment in order to come to the table to discuss the possible terms and conditions of a future forgiveness venture.
Others aren’t so tricky and just require the lens of current circumstances to realize that relationships need to be tended to in order of what’s on fire, not in a chronological order no one will ever agree on.
Some see a matter of life and death and put a pin in the fight, into “the thing” no one fully understands; only to know that no mending can take place until “the thing” is handled.
I know certain truths to be unwavering. When most hear “cancer,” or “chemo,” or “radiation,” they are not inclined to sit on the side lines watching someone struggle.
I guess it depends what love is to you, but I couldn’t say “I love you,” then watch you drown.
To me, love runs into a cancer center if it gets a phone call or a confusing text saying “If this is it, I love you.” Love is a relentless pursuer of “How can I help?” Love reprioritizes what is worth holding a grudge over. Love has conversation before it throws out threats.
I wanted to be accepted for fitting in the same way everyone else did. I eventually just wanted to fit in for how I fit into the universe on my own. Now, I barely take up a corner of a sofa cushion and I’d like to fit in however I damn well fit.
I will never be talented enough or particularly beautiful enough to make Miss Congeniality. I am currently not even doing cancer correctly.
I’ve seen Hallmark movies and I see how that one person gets sick and it brings people together because they decide nothing matters more than love matters. The scene ultimately pans out to some snow covered window and everyone is standing around some arm chair while the sick person feels the heat of a fire and a fuzzy blanket.
My club accepted me secretly in my emails and publicly on forums where they shout messages that feel amazing, but aren’t as warm as a familiar casserole on a night when you just simply can’t rise to the occasion.
My club calls me family. Family, apparently cannot be shaken upside down like a snow globe, creating a new scene just as beautiful as before where things have simply settled differently. Some snow globes do not have a club house in them at all.
It’s difficult being grateful for those I may never thank or hold, when words fail me and all I really ache for is the safety of collapsing into the familiar. Nothing is familiar and my most treasured comforts are not weathered and worn, but are new and surprising me daily as they arrive.
I do not resent the new. I relish the new. Getting sick has been a bittersweet realization that as the new blessings arrive, the bitter feeling left is the loss of a comfort that will never come now that I am not a kid with missing bangs and a Tom boy haircut. My adult cancer isn’t huggable.
“She must be attention seeking, a liar, has the luck of Lot, or is really sick and not lied once about struggling before cancer became king.”
Some days, I physically feel pain when I speak. The videos I make are some of my only ways to communicate. I get picked on for that. It’s all I’ve got left so …
Specialists initially suspected Relapsing Polychondritis because I was so sick, had trachea involvement and my voice box was being crushed.
I also had ear changes.
Whatever is below cancer in the hierarchy is the thing causing me agony physically. The past few weeks make it hard to do absolutely anything and I’m barely speaking at home. It literally hurts.
The deep tissue and muscles in my neck at C3 had an injury. Scar tissue grew. It’s connecting my skin to the muscles and the muscles to the trachea rings. It’s a spider web of hell inside my body.
I also have to figure out what radiation looks like for me and see what my insurance company thinks my life is worth to save them money. Cigna told to expect an immediate denial even though I have a birth defect that makes Proton Radiation my best option to leave my heart and lung alone. It’s terrifying.
Right now, I live in either totally numb inside to moments of fear or panic. PRN Valium was handed to me with my diagnosis. I didn’t know how right my doctor was that day.
Cancer leaves a fear you cannot rationalize because it’s all new and has 1,000 variables. Add pain to that level of momentary fear and I feel like I’m losing the best part of myself.
I love in acts of service and currently, I can’t buckle my dog’s leash or fight this brain fog and lethargy that no amount of sleep improves.
I’m a fearful fog who others call brave because they’ve either seen it, had it, feared it, or don’t know what else to say.
Some days, I can’t meal plan. Some days, the 130 miles my husband drives to and from work leave him spent and foraging has become routine.
Believe me when I say nutrition matters. We’re trying.
We are walking around grateful for everything and struggling with weirdly normal things like if I’ll have the energy to drive to a store let alone treatment for breast cancer 63 miles north of me.
I am a cowardly, brave person solely because I won’t quit. I have tapped out needing breaks because I have battled some of the most life altering events one can imagine in a short time period. I’ve regretted most times I’ve quit.
Once I’m in remission, the battle I have been fighting since January will still continue. I’m more complicated than cancer.
Sorry if this sounds whiny. It’s because I’m whining.
I’m accepting prayers, well-wishes, and advice. A partial mastectomy with the removal of two lymph nodes was only round 1 in terms of battling breast cancer.
I don’t actually know how many rounds there are because cancer refuses to give you a specific game plan upon diagnosis. After surgery, it’s either radiation OR chemo first and then radiation. Radiation is guaranteed; chemo only if my lymph node biopsies and my genetic screening shows a high possibility this cancer will return.
Since my surgery on 11/15, I’ve been either napping, sleeping, snoozing, or occasionally full-fledged panicking that my radiology team and I are not prepared for what MY radiation looks like for me. Trusting others entirely is not my strong suit. Trusting medical experts even less so. A lot of experts have hacked me to pieces because they were confident and I was desperate for a return of function.
The default external radiation many get will fry my lung and heart because I was born with a chest wall malformation called pectus excavatum. Upon my radiologist looking at my PET/CT, his eyes did the same thing all my other specialist’s eyes did … they bugged out.
Picture a rib cage with about 3” sunk in on my right rib cage so my heart and lung tissue REALLY want to fill in the left side of my chest, placing them directly in the line of fire. I saw the demonstration on the monitor and it scared everyone in the room. I cannot be treated “traditionally.”
My radiologist and I both, thus far, fully believe that I’ll be more successful with Proton Radiation, Cigna thinks it’s experimental until we show the other kinds of radiation will cause heart and lung damage I won’t recover from.
As of this morning, my lymph node biopsies aren’t back. I left the radiologist three names of pulmonologists/surgery who said I likely need surgery to have a normal rib cage. I’m hoping the physician’s notes and my previous pulmonary function tests help Cigna immediately see that I need the kind of radiation that brought me to Penn Medicine in the first place.
I need prayers for:
Courage. Social work at Penn to help me find a place to stay in center city, if needed. Ease of getting to radiation five days per week. As healthy an immune system as I can have. Companionship through radiation. Less lethargy and confusion. More hope that this won’t kill healthy cells. Panic to flee when I know I’ve done all I can do.
Thanks. Round 2 is coming so I need to be preparing while I heal. It has not yet begun so I don’t know what round 2 looks like, yet.
This is the most recent update I have to give. It’s not much of one, but this part is critical for me so I’m not hushing when I need more support still.
People not reaching out for support by waving their arms in the air asking for company while they navigate Hell for the first time, are not me. I’m glad they know what they’re doing. I don’t, minus bits of information being fed to me by providers.
P.s. (To the scant few who insist on blathering on) Judging me for being transparent in my feelings during an illness tons of people get, seems pretty cocky and if that’s you … stop following me if me vocalizing that I feel like a human dumpster irks you. Seriously, IF CANCER BOTHERS YOU, I get it. If me telling people CANCER IS BOTHERING ME offends you, get a grip and hug your privilege tighter.
In the middle of seeing what autoimmune thing is making me disappear, my boob went and caused a stir and the biopsy thing on 9/28 just hovers in the back of my head as needed. I’m not a big fan of the attention seeking Mr. Lefty is seeking when the rest of me is not cooperating even a little.
It’s pretty clear my left boob is working for the dark side and the Jedi inside of me have done nothing but hang out at that weird canteen place and have no idea what they are supposed to do anymore. All of me is starving, not hungry, tired, full of life, and dying to know why I aged 50 years in five minutes.
I feel like I’m in hell seeking the memory of rainbows and even though I tell others how I still see them, I’m just saying the words out loud so I can fake it until tomorrow again. Again.
Today, I learned needles filled with steroids may help my trachea if a provider wants to jab one in my throat from a 2011 case study a provider unable to do that for me found. A lot of my specialists only make diagnoses BASED on other specialists so this isn’t a “How’s the CORRECT treatment working for you, Beth?” conversation.
I won’t know what the correct treatment was until it’s the correct one about 11 people too smart for their own good can agree enough on to appease the curiosity of most.
One disease is 9/1,000,000. Another is 1/100,000 but met a significant birth defect caused by an underlying autoimmune or genetic condition. Both those conditions are ruled in or out by clinical manifestations OVER TIME and pictures, medical records, bla bla bla.
I met all 6 manifestations for one. I still do.
I also hit a tree in January. I had at least two severe concussions, one for an unknown length of time. I didn’t receive proper medical care at the time due to said concussions and I only had more than a belly CT and shoulder x ray, at the time. I suffer now because of it. There is no way to say that I don’t need to forgive myself the belittlement of my own value at the time. I feel so dumb.
The dumb never comes to me. My anxiety makes me hyperverbal and my exercise tolerance is so low, my pulmonologist thought the technician had messed up. She didn’t. I felt it and found my inability to be almost panic inducing. Panic: a feeling I refuse to engage to the point I feel almost catatonic inside. I truly feel robotic in between moments of utter panic of what everything means and where anyone is.
A time lapse video of me struggling to survive in my skin made my pain management doctor as me what I wanted for pain. I once quit pain management simply to be happy. It’s amazing how turtles adapt to boiling water over time.
I had a radical surgery to have a baby and it changed me so fast that I lost all sense of “normal.” Stringy muscles just felt wiry and when I saw very skinny people before, they sort of looked wiry so … what did I know?
Complaints of skinny armpits I was unable to shave because they puckered in, those got shared with my provider. I don’t know how saying it twice along with massive shoulder pain got missed, but the “internal degloving” injury seemed to get periodically addressed and then suddenly I was dying in July of now year.
I don’t know how one wraps their head around this, but I’m glad my new therapist went to Brown and is on Zoom this week and eager for my challenge. I guess I still see God in this daily, even when it’s just to admit I’m grateful for a mirage of hope.
Nothing feels easy. My clothes are never clean when I come home from the new specialists who own my time and my husband’s money. I tried to start a new job in July, but this job now owns me and I’m raging into the wind some days hoping my scream travels somewhere God is listening. He is, but the tinnitus in my ears rings too loudly to hear Him singing me to sleep at night.
He’s there, but I’m not always capable of feeling the peace I’m supposed to since the peace is so difficult to find and if I stop prying in between my ribs and neck, the next breath feels like the last.
Today, driving to pain management, a place I’m so grateful for now; I had the air conditioning on a few degrees too cold or … too fast or too something. My pointy, broken Xiphoid process spasmed so hard and fast, my right forearm twitched and my shoulder blade released a knot I’ve had since October of 2022.
I felt a melting in my right breast and it felt like my pectoral muscle unwound. I can’t explain it more without sounding psychotic, but my daughter and I both just looked and felt a former size A-post-tree-impact breast fill to a decent C. There was a deep scar from a breast reduction at age 19 that months of steroids softened and it unwound to the back of the same shoulder. It’s so weird.
Whatever part of whatever this is has a fun thing of turning every stretch mark I have ever had into deep, painful cables that feel like they choke off and surround every bony prominence they touch. (Future diagnostician, please don’t let me forget to mention that.)
One doctor said, “The issue is, people just aren’t used to seeing people that sick and it requires work.”
This disease process is hard. I’m struggling to feel okay with so much body rebellion occurring at once and apparently admitting I’m frustrated and tired and tired of being frustrated and tired is unappealing to those who like my dad jokes so let me leave you with one …
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Is this over yet? Am I better yet? Can this stop now?
How did this replace my job for one day at a weed dispensary? This job doesn’t pay and I quit this job. I don’t like it. I hate it and I am having a moment I get to have because I want to feel better and every breath feels like 1,000 knives in ny chest trying to cut out of me from the inside out.
P.s. I meet the thoracic surgeon tomorrow and am volunteering as tribute to do it on YouTube if I get to cut in line.
Thanks for letting me vent. Some people recommend I be committed. If that helped, I’d do just about anything. It just, unfortunately, won’t.
Funny thing is … desperate feelings are lIke amazing feelings; fleeting. I won’t remember typing this once I release it into the universe. Again, I see God daily in this Hell.
I used to sing this song in church when people told me I mattered. I miss feeling that way. I will see gold because feelings lie when you haven’t slept since January.
I’m in a world with Alex P. Keaton’s and I am Skippy.
I have always been Skippy and now I feel like it most. Don’t wait for a sad story because the story is true and real to Skippy.
That’s the difference. I started to lean into my Skippy when I realized I wasn’t designed to be Alex. I realized Alex’s goals weren’t mine and rejected them in order to figure out how I could be happier.
I tried for a bit to be like Alex, but it didn’t make me happy. I hung out with Alex for a bit, but he never asked about the odd things that moved me. I felt dismissed and separated because of it. I needed to see who wanted me to be Skippy and who wanted me to keep pretending I could be Alex but ashamed of myself for not being him.
Everyone loved Alex so much, he became a time traveler. He was amazing. Skippy loved that man. He became huge. Oh my word, he became so incredibly amazing, he got to change his name twice.
He got to become Marty McFly at first and got seen for what he could pretend to be. The role was to die for. The role was to suffer for and he did and got sick with an illness that he felt for a while when no one else did.
Marty McFly felt sick and didn’t tell anyone but his doctors and his family. As Marty got sicker, he got to start using his real name and the world now loved Michael J, the most.
Pepsi commercials and new roles were offered and he was just himself. He is suffering and shares his story to help others and himself, too.
He is admired for his vulnerability and strength. He is admired for his sacrifice in order to help others hurting similarly. I love him more than anyone I know. I absolutely always have.
I met Michael J when I was seven. I didn’t get to see it in 1985. I saw it on a tiny screen on a push in a gym at the YMCA near Ridge Pike in Pennsylvania monitor, the next year. I would never forget that moment. I was a fan girl tried and true.
I have always been Skippy only I have a rare version of Michael J’s story in a body that used to feel beautiful for only a tiny moment in time.
Skippy got transformed into Michael J in her ability at work for only a fraction of the time she wanted to heal her loves in her care.
She accidentally looked like Alex by trying to have a baby and get thin quickly and she felt confused when looking so different and feeling oddly new didn’t get ”noticed,” even if she could see it. It was odd.
She had more fans when she could be more to others, but the fans were intermittent and she thought the relationship was different than it was. It turns out, she always was Skippy and didn’t understand how others must have perceived her.
Skippy knew Skippy was Skippy always. Others got confused. Skippy is now sick and feels the way he always did. Skippy is also admittedly Skippy and that is why Skippy only has the few who either never cared, only knew Skippy as unique and admired her for it, or always saw different as something to value and held her in their heart like the star she felt like to them in their moments needing Skippy’s story.
I am Skippy and have always been. I love that girl and am so sad she is sick and so confused and scared that Skippy is more Skippy than she knew she was and being sick makes her eyes blur. Being sick makes her hands numb so typing is hard, but she never stops sharing her story.
Being sick makes her muscles be tested for advanced Multiple Sclerosis, but she shares photos of her tiny, huge world.
The world sees huge and thinks the walls feed her painful stomach so she occasionally says it’s difficult. Her baby occasionally wants Dino Nuggies even when she is home from college and those cost more. She drops her protein regularly to make sure that others who don’t need 90 grams of it a day, feel safe in their comfort so that isn’t close to a sacrifice. It never could be because she made a little Skippy, herself.
Her Skippy told her she was always a Skippy and that is why she loved her the most. Little Skippy told her, “You must have loved me so much as who you were, ‘Skippy,’ that you missed the signs I was ‘Skippy’ as well. That is how I know you love me. You adapted to me being myself and loved me in time and patience and adapted naturally because … you have always been Skippy, too.”
When your baby tells you they love you most as Skippy, you embrace the role of a lifetime and change your name from an offensive name to your new, UNEXPECTED fans.
You stop becoming Artoo on social media. Artoo, your first “non-painful” nickname given to you by a human who gave you the anthem, “Unstoppable” called you R2-D2 because you spoke in a way few understood, but to those who spoke Artoo’s language, they understood Artoo perfectly and loved Artoo.
Skippy loved that nickname until then. It hit Skippy while she was processing it all on her deck. Robots were offensive to her fans. Ugly people called her fans robots and she hated offending people, ONCE SHE KNEW THEY WERE OFFENDED BY SOMETHING SHE DID AND SHE COULD IMMEDIATELY CHANGE IT TO MAKE OTHERS FEEL VALUED AND NOT OFFENDED BY HER.
She said, “What should I be to change this offensive name I worship?”
I love Back to the Future most, but Queen Buttercup from the Princess Bride is so delicate, in need of protection, in need of a white knight, and a representative of royalty.
The day I fell in love with the idea of knowing who Skippy was, I changed my name. I have always been Skippy, but on that day, I became, for $20/year in money I don’t have …
http://www.QueenButtercupSpeaks.com to share Skippy’s stories safer and in a place you’d have to look harder for to be offended by. Others still looked and found offense, but they never understood Skippy was who she was and saw the stories differently than others because of it.
“You are not a Skippy. You are a lie. All of your stories now, even the ones multiple specialists told you are lies. Why you need to prove it, is shameful. Simply that proof is too doubtful so we have decided …
Your walls are too tall. They feed you fine even if you love to feed others and we know it is your joy.
You played a role once. You are clearly capable of that role even though no one cares if you can no longer act at all.”
Skippy had an easy time living next to the Keaton’s because, even though the Keaton’s had issues, they got on in life fairly unscathed at the time. They had issues independently, no doubt.
Skippy, what was that actor’s name?
I am Queen Buttercup, but I’m not. I’m Bethany. My friends call me Beth. My friends also call me Queen. Most who read this should likely start calling me Bethany.
I am Skippy and I love her. I love her because Little Skippy told me that my smile will always be the same and that the blue patch in my left eye will never change even if all of me changes.
I’ll hold that little blue patch forever because… I have and will always be Skippy. She writes like her life depends on it. It started feeling that way when her roles changed. She loves to write her Skippy stories because they’re hers and they are exactly hers alone.
If you’re not looking close up, I pass as a skinny chick. If you look, you’ll see the connective tissue under my skin is both too tight and is also hanging off in ropey strands.
The connective tissue that is tight, it’s compressed my skeleton from head to toe. My pain is astronomical sometimes. When I lay straight, the tissue presses my rib cage down making me feel claustrophobic and then I hyperventilate. MRI machines are hell.
The tissue that’s loose has created choking hazards and it cuts my airway off based on my position. When I spent too much time doing myofascial release work, not knowing I had an underlying genetic condition and shouldn’t do that, I started to get extremely sick.
I have had a fever more days this month than not. I have a severe neuropathy from my eye orbits down. My vitals range from 222/166 down to 86/55 and my medications stopped clearing my system correctly.
I now have severe muscle atrophy in my chest and intercostal muscles and am waiting for an answer.
My PCP diagnosed me with Relapsing Polychondritis, but the neurologist I saw last week also ruled in MS, which we feared in 2018. It was ruled out then, but I am struggling now from the face down from the combination.
It feels like more things got ruled in by trying to solve a weird Scooby Doo mystery.
Keep my family in your prayers please. This is the most difficult time in my life and I keep saying that, but it keeps being true. A rumor was started that I’m a scammer because my house was too large or something. 🙃
Quite literally, I am supposed to feel like my support needs are less because the walls in the family room that make me scared in an autistic meltdown, are too tall so I have disposable income for compression gear and pizza after my 9th MRI this month. Noice. The internet keeps life classy, but I digress …
I don’t even know how to address issues about my integrity when I haven’t yet finished finding a CNA who can help remind my insurance company that I am still here.
If you have any resources on how to get rid of pesky head-to-toe connective tissue trying to suffocate you alive, please let me know. I don’t know how to rest with that level of pain for much longer. It’s making my heart break and I’m losing myself in pain and anger.
If you know diagnostic specialists looking for a project, send them to me.
If you have a box full of money and you like sharing with the class, I’m not hard to reach.
If you’re kind and caring and have a heart that is only kind, please reach me. I feel isolated and alone more often than not. I know how to reach out, but sometimes I can’t find it in me to do so. If crying makes you uncomfortable, I’m not the one at the moment.
A man is spotted laboring in a field trying to dig a series of holes with a bent kitchen spoon. As he works, his aging face, shows decades of frustration. He mumbles that he has always felt frustrated, but no one ever cared. He labored anyway because he is a hardworking man.
The exhausted laborer used to have more energy and enthusiasm, but this work was very difficult to do. This job, he was forced to do. This job always required a shovel and the shovel should have had a blade and a handle. The handle should have a grip and the collar should not wiggle when the blade hits rocky ground.
Inside his boyhood heart, he also knew his hands should be gloved to prevent blisters. To him, that no longer mattered because his hands had grown so calloused, he didn’t feel the same pain he used to feel. Using the spoon made its own callouses and those callouses produced protection as well as demonstrated decades of hard work. The knotty fingers showed the damage in himself, but the callouses others felt when he tried to touch them.
The man knew which tool he needed, but it must have been locked away somewhere on the property and accessing it meant being humbled or humiliated and asking uncomfortable questions. It also meant he had unfamiliar work to do exploring the grounds.
The diligent, but weary worker, had never been taught how to ask questions safely. He was met with barking bosses and his former colleagues had consistently left him abandoned in the field to do all of the work alone. It was better to do it alone, anyway. No one could convince him it would be any differently.
Historically, exploring the grounds, had only ever occurred when the worker was most frustrated. Unable to see all that was around him with his peripheral vision being clouded, he had never successfully managed to find the shed the shovel was even stored in. He knew the shed existed, in theory, but he had never seen it for himself.
Decades of digging holes with a kitchen spoon had made him a professional, by all accounts. He had always dug holes this way. He knew exactly how to hunch over. He knew how to angle the rusted spoon and how to haphazardly bend the spoon back into shape in a pinch to get the required work done.
The work he performed had to be required, these days. The significant effort the job took demanded those stipulations. His resources were more valuable as his energy had been depleted. There was simply less energy to draw from, even if the desire was still there. He didn’t know if the desire had remained.
He knew how to keep the sweat out of his eyes like no one else, but the sweat no longer bothered him the same way. His tired fingers were going to write a manual on how to perform this routine, but there was no one standing by to give it to so he kept his manual to himself.
Inside his heart, the amazing man knew his former routine no longer produced the same results around him. Time met effort and had worn it down to almost nothing.
When asked why he wanted to keep using the spoon, the dedicated man unable to recognize his own face replied, “I have always done it this way. This has always been who I am.”
Without pouring my entire soul out, one year ago today, the last words I screamed at a very loved one were, “You owe me a massive lifetime of apologies. Until you do, go fuck yourself.”
I could hear how impactful it must have been, but I didn’t need an explanation anymore. I had set terms: apologize and until you do, go away. I didn’t say it very classy, but it was a kid screaming inside me.
At the time, my voice had only ever gotten that loud one time, that I can remember. The words were also said in anger to a loved one during an autistic moment where I felt completely abandoned. That first time, I didn’t know that kind of traumatic response even lived inside of me.
I was fortunate to process the scream I let out the first time with a trauma therapist. I was fortunate it was put into immediate perspective for me. Knowing why I rage screamed about a trauma from age 11 in my 40’s didn’t make it less likely to happen again.
Once that anger came out, I felt empowered for the first time even though I felt no control. At least I was heard and that would have to do. I had legitimate need to be protected and it seems my anger gets angriest when protection isn’t a part of love.
I must have been heard because that first person hasn’t spoken to me since I screamed for the first time. I don’t live in the attempt of wondering why. It’s futile trying to understand the communication habits of others.
The second scream that came out, my words were said with more forethought. Hard to believe. I don’t find the cuss to be overly helpful, but I haven’t regretted my second scream. I said what I should have said over a lifetime. I just accidentally said it much louder.
I was raised to submit. Submission means I continually existed to suppress some thing about or for me; Some need, some desire, some part of myself that had to be diminished, muted, restrained, disciplined, and it had to be squashed and done without being questioned. Only it wasn’t slutty clothes, it was everything. Submission was the goal.
When the bridle first comes out of submission’s mouth, apparently it likes to scream, “fuck you,” a lot. It does eventually clean up its language.
A year later, the second scream wouldn’t be so loud since I’m healing. If I could repeat one year ago today I’d say …“You may never understand why you owe me a lifetime of apologies, but since I’ve decided that you do … I’m saying goodbye. I really do love you and I now love myself enough to stop engaging. I learned how to make those Peppermint Patties, but you’re the only one I know who loves them so I only made them once. They’re in the freezer.”
Serenity is just a fancy word for “not feeling miserable in your feels.”
Lesson for me today.
I have a friend who says … “Poor me. Poor me. Pour me a drink.”
Even without booze, the saying is about self-pity, expectations, and disappointments.
Your Peace of Mind is directly inverse to your level of expectation. One goes up as the other goes down.
Your resentment is not inverted to your level of expectation. Resentment and Expectation are weary travelers on the same road inside your Peace of Mind.
Resentment and Expectation are weary and now ANGRY because they don’t want to keep walking, but they just cannot seem to settle. They are hitchhiking children who desperately need to nap.
Expectation leads to self-imposed chronic disappointment & false entitlement. Or true entitlements you hyper focus on and eventually obsess over because you don’t think your true entitlements are being met.
Side Bar: Do NOT take this as advice to stay in a harmful situation. If your house is on fire, accepting the warmth of it will eventually kill you. Accept what you can’t change, but change what you can. You have to live to enjoy the Peace of Mind. End side note …
Peace of Mind really only exists if you’re not actively burning to death
Eventually you become the problem and not the observer of your own injustice. Eventually, you’re the disappointment in your own life.
I have autism so my sense of justice and what is fair and right is SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than a neurotypical person’s sense of justice or injustice. It makes me an amazing advocate for others. I now see that gift for what it is. (It is also exhausting.)
Decreasing my expectations isn’t easy, but it’s at least something I can practice doing and eventually (hopefully) make a habit from.
I control very little. It felt defeating. I lash out incorrectly or correctly.
I control only myself. I control more than my actions and words. I control my Peace of Mind.
Queen Buttercup Speaks 