Update Time

It’s been a little while, though not as long between posts this time as it has been in the fairly recent past. One of the stranger things about really working on healing, is, often, it’s hard to really express everything that’s going on. There has been quite a bit going on, though, and I’ll try to skim over at least some of the major points. Fair warning, this post may feel quite random, but that’s my brain lately.

First of all, as of the writing of this post, I’m 17 days away from the anniversary of going under a voluntary 72 hour stay in a Behavioral Health Unit. 17 days. Part of me wants to think of that day as a second birthday of sorts. I chose life. I ran, headfirst, into stigma in my own mind that I hadn’t even acknowledged was there. I allowed myself to fully surrender to the amount of work I had to do on myself, and the reality that I cannot give 100% of myself to others if I’m giving myself less than 100%. Even though there are “body memories” trying hard to go down the depression and anxiety path again, I remind myself that, even if it gets bad again, I’ll never be in the same place as I was a year ago. I can’t unlearn the tools I’ve gained in the past year, can’t unlearn the lessons I’ve learned, can’t unlive the experiences I’ve lived. Even if I “can’t remember” some of them, traces of the skills, the lessons remain in who I am today. I am not who I was a year ago.

Beyond all the deep, waxing philosophical about my journey over the past 12 months, a fair amount of stuff has been on my mind. Some ideas I’ve jotted down for future post ideas are:

• Doing “inner child” work, and how odd it can feel
• Cleaning out a storage unit that was first filled when I left my ex
• The show Living with Yourself
• The musical Dear Evan Hansen

I have some random thoughts on Living with Yourself as a commentary on how society views depression, especially. It’s a very dark comedy, but, after I watched the whole season the first time through, it started to stick in my head that it’s really saying something about how certain things are viewed.

As far as Dear Evan Hansen goes, well, one of the Christmas presents I got from my husband was a pair of tickets to see the opening night of Dear Evan Hansen here in town, which was New Year’s Eve. When my mom asked how it was, the only way I could really describe it was to take her to see it before it left town. It’s an amazing show, and, especially the first time around, it very much felt like its own therapy session. I went into the show completely blind, and ended up crying several times. Not just a tear here and there, but full on, streaming tears, sniffling crying. Walking back to the hotel we were staying at, I told my husband that the show was, in my mind, truly art. It spoke to, and touched, my very soul and echoed my lived experiences.

Both of those, though, really should be (and likely eventually will be) their own posts.

Let’s see, other things that have been going on in recent weeks:

• Re-started a writing word graveyard
• Started a self-talk word graveyard
• Started pondering being able to accept feelings as valid, even if I can’t name or describe them
• Ran into my own trust issues in an EMDR session
• Went to Disneyland a couple of times (including a date day with hubs on Valentine’s Day)
• Built a droid
• Continued talking openly about mental health stuff (like panic attacks)
• Came up with a new word – cry-stipated – for when you can feel the need to cry, but it doesn’t come out.

I’m sure there’s more, but my mind has really felt like it’s been on shuffle mode lately. And so, I breathe, accept, and do what I can to keep moving forward.

Which of the things I’ve referenced in this post would you like to hear more about?