GRATEFUL TO BE HERE

This quote, in the above photo, could not be more accurate for me! I was probably six or seven when I first thought about vanishing from my existence so that I could escape the abuse I was enduring. Throughout my childhood my ideas were more fantasy based. I would envision someone saving me and taking me away from it to live in a beautiful home with two loving, caring parents. As a little girl, I watched a tv show in which I fantasized about the mom on the show being my mom and taking care of me. As I became a teenager, my vision for escaping reality changed and turned into dangerous behaviors.

First, I started to believe that if I could disappear, I would be safer, so I tried to make myself “small”. I started eating less and less until I had full blown anorexia and barely ever weighed 100 pounds. It would become so severe that while in a hospital at age 14, I would go into convulsions as my body was shutting down. I would go on to battle this disorder for the rest of my life and continue to struggle with food and body perception. When becoming “small” didn’t make things better, I turned to drugs and alcohol to at least numb my feelings, which only turned out to be a temporary fix that had permanent consequences.

I would battle addiction for over 30 years only being sober during my pregnancies and while nursing. Just before getting clean and sober, I would find myself at rock bottom. I had to physically have a drink when I woke up and drank consistently until days end so I wouldn’t be sick. My children were no longer speaking with me, nor did they trust me, and I was so miserable that it was “get sober or die”. I got clean and sober July 1, 2017! The longest stretch of sobriety but more importantly I truly worked through all the steps of AA and worked to change my alcoholic thinking.

Another way I tried to escape my existence: I attempted, when I was fourteen, to end my life. I was unsuccessful and ended up in the hospital which would give me my first opportunity to speak of the unimaginable abuse I was suffering. I would try to end my life again in my mid-twenties almost succeeding and landing in ICU where medical staff were unsure if I would make it. I would make numerous attempts prior to becoming sober as my alcoholic brain believed that it was the only way out. I would go years without thinking that way while on my journey through sobriety and healing until last June. I was going through a lot with trauma work, physical illness and a hostile work environment with a superior bullying me and re traumatizing me on several occasions. I was suffering quite a bit from my PTSD as well as insomnia from nightmares and everything came to a head one day. I believed in my mind that I was a burden and that I was not going to get better. I was so ashamed of my own thoughts and feelings that I didn’t want to reach out for help. I wrote a letter to my children and a friend and went into a secluded area to end it but long story short, I was saved by EMS and have had a year to work through that.

I can only say that although I spent my entire life trying to escape, what was on most days a horrific existence, I am so grateful that I have continued to live. There are some wonderful things that I would have missed out on. I have been fortunate enough to do quite a bit of traveling the last 7-8 years, I was blessed to see my second grandson’s birth and have been able to enjoy all three of my grandson’s. I have built much better relationships with most of my children and look forward to those relationships getting even better. I was able to see my oldest child get married and have an absolutely stunning wedding!!! I have been able to experience some things over the last seven years that prior to that, I had only dreamed about. And despite the setbacks that I have had this last year, I have learned so much about myself and the strength that I often forget I have. The strength that has carried me this far despite everything that has happened to me or that I have done to myself.

And so, I keep breathing, I keep living and I keep trying to be the best version of myself each day. Reminding myself that I am not my traumas, they are just a part of who I am. Reminding myself that I need to give myself grace and show myself compassion for surviving such abuse the only way I knew how at any given moment, on any given day. I can show the inner child within that life can be beautiful and fun and full of great adventures. I can teach her to not be afraid and to let the outside world in.

JUST KEEP BREATHING