Tag: kindness

Episode 21

Posted on by Michele

I have been missing from my blog lately. To be honest, I’ve been missing from my life. Somewhere between there and here I slipped through the cracks into a depression that has left me roiled in a quagmire of ugliness and brutality that’s difficult to escape. I haven’t written because I didn’t feel like I had a lot to say. Or rather, I didn’t feel I had a lot worth reading. And to truly understand my mind, I need to be open about it because this goes deeper than my aneurysm and mental health is so important.

A photo of the night sky.

I swear I’m not going to take you back through an endless stream of childhood memories, but, I will say that I was born into a loud, busy, very large family, and yet I felt alone from the very beginning. I never fit anywhere…like I was the puzzle piece that was put in the wrong box and somehow got past quality control. It’s an emptiness that is easy to ignore…until you hit the bottom of depression and you realize there is soul crushing loneliness engulfing you at every turn.  And lately, that’s where I live.

I didn’t notice the changes at first…the slowness to get out of bed in the morning. At first I’d stay in bed an hour after I woke up…then two…then three. Then it got to the point that I was crawling back in bed after lunch and blaming it on my headaches or saying that the cat wanted “to cuddle.” I mean, the cat DID cuddle with me, but it’s not like he asked me to get into bed. Then I was canceling plans with friends. I was turning down invitations to go places. I wasn’t eating healthy food. Projects would get started and left unfinished on the floor. Eventually, it got to the point where I was forgetting to take my daily medications. I was randomly crying at everything and then crying harder because I was mad that I was crying. My antidepressants clearly weren’t working.

I had read some stories about other aneurysm survivors…one who died several years later and one who found more aneurysms a few months afterwards and I started having PTSD symptoms again. I’m absolutely terrified that there is another ticking time bomb in my brain and I won’t survive the second time. As much as I complain about how miserable it has been since my rupture with these daily migraines, I don’t want to die either. What I still struggle with, is wanting my life back. I feel guilty about not being able to work…losing my executive salary and now collecting a pittance that is social security and not able to contribute to the household. I feel guilty that the weight of all of this falls on my husband, who is stressed and worries, but tries to hide it. I feel that burden and I am to blame…that because my brain decided to blow up, life became increasingly harder. The weakness of my brain made his life harder.

On top of all of that, I feel guilty for surviving when so many other people don’t. What made ME the one to come out of this fire? Why am I the one worthy of that? I am no better than any of them, in fact, you could probably put a feather on the scale and judge us and so many would be deemed more worthy. Yet here I sit…instead of them. Breathing their air. Filling their space. And feeling empty and worthless. The puzzle piece in the wrong box.

I went to my doctor and she told me it’s not that my anti-depressant isn’t working. It’s that I need to talk more. I need to open up. I need to realize that I am here for a reason and I am doing incredible things for the community and that people need me. Maybe I don’t hear it enough. Maybe I don’t believe it. But there is no magic pill that will take away the anxiety, the “lostness”, or the feeling of being invisible.

So why am I baring my soul and sharing these intimate details of my mental health? Recently, Stephen “tWitch” Boss took his life and like so many other stars before him, people were shocked because he was always smiling. I want to make one thing clear…that is absolutely NOT where my head is…at all, but we need to start having serious conversations about mental health and being able to be honest when we aren’t okay. Moreover, we need to start checking on our “strong” friends. Trust me when I tell you that they are not okay. The ones who are always smiling, always have it together, and are handling every crisis. They aren’t okay. My friends call me a “badass bitch”. They mean it as a compliment…and it is. I’m strong. I’m resilient. I’m a fighter. I will always get back up. But it also means no one ever asks me if I’m okay.

And right now, I’m not okay…but I will be.

** If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org You are not alone & you are loved. Please reach out **

 

 

Episode 16

Posted on by Michele

It’s been a long time since I’ve paced in the shadows of the moonlight. I’ve been having flashbacks and panic attacks for hours now. It all seems so sudden. I was perfectly fine earlier. The only thing that helps when I get like this is to pace and randomly sit wherever I am for brief moments. Then pace again. Over and over the cycle goes until I can breathe again. Until I can feel the fear slip away and feel more of myself returning into my body. Until I can stop seeing myself dying on a bathroom floor.

I watched fireworks this year on Saturday night for the first time since my rupture. This was the first year that the sound of the booms and the flashing lights haven’t curled me up into a ball counting the minutes until the explosions stopped. Seeing the shadows of the flares through my closed eyes reminds me of bright hospital lights overhead as I was being wheeled from the ambulance after my rupture, when my reality transformed my vision.

I have the perfect view of my town’s firework show right from my house. I can sit in the comfort of my house and watch every brightly colored sequence. It’s a sight to behold. So this year, we gathered some snacks and took our seats and watched the show and it was beautiful. There were a few times that I had to close my eyes and do some deep breathing exercises, but overall, I handled it. Unless the panic was delayed, I did great. The next morning, I woke up in a “mood”. Not bad, but not good either. I knew something was off. I just wasn’t feeling good on the Fourth, but couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. As night fell, my neighbors started setting off small fireworks and I could feel myself getting twitchy. I was watching TV and I was becoming agitated and irritable. I finally just put earplugs in and went to bed. Almost immediately, I started having flashbacks of me laying on the bathroom floor.

My flashbacks devolved into these “what-if” scenarios that my brain started making up. What if I had been at work that Saturday? What if it had happened there? How long would it have taken someone to find me in that bathroom? Would I have died? Would they have known that it was my head without me having had the luxury of screaming “my head” to someone standing next to me? Since the local hospitals missed my brain bleed for nearly 5 weeks, how long would it take for them to figure it out when I came in unconscious?

Insert panicked breathing. 

I began pacing to clear my head. As if the soft fall of my footsteps will chase away the demons that fill my head with images of terror and despair. Ultimately, it’s because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t outrun these visions. I stop and I am always lying on that bathroom floor waiting to be saved. I stop and my brain has concocted another scenario that hasn’t happened, and likely never will, but that I add to the growing list of things that I’m now terrified of. In reality of course, my sister was there to catch me…literally and figuratively; but in these scenarios, I’m always alone. Never sure if someone will find me before I die.

I decided tonight to let the pain be heard. I stopped pacing long enough to write and while I poured over the words, the tears poured out right along with them and I was reminded that it is okay to feel all the things.

I just ask you all to remember that when someone tells you the fireworks are a trigger for their PTSD, don’t scoff because they weren’t in combat. Or a victim of gun violence. There are so many other types of trauma that can be activated by the sound of explosions and the flashing of lights. And not every aneurysm survivor has the same recovery story. Be patient. Be kind.

If you are a survivor…be gentle with yourself. Recovery isn’t easy. Some days are brutal and they sneak up on you. Give yourself some grace. You’ve been through hell.

 

Episode 12

Posted on by Michele

“I complained I had no shoes until I met the man who had no feet.” My dad used to tell me that when I was young if I was having a pity party about something. It was my constant reminder that there is always someone who is worse off than you. That has stuck with me my whole life.

I try to be positive most of the time. Sometimes I fall into a trap and can’t seem to find the bright side no matter which way I look at it. Typically, when something really bad happens to me, I break down and have a pity party for myself that lasts no more than a day. I am a firm believer in allowing yourself to acknowledge and feel those emotions to their fullest, but then I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and come up with a plan. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself for a while. It’s normal. But you can’t live there.

Before my aneurysm, I was so high strung (my mother liked to say I was wrapped around the axle), that I would latch on to a comment or action and dwell on it forever…or so it seemed. I would complain and bitch about the most trivial things because they didn’t meet my standard of action. Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite the horrible person I’m imagining, but I certainly could’ve been a better human being. I mean, I would give you the shirt off my back, but I’d complain about how people were treated at work. Somehow, after my rupture, a switch was flipped in my brain. All of a sudden, the little things were just that…little. They weren’t worth the energy it took to worry about them. It wasn’t immediate, but eventually, I realized how important life is and how incredibly lucky I was to have a second chance.

Let’s be honest, 2020 has been a dumpster fire for pretty much everyone on the planet. We’ve been quarantined for months, the virus continues to rage, people are losing their jobs, there are protests, an ugly election, and parents now have to worry about kids returning to school. It’s a lot of negativity for anyone to have to deal with. It is perfectly normal for people to be depressed and feel hopeless. It’s definitely challenging us all. But I want you to pay attention to your words, your thoughts. That internal dialogue is more powerful than you realize. I’m not telling you that things aren’t bad right now…whether you are struggling with an illness, a job loss, or something far worse, but your thoughts feed your actions and your actions can change the world.

We’ve seen so much ugliness in the world lately. There has been entitlement, violence, and vile rhetoric that has plagued us. But we each have it in our power to choose something different. We each have the power to make a difference. This post was originally intended to talk about how positivity has improved my recovery (multiple times), but I realized that there was a much bigger opportunity because of what is happening around us. My doctors have been amazed at my attitude during recovery and how I take what has happened and turned it into a positive. When you consider the options, why would you choose anything other than positivity? Life is a series of events that happen to you. Sometimes you control those events and other times, they are thrust upon you. However, how you respond to those events is entirely within your control.

I want you to listen to your self talk. I want you to truly listen and ask yourself if you would say those things to the love of your life/your mother/your sister/your child. If you recoil at the thought of saying it to them, then you have no business saying it to yourself. You are worthy. You are enough. Exactly as you are.

Now, I want you to consider the people you come in contact with every day…coworkers, essential workers at restaurants/grocery/pharmacies, other customers, and people on your social media feed. How do you talk to them? How would you feel if someone spoke that way to your grandmother? We are all coping with life. We all have challenges that we don’t let others know about. We survive on this planet as a blanket of interwoven threads. We are connected and responsible for each other. And we are stronger because of it. Kindness goes a long way…and it is free. Every single morning, when you wake up, you have the opportunity to choose kindness. Let’s make it a habit to start caring about each other again.

So when you feel overwhelmed and beat down and think that you just can’t go on any more, feel those feelings. Have your pity party, but pick yourself up and move on like the badass you are! And use your journey and experiences to be empathetic to your fellow man. You never know what battles they are waging and your kindness might be the only bright spot they can find.