Mishell Wolff

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Tough Days Happen

Sea Sanctuary - #Repost @positivelytherapy ・・・ Bad days happen. Tough emotions happen. Confusing thoughts happen. Some days are going to feel like a completely messy scribble. And that's ok. • • • • • • #

I work with high school students. Today, I had two students who were having anxiety attacks come to me.

One was able to use the techniques I was giving them as well as some of their own to calm down. That is great!

The other, used various techniques and could not get their breathing to slow down, their tears to stop, or their brain to stop racing. That is okay too.

Sometimes we just have a day(or a lot of days) where we can not quiet our minds. When our hearts continue to race and our thoughts spiral into places we don’t want them to go. And that’s okay.

In the long run, feeling like that is going to have physical consequences for us, but sometimes we just need to feel what we feel. We need to accept the facts of what is happening to us or around us that are making us feel this way. Eventually, if you use techniques that you have found work for you to slow everything down you can get back to normal.

Calming techniques for one person, may not work for another. That’s why it is so important to find what works for you.

Here is a website that has ideas with videos to instruct how to use each technique they present. https://www.mind.org.uk/need-urgent-help/what-can-i-do-to-help-myself-cope/relaxing-and-calming-exercises/

Many people in anxiety attacks get upset with themselves for not being able to calm down, or call themselves names for having the attack in the first place. These reactions DO NOT HELP. It’s important to accept that it happened in order to get to a calmer state. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 4% of the world’s population have an anxiety disorder, you are not alone in what you experience. You can also reach out to a therapist for help in gaining techniques and strategies for when it happens and in making your life improve over all.

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Heal to Handle Joy

A friend of mine sent this image to me recently. I have no idea who to credit for it, but it is so true.

I spent most of my life hyper-vigilant, not knowing who I could trust, even myself. I often felt like there was an overwound spring, ready to break free inside of me. The anxiety often threatened to pull me under and drown me. It took a toll on my body as I am still learning to relax my overly tense muscles.

Therapy has helped me tremendously. The first few times I went, I did the work to get through the trauma of the moment. Then because of insurance, or time committment, I would end treatment with new skills and strategies for dealing with the stresses of life.

This time though, I have continued beyond the trauma of the moment and gotten to the base of my mental health issues; feeling worthless, not good enough, abandoned, alone, and dealt with them. Now, instead of always waiting for the next bad thing to happen, I believe that I will find joy.

That is a terrifying, new experience for me. I’m not saying that I haven’t been happy before, but I never trusted it, history had shown me that good times don’t last. You get your heart ripped out of your chest, cut to pieces, and left alone to put it back together again.

As I have been learning to live my authentic self, not making myself fit into a certain mold or expectation of me, I have found people who like me, and all the oddities and nerdiness that go along with me. It’s scary to be vulnerable and honest with yourself and others, but in the process, I am learning how to handle joy in my life. I’m not scared that I have to behave a certain way to keep people likeing me, they just like me.

Therapy taught me that I can be me. As a friend learned in one of her therapy appointments, I’m not for everybody and everybody isn’t for me and that’s okay. As I have embraced who I am, I have learned to find joy in acceptance, peace in solitude, and contentment with others. I no longer feel as though I am a spring ready to break free, now if I could just get my shoulders to realize that they are not responsible for keeping everything inside so they can relax…

If you need someone to talk to, I am now an Associate Marriage Family Therapist working at Share Homes Foster and Adoption Agency in Lodi, Ca. If you are in California, I can work with you. Send a message for more information.

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Surviving to Thriving….

For most of my life, I have lived in survival mode. Everything was difficult when it came to interpersonal relationships. I needed to be loved and accepted and I felt like I had to earn it. I believed that I was not worth love and acceptance just for who I am. That belief has caused extensive grief for myself and unfortunately, there has been collateral damage to those closest to me.

In June 2020, I knew I couldn’t handle living in fight, flight, or freeze mode any longer and reached out to a therapist. At that point I felt like I was barely surviving. Struggling to tread water, to keep from drowning in life. That therapist, and then another one, were the flotation devices that I needed.

On a Saturday afternoon in October 2021, I was laying in bed. Getting out of bed was an unsurmountable obstacle that day. I could feel the darkness of being underwater overwhelming me, I did not have the energy to come up for air. I reached to my bedside table and grabbed my journal that was always there, waiting for me to empty the swirling thoughts in my head.

That day I wrote this in my journal:

“Spinning, swirling

Thought sprials, going nowhere,

Energy zapped, utterly exhausted,

Light evaporating, gray overshadowing,

Growing weary,

suffocating,

drowning.”

I realized I needed more help. I got on antidepressants. I started seeing my therapist weekly. I reached out to friends to hang out and talk and ask for help when I needed it.

This past week I saw my therapist (yes, I have been in therapy for three-and-a-half years.) I told him, that for the first time in my life, I feel like I am thriving. I have many things in my life to be grateful for and a lot of accomplishments, but most of them were done in an attempt to just survive this life. For example, I did well in school because I knew that an education would get me away from my parents.

At the end of January, I finished a master’s degree in psychology. This was something I did, not because it would help me survive, but because it would allow me to help others in survival mode heal so that they can thrive.

The next step for me is applying for my Associate Marriage and Family Therapist certificate, so I can start working with others on their healing journey.

Hopefully, that adorable puppy in the picture will work with me as a therapy dog.

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A Long Time Coming

I have spent the past few years learning about myself. The journey truly began in the spring of 2016 with a series of Facebook posts that all started with the phrase, “You might be in an abusive or controlling relationship if…” I was writing them to help a friend who I thought was in a controlling relationship, but also to help all people who might be in that kind of relationship and not realize it. In the process, I ended up helping to finally heal myself from the abusive and controlling relationships that I experienced in my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood.

Through my healing journey, I realized that I was a people pleaser. I did not even know what I truly liked in some cases, I just liked what others liked. I really like cheesy rom-com movies where you know exactly how the story is going to end. I really don’t like NASCAR, except the white noise of the engines while I take a nap. I like some sci-fi, but not others and I can’t tell you what makes me like some and not others yet, but I’ll keep watching to figure it out.

I learned that I don’t like fighting. If I think someone is mad at me and is about to start or does start a fight, I will do whatever is necessary to appease them and keep them happy. I will retreat into my shell, and ignore my wants and needs to keep the other person happy. This is not a healthy coping strategy. I am working on this.

I have learned how to say what I am feeling, what I need, and what I want without feeling like I’m asking for too much or being too needy. I learned that just because I was made to feel that asking for my needs to be met as a child was asking for too much, it is not. It is normal and necessary for humans to function.

I learned that it’s okay to ask for help; that relying on yourself from a young age because you cannot trust anyone else to help you in your time of need is not a healthy coping strategy. It means that those who should have been there to take care of you when you were younger weren’t.

I have learned a lot over the past seven years and I will continue to learn more on this healing and growth journey I am on. I will never again settle for a person because they pay attention to me, I am looking for a true partner in my future. Someone who loves me as I am. Someone who I am able to be myself with from the very beginning and able to grow and change with as I learn new things.

I am excited to be at this point in my life. I am content with where I’m at. I have great friends, a good job, and a home that I love and am totally comfortable in.

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Believe in Yourself

I grew up doubting myself in everything I did. There were excellent reasons for this, I was conditioned to doubt not just my abilities, but even my own emotions. I was terrified that the upper level of the Bay Bridge heading to San Francisco would collapse onto the lower level, crushing the cars below; I never wanted to go over the bridge.

I told my mom about that fear.

Her response: “That’s completely ridiculous. There is no way the Bay Bridge will collapse.”

On October 17, 1989 at 5:04 pm the Loma Prieta earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 seconds at a magnitude 6.9. Among the billions of dollars in damage that was caused, the upper level of the Bay Bridge collapsed onto the lower level killing one person.

I wasn’t ridiculous, but I had been dismissed. After the earthquake, my mom continued to dismiss my fear, telling me it was a freak accident, caused by the earthquake and anything else she could think of to not take my fear seriously.

There are too many stories like this from my life, I could go on for pages and pages. (I actually did. The book is called Worthless No More, go check it out under the books tab.)

I have spent the past two years in therapy with an incredible therapist. I have also spent a lot of time learning about myself and seeing what beliefs and behaviors I had that needed to be changed.

The biggest change I needed to make was to believe in myself. To trust that my feelings are valid, that my thoughts are valuable, and that my words have worth.

I have spent years teaching these things to my students, hoping that they’d take it to heart and ignoring it in my own life.

Now, I believe in myself. Now, I trust myself. Now, I know my worth.

And you can to.

You are AMAZING!!!!

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Christmas Looks Different This Year 2022 Edition

Last year, just before Christmas, one of my very best friends told me that she was sure that I wouldn’t be alone by this Christmas.

Well, guess what…

She was absolutely,

Positively,

In all ways,

Completely,

Without a doubt,

Correct.

While I don’t have a special someone, a significant other if you will, to spend time with this holiday season, I am far from alone. I wasn’t alone last year either.

I have felt alone many times in my life, most of my life actually, even when surrounded by people. I have felt that I had nobody to depend on, nobody to talk to, nobody who understood ME, who I really was.

In an effort to not be alone, I surrounded myself with people that loved me for who they thought I was, so I became that person instead of being me. I hid parts of myself that I knew they wouldn’t approve of. I was ashamed of my flaws. I lost myself in order to feel loved and in the end I was still utterly, completely lonely.

Over the past year, I have realized, that although I felt alone, I was not alone. I did have friends that I could rely on and turn to when I needed them. Those are the same friends that I have in my life this Holiday season that mean I am not alone as I face another “single” Christmas.

I will be visiting with many friends of the holiday break. I will be spending time relaxing at home. I am most definitely not alone this Christmas, she was right.

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Anxiety Lies

I have anxiety and it lies to me. It knows every one of my insecurities and fears. It whispers them to me in a steady drone in the back of my head, like constant white noise. Sometimes anxiety chooses one or two of them to pick out and amplify; to scream into my mind until I can’t breath, until I can’t think of anything else, until my heart is racing as if I’m facing a life threatening moment, until I want to run away.

(I take medication that helps. Finally, my doctor and I have found a medication that helps AND now, almost a year later, hasn’t left me wanting to do nothing but sleep which is what every other medication I have tried has left me feeling. I also see a therapist, having a person to talk to has helped tremendously.)

The lies anxiety chooses to amplify focus on two topics that have a huge impact on my life: “You can’t do this.” and “They won’t like you.”

Those two lies have kept me from doing so much in my life. They have kept me hidden. They have kept me invisible, locked inside a prison of my own making. There have been people in my life that fed into the lies along with anxiety, who emotionally, physically, and sexually abused me, but it was the lies anxiety told me, and I believed, that kept me in those relationships far longer than I should have been. I couldn’t leave my parents until I was 18, but I kept them in my life much longer. The boyfriend who raped me and my first husband, I waited until they were physically away from me before I broke up with them.

I believed I couldn’t do it.

This past week, I went on a vacation specifically designed to challenge myself. I was willing to go alone, but a coworker ended up joining me, because it was one of her bucket-list travel destinations. It was amazing getting to know her better, I’m so glad she joined me on all the challenges I chose to do. She even had to do one of them herself, because of health reasons, I wasn’t allowed to participate in it.

I hiked up waterfalls, one of them was 1200 steps! There were many stops… for photos… along the way. It was never because I needed to catch my breath. Where are the photos you ask, ummmmm. I’m pretty sure the film didn’t develop on those… (HAHAHAHA.)

Skogafoss Waterfall, Iceland (the black line to the right are the steps I climbed to the top)

I walked through an ice cave, in a glacier that’s melting, on a volcano, that has never gone more than 100 years between eruptions, until now. It’s been 104 years since the last eruption. I walked over bridges made of 2X6 planks of wood, that have been chewed up by the cramp-ons that people wear on their boots to not slip on the ice with melting glacier water rushing beneath them and nothing to hold on to except the occasional rope hooked into the melting glacier wall.

I met tons of new people, that I actually talked to. I didn’t listen to anxiety telling me that they wouldn’t like me. I just went for it. There I may not have learned everyone’s name, but we all did amazing things together and I will never forget them being there with me. I ate food that I NEVER thought I’d eat and it was DELICIOUS. I hope to find some of it here in California, but some of it I know I won’t. I ate fermented shark and I will never eat it again! EVER! But I did it, I got out of my comfort zone and did it! I can do hard things.

My travel buddy, our driver/guide for two days, and me at Silfra, Iceland (where two continents meet)

The next time anxiety tries to lie to me, I need to remember all the hard things I did on this trip and all the people I met. I can do this and people will like me.

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The Independent One

As a little girl, my mom told me that she knew from the moment I was born that I was going to be the independent one, that I wouldn’t need her, that I would be able to take care of myself. I was in Kindergarten the first time she told me that. I thought it made me strong and mature to be able to take care of myself and my siblings from a young age. I didn’t realize I was doing it because I couldn’t depend on anyone else.

In 1980 or so, there were warnings of floods in our area that winter. Our driveway and pastures often flooded so it wasn’t too far fetched for our minds to believe our house would flood. My older sister and I made a plan to save ourselves and siblings if our house flooded. Maybe she made most of the plan, but I definitely remember being in on the conversation; I was 6 years old.

When I was 8 years old, my mom worked during the day and my teenage sister slept in until late, so I had to make sure my siblings had breakfast and lunch. Oftentimes, I also made dinner for the family. I was a genius at making Top Ramen and corn dogs. By the time I was 12, dinner was my responsibility most nights too.

As soon as I got my driver’s license I was doing the grocery shopping for the family as well as driving my siblings and my mom to all of our appointments. I was about 17 before I realized that I didn’t have a childhood.

I grew up to believe I could only depend on myself, that if I needed anything from anybody else they wouldn’t love me, that it would prove that I was weak, imperfect, worthless, and unlovable. I needed to be independent to prove I was worthwhile.

People commented on how hard I worked or how well I worked on my own. I reveled in their acknowledgment. Feeling worthy through their eyes, but never my own. I still felt like a child seeking approval, trying to show that I didn’t need anyone, that I was independent like my mom had told me so long ago.

This past year I needed help with something big. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, I was going to need many people to do it with me. It took so much for me to ask for help. After I did, I cried. One of my friends asked me why it was so hard for me to ask for help when I know they will all be there for me.

My answer, “I never knew I could rely on people before.”

I have a few people in my life I know I can count on, I’ve slept on their couches when I had nowhere else to go, they’ve helped me move, I’ve called or texted them and asked last minute if I can come see them and they say yes. In my life though, they have been the exception, not the norm.

My goal moving forward in life is to surround myself with people who I can rely on. Who when I call and they say I need your help, they say I’m on the way without even asking what they’re helping with.

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Forgiveness

I grew up being told that if in order to be a “good Christian” I needed to forgive those who did wrong to me. If I wanted God to forgive me of my sins against Him, I needed to forgive others of their sins against me. I mean, the Lord’s Prayer, what we are taught is the “perfect prayer” says, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

If we forgive others, then God can forgive us and we can have a chance of an amazing future in Heaven.

What I was never taught, what I never learned growing up, was how to forgive myself, so while I was busy forgiving others, so that I could have a future chance in Heaven, I was living in a version of Hell on earth.

I wasn’t taught how to forgive myself for being “stupid” enough to trust my boyfriend to go with him to his friends house.

I didn’t learn how to forgive myself for being so “slutty” that I wore a knee-length denim skirt and a long sleeve button up shirt that day, that I had buttoned all the way up, but somehow, I must have been “asking for it.”

I never knew how to forgive myself for being so embarrassed about what “I” did that day, the day my boyfriend decided that I had been teasing him long enough, that he forced himself inside of me, without even taking my clothes off, that I didn’t tell anybody for months, and I “allowed” it to keep happening for another eight months.

I had forgiven him for what he did, so I could go to Heaven, but I had never forgiven myself. I get upset when people blame victims, but I had been doing that my whole life to myself.

Then a few months ago, my therapist asked me when I was going to forgive myself, as I was leaving. I was so angry with him, for the entire week between sessions. That question was all I could think about.

Forgiving myself? I struggled with it for almost two weeks. I cried, I screamed. I yelled at my therapist. I finally forgave myself.

I had to realize I was a fifteen year old child. I was not in control of that situation in any way. He drove me there, I knew something felt off, but I had no way of leaving and nobody to call, no way to call anyone since there were no cell phones back then. Once he started, he had me pinned down and was about 200 pounds to my 90 pounds, there was no way for me to sop him.

I didn’t have anyone to turn to when it was over. There were no safe adults in my life. The adults at school would have to call the police, my mom would think I was a slut and a sinner. If I told the adults at school my mom would eventually find out, which is exactly what happened months later. She ended up telling me that I had to marry him.

Since I forgave myself, I no longer feel like I’m living in my own personal version of Hell on earth. My thoughts have slowed down (most of the time) and I can sleep at night. I don’t constantly feel like I’m in fight or flight mode.

Forgiving others, is something I recommend if you need to in order to move on from them.

Forgiving yourself, I highly recommend, I don’t think you can live your life to it’s fullest potential if you don’t.

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April Is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

I was sexually assaulted for the first time in Junior High when a boy touched my crotch as he walked past me getting off the bus. I was raped by by boyfriend a few years later when I was fifteen. I didn’t break up with him immediately because he threatened to tell people, especially my mom, that I’d had sex with him if I broke up with him.

In the ultra-conservative, Christian church I belonged to at the time, having sex before marriage was equivalent to murder; it was just about the ultimate sin. If my mom found out that I’d had sex, she’d call me slut, whore, easy, and I’d endure lecture upon lecture about how I was used goods, that no man would ever want me know, how I had given up that ONE GIFT that I had to offer my future husband. How do I know she’d do that? I’d heard her talk about other people plenty of times, she did not keep her judgement to herself.

Later, when I’d end up alone with that boyfriend, if he wanted to have sex and I didn’t, he’d remind me,

“We already did it, so what’s the big deal?”

Or, “If you really loved me you would.”

Or, “So, you don’t want to be with me anymore, fine. Leave me. See who’ll want used goods like you.”

Or, “If you don’t, I’ll go tell everybody you’re a slut and that we have sex all the time.”

Or, “I bought you dinner, you owe me this.”

When I was fifteen years old, I was just scared to tell him no. I didn’t want anyone to find out what he did to me. I felt dirty, used, embarrassed, worthless, and unlovable. When I finally did tell my mom what happened she told me I had to marry him because I had sex with him. I was shocked!

As an adult I know that is coercive rape, when I was a teenager, I just thought I was too weak to say no. When I finally reported to the police what happened a few months later, when I found the courage to break up with him, even the male police officer I reported to, told me nothing would happen because I kept having sex with him. I told him it was because I was scared to say no. I told him that he hit me. None of it mattered, because I stayed.

Coercive rape is rape. Period. End of story. It doesn’t matter why you stay. If coercive rape is happening to you, most likely the entire relationship is dangerous and you need an escape plan to get out safely. Do what it take to keep yourself safe, but plan an escape.

Here are some resources:

https://www.rainn.org/resources–National Sexual Assault Hotline information

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Healing and a Thought Spiral

This post is going to be a bit different than most. I usually write specifically for this blog and I have a personal journal. Sometimes what I write in my journal inspires what I what for this blog, but usually they are completely separate writings. Today, I am going to write here what I wrote in my personal journal yesterday after what was an extremely difficult night for me.

March 25, 2022

I’ve been avoiding sitting down and writing this for most of the morning. I woke up at 5 am and was able to go back to sleep until 7:30 ish. It’s now 9:37. I’ve been working so hard at avoiding this, that I actually did my physical therapy exercises for my hip, which I haven’t done in well over a year.

I’ve been having trouble falling asleep this week and last night was no different. I went to bed about 10, as usual, and was just laying there, wide awake, while my thoughts stampeded around in my mind. It was all random thoughts running through, like all the different animals from the stampede scene on Jumanji, a few related, but just passing by, keeping me awake none the less.

Suddenly, one of the thoughts separated from the test and attached itself to me. Before I realized what had happened, I was taken into a thought spiral and held there until my heart was racing, I couldn’t catch my breath, and tears were forming in my eyes. I wanted to leave, but I was frozen in place, I felt trapped.

That’s me at the bottom laying in my bed.

I was able to eventually calm myself down by taking deep breaths and repeating to myself, “I’m safe,” over and over, out loud with each breath I took.

When I finally fell asleep, I had weird dreams all night. Of course, I don’t remember them, but one of them woke me up and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t married anymore, well technically I am, but not really, we’re just waiting for the courts to catch up to us. When I woke up that time, I thought he was in bed with me. Needless to say, it tool me a little bit to fall back to sleep.

I don’t understand why I feel like I’ve made so much progress, then BAM, I get thrown backwards.

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Learning From the Past

From mid-January to mid-March of 2015, I was on the jury of a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. Four women were suing their former boss for sexually harassing them in the workplace and making a hostile work environment because of their gender.

It was two grueling months of testimony that brought up a lot for me. As I sat silently in the jury box, listening to the women tell their stories from the witness stand, listened to what they endured and how they felt, brought up emotions that I thought I had dealt with long before. Then deliberations were intense, we deliberated so long, that another jury was chosen, the trial completed and the verdict read, before we were done.

In the end two of the plaintiffs we ruled he was not guilty of, one we ruled he was guilty of, and one we couldn’t reach a decision.

During the trial, I couldn’t talk about anything I was going through. I know everyone gets that instruction and I’m sure that most people go home and talk to their spouses or friends about the trial, at least a little bit to ease what they’re going through, but I literally couldn’t because our friends knew the defendant. They would hang out with us and talk about their friend’s court case, I’d have to go to the bathroom, then come back and change the subject.

Once the trial was over, I went to dinner with someone I thought I could talk to about how the case made me feel. I had been talking for about twenty minutes, when they looked at me and asked, “Are you ever going to stop talking about this?” I immediately stopped, but it sent me into a spiral into depression and anxiety that I hadn’t experienced since about 1999.

By the fall of 2015, I wanted out of my life. I felt like I just made every one’s life worse by being in it, that I was a burden to every one, especially my family. I went to counseling, that helped, slowly, but it did. By the winter of 2016, I wanted to be here again. In all of it, I never made any attempts, just a lot of fantasizing about how much better every one else’s life would be if I was gone.

In March of 2016 I started a Facebook miniseries that I called “You Might be in an Abusive or Controlling Relationship if…”, a memory of it popped up this past week. On March 9, 2016 I wrote “If your significant other in any way belittles you, demeans you or makes you feel like you don’t deserve better, you are in an abusive relationship.”

There were eleven posts in total, all of them things that I have had people do to me in my life. When I wrote the first one, I was scared. I had told people about my past experience in abusive and controlling relationships, but I had never put it out there for the world to see. I am so glad I did.

I wrote that miniseries for a very specific reason, to help a friend who I couldn’t talk to, but knew she’d see that on Facebook, but it ended up helping me too. It helped me heal. It led me to write my book, it led me to more healing from past trauma and learning to be my authentic self, instead of always being who people want me to be. (This is still a work in progress.)

We all have things in our lives that we can learn from. If we don’t learn from the things we’ve been through, we’re doomed to repeat them, I’m a prime example of that. I did NOT learn from my high school relationship, or my parents. I’ve been having to learn the lessons from those relationships for a long time.

Take time to see the patterns of hurt and pain in your life, even if its not abusive, and learn from them. Learn what you really want and go for it, ask for it, be your true self.

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Finding Your Voice, Knowing Your Worth

I’m currently reading a book titled There’s A Hole In My Love Cup by Sven Erlandson. Yesterday I read a section that talked about confronting those who created your negative core beliefs, most likely a parent or parents. Most of us have never confronted them out of fear, not that they will lash out and yell at us for confronting them, but out of fear that they will minimize our feelings, won’t change how they treat us, and therefore confirm our core belief that we are worthless and don’t matter.

He goes on to say that not only do we have the right to get rid of all the crap that they filled our love cup with, but we need to get rid of it and give it back to it’s rightful owner, whether they are going to change or not. Once we do that, get rid of all the crap in our love cup, we have room for love to fill it. The people may not change, but our relationship with them will as we realize our worth and refuse to be treated as less than any longer.

Taking our power back, finding and using our voice, and knowing our worth will also change other relationships in our lives. There are people in our lives who see who we really are somewhere deep beneath the polished surface we work so hard to protect, down to the the hurt, frightened, little kid is hiding, hoping to not be found or hurt again. As we find your voice, realize our worth, and exercise our power, these people will be there, cheering us on and supporting us through the tough times, and there will be tough times because there’s another type of person in our lives.

The other type of people are the ones who hurt us, whether on purpose or because they were hurt and didn’t know how to love us doesn’t matter, they hurt us. When we decide it’s time to let them know how they hurt us, they will most likely respond with something similar to one of these:

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“You’re just overreacting.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“If you had just___________, then I wouldn’t have had to ________”

They will find a way to minimize us and our feelings in order to make themselves feel better. In that moment, we will know that we no longer have to listen to their voice in our heads because they never truly wanted what was best for us. If they did they would have built us up instead of tearing us down. They would have listened to us as we explained how we felt instead of minimizing us to make themselves feel better.

Writing my book was the ultimate way for me to tell my parents how they made me feel worthless as a child and how that affected my life. My mom had died twelve years before I wrote it and my dad had stopped speaking to me four years prior, but whenever I had brought things up to either of them previously, they dismissed me, proving to me that I was worthless to them. Writing my book, gave me my power back and my voice. It changed me and my beliefs about myself.

I know not everybody is going to write a book, but confronting the people who have hurt you changes you. It changes other relationships as well because you realize that you are worth so much more than how some people treat you. I have lost a few relationships since I wrote my book and realized that I have value as a human being and am worthy of love and that I no longer have to chase people to love me; either people will want me, as I am, in their lives or they won’t.

Find your voice, find your power, find your worth.

You deserve it and you are lovable just the way you are!

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What If?

I often have my students use their critical thinking skills by answering what if questions.

What if the Britain had won the Revolutionary War?

What if John F. Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated?

What if the nuclear war hadn’t been used against Japan?

What if you were born into a family with billions of dollars?

What if you were born to a mom in prison?

What if you were a teen parent?

This type of questions get students out of thinking about what did happen and into thinking about other possibilities. It can open their minds to seeing other options so when they are faced with making decisions, they may be able to see multiple ways to handle the situation.

A few days ago, I played a dangerous game of “what if?” I asked myself the question, “What if my parents had taught me that it’s okay to say no.”

I learned from a very young age, that the answer to a request from my parents was always, “YES!” If we answered with a “no” there were consequences from being forced to do whatever it was through coercion or being yelled at and belittled. The consequences always involved feeling unloved.

As I grew up, I believed that if I loved someone, and they loved me, I wasn’t allowed to say no to them under any circumstance, no matter how uncomfortable I was with the situation.

What if my parents had taught me that it’s okay to say no?

Would I have been sexually abused and raped at fifteen years old by an eighteen year old student leader at church?

Would I have left someone who loved me and offered me a safe place because my mom refused to let me date him?

Would I have married someone who used me to cover up the fact that he liked boys and treated me more like a roommate than a wife?

I eventually had to stop the what if game, because it was leading me down a very deep, dark, rabbit hole, that left me curled in the fetal position in tears. I have a great life with two amazing kids, my own house, a decent job, but sometimes, the what if game gets the best of me.

Now I know that it IS okay to say no to people. It’s all about setting boundaries. If they love you, they will still love you, even if you have to say no every once in awhile.

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Ideal Culture Conflict

In sociology I teach my students about ideal culture and real culture. Ideal culture is the values and norms that a society claims to have while real culture are the values and norms that a society actually lives in their day-to-day lives. I also teach my students that we have society as a whole, like all people on earth, but that is also broken down into many different sub-groups, like people living in a country or region; people who identify as a specific gender or no gender, people of a certain ethnic group, friend groups, religious groups, political groups, families, what job you have, etc.

Basically, society can be broken up into many different types of groups and within each group there is an ideal culture and then there is what the people of that group actually live out every day. The ideal culture is usually unattainable, but most people do their best to get there. What’s that old saying? Aim for the moon, if you miss, you may hit a star.

I have grappled with this idea my whole life, but only recently, with my therapist, have I realized it. We are taught by media and society that families are supposed to be safe places to learn and grow. That we are supposed to be able to trust our parents to be there and take care of us when we need support. For many people, that’s their truth and I’m so thankful for them, but for me and many people like me, that’s not the case. Our families were a place of constant heartache and deep wounds that followed us from childhood into adulthood that we are still working on healing from so they will stop affecting our relationships and our lives.

this is just a picture I found online, I have no idea who they are.

When I was twenty years old I married the guy I had been dating since my senior year of high school, who was a youth pastor. I had this idea that marriage was going to be a partnership and that we’d be happy. Not long after we were married, he told me that he didn’t think he’d ever be happy being married to me. As a Christian woman, I had been taught that it was up to me to keep my husband happy, so for the next five years I did whatever I could to make him happy. I did whatever he told me to do and basically lost myself in the process of becoming the woman that he could be happy being married to. This nice Christian man that I had married was actually a controlling abuser, who ended up getting arrested for abusing boys. I divorced him.

The biggest conflict for me has come from the evangelical church and many people who call themselves Christians. I was raised in a Pentecostal church and switched to a Baptist church when I was twenty-six years old. They both claim to live by what the Bible teaches.

To me that is when Jesus says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. (From Matthew 22:37-40)

Yet it seems to me, that many Christians have all kinds of rules about who they have to love and who gets into heaven and who gets to be considered Christian. A few of the churches I attended, actually taught that there were denominations within Christianity that were not “real” Christians and would not go to heaven when they died.

They didn’t show me love when I was sexually assaulted by a leader in their children’s ministry or when my ex-husband was arrested. Both the churches that I was attending at those times asked me to no longer attend. When my ex-husband was arrested, that pastor disparaged me so badly from the pulpit, that my friend wouldn’t even tell me what was said.

I know that ideal culture and real culture are not the same. I know that ideal culture is unattainable, but the people that have been in my life, from these small, little sub-groups of the larger society, seem to have not even been trying.

I know that nobody is perfect. I know that I’m not perfect and I never will be, but I hope that strive every day to live up to the best in the ideal society. I know I won’t attain it, I am after all a flawed human being. I also need to remember that everyone else is a flawed human being, none of us are perfect. None of us will attain that ideal culture, but I can surround myself with people who strive for that, who actually hope for that type of world, who don’t just pay it lip service and then behave in a completely opposite way.

Here’s to the hope of getting close to our ideal culture!

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New Year, New Chapter

Our lives tell our story. They begin at our birth, and they end when we die. They are constantly being written, sometimes by the choices we make, sometimes by the choices others make and the effects of those choices.

There are good parts, bad parts, terrifying parts, tearful parts, ecstatic parts, hopeful parts, and every type of part you can imagine in between. I don’t know how the past few years have been for you, but I’ve felt like I’ve been writing my story while riding a roller coaster that got stuck upside down. The thrill and fun of life had slipped away and I was hanging on for dear life hoping to make it to the end without falling off the ride.

I found this quote a few months ago. There is nothing about my life that I can go back and change, it’s all happened already. The consequences of choices that have been made have been and are being lived with. I can’t change any of that.

I’m learning that I don’t have to live with the festering wounds. I don’t have to ignore the trauma and the damage that it’s caused and “just get over it,” as I’ve been told in different ways so many times in my life. I can get help in healing those old wounds and in the healing process I can begin to write a new ending to my story.

The ending to my story will hopefully be one of mental and emotional healing, where I continue to work through the traumas of my past so they no longer affect my present or future. An ending where I am comfortable being me. I know it’s not always going to be easy or perfect, but I’m looking forward to writing this new ending to my story.

My hope for everyone in 2022 is that you don’t let your past define you. That you see who you truly are, who you were created to be, and find a way to be that best version of you that you can be.

Love you all and Happy New Year!

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This is Me!

Top of the Empire State Building 10/6/2021

In the movie The Greatest Showman Keala Settle sings, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” in the song This is me. The first time I saw that movie, that song brought tears to my eyes. The very thought that people might accept me as I am, with all my broken parts and scars, was too much for me to believe. I felt as if I was somehow responsible for how I became broken and got those scars; as if it were my fault that people treated me in ways that left me broken, shattered, and scarred when I put myself back together.

Growing up I was often told that I was too much or not enough which left me feeling like I always had to try harder to be who people wanted me to be so that they would love and accept me. In the process I hid who I really was. I became invisible and believed that I was worthless. My value was completely defined by how other people saw me because I saw myself as completely worthless, without value on my own.

In 2016, I wrote my book, Worthless No More. It was extremely healing to write it but I realized that I was still basing my worth on how other people saw me, not on any value I gave myself. After seeing the movie and hearing Keala Settle sing the song, especially the line, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” I decided that I needed to work on myself.

I have spent much time the past few years, and very intense time the past year and a half with therapists, working on myself. I now know that I am valuable as a human being. My value doesn’t change based on another person’s ability or inability to see it. I also no longer hide who I am or try to be who I think they want me to be, because, “This is me.”

If you’re struggling with knowing your own worth, I can tell you that you are extremely valuable just for the simple fact that you are a human being and living on this planet. You deserve to take up space. You deserve to speak your voice. You deserve to be who you are.

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Coercive Control-Domestic Violence Awareness Month

https://www.advancediversity.org.au/coercive-control-brochures-aim-to-reduce-abuse/

Many people ask abuse victims, “Why’d you stay?”

The answer is not always easy. Many people don’t even realize they or someone they love are the victims of domestic violence because it can be subtle and slow. The abuser is usually not going to start out right away by beating their victim, that would be too obvious; they have to first win them over.

In the beginning the abuser may shower their victim with gifts, they may seem too good to be true, showing much love and affection. This often is when somebody claims to have been “swept off their feet.”

After the victim is thoroughly invested and believes they can’t live without this person and the abuser can no longer keep up the charade of being a loving caring person all the time, that’s when the coercive control begins.

It will probably be small at first. A hurtful comment, when the victim says something about it the response will be that the abuser was “just joking” or that they are being “too sensitive. Who knows, it might be both.

It may escalate to isolation, maybe not blatantly by saying “You can’t hang out with that person.” It could be subtle. A comment about how much they don’t like hanging out with that person, can they skip the get together this time. The next time you want to go they might tell you how much they just want to spend time with you, with nobody else around, how special that would be, just the two of you. Pretty soon, you’ve cancelled on your friends so many times, they quit inviting you.

Another form of domestic abuse that usually progresses slowly is sexual coercion. This happens when one partner is in the mood for a little adult fun and the other says no. The one who wants to play is hurt and takes it out on the other person by lashing out in some way; pouting, telling them “I feel like you don’t love me when you say no,” giving them the silent treatment, etc. Over time the victim begins to feel like they are unable to say no to sex.

It might even escalate to sexual assault, rape, and physical abuse. Usually by the time it escalates to this level, the relationship has been abusive for some time.

Leaving also isn’t safe or easy. Victims can lose their friends and family when they leave their abuser; they can lose their entire support system. They can also lose their life. And the abuse doesn’t end just because the relationship does.

According to Battered Women Support Services, 77% of domestic violence related homicides occur upon separation. The same organization states that there is a 75% increase in violence upon separation for at least 2 years!

That means that for a huge percentage of victims, staying in an abusive relationship might actually be safer than leaving it. For those who do leave, the abuser still finds ways to be violent and controlling for up to two years. So leaving the relationship doesn’t mean leaving the abuser. It can be even worse if there are kids involved.

I hope that this post has helped you understand a little bit more about why so many people stay in abusive relationships. They aren’t easy to see, even if you’re living it, but especially if you aren’t. If somebody you know is in an abusive relationship, be there for them, listen to them, hear what they aren’t telling you.

https://ncadv.org/2021DVAM— National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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https://www.thehotline.org/embed/#?secret=jO6eZo7ABYNational Domestic Violence Hotline

https://www.rainn.org/— National Sexual Assault Hotline, Chat, and Website

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Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence is also known as Intimate Partner Violence or IPV. It is defined as the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional abuse. I believe everyone should be aware of it, know what to look for in both the victim and the abuser. Be able to listen for what is NOT being said, see what’s happening behind the scenes. We can’t do that if we aren’t aware of it.

*Just a note to start with, all of the statistics and information used in this blog will be from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV.)*

1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been the victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Abusers don’t begin by hitting their partner, they are usually charming and win over their partner with acts of kindness and love. Once the partner is attached the abuser will begin the abuse cycle by exerting various form of coercive control. These tactics can include isolation, degrading, micromanaging manipulating, sexual coercion, threats, stalking, and punishment as well as physical abuse.

The partner has now become the victim of domestic violence and may not even be aware of it because it was so insidious and subversive. The abuser will have broken down the victim to a point that they may feel helpless to leave. Sometimes the victim may fight back in what is known as reactive violence. The victim tends to see reactive violence as a way to get the violence against them to stop, a form of self-protection, or a way to restore the dignity that has been destroyed by the abuser.

Abuse victims will often attempt other means to end the violence against them before resorting to reactive violence. These tactics include negotiation, appeasement, threats to leave, or actually leaving the perpetrator, getting help from others, threats to expose the abuser, and threats to hurt the abuser emotionally, economically, or damage their property.

It is often difficult for the victim to leave their abuser for a variety of reasons which can include that they feel isolated, depressed, or helpless. They might be embarrassed of the situation, they might withdraw emotionally, they may be financially unstable, have religious or cultural beliefs that reinforce staying in the relationship, or feel like they have nowhere to go.

Also, many times, when the victim does finally leave their abuser, the abuse doesn’t end. The abuser continues with their attempts to control their victim. Sometimes, it is after the victim has left that the abuser murders them. Sometimes, the leaving is the most dangerous time in a domestic violence situation.

All of this is a lot to take in and might be difficult to understand for somebody who is lucky enough to have never experienced domestic violence, but there are almost 35% of women and about 31% of men in California alone that have experienced domestic violence. Become aware so that you can be a friend to someone who is hurting and an advocate to someone who might need it.

If you’d like more information or you need help in a domestic violence situation here are some resources for you to check out:

https://ncadv.org/2021DVAM— National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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National Domestic Violence Hotline

https://www.rainn.org/— National Sexual Assault Hotline, Chat, and Website

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Tell Your Story

Have you ever loved somebody so much it hurts?

Have you ever loved someone who didn’t know how to love you back without causing you pain?

Have you ever had to end a relationship to save yourself?

Once upon a time I was a broken little girl.

My parents did the best they could while they dealt with their own mental health issues, but I had a terrible childhood. I often wondered if I was going to have dinner at night. I never knew if I was going to be yelled at or “beat with the stick” for whatever I did that my dad didn’t approve of, which seemed to change from day to day.

No matter how much they hurt me, no matter how much I lived on egg shells, no matter how much they belittled me and made me earn their love; they told me they loved me. They told me it was for my good. They told me it was to teach me a lesson.

What I got out of all of it was that love and pain went together. I learned that those who love you also hurt you. That set me up for some messed up relationships in my life. Significant others that told me they loved me, but treated me as though I didn’t matter at all.

I believed I didn’t matter. I believed it was my job to keep them happy. I believed my happiness needed to take a back seat to everyone else. I was a nothing, and I was treated as second place to everything else in my significant others’ life.

Many people ask why I stayed with them. Heck, I was married to one for five years! One reason is that when you learn that you are nothing, that you don’t matter, that it’s your job to keep others happy and put yourself last, that those who love you also hurt you, then the way they treated me was completely normal to me.

When I finally realized my worth; when I finally realized that my happiness mattered; when I finally realized that I mattered and I began to expect and ask people to treat me better. I asked them to speak to me with respect. I asked them to be my partner instead of my superior. I asked them to pull their weight in the relationship and not leave all the work up to me.

Guess what happened!

I was called names. I was told I was being emotional. I was told I was starting fights. I was told I was yelling. I was told that I was being too much.

What I learned was that I did nothing wrong by asking to be treated right.

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Do You Ever Hurt So Bad, You Stop Hurting?

A few days ago, my psychology class was learning about child abuse, the reasons for it, but more importantly, how it can be prevented and the impact it can have on the victims.

We watched two YouTube movies in class, that demonstrate, in a very emotional way, the damage that child abuse can have, but also the hope that is possible for a victims of child abuse to become survivors of child abuse. There are posted at the end of the blog.

The movies follow the story of a young girl named Zoe. She narrates the story with an internal monologue as we see what’s unfolding in her young life. She starts with this:

“Sometimes someone hurts you so bad, it stops hurting at all. Until something makes you feel again, and then it all comes back. Every word, every hurt, every moment.”

I am a survivor of abuse.

So many times throughout my life, I have felt numb, unable to feel anything at all; not pain, not love, not joy, not peace.

NOTHING. AT. ALL.

I was merely existing. Making it through one day to the next day, doing what had to be done, but I didn’t hurt.

I’m wrong, actually. I did feel something. I felt exhausted. All the time, everything I did required more energy than I had, but things had to get done so I did them.

No matter how tired I was, no matter how numb I was, I knew that I wouldn’t feel that way forever. I knew that things would get better. I knew that one day, I would feel something other than exhausted.

I hung on to the hope that moments pass. That I would feel again. And I have, every single time.

If you are in a situation that has hurt you so bad that it stops hurting at all, please remember that it ends. The feelings do come back.

And yes, when the feelings come back the first thing we have to do is process and heal from the hurt that brought us to that place this time, but it’s possible to heal. It’s possible to have an amazing future even with a scarred past. Our pasts DO NOT define who we are. We write our own stories.

If you are hurting, numb or feel helpless, or hopeless or want to give up on life, please call 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741.

If you are being abused please call: Child abuse- call or text 1-800-422-4453 Domestic Violence-call 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 for Sexual Assault call 1-800-656-4673 or go to https://www.rainn.org/ to chat online.

We can heal from abuse and go on to lead, happy, healthy lives.

Here are those two videos I promised you. Get the tissues ready, but they are so worth the watch. Together they are about 30 minutes. The first one is 12 minutes and the second one is about 20 minutes long.

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Anyone Else Exhausted?

2020 has been the longest year of my life. Wait a minute. It’s not 2020, it’s 2021! Okay, 2021 has been the longest year of my life, and it’s only August… This does not bode well.

Maybe the two years have just run together since COVID-19 and conspiracies seemed to have taken over the world. Whatever the reason, this has been the longest year and I am EXHAUSTED!

Not that this year has been entirely bad, I mean sure enough bad stuff has happened since March of 2020 to fill a few lifetimes.

In America alone we currently have 628,000 people who have died from COVID-19.

We’ve had the most contentious election in American history, where the losing candidate and his supporters, just can’t let it go.

We had an insurrection where thousands of people broke into the U.S. Capitol while Congress was certifying the election results in order to “stop the steal” and some of those people also had lists of congress people they wanted to harm. As of four days ago, 615 people have been charged in connection to the Capitol Insurrection.

We’ve had numerous black people killed by police officers and protests in response.

Crimes against Asians are on the rise because a certain group of people continue to refer to COVID-19 in a derogatory way towards one ethnic group.

I could go on, but I’m too tired.

My life has also been challenging during this time, growth usually is difficult, but things are good and moving in a positive direction.

I’m just so utterly and completely exhausted.

I sat down the other day after work to take a 23 minute break and watch one old episode of The Nanny before going to pick up my kid from football. I didn’t even make it past the theme song before I was taking a trip to dreamland.

Some days I’m so tired that a simple change in plans reduces me to tears because I can’t handle anymore.

I’ve taken time away, time off, time to veg in front of the TV, but there’s always more to do, another kid to pick up, another lesson to plan, another meal to cook, another dish to wash and while I’m off relaxing, that stuff is piling up, making more work for me later.

I just want to sleep while everything else still magically gets done. Where’s my Harry Potter wand?

Any one else exhausted?

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Fun in the Sun

Last Sunday I completed another trip around the sun and celebrated my birthday with family. Yesterday is when I celebrated with friends. We spent the day in Santa Cruz, soaking in the sun, enjoying the delicious food, like a Texas Donut (thank you for sharing Bev!), watching a sea lion miss jumping out of the water onto the platform, riding the carousel that is 120 years old this year and generally having a fabulous time laughing and relaxing.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and did NOT want the day to end. We even finished the day off with ice cream for dinner. Like I said it was a FANTASTIC day!

I haven’t had the best time since March 2020. When the world flipped upside down for everybody, my personal world also seemed to flip upside down and my mental health took a nosedive. I’ve shared that there was even a point that I didn’t even want to be alive any more in COVID world. My anxiety was through the roof!

Through talking with a counselor, a family member and a friend, as well as a LOT of time talking to God, I’m back to “normal”… mostly. At night, when I should be asleep, Anxiety still likes to sneak in and keep me awake with all the “what ifs” and “should’ves.” I don’t like Anxiety very much and I’m usually able to tell it to take a hike after a few restless minutes of a racing mind. I don’t always win though. Sometimes I lie awake from 3:00 am until my alarm goes off and face the day exhausted, hoping for a better night to come.

But yesterday. Those days I treasure. I can share with trusted friends what I feel. I don’t have to be invisible or make myself smaller so they feel bigger. I don’t have to say just the right thing to keep them feeling comfortable or to keep them as friends. They are my friends, through thick and thin; NO MATTER WHAT!

I’m so thankful to have such an amazing handful of people in my life that I can trust and call my friends. I didn’t get to be with all of them yesterday, but I’m thankful for all of my friends just the same. I would NOT have survived this pandemic without them.

Thank you to all my friends for being so AWESOME!!!!

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Invisible Me

Growing up I learned that it was good to be invisible. If I was invisible, then I couldn’t get in trouble. I couldn’t get yelled at. I couldn’t get beat with the stick. I couldn’t get dismissed. I couldn’t get sent outside. I couldn’t get told that I’d be given something to cry about. I couldn’t get ignored.

Being invisible was lonely, but it to me it was better to be invisible than any of the alternatives.

Of course when I was 5 or 6 years old, I didn’t realize what I was doing, making myself invisible, I was just trying not to be yelled at every time I didn’t argue or did exactly what I was told without talking back. By the time I was 7 years old, I was so good at it that when I cut my finger so badly that I needed stitches, I hid it from my mom for as long as I could, but it kept bleeding and eventually she noticed.

I learned that in order to get along and be loved, I needed to go along. I needed to agree with what people said whether I actually did or not. If I disagreed with them, they wouldn’t love me anymore and as a child, I NEEDED my parents to love me. I WANTED my parents to love me.

When I became a teenager, I became myself for a little bit, but not for long. I desperately wanted their love and acceptance. When I spoke my mind and said what I thought and how I felt that differed from their point of view I was rebellious, disrespectful, hateful, good for nothing…worthless. I couldn’t handle that feeling so I went back to being invisible. I went along to get along.

Once I starting agreeing with my parents again, I was the golden child, but who I was, how I felt, was once again, invisible. I didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was their perception of who they thought I should be.

This has really messed me up in many relationships. In my mind, I believe that for people to like/love/accept me, I need to hide most of who I am and only let them know the parts about me that agree with them. I know understand that this is a completely messed up way to live. If someone doesn’t love and accept me for who I am then they don’t deserve me.

I’d like to say that I’m completely over this, that I can tell people how I feel anytime, but I’m still scared. I still worry about if they’ll like me or not. It’s difficult to break lifelong habits, even ones that hurt you. But I am a work in progress. I may always be a work in progress and that’s okay with me.

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Intimate Partner Violence

When most people hear about somebody being abused by an intimate partner, like a boy/girlfriend or spouse, they will often ask, “Why didn’t they just leave?” Or will say, “If that had been me, I would have just left.” People who are lucky enough to have never been in that situation have no idea how hard it is to just leave.

That’s a picture of me the summer before I started high school. The very next summer I would meet a boy that treated me like nobody had ever treated me before. He liked me, he told me he loved me. He asked me to be his girlfriend. He risked the wrath of my dad to see me. I was in LOVE.

It wasn’t long before he started criticizing me. Little things, like how pretty I’d be if I just wore make up, or dresses. He started letting me know how lucky I was to have him as a boyfriend because most guys wouldn’t want to date a girl as tomboy-ish as me.

It also wasn’t long before he started pressuring me to have sex with him. (I’m talking weeks here.)

At first it was on phone calls. I’d tell him no, I wasn’t ready, that I wanted to wait until I was married. (I had been taught that a girl’s greatest gift to her husband on their wedding night was her virginity.)

Then I was fighting his hands off when we were kissing. I was constantly moving them to where I was more comfortable. It was a losing battle, I eventually stopped fighting it and let his hands go where he wanted them to and do what he wanted them to no matter how uncomfortable I was, because, as he said, “if I loved him I would.”

For TEN months I put off the inevitable. I put off sex with him. Then one day he told me we were going to hang out with a friend of his. When we arrived, he had the key to his friend’s apartment and let us in. We were alone. He started kissing me as soon as we sat on the couch, then whispered in my ear, “I’ve waited long enough.”

I tried to get out from under him, but he was too big and too strong for me. He forced himself into me and did what he wanted. Because he loved me and he wanted to show me how much.

I cried.

I had been told for so long that my entire worth and value was wrapped up in my virginity and he had just taken that from me, so what was the point in anything anymore. I gave up fighting. I didn’t tell a single soul. I was too embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know what I had done. I gave in, I gave up. I was worthless. I was lucky that this guy still wanted to be with me because nobody else would want me since I wasn’t a virgin anymore.

For a year, I kept that secret. For a year, he continued to use and abuse me. For a year I continued to die a little more inside.

Then I went on a double date with a friend, I was still dating my abuser, but he was in boot camp and she really wanted to go on this date, but not alone so I agreed to go with his friend. We saw the movie Sleeping With the Enemy. There’s a scene where Julia Robert’s character’s husband forces her to have sex with him. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

My date noticed. We went to the lobby and he asked if I was ok. I told him, “That’s what he does.” His response was, “Your boyfriend rapes you?” I just nodded. It was the first time I used that word to describe what he did to me. He raped me for over a year while I stayed with him because I felt too worthless to leave him; too ashamed to ask for help.

That is why people stay with their abusers, among other reasons.

I gave up. I got tired of telling him no. That is not consent. That is rape.

Giving in because you are afraid of what will happen if you say no is not consent. That is rape.

Saying no and your intimate partner doing it anyway, is rape.

Being told when or how often you are going to have sex in your relationship is not consent. That is rape.

Being told that if you say no, you don’t love them, is coercion, not consent. That is rape.

Just because you are in a committed, intimate relationship does not mean that you owe your partner your body at anytime unless you are a willing participant in the activity. If you are not a 100 percent willing participant, that is rape. You have the right to say no, even to your intimate partner. Your body is your body.

https://www.healthline.com/health/domestic-violence-costs#Intimate-Partner-Violence:-Defining-It-

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How Did You Love?

In 2018 a person that I looked up to growing up sued me for telling the truth. The truth I told was difficult for that person to hear and they had a choice to make, they could admit their mistake and ask for forgiveness, or continue to deny it. They continued to deny it, publicly calling me and others who shared the same truth I did, liars. They gathered an army of defenders on social media in an attempt to get me to back down. They sent me texts through various messaging apps to intimidate me and get me to recant what I said.

This person was a pillar in the Christian community I grew up in. They were considered a role model, someone to look up to, to admire, to strive to be like. When I told the truth and they decided to try to cover it up in lies and disparaging stories about me and others who had similar true stories as well as attempting to intimidate me into silence, I was shocked that anyone, let alone a person I grew up admiring, would behave that way.

In the midst of all of that, I was rocking out to whatever was on the radio one day and a song that I had probably heard before, but not paid much attention to came on. It was “How Did You Love” by Shinedown.

The part that really hit me was the chorus, it goes like this:

“No one gets out alive, every day is do or die
The one thing you leave behind
Is how did you love, how did you love?
It’s not what you believe those prayers will make you bleed
But while you’re on your knees
How did you love, how did you love, how did you love?“

Every one of us will die one day and how will people remember us? Will they remember us as someone that they looked up to, someone who was always there for them, someone who was willing to fix the mistakes we make, someone who loves? Or are they going to remember us for being a liar, tearing others down, being a person that they want nothing to do with?

When the case went to court, the person who sued me lost. About a week later they died by suicide. Unfortunately when I think about them, I don’t remember how they loved. I remember their intimidation tactics first. How they bullied my friends and I to try to change our truth to fit their narrative.

I have a good friend that I am lucky to have in my life who says, “If they wanted me to tell a different story, they should have given me a different story to tell.” (Sorry if I butchered your quote, Daisy.)

All of that to say this: I want to be a person who is known for loving others and myself. When my life is over, I want people to look back at me and the part my life played in theirs and be glad I was a part of their story. I want them to say that I loved well.

I know I’m not perfect, I’m human after all. I will make mistakes, my hope is that when I realize my mistakes either on my own, through therapy, or people pointing them out to me in a loving way, that I will be able to see them for what they are, and if necessary, make some changes.

I also know that moving forward in life, it’s alright to let people know if they’ve wronged me as well, as long as I do it in a way that lets them know how what they did affected me. For example I might say, “I feel violated when people invade by privacy by snooping around my in my journal.” It’s okay to call people out on what they’ve done wrong if it’s going to protect or help others. I mean, even Jesus got angry in the synagogue and flipped tables over and told those people what they were doing wrong.

Essentially, here’s what I learned from that experience and that song; what is important in life is how did you love? I want to be remembered for being a loving, caring, accepting person, who does whatever it takes to protect others. Will I make mistakes along the way? ABSOLUTELY! After all, I’m only human. I hope to learn from those mistakes and love better, become more caring, and more accepting.

Most importantly, what I’ve learned is that I am a valuable, lovable human being who deserves to be treated with respect, kindness, and value. As Keala Settle sings, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of.”

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Worthless No More-4 Years Later

Four years ago I released my very first book, Worthless No More. I began writing it the year before after a particularly difficult few months for me where I had been feeling especially worthless and making some bad choices for myself.

In writing the book, and with counseling, I began to see the reasons for why I felt so worthless. I saw the patterns of relationships throughout my childhood, teen years and young adult life that contributed to me feeling that way, but at some point it was no longer the people in my life making me feel worthless, I had internalized the feeling.

I believed that I was worthless.

Writing the book helped me see that and set me on a course of healing and realizing my own value as a person and a child of God. It’s been difficult, but well worth it.

When the book was finally published and I had copies in my hand, I had a book release celebration. For the celebration I found as many songs as I could that had to do with knowing your value and persevering through difficult times. The first song on the playlist that night was Fight Song by Rachel Platten. The first time I heard that song it spoke to me and reminded me of the inner strength I have. Here are the lyrics:

Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion

And all those things I didn’t say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now I’ll be strong
I’ll play my fight song
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

Losing friends and I’m chasing sleep
Everybody’s worried about me
In too deep
Say I’m in too deep (in too deep)
And it’s been two years I miss my home
But there’s a fire burning in my bones
Still believe
Yeah, I still believe

And all those things I didn’t say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?

Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song
My power’s turned on
Starting right now I’ll be strong (I’ll be strong)
I’ll play my fight song
And I don’t really care if nobody else believes
‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

Know I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Dave Bassett / Rachel Platten Fight Song lyrics

And here’s the video, Enjoy!!

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Mental Health Matters #endthestigma

I haven’t written a blog post since February, there are many reasons for that and someday, I may fill you in completely, but for now, I will let you know one of the reasons… my Mental Health.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I began this blog in May 2016 as a place for me to discuss mental health and sexual assault issues. This blog has been a life saver to me as I wrote about my own struggles with mental health issues in hopes of helping others with theirs, especially during the times when I felt completely alone as though nobody was listening.

This past year has been a struggle with my anxiety often being in overdrive and leading me to question my very existence. There were weeks where getting out of bed in the morning was a herculean effort, just to do the things required of living was exhausting, never mind keeping two other humans alive as well.

I realized that my mental health needed attention and sought help in the form of a Christian counselor. I do my best to keep the fact that I follow Christ out of what I write on here, but this year that has been part of what has saved me so in this blog, I’m going to include it.

I wanted to find a counselor who understood mental health issues like anxiety, and also understood my belief in God and how strongly I hold onto Jesus in the deepest, darkest of times in my life. It has helped tremendously!

I know I will always have anxiety, it’s just a part of who I am. Most of the time it’s my superpower, but sometimes it’s my unraveling, as it tried to be this past year. Talking with someone who understands anxiety and lots of prayer helped me pull out of the deep trenches of anxiety and back into the land of the living.

Recently, a Christian told me that because of my anxiety, I live in fear. Because I’m living in fear, I’m not a good Christian and I’m allowing the devil to have a stronghold in my life.

This person has not talked with me about what I’ve done to combat my anxiety and fears. They have not asked to pray with me about my anxiety. They have not asked what they can do to ease my anxiety. They haven’t asked if my anxiety is better or worse.

They just decided that because I have anxiety, I am allowing the devil a place in my life and I need to get my life right with God and back on track. When I do that, then everything will be better.

This person has no idea the work that I have done with my counselor and with God this year to get better. I am better for the time being. I know that a bad bout with anxiety will come again, that’s the nature of the illness. It pretends to be my friend for a while, then BAM, it turns on me.

This person telling me that I just need to get right with God reminded me of this cartoon:

If we treated physical illnesses the same way we treat mental illnesses.

Mental illnesses are real! They are no more about the devil taking over a person’s life than any physical illness is.

Would somebody ever tell a person with cancer that they just need to pray more, or that they just don’t believe in God enough to be healed, or that they must be allowing the devil to have a stronghold in their life because they aren’t getting better.

Unfortunately, there are Christians who believe these lies about physical and mental health. Well I don’t.

We live in an imperfect world and I am an imperfect human. That means I have flaws and illness and I make mistakes and I have heartbreaks.

It also means that I am worthy of love.

Period.

No, “You are worthy of love; if you do this…”

I am worthy of love because I am me. That’s it. Whether you approve of who and how I am and the illness I have or the mistakes I make. I am worthy of love.

I have value because I am a human being.

I will not be ashamed of my mental illness.

“But you’re not ashamed?” “I trust GOD with all my heart. He hasn’t taken my anxiety and depression away yet…but he has taken my shame.”

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Sticks and Stones

https://medium.com/@havenstrange.1/words-hurt-an-experiment-3b9bab69566f

Growing up, children should feel safe, secure, loved, and cherished. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. Many children grow up feeling like the love of their parents is conditional. That their safety is reliant on their parents mood that day. That security is the guy at the door of the Target store. They’ve never heard of nor felt being cherished and wouldn’t even know that it was something they deserved.

Children growing up in these environments tend to become peacemakers, putting the needs of others before their own. Working their hardest to keep everyone else, especially their parents, “happy” so that they can feel safe and loved. It sounds like it might be a good thing, but it’s not for many reasons. Children who do this begin to believe that they don’t matter, their feelings don’t matter, their needs don’t matter. They internalize the idea that the only thing that matters is keeping the people who are supposed to love them unconditionally happy, so that they will continue to love them.

When they grow up, these children have a higher tendency to wind up in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship and may not even realize it, because that’s what they’re used to. They have learned that the people who love them also hurt them. That love and pain go together. They have been conditioned by the situation they grew up in to believe that those who love them will also make them feel worthless.

Or maybe, the abused child has learned they were abused as a child and healed from it. Maybe they thought they learned from that. Maybe they find a romantic partner who values them and shows genuine love. Somebody who totally understands the abuse they suffered and helps them continue to heal throughout the rest of their life. That would be amazing. There are people out there who will be that person for the abuse survivor.

Then there are people who will know that the person is an abuse survivor and try to understand, but because they don’t have empathy, they may be unable to truly help. After awhile, they may end up saying things to the abuse survivor that are hurtful, that cause the survivor to revert back to the hurt, insecure, scared child, but because of therapy, the survivor is able to say something to the partner. The partner apologizes or explains away the behavior and the abuse survivor, wanting to be loved, accepts and forgives and moves forward.

The hard part in all of this is that the words leave scars. If the motivations for the negative words are never dealt with, the scars may get infected. If the words continue to happen, if a pattern of negative words emerge, the childhood abuse survivor may end up becoming the victim of adult domestic partner violence.

The survivor of childhood abuse needs to heal from that, face it and always confront it in all relationships moving forward. Nobody ever deserves to be abused, sometimes abuse is so covert that we don’t even realize it’s happening, even more so if you are the survivor of childhood abuse.

Always, always, always be careful with your words. According to several relationship researchers, including John Gottman and April Stevenson, it takes a ratio of 7:1-4:1 of positive to negative interactions for people to maintain a positive relationship. That means that you need to have somewhere between four and seven positive interactions to every negative interaction to maintain a good relationship and build a person up. So when you criticize a person, you better have at least 4 good things to say about them too, I would tend to go overboard for a child. But be specific. Say things like, “You did a great job cleaning up the clothes off your bedroom floor.” “You worked really hard on that math homework.”

If you are an abuse survivor though, I think you can set boundaries without doing this. Telling somebody they hurt you, is not being critical as long as you do it in a way that emphasizes your feelings. Such as “I felt hurt, when I was told________________, because_________________.”

www.pinterest.com/pin/323837029429358137

It would be amazing if we could end childhood abuse and domestic abuse, but as long as there are humans involved in relationships, we won’t be able to. Until then, my hope is that all who have been abused will find the help they need. Here are a few resources if you have been abused or know someone who has been abused:

The M3ND Project Home

Home

National Domestic Violence Hotline

Home

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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Never Enough or Too Much

I spent a lifetime hearing from others that I wasn’t enough, or I that was too much.

I wasn’t smart enough. “Why isn’t this A an A+?”

I wasn’t dumb enough. “Oh my God, how’d YOU get an A on that?”

I wasn’t pretty enough. “You’re just lucky that I like you, with how you look!”

I wasn’t girly enough. “Do you even have any estrogen in you?”

I wasn’t Christian enough. “How can think that? Are you even a REAL Christian?”

I wasn’t American enough. “How can you teach about slavery; don’t you love America?”

I was too much of a nerd. “Do we always have to go to museums on vacation?”

I was too emotional. “Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!”

I was too anxious. “You know that’s not really going to happen, right? You worry too much about everything!”

I was too tense. “Can’t you ever just relax?”

I was too much of a vagabond. “Geez, how many places have you lived?”

I was too compassionate to others. “You want to take care of everyone else and you don’t care about your own family!”

I was too selfish. “I can’t believe you got McDonalds for dinner; you know I’d rather have something you cook?”

I was too needy. “I can drive you to school, but I expect a homemade breakfast every morning when I get to your house to pick you up as payment.”

For the longest time I believed them.

All of them.

Every.

Single.

Lie.

Because that’s what they were. Lies. Lies that said I either wasn’t enough, or I was too much for everyone else.

Because I believed them, I started to hide things about myself that I thought they wouldn’t approve of. I tried to prove I was worthy of their love, their affection, and their approval.

I worked harder in school to get as many A’s as I could. I surrounded myself with other Christians, pushing away people who weren’t, keeping them on the periphery of my life, losing out on many good friendships in the process. I wanted my parent’s approval and love. I wanted the church’s approval. I wanted boyfriends to accept me. I wanted my husbands’ acceptance, love, and affection.

I did what I thought I should, I behaved how I was told. I stayed quiet about what I thought and what I needed. I went along to get along.

Even after a divorce, even after my mom’s death, even after being estranged from my dad, even after so much counseling, I still believed the lies that I wasn’t enough. I still believed that I had to prove my worth to others. That I had to keep my opinions, thoughts, ideas, to myself if they were in conflict with those of the people I wanted to be accepted by in fear of losing their acceptance.

I trust people will accept me for who I am, until they show me that they don’t. Until they say something or do something that shows me that I’m too much or not enough for them and then I fall into the trap of trying to prove myself to them.

That began to change in 2016 when I started writing my book, Worthless No More. As I wrote that book, I started to realize that I have worth for the simple fact that I am a human being and nobody has the right to treat me as though I am not enough or too much to handle.

I was created in God’s image. I was made to be just as I am. I prefer comfort over fashion and jeans to dresses, that doesn’t make me less of a girl. My curiosity is what makes me smart, I want to know things so I investigate and learn, it does happen to make me a nerd and want to go to museums in new places and I’m proud of that. I want to explore new places. I have experienced much trauma in my life, which has made me sensitive and reactive in certain situations, sometimes reliving past trauma, however none of it makes me unworthy of love or unconditional acceptance by those who claim to love me.

In 2018, about a year after my book was released, the movie, The Greatest Showman, came out. There is a song in the movie sung by Keala Settle, playing the bearded lady, titled, “This is Me.” When I heard that song in the movie for the first time, I cried. Right there in the movie theater, tears streamed down my cheeks because I completely understood the lyrics:

“I am not a stranger to the dark

hide away they say

’cause we don’t want your broken parts

I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars

run away they say

no one’ll love you as you are…”

As the song progresses it becomes obvious that she (and the others) have found their worth and are done hiding away and are proud to be who they are when they sing:

“I’m not scared to be seen

I make no apologies, this is me…”

I’m tired of being cut down and treated as though I’m not enough or too much. I’m tired of being an afterthought. I’m tired of hiding away.

This is me.

I am enough

There’s nothing I’m not worthy of.

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Hindsight is 2020

As 2020 comes to an end, I’ve been looking back on the year, specifically the past nine months. These have been extremely difficult for so many people to say the least. As a meme that’s been going around the internet says, “We are not all in the same boat. We are in the same storm. Some have yachts, some canoes, and some are drowning. Just be kind and help whoever you can.”

This year has brought old as well as new struggles with my mental health. There were days that the thought of getting out of bed was too much, the effort it takes to live was too much. The difference this time is that I know that I’m valuable, I have worth and that made the struggle doable, it was like a life preserver.

I learned from a lot of people throughout my young life that I wasn’t valuable, that I was just a waste of space and time. My family let me know, adults and students at my school let me know, the people at my church let know and society let me know; I was worthless.

People didn’t seem to care about my feelings, they just dismissed my fears and anxieties as being over dramatic or just shy or just too much.

My mom used to take us to this park in our town that you had to drive on a levee road to get to. I was terrified that we would go off the road into the water, be trapped in the car and drown. So terrified that I would have nightmares about drowning the night before we would go to the park, waking up in tears. She dismissed it by saying that it would never happen. I learned as an adult, we could have gotten to the park without ever driving on the levy road. This fear of drowning by going off the road into the water got so bad, that I hated going over bridges, my mom continued to tell me that my fear was irrational and that bridges wouldn’t break, and cars wouldn’t go over the edges until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake where the San Francisco Bay Bridge broke and reinforced my fears of falling off levy roads and bridges, being trapped in the water in the car and drowning. It took months of specific therapy to get over just that fear to where now I can drive on levy roads and over bridges with only minimal fear and no panic attacks.

By her dismissing my fears, she reinforced the fact that I was not important, that my feelings were not important.

My dad was rarely home when we were with him, when he was home, he was busy working in the garage or watching television. We weren’t allowed in the garage; we could stand in the door to ask him a question and he made it obvious that we were interrupting his rebuilding of whatever car or motorcycle he was currently working on. If he was watching TV, we had to wait for a commercial to talk to him. Everything else was more important to him than we were.

Whatever I was, I wasn’t enough for my parents.

When I started Kindergarten, two things stood out to me that first week that showed me that the adults didn’t think I was smart enough. First, I went to school knowing how to spell my name; M-I-S-H-E-L-L. An adult helper thought she needed to inform me that I spelled my name wrong. I just remember feeling helpless and lost. I knew how to spell my name, but an adult was telling me I was wrong, so she must be right. Another adult told me that I was wrong when I said that my sister was starting high school. She absolutely was starting high school, she’s nine years older than me. I learned not to let teachers or even students know how smart I was. I needed to go along to get along. To be just smart enough, but not too smart.

Church was another place that I learned the lesson that who I was wasn’t good enough and that I had to keep who I really was hidden to be accepted. My very first Sunday wasn’t like that. I went to Children’s Church and there was a very large, extremely loud, bearded man in the front of the crowded room trying to get the kids to quiet down. I burst into tears because I was separated from my sister. He stopped what he was doing, came over to me, and helped me. He calmed me down and got me and my sister seats together. He paid attention to me, he didn’t dismiss me or belittle me, he helped me.

Then I got involved in the girls’ group at the church. In that group I learned that we are all sinners. One of the first Bible verses I had to memorize was Isaiah 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Another one was Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” It was verse after verse about what a sinner I was. What a horrible person I was. How I wasn’t good enough.

Luckily, that loud, Children’s Pastor had a discipleship group, and I was in it. In that group I learned about God’s love for me from verses like John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life.” And Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

So, while I may not have been good enough for my family, or my teachers and others at school, or most of the people at church, I was good enough for Pastor Tim and God.

Unfortunately, I never believed I was good enough for any person. I always believed that I had to prove my worth to others, that they wouldn’t accept me for who I was, but then I wrote a book which I titled Worthless No More, and I realized that I am a valuable human being. I don’t need to keep any part of me hidden from others for them to accept me, if they don’t accept me, that’s their problem, not mine.

It hasn’t been easy, especially considering this last election because for some reason Christianity seems to be deeply tied into Republicanism. My Christian friends are where it’s the most difficult because I don’t like Trump. I’ve never liked Trump, since before he was President. I’ve had people question my Christianity because of it. Christians have called me a socialist, libtard because I believe that we should have accessible health care. Christians have called me a sheep because I believe we should wear masks to keep others healthy.

However, looking forward to 2021, I will no longer go along to get along. I will be me. I am valuable for who I am. I am Worthless No More.

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Christmas Looks Different This Year

I have a friend who had a small gathering of family to celebrate a milestone birthday, just 9 people representing 5 households. Four days later one of them tested positive for COVID-19. The rest need to get tested now and are in quarantine.

I have a family member whose neighbor had a small gathering to celebrate something, 12 people, I’m not sure how many households were represented. Ten of them tested positive for COVID-19, a few ended up in the hospital, one sadly passed away due to complications from COVID.

This Christmas I’d really like to see my family, but I think I can handle a different Christmas this year if it will help, not just my family, but many families to not have a missing family member at the next birthday or holiday gathering.

Thinking about how different Christmas will be this year, and how different this whole year has been, I wrote this poem:

Christmas Looks Different This Year by Mishell Wolff 2020

January, whispers began in the news eclipsed by death of a basketball icon.

February into March, murmurs rippled as a cruise ship stays at sea, later docked in the bay, passengers in quarantine.

Mid-March became a full-fevered, all-out effort to stop the spread of Coronavirus, “Fifteen days to slow the spread.”

April and May, stay home, wash your hands, social distance, distance learning

Restaurants, take-out only, salons stay closed, hospitals fill, nurses stretched, protests.

End of May 100,000 U.S. COVID deaths, George Floyd, “I can’t breathe!” protests.

June, July, August, protests fill the streets, open business, save the economy, defund police, Black Lives Matter, defend America, antifa, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, too many to name, protests divide, tear gas, flash bangs, photo op in front of a historic church.

September, open schools, teachers are lazy, kids need socialization, they’ll fall behind.

October, small schools manage in person, others COVID spreads and revert back to distance learning, some stayed online, safety first.

November, please stay home, wear a mask, Zoom Thanksgiving, hospitals have no capacity for gathering-driven surge, staff is exhausted.

December, why didn’t we listen, ICUs expand, not enough, over 300,000 U.S. dead from COVID alone.

Many families, many reasons, no option to choose, an empty place this holiday season.

Christmas looks different this year; stay at home, wash your hands, physical distance, wear your mask.

Christmas looks different this year, help others, household only, so next year won’t have to be different.

Christmas looks different this year, the Spirit of Christmas doesn’t have a look, love others, do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.

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Holiday Stress on Steroids

Holiday stress is real. COVID stress is real. Add them together and we have holiday stress on steroids.

2020 has been a year like no other that I can remember in my lifetime, I have taught about other extremely tumultuous years, where our nation was divided and a worldwide pandemic was wreaking havoc on our schools, economy and national unity, but I’ve never lived it. I know that there are some people, lucky enough to still be alive who have lived through those times. I’ve read stories of people born during the 1918 Flu Pandemic surviving COVID. That’s incredible, but for the vast majority of us, this is a new and stressful experience.

People answering surveys about their mental health have indicated that they have experienced more thoughts of anxiety, depression and self-harm since March when the COVID became big news in the United States, and those statistics usually rise between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as holiday stress takes it’s toll. Add in this year the 288,017 American families and the 1,538,317 families around the world (according to Worldometers.com on December 6, 2020) who have lost a loved one this year to COVID, that’s not including the countless other families missing a loved one due to other causes of death such as heart disease, cancer, accidents, suicide and the various other reasons that people die each year. The holidays will be different for millions of people this year.

I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor or therapist, I’m just a regular person who suffers with anxiety and depression who gets stressed out A LOT!!! There are days that just getting out of bed and starting the day seems overwhelming and buying gifts and “Doing Christmas” is extremely daunting.

What keeps me getting up each day is my kids. Knowing that they also have anxiety and possibly depression, I want to show them that it’s possible to talk about those and survive and function and do all the things that people do, even if it’s exhausting, even if it takes all your energy.

Here are some of the things I do that help me to manage the stress. Who knows, some of them might help you too, you’ll never know unless you try.

Journal-it helps me to get the thoughts that are racing around in my brain out.
Exercise-sometimes it’s stretching, sometimes it’s taking the dog for a walk, sometimes it’s cardio videos I find on YouTube, I just need to move.
Find someone to talk to- This can be a friend that you trust or a counselor. I talk to a few trusted friends and a counselor.
Read a book-books can take you away for awhile to a different place.
Make a plan- Plan how you can conquer what you need to do, it doesn’t need to all be done at once, a little bit each day works just as well.
Deep breathing exercises- There are a ton of videos on YouTube and apps that help with this.
Guided relaxation- Again, there are tons of videos and apps that help with this.
Focus on taking care of you- if you aren’t healthy you can’t take care of anybody else.
Start a gratitude list- try to find a few things each day to be thankful for. It helps to take the focus off of all the negative, this is hard to do, sometimes it takes me a long time just to come up with 5 positive things everyday, but I can list 5 negative things in 10 seconds. But this has been a tremendous help in lessening my stress levels in the past few month.

I don’t always remember to do these things, and they may not help you. The point is we all need to try to do what we can to not allow the stress to overwhelm us, especially if we also have mental health issues to deal with on top of the stress.

This holiday season be well, have fun, and be safe!

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Thankful in the Turmoil?

https://speakzeasy.wordpress.com/tag/emotional-turmoil/

I haven’t written much recently, but with what I have written, you know that I am broken, depressed, anxious, and generally not in a good place.

To help combat that I have been seeing a licensed therapist to gain insights and strategies to help navigate this cruel, cold, divided world we live in that is being ravaged by a disease that’s wreaking havoc on people’s physical and mental health.

I also just finished teaching a unit on stress and how to better manage stress in our lives. Between the two, therapy and teaching, one strategy stood out, being thankful, or showing gratitude.

I’m not talking about toxic positivity, the idea that if you think positive thoughts all the bad stuff will go away and you’ll feel all better, depression will magically disappear and your thoughts will suddenly slow down.

I’m talking about taking a few minutes each day in the midst of the turmoil and chaos that is life at the moment (because it is a moment, no matter how long it lasts, it will pass) and seeing the good things that are still there. We may have to squint our eyes and look really hard, maybe even pull out a magnifying glass or a microscope, but they’re there; those positive things that give us hope in humanity, that make life worth living, that make it that much easier to get out of bed the next day.

When my therapist first suggested the idea to write down five things each day I thought it was a dumb idea. I didn’t see how it could help, I knew it wasn’t going to make everything magically get better, but I did it anyway. For about three weeks now, I have been faithfully making a daily list of five things I’m thankful for.

I was right, the world hasn’t changed, my life is still in turmoil, I still feel broken, but it has made it a little easier to get out of bed each day. It has given me a challenge to look forward to as I try to find a few good things everyday, and I love a challenge.

Here are some of the things I’m thankful for (in no particular order)

My kids because they made me a mom and showed me what it is to love someone so much that you can’t imagine life without them and how bad it hurts to see them hurting, and how amazing feels to see them happy and successful and being who they want to be.
My job because it allows me to be immersed in my favorite subject and to be with my friends on a daily basis (pre-COVID; now it’s more on a weekly basis) and my co-workers are some of my best friends.
My friends because they are there when I need people to talk to, to have fun with, etc.
Food, because I love food, especially homemade food that I get to feed to my family at dinnertime all together talking about our day.
My family, the ones that are by blood and the married in ones, because we are there for each other no matter what and help each other out.
My students because I know that distance learning isn’t easy for most of them, but they show up on their computers every day and listen to me, then they go off and do the assignments I give them. They tell me things about their lives and struggles with school in emails, they ask for help, they’re doing their absolute best in this weird new world we live in and it gives me hope for the future that we have such a resilient group of young people who will go out into the world in a few years.
Jesus because without him in my life, I wouldn’t have any peace.

This idea of giving thanks in the turmoil is actually biblical. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says to “give thanks in all circumstances: for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes I think people mistake this to mean that Christians have to be thankful for our circumstances, but that’s not what the verse is saying at all, it says IN all circumstances.

That means, looking for the little things that make the living in those circumstances just a little bit easier. Seeing the things that make getting out of bed worth it every day.

Some days I do have to pull out a magnifying glass to find what I’m thankful for, but I still find at least five things every day to be thankful for, it hasn’t changed the chaos in the world, the division in the nation or the turmoil I feel in my life, but it has made getting out of bed each day easier.

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Mental Health and COVID-19

I have been very open about my mental health struggles for years, hoping that in doing so, others who struggle would know that they are not alone and find the strength within to reach out for help. I started this blog to help end the stigma surrounding mental health issues. I talk to my classes about mental health. I teach them stress reduction strategies, we talk about suicide prevention, we learn about various mental illnesses, all in my attempt to make the world a friendlier place for those who struggle with a mental illness.

The worldwide COVID pandemic has finally caused people to talk about mental health. I hear all the time that schools need to open for kids’ mental health. Businesses need to open and get people back to work for their mental health. Depression and anxiety are on the rise because of the economic recession caused by the COVID shutdowns.

A common headline these days; this one from the Washington Post.

I don’t really think that COVID has caused the increase in depression and anxiety though.

Some of you might be getting upset with me right about now, but let me explain.

I’m not saying that more people aren’t reaching out to therapists for help because they are.

I’m not saying people aren’t self identifying that they are having difficulties dealing with the new normal that the pandemic has thrown at us with physical distancing, reduced workhours, being laid off or working from home, kids doing school from home and all the rest of the changes that have been forced upon us from this global health pandemic, because they are.

This is a terrible situation that we find ourselves in and many of us are not handling it well, especially those extroverts who want to be with other people and huggers who need to hug people. I feel for them, I really do.

But I don’t think that the COVID-19 pandemic caused the current rise in mental health issues that we are seeing.

What if the cause is the constant busy-ness we found ourselves in so that by the time we went to bed at night we were so exhausted we collapsed and immediately fell asleep and we never found ourselves with enough quiet time to contemplate the complexities of life?

What if the cause is that we never learned to deal with disappointment because somebody always swooped in to make sure that we got what we wanted when we wanted it?

What if the cause is that we don’t know how to communicate with our family members so this extended time together is a struggle; as we are daily around each other, always physically together but emotionally alone?

What if the cause is that our children are so used to others taking care of them, teaching them and making the boundaries for them and their parents only providing the fun that nobody in the situation (parents included) know how to change it up now?

What if the cause is that we are so ingrained to believe that our job or career is our identity and to lose our job means we have lost who who are?

What if we were never taught healthy, productive ways to handle stress when it comes our way (because this whole situation is definitely added stress)?

What if we were taught that the best way to deal with things is to “suck it up, Buttercup.” or “Stop being a sissy la-la.” or “I’ll give you something to cry about.”?

I think that the COVID pandemic that has hit the world is not the CAUSE of the mental health crisis we are now seeing, I believe its placing the spotlight on a mental health crisis that has been in the making for number of decades.

It’s made it so that it’s finally its okay to seek out help. It’s finally okay to talk about our mental health issues.

If you need help, as I have, during this stressful time in our lives here are some resources:

These two are from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and offer helpful tips for navigating stress in the time of COVID.

https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/top-ten-covid-19-anxiety-reduction-strategies

https://adaa.org/finding-help/coronavirus-anxiety-helpful-resources

Here’s a place if you’d like online therapy

https://www.betterhelp.com/

Here’s a place for physical and mental health online:

PlushCare | Sleep with Me

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Home

1-800-273-8255

There are lots of ways to get help, you can also start by talking to your general care physician, looking up a therapist in your area on psychologytoday.com or just using Google.

If you need help, please get help. I’m not trying to downplay the fact that mental health issues are on the rise, I just don’t believe that COVID is the cause, I think it’s the spotlight on an issue that has been decades in the making.

Proyecto universitario de estudio y conservacion de tortugas marinas. Trabajo de campo en la Peninsula de Guanahacabibes, Pinar del Rio, 7 al 19 de agosto de 2007. Foto©Rene Perez Massola

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Migraine Day: Sense Don’t Words Make The When

According to NortonHealthcare.com, approximately 39 million Americans suffer migraine attacks each year. I am one of those lucky people.

Some people don’t seem to understand just how debilitating a migraine can be and seem to think that a migraine is just a “bad headache.” A migraine is so much more than just a headache though.

A migraine wreaks havoc on many parts of your body. It can mess with your balance, your cognition, your vision, your gastrointestinal tract, your sense of smell, your sense of touch and taste and so much more.

For some people who suffer from migraines, they can be knocked down from a few hours to a few days. Many migraine sufferers have learned ways to cope with them in order to get on with life because they happen so frequently that if they don’t they may end up losing their job.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a migraine hit me during work, luckily I was working from home, but I still had students depending on me on the other side of the computer screen. When I started to feel better, later that evening I wrote a poem about it and want to share it here with all of you.

Wake up, systems check.

Nose is clear, I can breathe.

Stretch, just the usual cracks.

I can move, not too stiff.

Roll out of bed, start the day.

Morning routine, exercise.

Breakfast, brush the teeth.

Daily dose of migraine preventative.

That should do it, fingers crossed.

Need a good day, need to teach.

Pinprick of pain, behind left eye.

Could it be, a migraine coming?

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Swallow the meds, for onset of pain.

Gulp some caffeine, help it to veins.

Walk ten steps, work from home.

COVID era, has some perks.

Set up Zoom, students show in tiny boxes.

Pain is gone, but words don’t work.

“Student’s hello, To Welcome Wednesday!”

Funny looks, smiling faces, in little squares.

One asks, “Are you okay?”

I laugh, “I’m fine, just tired today.”

Can’t let them know how bad it is.

It’ll get better, it always does.

Classes Zoom, Periods 1, 2, 3.

Lunch and prep pass by, I’m busy.

Time for class, Zoom again.

Ice pick stabbing my left eye.

Wave of nausea, washes over me.

Students, swim on the screen.

Tiny boxes, all blurry.

“Yesterday, work to do.

Here. Questions. Let me know.

Tomorrow. I’ll see.” Waves goodbye.

More meds, dizzy, walls in my way.

Couch close by, alarm set for the end of class.

Sleep release, gone too quick.

Back to work, at my desk.

One more class to suffer through.

School is over, for today.

Sun too bright, turn it off.

Dog too loud, make it stop.

Clothes hurt my skin, take them off.

Climb in bed, maybe tomorrow…

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Us vs. Them is Tearing Me Apart

Last weekend I finally told my husband what I’ve been afraid to tell anybody, but since it’s Suicide Prevention Month, I decided to be honest.

I don’t want to be here anymore.

I’m actually feeling much better now, that I put it out there to another human being and not just keeping it in my head and it was much worse back in July when I wrote the blog titled, “Broken Nation, Broken Me.” Back then it was so bad that I thought everyday what life would be like for those I left behind, now it’s maybe once every couple of weeks.

I don’t have a plan, I’m actually scared of the thought of going through with it, and I would never willingly leave my children without a mother, but somedays it is extremely difficult to get out of bed and do all the things required of living.

Now, with that out of the way, let me explain why.

I’m hypersensitive. Many people don’t know that about me because I learned at a young age that showing emotion caused me to be called weak. If I cried over something my dad would ask, “Do you want me to give you something to cry about?” usually reaching for the stick he used to beat us with. The “stick” was a piece of wooden baseboard about 3 feet long that he kept on top of the refrigerator. I learned rather quickly to not show when I was upset by something and just bury my emotions.

That was probably the beginning of my anxiety and depression issues, but that’s not what this post is about.

Every four years our nation goes through a presidential election cycle and of course people choose sides. I was raised by my mom in an uber-conservative Christian church, part of the “Moral Majority” led by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jim Baker. While my mom was a registered Democrat because of John F. Kennedy, she completely agreed with everything the Moral Majority preached and pretty much always voted Republican as far as I knew. She and my Grandma loved Ronald Reagan and everything he stood for and voted for George Bush when he ran because he would follow in Reagan’s footsteps.

I say all that to say that I was raised in a religion that attempted to teach me that if I was a true Christian I would always vote Republican because they were the party that supported life. The Democrats were the evil ones who supported killing babies. I was even taught that some Christians weren’t Christian enough if they were Democrats, because Democrats were so evil.

So every four years, I see our nation divided between those who vote Republican and those who vote Democrat, however this year seems to be the absolute worst!

If someone criticizes anything that the Republicans or Trump has said or done they are automatically labelled a “libtard,” a “sheep,” a “bleeding heart liberal” or many other not so nice names. If a person criticizes Biden or the Democrats they are “haters,” “Trumpkins, ” or “racists.”

In my lifetime, I have never seen our country so divided. I teach history, so I know that it has been this divided in the past, I mean we had a Civil War, talk about division! However, I wasn’t alive for that, so it didn’t affect my mental health.

The election isn’t the only thing people are divided on. People are divided on race issues, whether or not there is systemic racism in this country (there is).

Whether or not we should wear masks.

Whether or not hair and nail salons should be open as well as other businesses.

Whether or not COVID-19 is real.

Whether or not schools should open and if teachers are actually working when they do virtual school. (This one really hurts me mentally and emotionally because I am working my behind off to be there for my students and teach them and answer their questions any time of the night or day. I mean, I am getting emails from them at midnight and one o’clock in the morning sometimes.)

All this division is wreaking havoc on my mental health as well as on our nation.

On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln quoted Matthew 12:25 in his “House Divided” speech when he said that, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Matthew 12:25 actually says that, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” New King James Version.

This amazing, great nation that we call the United States of America is not very united right now. It is extraordinarily divided right now.

This division is breaking me. I speak about something and I’m attacked by one side or the other. Just seeing the division is disheartening and making me not want to be a part of this life.

When I have spoken how disheartening this is for me, I hear amazing platitudes like, “God is in control.” or “Give it to God.” or, “It’s just the devil trying to get you down, you need to rebuke him.”

I’m tired of Christian platitudes.

I want to see Christians begin to live by the example that Jesus taught. To love your neighbor as yourself. When they asked who was our neighbor, Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan where a priest saw a person who needed help and he walked by on the other side of the road, then a Levite saw the man and he also walked by on the other side of the road. When the Samaritan saw the man who needed help (Samaritans were looked down on by Jews in that time) he helped the man, took him to an inn and paid to have the innkeeper look after him. (Paraphrased from Luke 10:25-37)

Instead of Us vs. Them how about we begin to look at it as we. We need to get along. We need to survive this life. We need to help each other. We need to understand and support one another. We don’t always have to agree with everyone in order to love them.

Love is a choice and it seems the United States of America have become the Divided States of Hate and my mental health is deteriorating in this nation as well as the mental health of many of my fellow Americans.

Instead of demonizing “them,” maybe we can begin to work to understand where they are coming from.

Instead of demonizing “them,” maybe we can listen to what they have to say instead of what “Us” says “they” want, believe, are going to do etc.

I find myself retreating further and further into my shell to get away from the division in this country, in this state and in my city. There are still days I don’t want this life.

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Let Me Say It Louder For The People In The Back

I LOVE this country! My favorite place to visit is Washington D.C., I have been there more times than I like to admit (about 18 times, 3 times last year alone.) Other people go to Disneyland over and over, I prefer to walk among the buildings and monuments that tell the story of our nations’s 200+ year history. I especially love to take other people and share it with them. (Hit me up if you ever want to go when this pandemic is over, I can’t wait to get back there.

I love DC so much that one of my retirement goals is to be a tour guide at the Nation’s Capitol for at least one season before finding a beach to relax on for the rest of my life.

I LOVE the United States so much that I became a U.S. history teacher to instill just a tiny bit of the knowledge of our past into our future generations and maybe a few of them will begin to truly LOVE our country too and want to pass on the knowledge of our past.

I say all that because many people believe that it’s impossible to LOVE this country while at the same time acknowledge that we aren’t as perfect or exceptional as we’d like to believe we are. It’s one of the divisions I wrote about in my last post in July. It’s part of why I haven’t written since then. The division seems to have grown and I’m still struggling with that.

Instead of working to make this a better place for everyone, it seems like a very loud group of people are trying to say that everybody is already treated equally and we should all just be happy with it. That same group of people are also “helping” police keep cities safe from Black Lives Matter protests by showing up with guns when according to a report by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project released on September 3, 2020 has said that 93% of the protests that have taken place this summer have been peaceful and non-violent.

In fact, as I write this, there is a planned Black Lives Matter protest happening in my lovable, livable town and a possibly armed group there to “defend” our town against them, even though the chief of police has been letting people know all week that the police don’t need civilian “help.” They don’t want what happened in Kenosha to happen here.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston wrote the Declaration of Independence, the most famous break up letter ever. In it, they wrote that “…all men are created equal…,” but they didn’t all believe that when they wrote it and many Americans still don’t believe it today.

If they truly believed that ALL men were created equal, then why at first did they not want to include enslaved people in population counts? Then when they settled that question, why did they decide to only count them as 3/5 of a person?

Once slavery ceased to exist at the end of the Civil War, yes we had to fight a deadly, costly war to finally end the peculiar institution in this nation, many states passed laws that became known as Jim Crow laws to keep African Americans in a second class status. People in power in those states, cities and counties, still didn’t believe that ALL men were created equal.

In other places around the country banks instituted redlining, where they wouldn’t approve loans for houses in certain areas, usually areas of town where people of color lived.

There is a whole lot, I won’t bore you with about how all of that led to institutionalized or systemic racism, which is defined by McGraw Hill in Sociology and You as the type of discrimination that results from unfair practices that are part of the structure of society and that have grown out of traditional, accepted behaviors. That leads to discrimination in education, employment, the criminal justice system and many other public arenas.

The United States government continued to prove that they did not believe that ALL men were created equal when they passed the Chinese Immigration Act in 1882 and continued to renew it until 1945, and again when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that resulted in the Internment of 122,000 Americans of Japanese descent, with about 70,000 of them being Nisei, a person born in America of Japanese parents (ourdocuments.gov). It wasn’t until 1988 that the Senate voted on a bill to apologize to the internees and offer them reparations for their time in the internment camps. The last camp closed in 1946 (New York Times).

Many cities had laws that restricted Blacks and Hispanics from buying homes as late as the 1970s and 1980s (https://www.kqed.org/news/11727455/black-farmworkers-in-the-central-valley-escaping-jim-crow-for-a-subtler-kind-of-racism). Many police departments still pull over people of color far more often than whites. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/the-stop-race-police-traffic/)

I’ve been in teacher mode for this blog far too long and it’s time to end. If you’ve read this far, THANK YOU!!!!!!

I LOVE this country, but we have a problem with treating ALL men AND women equally. We can do better, we have to do better because Black lives matter as do Hispanic lives and Asian lives and the lives of every marginalized person in this country.

If you’d like to learn more, here are a few videos. There is also an incredible documentary on Netflix called 13th.

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Mother’s Day and Mental Health

Mother’s Day for me isn’t about my mom. It’s about my kids and becoming a mom myself. It’s about remembering all the women in my life who were like a mom to me, who helped me when I needed it and who reminded me who I was and could be, not who I wasn’t. It’s about remembering that I’m a valuable, lovable, human being, not a worthless child who never measured up and would never be good enough.

Mother’s Day became a day for me to celebrate when I became a mom. Before that it was almost always hard. I was forced to honor a woman who gave birth to me, but gave me no value. If I chose not to honor her, I was reminded about how worthless I was and what a terrible daughter I was. Not just by her, but also by her voice that lived inside my mind.

My mom and the church I was raised in, taught me to “honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise.” Ephesians 6:2. The promise was that if I honored them, things would go well for me and I would live a long life. So if I didn’t honor her, I would have a tough life and die young. Oh yeah, and most likely end up in hell.

It took me having my own kids and getting help from a counselor for my mental health to realize that I didn’t have to keep a toxic person in my life, just because she was my mom (or dad). She passed away when my daughter was 6 months old, but her voice stayed in my mind for much longer, still telling me all the negative things she always said.

After my son was born, I realized that I needed to take care of my mental health so that I could raise my own kids in a healthy environment. I’ve read a meme that parents should want to raise their children so that they don’t need counseling when they grow up. I think that everyone should seek counseling at any time. I tell my kids that we should all have a counselor on speed dial.

Mental health is just as important as physical health. We should get a physical done once a year to make sure that our bodies are in peak condition, well I believe that we should also regularly check in with a counselor to make sure our mental health is also in peak condition. We don’t need to wait until we are in the throes of a mental health crisis to look for help.

Our society has a stigma against people who seek mental health help. They label people as weak or crazy if they seek out a counselor or have a mental illness. I say people who seek help for their mental health are strong, they understand they can’t do it alone any more than they can treat their own broken arm.

Also, a mentally healthy mom is the best gift a mom can give a child. Take the time you need to take care of your mental health. Take the extra time in the shower or bath. Reach out to a counselor if you need someone to talk to. A mom who takes some time to take care of herself IS NOT selfish, they are making sure they can give their best self to their family and children.

One resource now for those of us sheltering in place is betterhelp.com. They offer online services for counseling, although from my understanding many counselors are offering online sessions now. If you use betterhelp.com/sleepwithme you can save 10% off the first month. (sleepwithmepodcast.com is a website/podcast I use to fall asleep. It’s bedtime stories for grown ups. It’s great!)

Here are two of the reasons that I always work on my mental health:

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We’re In This Together!

But at least we can remember that we’re all in this together.

As shelter in place is continuing in most places around the world (I know there are some places, even here in the U.S. that have chosen not to shelter in place or are coming out of it) more and more people are becoming restless for it to end soon. Even the President of the United States is talking about it ending by May 1st. And Dr. Oz said yesterday that sending kids back to school is okay because only 2-3 percent will die.

I’ve read multiple people complaining (?), praising (?), questioning (?), about how low the numbers of people testing positive for Coronavirus and dying from related complications. I’ve even replied to a few of them that perhaps the numbers are so low, because so many of us have been practicing social distancing and it’s having an impact on the transmission of the disease. Which is the reason that the shelter in place orders were given to begin with.

Sometimes I’ve been able to participate in civil discussions with people about different viewpoints about this whole pandemic. That’s interesting and fun and educational. I learn new things. I see things from somebody else’s point of view. These discussions can bring people together.

More often however, in social media as well as in the news media, I see people end up insulting one another. I see people turning against others.

Instead of the global crisis bringing people together, it seems to be tearing us apart.

Instead of people banding together to help one another, I see people blaming others.

Instead of listening to scientists as they race to figure this virus out, I hear people blaming them for creating the pandemic.

I hear people complain about what the government is doing to try to protect us, but not offering a solution except to let us all get the virus to have “herd immunity.” Which isn’t a good solution for the thousands who will die because their body cannot fight off the virus.

I know there is good out there. I see that too. I see the people sewing face masks for others. I see John Krasinski starting his “Some Good News” YouTube show. I see people thanking essential workers in lots of ways. I see people helping those who have lost jobs. I know there is good out there too.

We’re all frustrated. None of us really know when this is going to end. It’s having devastating consequences on the economy and people’s mental and emotional health. If we end the shelter in place orders too quickly it could have a devastating impact on the death toll and hospitals, which so far we’ve been able to mitigate in most places in America. I don’t have a solution to any of the problems we are facing economically, emotionally, mentally, or physically for the entire world, but I do have some suggestions that will help us all to get along a little better since we’re all in this together:

take care of yourself, stay away from people, places that you know can make you sick whether that with Coronavirus, allergies, flu, whatever–due what you can to stay healthy.
If you get sick, call the doctor and follow their directions.
If someone offers a different perspective, look at it, you might learn something new, even if you don’t look at it, don’t insult the person just because they think differently then you.
establish a routine for yourself, try to sleep, wake and eat at roughly the same times each day.
exercise every day, outside if you can. The sun and fresh air will do wonders for your mood.
If you’re in a bad place with someone who abuses you call the National Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or go their website https://www.thehotline.org/what-is-live-chat/ where you can live chat with someone who can help you.
Reach out to people if you need to, if you know someone who struggles with their mental health, reach out to them. It’s not always easy to ask for help.
Pray. Having a higher being to talk to helps many people.
If you qualify for unemployment, apply for it. It’ll take awhile, but it’s worth it to get that extra help. It’s going to be a long time before the economy gets back to normal, because it’s not just our economy, it’s the world economy that’s in bad shape.

I’m sure there are other things that will help you, you just need to figure out what they are. One of the biggest things I can encourage people to do is to remember that we may not all believe the same things, we may not all want the same things, we may not all be afraid of the same things, but we are all in this together and need to be nice and have patience with one another so that as many people as possible make it out alive and healthy.

Last night on Disney’s sing along (yes I watched it, no my kids didn’t) one of the last songs was from High School Musical: “We’re All In This Together”. It seems to be a fitting anthem for this global crisis we find ourselves in now.

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I’m Not Okay, But I Will Be

I have anxiety. My mind is filled with worst case scenarios. All. The. Time. Sometimes, keeping busy can keep those thoughts at bay. Sometimes, learning everything I can about whatever the current “worst case” I’m obsessing about can actually ease up the worry because I realize it’s not as bad as I think it is. Sometimes, I can hang out with friends or family and keep the thoughts from overwhelming me and pulling me down into the abyss.

Right now, I’m not okay. My mind is filled with “what ifs” about COVID 19 as well as thoughts about the rest of the school year. My thoughts are spiraling out of control. I’m writing to try to get some of it out. Hopefully this works to calm things down in my head a bit.

I feel like the world as we knew it is gone. We will return to a new normal eventually and hopefully we will be better for it. We are all realizing that the world doesn’t exist only for ourselves, but for everyone. We have to stop being selfish, stop saying, “I’ll be okay. I’m not in a high risk group for the coronavirus.” We have to realize that people are going to die. Hospitals are going to be stressed beyond capacity. We need to worry about the people who will get sick. If we don’t each do our part to stop the spread of this virus by staying home and practicing social distancing, then things will get worse.

I’m not trying to be a fear monger. In my attempt to ease my anxiety, I have been reading a lot of studies done on COVID 19 and how it has affected other countries like China and Italy. I don’t want that to happen here. This is a very contagious virus. You can be contagious and never have symptoms. If that’s you, you are lucky, but you may go around somebody who might not be so lucky. They could get extremely ill and need to be hospitalized. This will stress out the hospitals if too many people become seriously ill.

Please, as stressful as it can be to be isolated in our homes and only go out for food and medical needs, lets be conscious of the fact that there are many in our community who are in the high risk groups for serious illness with this virus.

I know that its hard mentally and emotionally to be home for extended periods of time. I have to do it each summer. Some things that I find to be helpful are:

get into a routine and do your best to stick with it,
get dressed everyday,
exercise (YouTube had great workout videos and many gyms are putting class videos online.),
spend time interacting with your family that lives with you,
call or text friends and family that don’t live with you.

I’m not okay, but I know that we will all get through this together, from our own separate houses, each doing our best to stay connected while maintaining a safe, healthy distance from one another.

Puzzle Pieces: Make Me Fit

For most of my life I felt out of place. Like a piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit… and I wanted so bad to fit somewhere, anywhere. I wanted to belong to the beautiful picture that I believed was on the cover of the box of this roller coaster called life.

I felt so close, so many times, like I almost fit. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t a perfect fit. It didn’t matter to me that the picture wasn’t perfect. I would force my piece of the puzzle into the pieces around me. The part of the picture I had on my piece fit in close enough with the whole thing that it worked for awhile. I stayed connected to other pieces of the puzzle that weren’t a perfect fit for too long far too often in my life.

Eventually the pressure of being in the wrong place, trying to fit in where I didn’t belong, having the edges of my puzzle piece constantly rubbed the wrong way, effected my mental health. It forced me to make choices that impacted my life. I had to decide what was more important, keeping up a façade of fitting in, which must have been rubbing other people’s edges wrong too, or getting out of that place and finding a place where I truly fit; without rubbing my edges, or anyone else’s, wrong.

There have been a few places and a few people as I have gotten older where I feel like I fit perfectly. When you look at this picture, you can see that the edges fit snugly, with no pressure points. When you find the right people to be with, there won’t be pressure points.

I’m not saying that there will never be disagreements with people that you fit with, there may be, but the discussion or argument will still be respectful. Just because people fit, doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. It just means that they images on their puzzle pieces work together to make the same big picture.

My puzzle is still incomplete. I haven’t found everybody who fits in my puzzle perfectly. I’m being more careful about it though because I don’t want to ruin the edges of my puzzle piece, or theirs’. In the end I want mine and everyone in my life to have perfect puzzle pieces to create a beautiful image for our life.

I may be getting a late start on it, but hey… better late than never.

Hittin’ the Road

I can’t tell you how long I have wanted a little camper van like this one to drive across the country. In the 90s I owned a Volkswagen vanagon for a few months until my first husband wrecked the engine. I never got to take it farther than Santa Cruz, and I never got to camp in it.

I have been a few trips with a travel trailer to Montana, South Dakota, and the Grand Canyon, but not yet from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast.

Until now.

After my enlightening, soul strengthening, trip to Iceland last October, my kid asked when we were taking that trip to Ocean City, MD. Inspired quite a few years ago by this sign in South Sacramento, CA.

We started planning. We started saving. We started driving.

It’s our Epic Road Trip. Just us girls before she graduates high school. We’ve gone for a hike to see Native American ruins in Arizona. We went to a nuclear museum in Albuquerque. We ate at a Cracker Barrel restaurant for the very first time in Texas. We’ve been to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where MLK Jr. Was assassinated. We wnt to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum that honors those lost in the bombing there and reminds us to never forget what happened that day.

This has definitely been a trip we won’t forget and we’re only a few days in. We’ll be posting videos about it on my YouTube channel @mishellwolff3652.

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