Upside Down

I can count on at least one hand where my life has been turned upside down. Where I have actually lived upside down for months, even years. Maybe even decades. It's a funny thing how every one's brain interprets trauma. You can take two people that go through the exact same thing, in the exact same place, with the exact same person/s and each is going to interpret their trauma differently. I think this is one of the saddest and biggest problems we have as a society. Rather than reach out with an open heart (even if we don't understand a person's own personal trauma) we reach out with criticism, judgment and LABELS! I fucking hate labels. Do you know what that can do to a person? Do you know that we each have a greater impact on one another than we can ever comprehend. So why, as a society to do we judge? Why do we throw labels on someone because one person went through the exact same set of trauma and one came out thinking it was "no big deal" and the other truly has trauma that will, more than likely, ever go away. It will be a cross that they must bear everyday, for the rest of their lives. So tell me, people out there, that enjoy judging others who are doing their very best just getting out of bed each day and trying to breathe in and out, while it aches so much you feel as though your lungs are going to collapse. You feel as though you have 100 pound bricks on you and you are literally drowning, yet trying to grab hold of anything you can reach. What each of us, with trauma, want to reach for is a person/s that will hear our story, without judgment, without labels being put on us and with unconditional love. I have found only one such person in the 49 years I have been alive that I can honestly say has given me 100% unconditional love. So much so that she is continuing to change me from the inside out. She has heard my story again and again. She has wept with me as I've read her parts of my past where she told me she felt as though she was right there experiencing it herself. It takes only one person in this life to save us from ourselves. One person to help us get through each day, even though we feel like we are screaming inside, desperately asking for help. I want to be that one person to someone. I don't know who that person will be, or if I will ever be able to help someone like she has helped me. I weep with tears of gratitude for this woman as I write this post. I don't know how to help people understand that WORDS matter. You don't tell someone that is fighting for their life to "get over it, to move on, or to call them names". How do those people think, in any way, that they are somehow helping that person? I know it must be difficult to live with a person with a mental illness, but that doesn't mean you have the right to choose to lash out with your words. All you do is make us feel worse about ourselves, or even worse yet, that we don't matter. You don't care enough about us to sit with us in our pain. To sit and try to imagine how it must feel to have such a heavy weight around you that you feel like you can't breathe, because it hurts too much to breathe and you'd rather stop breathing than go on one second more. I get that a lot of people in our society still think "mental illness" is a cop out. It's so easy for people to say "well I've been through worse and I'm fine" rather than take the time to understand that just because you're fine doesn't make the entire world fine. I believe those people are so blind and selfish they aren't able to see the pain around them. And how sad would that be if I wasn't able to see the pain around me. As difficult as it is to live with trauma that I feel I will deal with the rest of my life, I would rather be me than be blind to those suffering around me. Never ever have I once said that I have had more pain or endured anything worse than another person. I have no idea how other's deal with their trauma. I just know how my brain has decided to interpret my trauma. And believe me, if I could turn a switch on in my brain and magically be cured I would. For this reason, I choose to live alone. I have done the number one thing that was most important to me, and I have done so as well as I could have. Do I have regrets? Absolutely. Do I beat myself up more than I should? Absolutely. Do I often feel like I made a mistake dedicating the last 29 years of my life being just a "mom" instead of going to school, getting a degree and letting someone else raise my kids? The answer to that would be a big fat NO!!! From the time I was a young girl all I wanted to be was a mom. I wanted my children to know that they had a mom that loved them and a mom that would never leave them or try to make them feel like shit about themselves. I know I have made mistakes along the way, but those are my mistakes to carry, not my children's. Family has been, and always will be my first passion. But now that they are all grown and have lives of their own I am trying to figure out how to carve a life for "myself". I've never had to even think about that before because I've been so engrossed in what I felt was in the best interest of my children. I have sacrificed in every way I think a mother could. I have put their happiness (or at least tried to) way above my own. Was that a mistake? I don't know. I just know I wanted my kids to feel the EXACT opposite as how I've felt as a child in this cruel world. I know that I have problems and I think I always will. And that is not me being a pessimist. This is me being honest with myself. Although now I have so many tools available to me. I'm so proud of myself and how far I've traveled. I'm proud of myself for facing fears straight in the eye and not letting them paralyze me or stop me from growing. I am still terrified of my fears, but the only way I can get over those fears is to do exactly what I am afraid of doing. I imagine one day I won't be afraid of anything because, I am going to continue pushing myself and facing my fears as they present themselves to me. I will never live a life of luxury, and sometimes that sucks. Sometimes I wish that I could just bury my head in the sand and only have things to worry about such as: what maid am I going to hire to clean my house....where should our next trip to Europe be....and how am I going to fit in all the shopping I have to do today, because I already have that and more, but I still need more "stuff" surrounding me.  I'm not trying to make fun or, or think those people are any more or less than, than me. I'm simply saying those are things I will never worry about. I will always be focused on what I can do each day to help someone in need. If you look hard enough you can see people walking around us that need a friendly hi or a "when is your next day off" or "I love your hair, where do you get it done". There are so many small things a person can say to another person that might make them feel like "maybe, just maybe I can make it through today". Their are angels all around us, and I want to be an angel. I want to worry and help those that need it. I don't want to worry about material things (other than I do worry about making sure I can pay all of my bills, and that kind of sucks). But still, despite all of the negative, and sometimes horrific experiences I have been through, I choose to help those in need. I choose to be that one person that helps another person get through their day. I don't know how to do that, but now that I'm finished raising my kids I've chosen my second passion in life to be devoting as much time as I can to be there for others....as much as I can. And hopefully I will never experience again what it feels like to live upside down....although I suspect there may be times that I will experience something to turn me that way, again. At least I've become a warrior that will never quit, no matter which way I'm facing.