The Energetic Healing in Anger

Anger is a funny thing. 

Rage is a funny thing.

It can be constructive.

Even though society tells us it isn't.

Even though society tells us to tamp that thing down and hide it, suppress it, be good little citizens. 

Even though many individuals who do act on their anger do so in a way that is violent and aggressive. 

Anger can actually be an incredible force towards healing.

Especially if you grew up in a setting where people didn't want you to tell on them, or if you are currently in a situation now where people want you to be quiet about their actions towards you, or yourself and your children. 

Fascinating, isn't it?

Imagine a scenario like this... what if you had something absolutely terrifying happen to you when you were a little kid... 

Let's say your parent decided in anger, to kill you as a 5 year old and leave you for dead... but you actually in your resilience... LIVED through this nightmare.... 

And you know he wants you dead. 

You know you have to live in the same house with this parent plotting to kill you again in some sneaky, nefarious way between then and the day you leave the house in your 20's.

You end up with a traumatic brain injury from the beating he leaves you with, and amnesia that spots your memory of the event. 

Your memory after this is never clear, and becomes ever the more faded the older you become.

Your brain also simply will not allow you to remember because it is too terrifying for any child to process.

So you file it all away as a nightmare instead of reality.

You "forget" as completely as your murderer desires you to keep it a secret.

Because who wants to remember their parent is a murderer lurking behind every door?

Who wants to remember ocean of heartbreak that large?

Honestly, I've felt an ocean of sadness this large my whole life without knowing WHY I felt it.

Because I was murdered at age 5 in cold blood.

He walked away and left me there to die. 

But I wasn't able to remember this happened to me until this year.

It's been buried in amnesia for 40 years.

And I've only started to process my feelings. 

I grew up with my murderer, who is also my biological "f-a-t-h-e-r" side by side in the same house, day in and day out, and it was a big secret. 

Shhhhhhhhh. 

When I was dying, my mother wasn’t there to save me. 

I intuited at my young age that the reason she wasn't there was on purpose... the evil thing he was doing... was definitely supposed to be a secret from her. 

Shhhhhhh. She wasn't supposed to know. 

So, as I was dying, I realized I shouldn't ever tell my mother what he was doing to me.

Shhhhhh. Don't tell! 

Because if he was killing me, and keeping it a secret from her, would her knowing the secret mean he would kill her too?

In my child's brain, I did the math and decided instantly that a monster capable of killing their own daughter and hiding it from their wife would certainly be capable of killing the wife, too.

Especially a wife as kind, trusting, sweet, naive and gullible as my mom.

Especially if she knew the secret and decided to stand up for me?

In that split second of realization before my memory closed down and wiped out, I decided I had no choice. 

I would save my mother from ever knowing he did it.

I would save her life.

Even if it meant that NOT telling her meant SHE couldn't help ME get away from him.

Because I realized she had no power to ever get away from him, never did, never would, and my choice to remain silent meant I had no power to ever help her or me.

I realized right then and there that it was a loose-loose situation for both my mother and me.

All we could do was wait it out.

All I could do was let amnesia bury me forever.

All she could do was live with him until he died.

The secret was sealed in my memory which was mercifully now going, going, going, mercifully... gone. 

My head hit the concrete, and all brain activity was gone, oh so mercifully gone. 

All memory was wiped.

And I was glad. 

I went through the tunnel of light.

I was in bliss. 

Euphoria.

The place where you know you are dead, and you certainly don't want to go back to your body. 

I remember how violently upset my "f-a-t-h-e-r" was to learn that I had lived after all, after he had left me to die when I was 5. 

I remember how terrified and confused I was. 

I remember having difficulties staying conscious, feeling like my brain was tormenting me, having problems breathing, trying to move my body but not able to move my arms or legs. 

I remember him telling my mom that if I wasn't out of his sight by 8 pm, he would "finish me off" himself. I was out for a full day and a half after that. I don't know how I got in my bed. 

I understand now why I was given no medical attention as a child.

It understand now it was on purpose.

I remember now how my "father" got pleasure by watching me suffer slowly. 

I remember how I stopped breathing often, as is the case after severe traumatic brain injury. 

I remember that my brain didn't tell my body to breath, so my body went into a state of crisis often. My brain simply didn't get enough oxygen. My body would send a red alert signal, but nothing would register. My body kept signaling, "Red alert, red alert!!!' 

But my body did nothing.

I remember panic, uncontrollable movements, seizures, then paralysis, freezing of the chest and throat, inability to breath and not being able to move my body at all for an infinitely long, torturous amount of time. Hoping someone would come. 

I remember going often into states where I knew I was out of my body and I was in bliss. I don't know if it was death or not. But I was in a state of no thinking and completely limp.

I remember how finally I would feel myself gasping violently for air, my body would start flailing, and I then would be crying, and no one was there watching or caring. 

I remember growing up knowing that nobody cared about my life. 

I also remember caring about myself immensely when I was little during states of euphoria that seizures would send me to, then forgetting about it instantly afterwards.

I remember going to states of euphoria where I experienced the afterlife... what love and bliss felt like.. I knew what it felt like to die.. and I preferred death to life... knowing that in death, real love and comfort existed beautifully with open arms for me always, but it was not there for me in what I experienced in "real" physical life in that house I was growing up in... that was painful, bizarre, scary, and terrible. 

I remember having extremes of terror and bliss, and I alternated between them sharply, back and forth. 

I remember never knowing where I lived, in the horror of my mind, in the horror of that house, in the bliss of my mind, or in the perfect little church fairy tale they said we lived in. 

Coming, going, going, coming. 

Nightmare, bliss, sanity, reality.

I remember it wasn't safe to think.

Check out.

I remember I was always, always checked out.

I remember my "f-a-t-h-e-r" abusing me sexually over the years a little girl, but thinking it was just "a game," as he called it.

I remember the constant possibility that every day, my "f-a-t-h-e-r" might try to take my life again. Would he put poison in my cup? Why did the chicken for dinner taste weird? Was there something odd in my sandwich at lunch? Would he give me a push when I wasn’t watching? What was that gun shot I just heard? Why was everything making me jump? Why was I was in constant fight or flight?

I remember day of my life, every minute for the 19 years I lived there after age 5, being out of my body. 

I remember being too fragile as a child to process the nightmare of living in that nightmare, and processing absolutely none of it.

I remember my brain immediately placing every event as it happened into amnesia, day after day, minute after minute, automatically without me knowing it. 

I remember living in a completely out of touch state in order to survive. 

I know that if I told my mother today that he murdered me at age 5, she would instantly turn from me and cut me off.  

Just like she cut me off in a rage ten years age, when I told her he sexually abused me when I was a kid. 

Just like she never would have been able to stand up for me when I was a child. 

Just like she never has been able to stand up to him. 

He is "God," you see.

He is the Patriarchy.

He is the leader of a secretive religious cult, and all six of his children were the undercover members, hidden away from the world until we grew up and left. 

And she is his only loyal member now. 

But I can't be completely mad at her. 

Because she was the one solid, beautiful light in my life in my childhood that always shone steady and bright.

Even though I couldn't trust her to get me medical care, help relieve my pain, or protect me from him, at least I knew she never caused me pain while I was in her presence.

In her presence alone, I was safe.

And in the nightmare of that house, she was an angel. 

For that, I will always love her.

For that, I want to protect her from him.

Even though she thinks he's safe with him.

She's not. 

She just knows how to play her role very well in order to "stay" safe.

He used to make her life hell if she didn't vacuum the entire car within an inch properly once a week.

What would he do if she actually ACCUSED him of something?

Like trying to kill me?

She NEVER EVER speaks up to him.

She has never ever raised her voice to him or any of us in our entire lives.

She is terrified of him.

She knows her role in life, and how to act accordingly, meekly, sweetly, calmly, submissively.

She knows how to play it safe.

I won't endanger her.

But I am mad because I know I can't tell her any kind of truth.

I am mad because I want to get close to her as my mother, but I can't even be her friend and write to her, as he monitors and limits it. 

I am seething with anger and sadness now.

I am paralyzed with complicated emotions that feel like they have no place to go.

It's all new, like it just happened to me as a child right now.

New folds of the amnesia are opening up slowly each day to process anew. 

Even after 4 decades of “growing up,” some days, I still feel too fragile to process what’s happened.

Most days, I want to go to back to a state of complete amnesia all over again.

Most days, I want to go into a cocoon and never get back out.

I don't think I was supposed to remember.

But for some reason or another, oh I remember now.

I guess that the fact that the amnesia finally lifted after 4 decades is... I guess... my assurance that surely, I am strong enough to remember?

I guess I can do this. 

I guess that the most difficult part of this amnesia business has been that SO much of my sadness has felt like it has... 

Nowhere to go? 

Most times, when someone has amnesia, they can share what they have remembered immediately with others, and it is exciting!

But in my case, much has been incredibly sad, depressing, horrible and heart crushing.  

For myself

For my "family." 

It's something that's slow and sad for me to process and talk about.

It's something my siblings absolutely refuse to talk with me about. 

It's something my mother absolutely refuses to talk about with me, and cut me off for starting to talk about 10 years ago.

Its something my "f-a-t-h-e-r" absolutely refuses to acknowledge, and wants me to go to my grave keeping a secret. 

It's something that's been bottlenecked and choked up for a couple years now.

By my family's refusal to listen.

And by my not knowing who I can share it with. 

But guess what?

It doesn't matter that my "family" won't or can't listen. 

I can write about it.

Here.

The very minute I confided in a friend that I had decided to write in order to release the sadness and anger, it all completely evaporated.

For a full day.

Then it came back.  

But I know that there is power in telling your story. 

There is power in letting it out. 

So that's exactly what I'm going to do.  

Some days, I feel like I can rip down huge buildings with my bare hands and teeth. 

Rawwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

Because I know it's not just 4 decades of unprocessed RAGE for what was done to the child's heart, spirit, soul and body I lived in. 

But it's also the 4 decades of unprocessed, swallowed down, mysterious SADNESS that I swam in, unable to express. 

                       

                    Sadness swallowed down, 

                                 hidden, un-allowed to be expressed... 

 I've internalized as rage. 

But once I've begun to acknowledge and express my sadness, 

the rage has also allowed itself to dissipate...

both have started to dissipate little by little...

And I think healing has started to begin. 

That's the thing about anger.

Anger is a funny thing. 

Rage is a funny thing.

It can be constructive.

It can be a force towards healing. 

It can dissipate by sharing your story. 

Don't let ANYONE tell you not to be angry.

Don't let ANYONE tell you not to tell your story.

Don't let ANYONE tell you not to be sad.

Don't let ANYONE tell you to bottle up your sadness.

Don't let ANYONE take away this amazing power of yours!!!

Tell your story!!!

Q: How have you used the dynamic, healing power of anger to propel you forward in your life?

*all photos on this page I've taken while hiking here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, particularly in Southern Oregon. 

Amnesia

What would you do if you just learned you had amnesia for 40 years?

Get mad? Get upset? Get excited? Tell everyone?

Well, guess what?!

It's 2023, and I just realized I've had amnesia for most of my life.

The photo above is from this fall as I'm in the thick of realizing this for the first time. 

But SHHHHH, we can't tell anyone?

It's a big SECRET?

Because they would become extremely upset.

And then, there is the murder of an innocent child involved. 

And then, they would cut me off. 

Again.

Well, they cut me off once before for being "too honest" with them, so I kind of know what to expect about being honest with them again.

And this amnesia thing... what I remember... well.

It isn't exactly pretty.

What I remember is... a nightmare.

Which is interesting, because previously if you would have asked what I remembered of my childhood, I would have told you my life was pretty much like a fairy tale.

I guess I had to tell myself pretty little stories to keep my sanity. Well, there is no "I guess" about it. I remember falling asleep every night as a child doing just that.

I wonder, did any of my siblings do the same?

It's not like I can talk about it with them.

I've tried, and most of my 5 siblings divert the topic, say that they don't know what I'm talking about.

I can hear it in their voice, they feel sorry for me, they think I'm crazy, deluded.

Some of them are still programmed to think what they were brainwashed to think about me.

That I have demons in me, that Satan has a hold of me, that I'm broken, stupid, simple, that I've never known what I'm talking about and never will, that I'm the one to over look. 

I know all of this is untrue. 

But it feels the same as when we were children, when I still knew, before the amnesia fully set in, before I forgot.

I still feel the shame, the ridicule, the concern masked as something else.

But I know their hearts are pure and good, as children.

They were just as a whole brainwashed as children to believe that I was evil and stupid. 

So every time I "slipped up" and accidentally remembered he killed me, which didn't happen very often, he had already taught them to believe I was the liar and he was the good father. So they didn't question him at all. 

They were terrified of him.

He taught them he was "God." 

In the cult we grew up in, the "father" was "God" and to question that was to be severely punished. 

He was the sociopath, and he got off on control.

And I was just a "simple" child who dared in my childish innocence to not take him seriously enough. 

I laughed, I danced, I sang. 

He hated that I didn't listen.

And one day he decided that he needed to "teach" me to fear him a little more. 

He let his rage get the better of him. 

I understand now.

I didn't understand then.

I understand now how my mom went into the relationship with him trustingly as a 14 year old when he was 16, seeing him as a broken individual who needed saving. 

He put a note in her locker when she was in middle school, and he was the only boy she ever dated. 

He was broken.

She only wanted to help him heal. She was an empath. She went in with a pure heart.

And he saw the goodnesses in her heart. And he flew to it like a moth to light, and has been sucking the light from her ever since. She chose to give him her all, bit by bit. Not all at once, and not by her own choice. 

He tricked her, cleverly, as in a game, and she never saw it coming.

He said, "Do you love me? Then you will do this for me."

And so she did. And in so doing, she was secretly blackmailed. 

But she didn't know. 

She was an innocent, naive girl who grew up on a farm, one of 14 children who was loved and protected and never knew harm. 

He drove a motorcycle, and he was a "bad boy." 

He knew how to love bomb.

She was smitten.

Years go by, and then came the day she wakes up and realizes she is backed into a corner from all angles, and can't get out. 

So she decides to pretend she doesn't want to get out, instead. 

But it's the day she realized she had no power at all.

The day she realized she had even lost the power to protect her own children, all six of them.

You see, he was a sadist.

He loved to slowly torture young, innocent children.

Then he told her that although he "loved" the children, SHE must remember that SHE was his number one.

And so she went to a secret place in her mind... she checked out.

Her life looked perfect on the outside. She had a garden that she escaped to, and a house in the country that she redecorated and made beautiful. It kept her busy.

"Don't think about it," was the advice she gave she liked to give when something terrible was happening to her children and they came to her.

I want to call my mom and tell her my amnesia of 4 decades has cleared.

But why would I?

Why would I ruin the perfectly constructed bubble that she has had to create in her mind to escape the nightmare of her inescapable prison of living with him?

She doesn't believe his blackmail can ever allow her to escape.

Her mind, her fairy tale, is her escape.

Despite my desire to finally talk with her about my memories, I'm not going to ruin her escape.

I love my mom.

I can't ruin her bubble.

It's her only safety from him.

She would go crazy if I broke her bubble.

I love her. 

I want to protect her.

She was my only protection from him, growing up.

For every single time I felt terrified of his presence and didn't understand why, every single time he left the room, I felt 100% safety in her presence alone.

Even though she couldn't protect me from him.

I knew that at least SHE was safe and kind. 

There is that.

And for that, I love her.

For that, I want to protect her.

For that, I am still willing to be her mother.

And for that, although I want so badly to tell her he killed me, I guess can't and won't?

Because I can't hurt her?

Although SHE HURT ME by NOT PROTECTING ME!

AND IT MAKES ME MAD!

But I understand her. 

I know that HE tricked HER, initially, when she was young. 

I see too many insights, I understand too much.

I just can't hurt her. 

I will be patient. 

I have a feeling she is going to outlive him, and someday she will be free.

And someday, when she's ready, maybe I can tell her what my child self has wanted to say for a long time, but has kept buried in amnesia:

Mom, he killed me when I was 5. And I wanted to tell you, so you and me could run away from him. And be safe together. 

But I thought if I did, he would kill you. 

So I kept quiet. 

So he wouldn't kill you.

Because I love you.

But I've been terrified he was going to poison me or kill me my entire childhood, teens, young adulthood, middle age and present day. 

I've been terrified he was going to get rid of me so I wouldn't tell anyone about him murdering me. 

I've been terrified of him my whole entire life. 

I have nightmares he is coming to slaughter me in my sleep. 

I'm sorry you have been held prisoner by such a person as him. 

I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen. 

I know you didn't know he was who he is before you met him. 

Why do the most depraved of pyscopathic narcissists repeat the cycle with their children. Sexual abuse, pedofilia, rape, physical trauma, sadistic beatings, and murder, generation after generation?

Somehow, at age 5, when the beating began, when the force of his rage hit me with a shovel on my spine and and shoulder while I was on my trike just riding down our sidewalk... I knew the answer to that question.

He was hurt as a child, and it enraged him.

He was a victim who chose to victimize others to feel better.

I was simply a very innocent and a very easy target.

He had also been sexually molesting me for years, and my mom had just caught him in the act a couple months earlier.

She told him to make it right and do the right thing.

His version of the right thing was taking all his bottled up rage, and swinging it with as much hate, speed and force as he could with the blunt edge of that shovel onto my tiny body.

As is reverbrated through every nerve, tendon, and muscle of my tender, young body, I began to jerk and seize.

I was innocence, but he wanted revenge.

Electricity coursed through me as if in slow motion.

He wanted to see me break, but I'm moving as if in liquid, out of body.

Lightning pulses in my veins, animates me and emanates from my soul as I'm moving in a blissful, underwater sea of neon light as music of a strange and ethereal glow pulses in my soul.

I am innocence, and his rage can not touch me.

I see clearly, from the all knowing bliss of half death where my spirit swirls, that his rage is not personal.

I get knocked out several more times, cussed out in long tirades of vicious hate, I'm kicked in my private areas, all over my body, I have more seizures.

And each time, through the searing pain, I try my best to hold on to the knowing that he's not doing it to me because he hates me, but because he feels hated by his mom, who was hated by his father, in a string of generational hate and abuse.

It stops with me, right now, I vow in my little child's heart.

If I live, I won't become mean like you, you can't make me. 

And if I do become mean like you, which my heart says I can't, but the pain screams I definitely will, I won't have kids and repeat the cycle.

And if I do become mean, which my heart says I can't, but the pain screams I definitely will, I will get therapy and help and I will heal. 

These things I swear on my five year old heart.

And the lights swirl around me, flickering electricity whirling, and I am not in a body.

I am floating in liquid dark, with electricity coursing beautifully through me.

As happy and joyful as the laughter of a million oceans of laughing fireflies, all flickering their glowing electric bodies on and off gleefully at once.

And there in the dark, with the electricity coursing through and around me so beautifully, I am given a choice.

"Do you want to stay or go?"

I know I am dead.

And I love it.

I feel euphoria.

I don't want to come back.

I know this bliss is where my spirit has come from.

This is my true home.

This is where I will go to when my body is done it's mission here on earth.

But now is not the time.

I know I have a story on earth, and strangely enough, it can only unfold if I'm brave enough to go back into my body and live in that house for 19 more years with that monster who may or may not kill me again.

Am I brave enough?

I am.

Today and most days, I do not feel equipped or brave at all.

But when I was 5, at that moment, I was brave.

I knew my spirit wanted to go back and be in her body, to live her life.

And for her, I will continue being brave.

It's been almost 10 years since I've written here last in my blog.

A lot has happened since then.

I'm going to keep writing here as insights unfold. 

I'm glad you're here!

Being a human here on this planet means that YOU are incredibly brave, and YOUR heart is incredibly brave and beautiful.

Everyone is going through something. 

We are all brave.

Because you are in human skin right now, YOU are INCREDIBLY BRAVE.

And if no one has told you that, then let me tell you.

YOU ARE BRAVE! 

Much love to you.

*Photo of a path I hiked on this summer, here in the Pacific North West. The dreaminess of the cottonwood drift reminded me of the deja vu feeling of amnesia. 

Q: Have you ever remembered something from your past that surprised you?______________________________________

It's been awhile

Two of my fur babies, Huckleberry and Sparky

It's been awhile!

The last time I wrote here, it was 2015. 

Back in 2015, I had just escaped an abusive husband.

I had left a note on the kitchen table and disappeared while he was at work. I hopped on a plane from Pennsylvania and landed in sunny Florida. I can still remember how excited I was the minute I landed and saw all the palm trees and felt the warmth hugging me. 

My health improved by leaps and bounds. There were no more violent anger outbursts to look out for. My fight or flight system settled down. 

I was able to finally start living a softer, slower, gentler, more loving life, just like I had been visualizing and manifesting all along. Just like I saw myself living as I was listening to audios imagining a calm and loving environment. 

I was finally enjoying my life. 

I was LIVING!

I had moved in August, and after about a solid seven months, by about March, I was enjoying pretty good health, too. 

I was able to go out on drives as a passenger and actually eat without feeling sick in the car, something I couldn't do in Pennsylvania before I moved.   

I was able to go out kayaking in beautiful warm weather in the winter in Tampa and para sailing at the beach in the summer.

I was walking our two dogs Sparky and Sadie twice a day in the beautiful Floridian weather. 

I met locals and neighbors on our walks, made friends, connections. 

I got to experience a genuine and comfortable family life with the family I was living with at the time.

I went on long walks an hour or 2 by myself almost every day, or every other day.

I hiked on trails in the woods right behind where I lived, in cities, towns, anywhere and everywhere I happened to be at the time.  

I was able to eat any kinds of food I wanted, and was even able to stop eating gluten free. I just happened to eat vegetarian for 3 years, even though I'm not vegetarian now. I ate high protein because I walked and hiked so much. 

Movement was freedom, and it was my liberation.

I was in a very peaceful, soothing environment, and it allowed me to thrive.

After 2 years, I was even able to start driving on my own again. 

After three years of feeling great, I decided I wanted to start working again. 

I thought about starting small and getting into animal rescue, starting at the animal rescue near where I lived. 

But I missed the orientation.

I had also put in applications at a few elementary schools in the area, and was surprised to get a call back from one of them.

Could you start in two days, they asked?

Could I, I asked myself?

Of course I could! 

I was overjoyed to be back in the world of working people, after being out of commission for 8 whole years. 

Every little thing felt like an honor. 

Until it wasn't. 

I quickly became overwhelmed. By Thanksgiving, I knew I was in over my head. But I swore I could make it by Christmas. I was not a quitter. I didn't want to let the kids down. 

Christmas break revived me, but by the third day teaching after break, I was exhausted again. But somehow, I dragged myself in day after day. Just like I did when I taught in NYC.

Because at this point, I had broken up with the only person I had known in Florida several months ago, and I was alone in the world. 

I had no family again, just like when I was in NYC.

So I figured that I literally HAD to keep going. 

So I did. Until the end of the school year in June. 

At which time I crashed, and then slept for weeks at a time. I slept two days at a time, woke at night and drove the city, crying, then slept a day and half, all summer. I barely had any energy. 

That fall I flew to the west coast in a serendipitous move that changed my life.

That's where I am now. 

I'm living in the Pacific North West, in Southern Oregon.

In the middle of the woods in a tiny cabin where my world has since been flipped upside down.

Tiny house in the woods where I live now. 

Everything I thought I knew since I was in my beautiful state of healing in Florida has been shaken to the core. 

I healed completely from adrenal fatigue in Florida, yes.

But I got it back again by overworking myself for a solid year. 

In the last five years since then, I have healed from adrenal fatigue, again. But to a degree, that is. 

I have that discovered adrenal fatigue is not the only thing that I have been dealing with. 

Adrenal fatigue has been the tip of the ice burg, I guess. It has been an indicator that there are other issues deeper at the core... and one of those issues has been childhood trauma which has been buried in amnesia. 

This amnesia has been something I haven't written about yet on this blog yet, and it has been waiting oh so patiently for me until I was ready for it to unfold itself.

But because it involves terrifying memories, the amnesia in its deep wisdom was waiting until I felt extremely safe, extremely loved, and extremely secure. 

And that is something that I have felt over the last 5 years on a steady basis for the first time in my life with my current partner and his family.

But now that those traumatic memories are a reality, I am truly terrified to be living in my brain just trying to sort it all on a daily basis. I understand completely why my young little subconscious brain blocked it all out 100% without knowing it was doing so. I could not have lived otherwise. 

I barely feel like living now as an adult, simply remembering it. I can barely cope now.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't been ready.

Sometimes I wish that I could have stayed in sunny Florida, living forever in perpetual ignorance of what was about to be revealed. Eating oranges straight off the tree in the back yard, walking in the sunshine, basking in the warmth of the earth as I lay in the grass every morning. 

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't been brave. 

Why, oh why do they think that it's so great to be brave?

I guess because it's worth it. 

It's just that, on those tough days, when you can't see the light, and forget, you need friends to remind you that it's ok to have tough days, and not have all the answers.

Which is why I write in this blog.

I don't have all the answers. 

But I know it's worth it.

Especially on the days when I feel like I wish I had never remembered.

There is a silver lining, though. In remembering the trauma, I was given a gift. I was given replays of exactly what happened that caused my core health issues in the first place. Although I thought it was "just" adrenal fatigue, and then when that didn't go away fast enough, I thought it was chronic fatigue. 

But no, it was an untreated Traumatic Brain Injury sustained when I was 5, which I had no memory of until recently. And I believe a lot of my health issues stem from complications from that TBI. And that adrenal fatigue and chronic fatigue are the tip of the ice burg on top of them. 

I'm grateful for this actual knowledge that the amnesia DID provide, as far as allowing me to remember the TBI. It will help me in the physical side of healing. Finally, doctors will be able to figure out how to help me neurologically, something I never looked at before.  

My physical health, which has always been so puzzling, is finally going to get answers and real direction.  

And although my heart still feels sad and wishes it didn't have to go through this phase of remembering and processing the trauma, I do realize that it is a healing phase and that eventually I will be grateful that I was brave enough to go through it. 

I remind myself daily that I will be ever so much lighter on the other side of healing than I ever was when I was in that state of bliss in Florida when I didn't even know there was such a thing as amnesia looming on the horizon for me. And I was extremely blissy then! So I guess I will be extremely light after I am done processing everything that I repressed through amnesia. 

That is definitely something to look forward to! 

Q: Is there anything you've ever remembered that you wish you hadn't? Were there any silver linings?