Shedding Skin, Hitting Snags

It’s been about eight months since I stopped writing. It wasn’t by choice. Unresolved trauma kept me from continuing my project, and I fell into a months long depression trying to run from it. 

Then I got mad. I know who I am. I know what is in me. I know what I can do. 

So I went through eight weeks of prolonged exposure therapy to treat the ptsd that’s kept me stuck in a loop for the past three years, and the c-ptsd that’s affected me my whole life. 

And it helped. And I am writing again. I can’t begin to explain how good it feels. 

​I’m relearning how to care for myself, manage my life, explore my creativity, feel joy and gratitude and deliberate courage and gentle strength. I am learning to live in the present, to see the past as nothing more than fodder for my work.

But frankly, my body is not cooperating. I’m nine days into an arthritis flare and after all of my progress I am stuck on the couch consumed by pain with an apartment as chaotic as my mind and zero spoons to spare.

And now I know that physical pain can take away much of my hard-earned peace. And I know that my disease is chronic and incurable and progressive. And I don’t feel so strong or brave anymore. 

But here I am using words to share a bit of my soul with the world. So that’s something.