I'm Not Dead: Part 1 & Part 2

I’m Not Dead Yet (Part 1)

Apologies to my followers, my supporters, and my friends for my disappearance of late. What happened, what happened? I can barely dare to explain... 

I crashed to earth under the weight of grief, of hatred, of injustice, of threat. 

I crashed to earth and cried. I wept blood and tears of sorrow and of fear. 

And lying on the ground, the whole world erupted around me. 

With the rest of the planet, I watched the pandemic transform our human reality and the tides of fear darken our collective unconscious. 

But in the darkness and quiet of the ashes, I stir. I breathe. 

I open my eyes and take stock. 

I’m not dead yet. 

I test my new wings. 

They are tender. 

Do I have the strength to fly again? 

Is the rise worth the fall? 

Yes. This is life. 

I can stay hunkered down and hiding, but if I’m going to live, I’m going to live. I have one shot at this life (that I know of). 

I will not live it earthbound in the shadows. 

I want to fly. 

If I’m not dead yet, I want to fly. 

I will bear the scars of my brother’s death, of confusion, accusation, betrayal. 

These scars are a part of me, but I will not let them clip my wings. 

I will not only fly, I will fucking soar. 

I’m Not Dead Yet (Part 2)

Part 1 was an “Emotion Mind” expression of my experience, and here I provide a more “Reasonable Mind” explanation of the interruption of my blog posts. 

In the last six months, there have been a series of events in my life as hard to believe as some of the experiences I describe in Borderline Shine. Hard to believe, but they did occur nonetheless. 

Time bends, past and present swirl. 

Dog’s heads were decapitated and ostriches danced. I forgot my flight and was lost in Cancun during a pandemic. Beloved brothers died then and now. I have been silent because I was again in a trauma response. 

Trauma is defined as an experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. I have been overwhelmed. I have felt myself afraid for my life due to a series of losses and actual threats to my safety and wellbeing. 

Some, like Covid, are a distal threat to me in my home on the Island, but have impacted my life and view of the world. 

More proximal threats were being exposed to screaming rage and painful accusations directed specifically at me, reigniting dormant neural pathways from childhood trauma, throwing me into a fight, flight or freeze response. I was shocked that I was capable of reverting back to that level of irrational fear. 

Retrospectively I can see that I was initially able to react calmly and engage in a reasonable response. But when I realized that reason would not protect me from experiencing pain, and a reasonable response would not stop or change what was happening, I felt powerless. 

I was overwhelmed, and my Emotion Mind took over. 

In that state of mind, I did what I had to do to regain a sense of safety. I retreated, and I mourned, grieved, and processed my feelings. 

When I gave myself the grace to experience the pain, I let go of the suffering. I could then re-engage with my Wise Mind and not own other people’s suffering. I could differentiate truth and not my truth. In letting go of suffering, I made room for beauty and joy and trust and faith which rejuvenated my soul. 

I felt the freedom that comes when you learn to trust that you can handle pain. With freedom comes the ability to take a risk. Try again. Be brave. With freedom comes the ability to fly. 

Muchas gracias to the people who have reached out to me, thank you for all the love and kind words. This work is intended to educate and inspire others, so that they too can fly.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I wake up after a sleepless night. Hours spent ruminating, thoughts feelings whirling through my brain. I am sore and my eyes burn.

I am grouchy.

Too much, too much, my heart cries. My body can't keep up with my life. Between adjusting to a challenging new job, trying to organize a book launch, and parenting hormonal preteens, I am energetically tapped.

Emotions are energy, and I have been deluged by emotions arising from these mounting pressures and responsibilities. I have the dialectical behaviour skills to "manage" and "regulate" emotions, such as acknowledging, naming, and nonjudgmentally allowing emotions: I can shift my attention to other emotions, such as gratitude; I can be mindful and stay present in the moment to get a short break from the anxiety of the future; I can set boundaries to reduce responsibilities; I can practice self care and accumulate positive emotions; shit, I am one skillful mofo.

And I'm friggin' grouchy. All of these skills take time and energy, and there are not enough hours in the day to function and process the emotions. They accumulate, and I am full, fed up, tapped out, and grouchy.

I am even grouchy at myself. I'm sick of the complaining, whining voice in my head. This is what you always wanted, Whiner, you're living the freakin' dream.

I have built the life I have always wanted, but anyone who thinks that once you have achieved your goals your life will be easy is sadly mistaken. You still struggle. It's the human condition.

So I take a deep breath, I connect to Wise Mind, and I ask myself, "So, Therapist Con, what do you suggest now?"

And Wise Mind replies: "whenever you don't know what to do, choose love."

Immediate and unbidden, tears well in my eyes. Compassion, compassion, compassion. Yes, you're tired, of course you are. You are doing your best, and even when it's good things happening, it is a lot to feel. You're just a human body, and it is painful to experience so much sometimes.

I recognize that grouchy is my fight response, my way of trying to protect myself from "more." I recognize the underlying beliefs that have created the grouchy, that in the past "tired" meant "weak and vulnerable", and "weak and vulnerable" meant something terrible would happen. This chain of thought is not logical, and tapping into Wise Mind allows me to separate my emotional fears from reality. It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to feel grouchy, it's the way my Emotion Mind is telling me I need to rest. That is all. That is all.

Pulling away from Emotion Mind, I recognize that the skills I am practicing ARE working, because I AM getting through. I am getting shit done, and doing it "good enough." While I'm working, writing, and parenting, I am experiencing excitement, gratitude, joy and satisfaction. I am resisting having a drink to escape the intensity of my emotions, which historically has been my go-to distress tolerance activity. Drinking is highly effective in the short term to help a person feel better, and my Dear Readers, do not underestimate the lure and call of the bottle. Maybe I can even recognize that not only am I getting through, I'm rocking this time of my life.

And now, I notice I am a little less grouchy.

So if you made it through this rambling blog, I hope it was a helpful example of how you can practice (practice!) dialectical behaviour therapy skills. Thanks, Marsha Linehan.