Heading into 2026! Goodbye Healing Era, Hello Whatever Era Comes Next!

I sit here in January 2026 in a very different headspace from one year ago. The difference is very profound and frankly such a relief! I remember starting last year feeling like I could only take one more year of things being so hard. Having put in years of healing work, I had been so ready for so long for it to feel like it had finally paid off. And gradually throughout 2025 it did! It is very frustrating that the year I finally came back into my own was also a year of horrible, stressful nonsense nationally and globally. But I can only control my own journey, not the world.

It is such a fucking relief to feel like all the times I just told myself to keep doing the things, even though it still felt hard and never ending, finally brought me to a better place. I am the most mentally healthy I've been in a long time, probably ever. I healed 38 years of trauma in like three and a half years, so it's a lot in a short span. And while I know that I still have a lot of self esteem and negative self talk issues to work on, I know that is a life long struggle that I have come a long way with. I am also taking better care of myself. Having worked through the struggles of mental health made the struggle for physical health lighter. Both because they are interrelated, and because I proved to myself I can make progress at hard things. 

I also feel more myself than I have in a very long time, maybe ever. For the longest time I wanted to get back to how I felt in the latter half of 2019. I had worked a lot on my anxiety then and was just enjoying how much joy and appreciation I had for just living my life in the moment. But I also recognized that because of everything that happened and was uncovered in the 2020s, I was never going to be that version of me again. Thankfully, the version of me now is so much fuller. There are parts of me that remained throughout my life that I have strengthened, there are new parts of me that I discovered through hard work and healing, and there are old parts of me that finally feel safe to resurface or shine brighter because I have healed the things that made me feel I had to hide those parts. I find that this current version of me talks way more than I have in years, I am more confident, and I am more excited to play, express myself, and explore!

I definitely feel like I wrapped up one story arc of my life and I am now setting out on a new one. I really feel like the pandemic lockdown was the thing that sent me down the path that led me here. If that had never happened, while there was a lot of trauma that would have never happened to me, I also wonder how long, if ever, it would have taken for me to realize I had a lot of childhood trauma left unhealed. I know that I could have possibly lived my life without anyone ever coming along that tapped into those bad coping patterns and been just fine, but I could have also crossed paths with some of the horrible people out there and then would have gone through way worse things. And now I have the insight and growth to recognize bad behaviors and not let my patterns accept behavior that is unacceptable.

Looking back, it was like my healing journey went in stages based on what emotions I was processing at the time. The first year was sadness and anger. Sadness and I are old friends, so it was really easy to connect with that. Anger was definitely new to me - I probably felt more anger in the last three and a half years of my life than the rest of my life combined. But anger is so easy to feel because it's empowering. When I am angry about things, I am the most confident, self assured person. I have so many amazing qualities and I am such a rare find of a human, so of course I didn't deserve to be hurt. The sadness and anger are also the feelings that kept popping up throughout. As I processed other emotions, they were there to be like "yeah, this also makes me sad and angry!"

The next year was fear 1.0. This was probably the one that hurt the most. Just one scary instance shown a bright, unavoidable light onto just how much and how long I was afraid. I covered a lot of it up under coping mechanisms as anxiety and empathy and "how can I make what happened to me my fault." I think some of the most violent sobbing episodes I had were because all the hidden fear would hit me all at once sometimes. It doesn't help when the scary thing isn't completely gone. Under certain circumstances, I spent this time letting this fear make decisions for me. It was so much easy to run and hide because it was big and scary. Fear feels so weak and vulnerable.

The next phase was fear 2.0 - facing fear. On a weekly basis I would log into my therapy session and go over my calendar with my therapist. We would walk through any activities in the coming week where I might have reason to be afraid. We would then talk through what I would do and how I would manage myself. Having prepared this way and having someone to be accountable to was so helpful! There are things I did in 2025 that I would not have dreamed myself capable of the previous years. It wasn't because I am no longer afraid, but because the fear no longer controls me.

Surprisingly enough, the next phase was grief. It turns out that this little bugger hides under all the other emotions. I spent years not caring about the positive things that I lost, and refusing to think about happy memories. It was because I had to heal all the other, damage caused emotions, before I could heal the loss of the tender things underneath. It felt so weird grieving losses from years ago. Maybe I could still feel grief because I have never had an experience with anyone that was all bad. Even the people who hurt me the most and damaged me mentally still loved me and made me feel loved sometimes. It's just hard feeling that those loves came with conditions or unnecessary limits or sharp points that cut deeper as they got closer. 

Last year's phases also had an overlapping phase of me just letting myself have permission to feel right about how I perceived things. I spent so long telling myself that I wasn't allowed to feel certain ways about certain things or interpret certain behaviors in certain ways. But I was like, fuck that! I know from my life experience that I am a very insightful person and I read people very well and I am very often right about things. So if I felt a way or interpreted something in a way, it was okay! I denied so many things out of fear, so healing that emotion then let me go back and validate my own thoughts and feelings.

The final phase that started near the end of last year that I may either still be in or just coming out of is what I am considering my acceptance/transition out phase. I did all the work and I feel like I have healed so much, and now that means figuring out what the post healing era looks like. (Hopefully it's my falling in love era!!) The struggle I had with this is frustration that even though I consider the healing successful and I'm moving on from it being an active stage of my life, there are still bits and pieces from the trauma in my body. It's like I did all the things, it should be gone now! I played the game, got 100% completion, obtained the platinum trophy, and now I get to uninstall the trauma game from my hard drive, right? RIGHT?!

Unfortunately I have come to accept that it doesn't just all go away. Sometimes if I come across the scary, traumatic thing, I am still going to panic. My brain was programed for danger and that programming doesn't just go away cleanly. The important thing is how I can calm myself and continue on afterward. And every so often I do something going about my normal life that reminds me of an incident of abuse or the general blanket of criticism and walking on eggshells that I experienced. Sometimes in the morning when making myself coffee I think "hey, remember when you stopped drinking coffee for awhile because they criticized people who drink coffee." Or like a few weeks ago I was watching a 10 top video (possibly on the YouTube channel I stopped watching because "they don't do countdown lists right") that unbeknownst to me had an item on the list that I remember discussing where I made all these excuses of why I was tired that day or had done something else that made me like the thing, and clearly if there wasn't something wrong with me I would have been better able to dislike the thing too because clearly it was bad but I just wasn't mentally equipped at the time to pick up on why it sucked. It's frustrating because I don't want these reminders anymore. I've already done the dozen things on the list of things I stopped because of all the negativity and criticism. I don't let other people's difference of opinion dissuade me from mine like that ever again. And I sure as hell make sure people feel safe to express differences of opinions with me.

Honestly one of the things I have noticed that is weirdly helpful with accepting this is noticing not only in myself, but in others (friends, new people I meet) how on the surface past trauma and abuse is for people. Like I hate that anyone has gone through that. But it feels like I'm not alone and that I'm not "stuck in the past" or "can't get over it" with everything. These things really do some damage and it's interesting how even after years or even decades these things still sit with us. Honestly, creating safe spaces for each other to talk about these things is so helpful. I do hope for myself and for everyone else that healing and therapy really help make the load lighter, but it's not wrong for it to still sit there. I didn't cause all this damage to myself, and I did the healthy thing by going to therapy and doing all the work. So it's okay. I guess it's like when my car got hit and runned (hit and ran? idk), that wasn't my fault but I still had to pay the price to fix my car. And while my car looks normal again, there are some minor differences that I notice b/c I've been there with it the whole time. But it's back on the road now and drives just like it should. And the pain of paying a $500 deductible I wasn't expecting has lessened (although I STILL haven't replaced my laptop like I was going to at that time). I'm never going to get an apology and accountability is never going to be taken. I'm never even going to get a safe opportunity to say hey I forgive you, even without anything in return. I'm just going to carry my past with me into the future and hope the load continues to gets lighter.

Something big I realized both with my own experience, but also looking back at that time in my life, is that someone can be hurting a LOT worse on the inside than someone else can see. Because I saw behaviors pretty early on, before I was told anything, that made me go "oh, that's a trauma response" - not in those words, because I lacked that vocabulary at the time, but with that exact sentiment. Now I wonder if, all those times together, did they felt then like I've felt these few years? Did they carry their own trauma and pain so on the surface all that time? Well I guess obviously, probably, because you don't take your trauma out on someone else without it being there. But I guess it just breaks my heart thinking they sat there the whole time carrying that. I've asked myself many times if I regretted anything from this time, and while I should have probably regretted a lot of things, I really can't bring myself to regret something when I didn't know at the time. I couldn't do anything different if I didn't know I needed to. But the one thing that I regret is never just calling it out. I saw so many triggered moments and always made a point to myself to be on the look out for them so I could be extra mindful and supportive in those moments, but I never said like hey I notice this a lot, let's talk. I know that it may not have changed anything, or could have made things worse, and I didn't deserve to be treated the way I did because I never said anything, and behavior that comes from trauma coping mechanisms can also hurt other people. I guess, just knowing how it feels to carry my stuff around just makes me sad to think that was going on in front of me. And not everyone heals that stuff or has a safe space to open up. I just wish that everyone gets to heal, whether it's with a therapist or with loved ones. And also I could just be 100% wrong and feeling empathy over something that just never happened. Idk, I just want everyone to be okay! It's interesting how shiny a bright light on your own trauma also means dancing with the shadows of the trauma of those who hurt you, and sometimes it's hard not being curious about what cast those shadows that were cast onto you.

I really want this next era to be about diving in and doing things! I am not nearly as productive and on top of things as I used to be or would like to be. I don't mean that in a capitalism workhorse nonsense kind of way. It's just that because I spent so much mental energy carrying and working on heavy things, it made it harder to get as many things done as productively as I wished because my mind got tired. So now that I am feeling much better, I want to do more! Like I want to prepare show stuff ahead of time instead of at the last minute! I want to actually play the piano I bought like two and a half years ago. I want to maybe publish my book like I've been saying for several years, and maybe start writing a second. I also just want to do more things - see what fun stuff is out there, now that I don't feel like I need to mentally rest as much. Plus, with all perseverance I had these last couples of years, I have opportunities recently added to mine life that I want to keep exploring.

My biggest manifestation for 2026 is finding my guy! I am putting all the positive energy for that into the Universe. I have even stopped telling myself I am unloveable! I know I am so lovable!! And I only need 1 guy to want to be with me. So I don't care how difficult the dating scene is or how many of the single men are crappy or how atypical many of my attributes are. Because there is a guy out there who is going to absolutely adore me. We're going to have so much fun and care so much about it other, and all the random things about us are going to be so endearing to each other. I get to have that. End of story. No wavering confidence, no maybes, no "it's not in the cards sometimes". I have decided I get my guy and none of that other stuff will stop if from happening. He's almost here and I just have to keep heading in that direction. (To that end, I am willing to be set up by people if they know anyone.)

And I love that attitude for me!! It took until later in the year last year to shift from being terrified to being excited to let someone new into my life in such a big way. Having spent years looking back on all the trauma and mistreatment from family members, friends, and coworkers, the idea of letting someone new into my life was so scary, ESPECIALLY in a role as intimate and close as a romantic partner! I was so afraid of getting hurt again and even afraid of not being able to trust myself because I had overlooked so many things so many times. But I trust myself so much now! I think it helped over the last couple years making new friends and actively looking at green flags and things that made me feel safe. And just getting to know new people and being excited that we get to be friends now! I am safe to meet new people and build relationships, and one day soon I am going to do that with my guy! I am so excited! *Squee*

Oh my goodness I just hope 2026 comes through! *Crosses fingers and toes!* (I can't even talk about the shit show that was the US, or how I am scared to hope that the nonsense is going to self-destruct itself and this year will be better than last, in whatever surreal, garbage way better can be. Just got to keep on resisting.)

So Over 2024, But I Don't Want 2025 Either

I feel compelled to write these end of year blogs as a way to process the year. But it's not like I have much new, interesting, or cheerful to say. The reality is that I haven't been in a place for a long time to be inspired to write unless it's to get things off my mind. I am hoping that in the near future I can get some enjoyment from writing for pleasure (not that my usual sketch writing isn't pleasurable), but just that I miss writing as a fun, inspiring activity, as opposed to "I must write things off my mind so my head doesn't explode." Maybe the trick is to write something that fulfills both those needs as a way to transition from one to the other.

I sit upon the ending edge of 2024 pretty disappointed. Here's the thing - I have had a LOT of positive, fun memories with amazing people that have brought a lot of joy and meaning to my year. So I don't wish to downplay or not give credit to that. If anything, it's all of those things that have helped keep me afloat during a year that has otherwise been pretty all over the place and filled with big, hard emotions. I wanted to do so much - I wanted to hopefully do a bunch of dating to finally find a boyfriend, I wanted to add new activities to my life that had longer running potential, I wanted to feel very solidly in a better place mentally after all the work I've been doing. But at the end of 2024, I feel mostly unaccomplished.

I started the year off poorly. To understand the start of the year, it helps to understand how I came into 2024. I basically spent from the end of March 2022 through early November 2023 in a constant state of stress. My resting state was agitation. I went back to therapy only to uncover abuse, trauma and mistreatment over my, up to then, lifespan, and spent the time since uncovering, reevaluating, and healing from all of it. And it's not just individual people or situations, but realizing how patterns and core beliefs about myself set as a child have impacted all of the relationships of my life. And having to unlearn or relearn lessons because of this work, sometimes realizing lessons I thought I learned from situations were the wrong lessons, like how I was always focusing on how I could be a better person when things went wrong, but realizing the lesson I kept missing is it's not always on me, and I'm allowed to say the other person isn't meeting me in a mature place and things went wrong because I showed up the best I could under the circumstances and things failed because they didn't try. Not everything is on me. I can't always make things go right or be fair on my own.

It wasn't until early November 2023 that I was finally able to just be at rest in my quiet alone time. Not that I was ALWAYS okay, but generally speaking agitation was something that swelled instead of stayed around all the time. I still struggle with days or even weeks of waking up angry and/or anxious, but that's been mostly better (as long as nothing else happens to stir the pot!). January 2024 started the year off exhausted. Having spent so many months in such a heightened state, my body needed rest once it got used to being more at ease. I probably slept the most in January than any other month because my body and mind were tired in a way I had never experienced before.

February was one of the hardest months. I thought that after getting some rest in January that things would be looking up. But instead my self esteem was in the gutter. I struggled so hard during this time. I knew I needed to get back into therapy, and getting encouragement from my main source of emotional support helped get me there. See, the therapist I started seeing in April 2022 basically disappeared on me in October of 2023. She just didn't show up from my October appointment, despite responding to my check in message from the week before that she'll talk to me then. Hopefully she didn't die or get seriously hurt, and it was just some issue with working through BetterHelp. So I went a few months without a therapist. I didn't want to get a new one through BetterHelp because the special price through a deal from my work had ended so I was paying more out of pocket. And finding a new therapist that took my insurance was going to take time and mental energy, so I figured take a break and see what happened.

What happened was I sunk into a really low place. I hated so much about myself and my mood was really low. It doesn't help that when my mood dips too low, I get really self negative, so then I think horrible things about myself and am very unkind to myself. I start to think about all the negatives people have put on my and how people made me feel. Sometimes it gets like well society says this or that is wrong with me, and these things happened that seem in line with that, so I must be shitty or worthless. Or I think like here are the handful of people that really damaged me mentally that I loved and thought they cared about me, but if they could make me feel so shitty about myself and treat me so unkind, then maybe they are right because how could people important to me that get to be significant parts of my life treat me that way if I didn't deserve it. And if those people could treat me that way or leave me, then why can't anyone else? 

Of course logically I know that's not true. And it's amazing how one day I can be feeling so negative and feel really stuck, and then like the next day or the day after that, with enough rest and time, I can feel fine again. I've spent a lot of time not only reflecting on and healing from the bad behaviors, but also appreciating and feeling gratitude for the positive people in my life, which thankfully far out number the bad. I don't think we as people always take intentional effort to analyze and appreciate what positive, supportive behaviors look like. It's amazing how when I started really doing the comparison how stark of a contrast things were between the people and behaviors that made me feel safe, loved, seen, and supported, versus unsafe, judged, invalidated, unworthy, etc. Doing this work really helps serve as a life raft during the times when my head can get really dark.

The hard fact of this year is that I've had a handful of days this year where basically I knew all I could do was live through the day so that I could go to sleep and wake up to another day. Like the weight and pain of everything I've worked through and how I was feeling, and things that kept happening in the present while healing the past, sometimes got too much. I had most of these days in February of this year, with more sprinkled throughout the year, although more since I got Covid in September than during the spring or summer. I did read that Covid could cause mental health stuff as another of it's too many shitty side effects. Or maybe it's just because the fatigued lingered for weeks after what was otherwise a super mild illness, and being fatigued made it harder to stay strong mentally and emotionally. 

The last time I had one of these days I really focused on how it felt in my body, as opposed to just my head, to maybe help me or other people understand how this kind of distress can be physical as well as mental. There were the racing negative thoughts in my head. Also, it felt like this big knot in my chest like some kind of uncomfortable mass settled there and created a lot of tension. Elsewhere all over my body it felt like just under my skin some kind of staticky, metallic fibers were trying to push there way out through my skin. Everything inside feels like it's about to explode from so much tension and pressure. 

I was thinking about how hard it is now just sitting with and trying to get through these days with these kind of sensations with all the things that I've learned and worked on, and having a lot of empathy and understanding for my late teen/early 20s self who coped with these feeling through self harm, having no understanding of why it feels like that. I have learned these past 3 years that as a child I was wrongfully taught not to speak up for myself or express my negative emotions because best case scenario no one cared and got annoyed that I expressed myself, or worse case scenario now someone knows what bothers or scares me, and will do it more because they know it bothers me. And I also was put under so much pressure to achieve in school while also being compared to others who were doing things I was not, so I never felt good enough no matter how well I did. Plus, dealing with all the other b.s. that came from having an emotionally immature, emotionally neglectful, emotionally and mildly physically abusive, alcoholic father. So of course a girl fresh into adulthood, on her own for the first time, having been put under all that pressure while being molded into someone that didn't feel safe or heard to the point of keeping her feelings to herself, would need some kind of release to all that b.s. that she didn't even understand had happened to her. 

I started in therapy with my current therapist in April. I like her a lot. When I told her about my last therapist suddenly disappearing on me, she said she was sorry that happened and mentioned how difficult that could be. I hadn't really thought of it that way. There were definitely issues with being dropped suddenly like that, but I wasn't too bothered. Besides, I think my therapist now is a much better fit. I think she offers more useful suggestions and things to help me do better. I felt like the activities I was suggested by my old therapist didn't really jive well with me. I appreciated the old therapist listening, labeling things I went through to help me understand my trauma, and validating my actions when I was over thinking things. But I didn't feel like I was getting the right practical things to do that helped. My now therapist will have me tell her about upcoming events and any concerns I have. Then we'll talk out what I can do during those times to work on my anxiety and deal with things. And we check in on events from the previous week to see how they went. And also I do the talking about things that my mind may be working through or processing about more distant past stuff. I also appreciate how she notices and validates the things that I have learned and how far I have come. It's nice, especially when I feel in the thick of some negative feelings, to have her remind me of the growth I've made.

I found catching a new therapist up on all the trauma I had been through and learned about, and all the work I had done over a year and a half felt kind of akin to trying to pull someone onto a moving train. But she got her bearings pretty quickly. The main theme of the work I've been doing this year is taking my power back - advocating for myself, not letting fear make decisions for me, reclaiming things I love. One of the very first points she made to me was why do I have to be the one to tiptoe around places out of fear when the problems were caused by someone else not dealing with their issues. I have a pattern of other people putting their trauma and issues onto me, and then me feeling like I'm the problem for speaking up, or wanting boundaries, or even having fucking wants and needs as an individual. But I am not responsible for other people's behaviors, and when they choose to mistreat me, it's not my responsibility to make things comfortable for them if they cannot meet me in the middle to fix things together. If someone else's actions and my reasonable responses to them taking their trauma out on me make them uncomfortable, that's on them. 

The progress with this work I will say is primarily positive. I had some really early wins. My guiding philosophy is when in potentially difficult situations, I am going to do what I want to do as if the stressor was not there. I am no longer going to let my fear direct my decisions. Instead, I am going to recognize that the fear exists and then calm myself so that I may carry on doing what I want to do. There was something about knowing my therapist was going to ask about how I did that made me really want to do a good job early on. It also helped talking out events beforehand so I had already verbalized what I would do, so when it came time to participate in events, I already had a plan in my head. 

I did have a couple somethings that happened in recent months that shook my confidence in my progress. I ended up having an anxiety attack triggered over a minor thing. It really sucked because I felt like I was making so much progress, but even something small in the right (wrong?) form could still trigger the panic/fear/flight response my brain as been conditioned into. It made me think about how I just have to accept that a part of my brain is still affected by everything and may stay that way indefinitely, especially if there's no healing from the source of the damage. I don't know if the thing was accidental or intentional, and if it was a one time deal or if I should expect anything again in the future. Either way, I hate that my brain made the decision for me of how I was going to respond. I have no idea what I would have said or done (or not said or not done) if given the choice, but the anxiety attack took that from me because my brain decided I needed to get out of there! I just have to accept that healing trauma isn't about completely removing the trauma from my brain. I have no way of knowing when and if the trauma is truly gone, and I don't have direct control over how my brain responds to trauma triggers. What I can do though is heal what I can so as to lessen the frequency and intensity of the triggers, and development ways to manage the stress when I am triggered so I can return to whatever I was doing faster after being triggered. 

It's hard knowing the fear is still there. All of the progress I've made isn't because the fear is gone, but because I am afraid sometimes but I do things anyway. It's hard too because facing and healing trauma sometimes means becoming more afraid (or sad or angry) than I was before I understood what happened to me. I had a thing happen in early summer 2023 that not only terrified me, but also made me realize I had a bunch of fear that I hadn't even acknowledged, let alone processed. It's scary realizing that I was in some small, ever increasing ways, afraid of someone for pretty much the entire time I knew them. And that a lot of the excuses I made - they didn't mean it like that, or that's just trauma behavior and not about me, or that's not a big enough deal to make a fuss over and I don't want to be overly sensitive - were partly because I was afraid to speak up for myself. It's a pattern in my life having people I'm close to take their own shit out on me, whether they realize it or not, because they are only thinking about themselves, or they see me as an opportunity to be what they couldn't, or because they see their own insecurities in me, or because I happened to do a similar thing or occupy a similar space to someone who was shitty. I'm tired of other people looking at me and not seeing ME. I didn't do anything to deserve any of that! And so often I shut down my feelings, even hid parts of myself, because other people couldn't see ME for my talents and my kindness and how I loved them and deserved love in return. I never want to feel that way again. I am not going to let anyone else put anything on me that wasn't mine, because I'm always willing to take accountability when it's fair, but too often take accountability that doesn't belong to me. I am so grateful to have people that make me feel safe and seen, that I don't have room for those that don't anymore. And I've realized that when put in a situation that feels unsafe or unseen, the way to fix it is not by pretending it didn't happen, but by showing it's safe now and the other person is seen again.

Unraveling the patterns and bad lessons I learned as a child is not fun. Once I saw them, I could not unsee them, which in part is good because that means I won't fall into old ruts in the future because I can identify the bad behaviors in others and myself to prevent situations in the first place. But it's hard examining the entirety of my life to see what causes me to fall into those patterns. Having experienced a lot of invalidation and mistreatment for speaking up about how things negatively make me feel, I learned too young to hide what I was feeling from others. It only ever felt safe to cry when I was alone. As I got older I learned it's so much easier to intellectualize what I was feeling instead of actually feeling it. Because it felt shitty to feel hard feelings that I wasn't "allowed" to express, so if I just didn't feel my feelings and just thought about them instead, it hurt less. Of course that just meant the feelings were repressed more and then hurt a lot more when it finally came time to feel them. But in bad situations it was safer. 

It's interesting how as I got older I worked really hard unlearning the bad lessons, but then realizing I never understood the underlying cause of the lessons, so while I was able to make some real personal growth in my adulthood, there were still some booby traps that I tripped without realizing it. In my adult years I've been able to identify people as safe to open up to about how I feel, and over time doing that while I'm feelings things instead of after I've already felt them. I've learned that when someone is safe, I do not fall into the really bad patterns because those people don't make me feel like I have to. It's only when mistreatment happened that I would fall into those patterns, and not even really realize it. I am grateful in the present for people who are safe so I don't use my patterns. And I am grateful for the healing I've done so that when someone is unsafe, I can just get away from them instead of using my coping mechanisms to stay safe in an unsafe space.

In early summer this year, I learned that a former close friend of mine had died of Covid, on my 40th birthday no less. It was a really painful thing to hear. I have so much sympathy for her family having to lose someone like that at a relatively young age. It hit me in a weird way. Several years ago I had to exit the friendship because of the way this person treated me (it was something happening to the friend group in general, but I seemed to get more of the behavior than the others). It was hard because at the time we were both going through difficult stress, so it was too much for me to deal with my stress, trying to be a supportive friend for everyone in the group, and then having this mistreatment as another stressor in a space that should have been a relief from stress. I still really cared so much about her and hoped that she could work her stuff out to get in a better place. (Any one who I've ever cared about but things ended badly, I am probably always going to care about and always hope they find the healing they need to allow them to live a happier life.) And I think she did work things out from little snippets I could make out on social media. I had always hoped that one day we'd find ourselves in the same space so I could see how she was doing and tell her I was happy she was doing well. Now I will never get that chance.

This made me think a lot about how my patterns of intellectualizing my feelings and not realizing I was being mistreated had affected this, and other, relationships. I found myself wondering that if I had healed those patterns and been capable of recognizing the need to speak up for myself and then doing so, could I have stopped things from getting as bad as they did. Could I have saved myself hurt and trauma, and potentially saved relationships if I had worked these things out sooner? If I can given someone the opportunity to stop hurtful behavior, would they have really listened and made correction early enough to create a safe space so I didn't have to be out of their life? It's probably just as if not more likely they would either say they will change and then not change, or flat out invalidate and redirect the issue into making me the problem, thus putting me in a situation to leave or put up with continued mistreatment, if they hadn't already left on their own account. The truth is I'll never know. And it's been a struggle trying to balance the truths of (1) other people chose to behave like that even if I didn't push back at all, and I am not responsible for their behavior, and (2) I have a responsibility to myself to to keep myself as safe as possible. I have learned to give myself grace for sometimes failing or being too slow on the uptake with #2, especially where so much mental and emotionally abusive behaviors are meant to make people feel like they are the problem and lucky to be put up with, that it can be hard to see through that smoke.

I really wanted to date in 2024, but that barely happened. My last date was in February. Since my self esteem was really bad, I wasn't in the mood to date. I only went on the last date that I did because literally right before I was about to delete the app, some guy who hadn't messaged me in like a couple weeks suddenly responded. So I told him I was about to delete the app, but sure, let's go on a date. It was fine but he was definitely not what I was looking for. So I took a break. And haven't been back on the apps since. Maybe I'll go back, but I need to be prepared to play the algorithms and message a lot of duds to "prove" myself engaged enough to "earn" the good profiles. App programming these days can do straight to hell!! I did practice my dating/flirting/man acquiring skills IRL though, a bit. The thing is, I am not flirty. And I cannot tell when someone is hitting on me or interested. I need to be told to my literal face, and even then I may have my doubts. So instead I just try to show up as my authentic self and get to know people. I've done it in the past where I've liked someone and got into my head and tried to say or do things that weren't natural, and it made things awkward and uncomfortable. I'm way more enjoyable when I'm just myself, and if I need to be some forward flirty, touchy feely person to get a man, than he's not my kind of man. To be fair, I worry no man is my type of man. I am not the kind of woman a man sees across the room and just has to talk to. And I don't seem to be the type guys get to know and really grow into liking. I can literally only think of one guy who expressed interest in me in a way that was respectful and who is a genuinely good person. And since dating is a numbers game, it's worrying that there was only one. I just have to hope that I defy the odds and can soon meet someone else like that who also happens to be compatible with me. Or I suddenly date 5000 men so I can up my numbers. ;^) 

But honestly I don't know if or when I even want to get back out there. Like I am totally ready to find someone and date one person. But I am NOT ready to sort through refuse that are people on dating apps or going to dating events. I don't know if it's Sacramento or just dating culture in general, but there just seems to be a lot more stress and less datable guys than is worth the effort. It doesn't help that I engage with too much online content with women sharing stories of shitty men. Makes it hard to believe there are even enough good ones left that I have a chance at getting one. I'm not exactly prime attractive goods over here. And as amazing of a caring, kind, attentive, insightful, funny, entertaining girlfriend as I would be, I'm not looking to just have a boyfriend. Years ago my focus was only on finding someone because I have a lot of love to give and I really wanted to love someone. But recent years and work has made me realize I also need to understand and focus on what I need from a relationship, and to make sure I'm receiving as much as I give, if not in kind but at least in volume. I fully believe when it comes to finding (and having) a relationship, people need to both consider what they have to give and be a good partner, and what they need to receive and make sure their needs are met. If you focus too much on what you have to give (something I've done), you risk doing all the work and then not getting your needs met. And if you focus too much on what you need, you risk taking advantage of your partner.

Maybe I'll put myself back out there. Or maybe I won't. Maybe someone will fall into my lap. Maybe I'll just live my life out in the world and stumble across someone. I just know that the fears still crop up. I remember earlier in the year talking to this guy, and as I'm walking away after a great conversation, I smile one of those giddy smiles I haven't done in a long time. And then a tidal wave of dread washes over me. I feel the weight of it heavy on my mind. I haven't gotten closer to anyone new since I've started my healing journey. And I'm really afraid to let someone in. I'm afraid I'll miss red flags, or see the red flags but make excuses for them like I have in the past. It's taken me some work to overcome those kinds of fears to tell myself that the present isn't like the past, and that those fears are my trauma talking. Because while I don't want to get hurt again, I also don't want to be someone who hurts someone else because I was hurt by someone who was hurt by someone else. I want to see the new people coming into my life for themselves, not for the people I've left behind me.

So, what are my big goals from 2025? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am just going to live each day one at a time. I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing, for the most part. I may start some new things, stop some old things. But I'm not putting any pressure or goals on anything. If nothing happens, fine. If something mid happens, cool. If something big and amazing happens, I'm dreaming so wake me up. Fine. I am just going to keep on this healing journey and just do me. The biggest thing I accomplished in 2024 was working on myself. And while I may not feel the progress every day, I know it's there. Just a few weeks ago I literally pushed a stranger off me and said "I don't hug strangers" when they hugged me suddenly w/o my consent. Past Dayna would have just let it happen quietly. But not any more!! So for 2025, I just want to keep working on me and piecing together more who this current version of me is. I don't care that I didn't do anything huge or important or impressive (but to be fair, I did complete the 1st phase of the largest project of my career in 2024), I kept going and kept growing and slogged through some hard stuff. I am benefiting from all the hard work even if I don't often feel it yet, and sometimes it makes things feel harder. But I am much farther along the path than it feels and it will all pay off. *knocks on wood* Or we'll devolve into some kind of apocalypse and all my personal issues of my life up until then will seem quaint. I feel like either way works for me. I'd love to be happy and have good things come my way, but I'm also kind of curious what post-apocalypse Dayna would become. So, you know, 2025 is happening. 

Not All Accomplishments Are Fun to Talk About

I've been wanting to write for quite awhile, but I kept getting stuck on what to share and what angle to approach it from. But then I said something to my therapist the other day that finally gave me a direction. I've been feeling like I've been left behind. All these great people in my life are out accomplishing these cool things and I'm not doing anything because I've been working through stuff. But then she reminded me that working through trauma in therapy is a lot of work and I have been doing a lot of really great work in the several months we've been working together. To which I replied that's true, but therapy work isn't really fun to talk about. 

People spend time in conversations going into different levels of details about what they've been up to and working on. It's kind of a downer to be like "here's the trauma I have been processing in therapy! It's been really hard!" So it feels like I'm not doing anything because I don't have anything tangible to show for it and I don't want to ruin the fun of events. So I figured why not in more or less detail "brag" here in my blog about it. And then people can engage with it here if they want. Or not. Just getting it out of my head helps.

I wake up every day anxious and angry. Thankfully I am at a point where I wake up fine and then my brain reminds me that I'm anxious and angry. Previously I would already be anxious and angry while asleep, and it would wake me up. I love those few blissful moments in the morning before my brain remembers that it's not okay. I've had these trends of anxiety and anger on and off for a little over two years now. These phase come and go, so hopefully this one will end soon too. These phases all started the 1st week of July 2022, the day after one particular therapy appointment. I logged into the appointment with a laundry list of things from the past to bring up - usually I focused on how I was doing in the present week. My intention going in was just "look at the b.s. I've had to put up with." I enter with a "let's shit talk", righteous, "OMG, I'm so put upon" kind of attitude.

But it turns out that every story I told my therapist is that session was an example of emotional abuse. Story after story got labelled as something, without fail. Finding that out was heavy. The knowledge sat in my brain like a thousand pound weight. The truth that I was abused is still hard to carry. Sometimes it still hits me like a truck or a strong wave. Sometimes I melt into tears, or shake with anxiety, or get really fucking angry. And over the next nine months I uncovered abuse from multiple people in my life from start to that present time. And there were also people that were just jerks that didn't quite make it to psychological damage levels even though they treated me poorly.

It's still hard to wrap my brain around it sometimes. Because I think when most people think of abuse, they think of being attacked or yelled at in anger. Being belittled in a very obvious and harsh way. But I've learned these last two year that a lot of abuse can be more covert. There are behavior patterns and types of people we all know and tolerate that are technically abusive. Everyone knows someone who's too critical, or teases someone too much, or invalidates feelings or violates boundaries. Behaviors that we may all do at some point can become patterns of abuse for some people that take it too far and don't mind their behavior. I think it amazing, and horribly so, that a fair amount of us are walking around with experiences that were abuse and no one ever named it as such because it wasn't "that bad" and we were just used to it.

For most of my experiences I didn't even know I was being abused or mistreated. Like some of my childhood experiences I still carried around and they bothered me, and some of them I could point to as reasons why I had unhealthy behaviors. But there were other people who it took me a long time of bad treatment to see the harmful behavior. And I've experienced behaviors that I didn't even realize were abusive until I rattled them off nonchalantly to my therapist. 

If someone told you that a parent touched their child in a way that made their child scream and cry that they didn't like to be touch like that and begged their parent to stop everyone time the parent did it, you would say "yes, that's abuse". It doesn't matter that the parent wasn't touching an inappropriate space. It doesn't matter that it wasn't out of anger, but rather humor because the parent thought it was funny they could get a rise out of their child. What matters is the touching made the child uncomfortable, it made the child get emotionally upset, it made the child hypervigilant in a space that should be safe, and it made the child not trust others to respect their boundaries. And if your child tells you something makes them afraid, so you keep doing it because you like to scare your child, that's not funny. That's abuse. 

And I find it sometimes hard to think my father abused me, knowing that he had a violent alcohol father who really abused his family. So comparing the situations is odd. But also fuck comparing. Because everyone who experiences trauma deserves to be heard and healed. Yes, some people have been through worse things, and maybe don't go to them with your stuff if they don't have the capacity. But everyone's hurt is valid. If something hurts a lot or a little, it still hurts! I can hold space for both my father did better than what he was raised in and I am grateful for that, and also my father abused me in ways that have negatively impacted my life. People can both be doing the best they can with what they have and also not be doing good enough for someone.

I also grew up with a grandmother who was constantly comparing me to one of my classmates, and occasionally my cousin who's close in age. It sucked being regularly compared to someone who was always doing better than you. And as a kid, I didn't know that my classmate was getting worse pressure at home. I just knew she was always better than me and I was always getting asked why I wasn't doing the things she was. I think to watching Inside Out 2 recently and how they showed a visual of the main character's core beliefs. I am sure there's a core belief in my brain someone that reads "I'm not good enough" because I was made to feel that way. There was always someone doing things I wasn't that were impressive, and I never seemed to be doing enough things or the right things. Who cares if I wanted to do theater instead of debate because it made me happy - I wasn't doing what my classmate was doing and there was no valid reason for that.

Getting older I learned my grandmother wanted to be a career woman and not have a family. She had children in a time where her employer was within their rights to fire her for getting pregnant. So I can understand wanting your talented, intelligent granddaughter to have the success and opportunities you were denied because of bullshit times. But I find it fucked up that she would go brag to all her friends about all the great things I was doing and how wonderful I was, but to me it was always about what I was lacking and not doing.

I realize as an adult that I have probably always been hypersensitive and probably always been prone to anxiety. Hypersensitive people (or HSPs) are more sensitive to stimuli, so we are more sensitive to both sensory stimuli and emotional stimuli. So bright lights and loud sounds are more intense for me, as are my emotions. I don't know if there's a corollary between being an HSP and having anxiety, but there is FOR SURE a higher likelihood of anxiety and other mental health issues with people of high IQs, and I've always been gifted. What a gift! (*sarcasm font*)

Turns out, this sensitive child with possible anxiety cried a lot! Like I mean A LOT! I cry a lot now too. I see this as reconnecting with my inner child. ;) And unfortunately we can all attest that being an adult doesn't make people suck less. And in the 1990s, there was far less child psychology going on. So it's not hard to imagine that I grew up in school surrounded by a lot of adults who made me feel wrong for crying. Instead of helping me learn to process and articulate the feelings that I had underneath, the general adult population in my life hammered in the message that crying was bad and whatever I was going through didn't matter because I was being a bother.

So you can imagine the behavioral patterns and identity that came out of these times. Out into the world walked a young adult to who believed (1) don't ever tell people something bothers you because they won't respect your boundaries and it'll probably just make things worse, (2) you are never good enough despite all your achievements, and (3) no one cares about your emotions. Needless to say, I was someone who just kept everything inside because I felt like people only cared about the things I achieved and if I was struggling with anything, keep it to myself and push it down so I could just power through.

These last two years are not the first time in my life I've done any self improvement. I went through a very introspective self-awareness journey when I started law school in my mid-20s that I have continued up until today. I learned a lot about myself. I did already uncovered during this period that I was closed off and had a hard time being vulnerable with people. So during this time I began to work really hard on changing that and still do. I developed some amazing friendships in law school, some of which I still have and are my closest, most open friendships. I developed these because I intentionally let people in. I told myself that I didn't have to completely self-reliant and that I could show vulnerability and weakness. People aren't going to hate me if I wasn't perfect or make me feel bad about myself for struggling. I wasn't as go with the flow, chill as I appeared on the outside. I could let my interior out.

In my post-law school adult years I learned the importance of picking friendships intentionally. Being open and vulnerable is great, but only with the right people. When we're in school we tend to just become friends with whomever we get throw in with. And sometimes we find ourselves years later with friends that don't mesh with us or are outright harmful because we got close before we were even at an age to consider the compatibility and healthiness of a friendship. And since from childhood many of us are stuck with bad relatives, we haven't learned yet we can just walk away from unhealthy people and instead learn to tolerate bad behavior.

What I have learned in these last two years though has shown me that while I did a TON of work in the preceding decade of my life, I didn't fully dive into and clean out those toxic lessons from my childhood that I mentioned above. Some of the things I worked on dipped their toes into some of those traumas and bad patterns. But nothing before now really shone a light on them and really cleaned out the wounds. And because of that I had more blind spots that made me susceptible to harm by people who triggered those patterns.

I find it interesting that the most acutely persistently traumatic and mentally disastrous time for me because of a specific person is also the one with the least long-term damage. I attribute that to being the only example of emotional abuse that I experienced from someone I didn't love. I had a co-worker who may be the only person I've known that I would confidently gamble money on as being a narcissist. The way she treated people on the job sounded just like examples of behaviors that I later learned were narcissistic abuse. But since this was somebody I was never closed to, and I disliked and distrusted pretty early on, it was really easy to just say they were a horrible person and treated me poorly because they were bad. There was no conflicting emotions. I wasn't questioning that maybe I was wrong or broken somehow, and deserved the mistreatment. There was no betrayal of trust or love, no "I've shown you the best and most sacred parts of me and you broke them" sort of situation. Since there was always a wall and it was always a battle, the more vulnerable parts stayed safe. So it's really easy to just be "well that's been over for a long time and her just being gone is enough for me!" 

The big problem comes from being a very empathetic person who didn't know how to stand up for herself. I care a lot for people and can put myself in their shoes, so when they may do something that may hurt, I will more likely tend to look at what hurt they have. And as someone who learned as a child not to speak up because it doesn't help and that my feelings don't matter, I am more likely to downplay something hurtful. I read something online that really resonated with me - something to the effect of I was so quick to make excuses for poor behavior that I didn't make room for my feelings. So when someone said or did something hurtful I was really quick to think "they didn't mean it that way," or "this isn't that big of a thing, so I shouldn't make a big deal out of it," or "they are only that way because of xyz stressor or trauma, so I'm being supportive by making this a safe space."

I problem is with those few people is that they didn't make the space safe for me. And the worse someone had been hurt, the more empathetic I was, and the more hurtful they were and the more I made excuses for them. And it was so hard because I didn't consciously understand that I was being mistreated. So I kept giving and being a good friend. In most cases I found myself pulling away in bits and pieces from the hurtful person without realizing it. Like I would stop sharing vulnerable things or stop seeking out 1 on 1 time. And eventually it got to the point where I was like "oh, there's a pattern of unkind behavior and me reacting to it; I'm done." The worst time I didn't see it until I was out. I kept approaching things as I'm being a caring, supportive friend, thinking I'm getting the same in return. And I didn't even realize all of the ways I quieted myself, minimized myself, walked on egg shells, made so many excuses. Because I learned that behaviors that are harmful and abusive can begin as trauma responses. When someone was regularly telling me my opinions were wrong; or criticizing random, innocuous things I did or liked; or having disproportionately negative responses to mundane things, I took responsiblity by feeling I'm being supportive by not triggering these responses and by not pushing back because it felt unkind when someone was triggered, not understanding that these behaviors were pushing me down, making me feel unsafe. These behaviors I realize now were also reinforcing those childhood patterns of it's not safe to push back because when I do, I get another negative response in return. So not only am I not being supportive by pushing back on unkind behavior, but now I'm also getting inappropriately chastised for it.

I also realized that I learned to take a lot of responsibility for things I shouldn't. I feel like where some people's response to trauma is to try to control their outward surroundings, I tried to really control my internal environment and my behavior. Every situation that went wrong for me I was always asking what I could do better next time; what lesson can I learn from this to improve myself. I had this list of examples of situations in my head where things went wrong and I had to become better to prevent these situations from happening again. But then I learned in therapy in the last two years that most of these examples I carreid around in my head of me being bad at hard conversations were with people who were not kind. These were situations where people didn't want to take accountability, or wanted to bully me, or used manipulative, hurtful tactics against me. When I expanded my mind to other types of people, I remember other examples of addressing hard conversations and speaking up for myself where things went well. I felt validated. We were able to talk things out, or come up with solutions. Because these people cared enough about me to validate my feelings and take accountability where needed, or at the very least realized that working together was more beneficial than being selfish. And in fact I do have good skills working through things with people; I just need people to meet me there.

Dealing with these kinds of behaviors really had me questioning my core beliefs about myself (the positive ones). I consider myself pretty smart, but I remember times where the way I was treated had me questioning that. And I consider myself a pretty moral and caring person. My best friend has said I have the most due north moral compass of anyone they've ever met. And yet, being treated certain ways made me question that maybe I'm not a good person. I asked myself how much of my personality is actually me and how much could be coping behaviors. Am I really empathetic or am I just hyper-vigilantly monitoring people's behavior as a safety mechanism? It took some work to separate those things out. I did develop coping skills that involved picking up on other people's behaviors. But I think I am an empathetic person who really cares. I've just been able to turn skills developed in bad times into a better use. I don't have to care; others don't. But I chose to bring kindness and awareness to people, partly because I know what it's like to go without. It's the same with my emotional control. That came from a bad place, but I can use it for good, and I've been learning to ease up.

One of my former friends that I worked through stuff about doing all this mental clean up work recently died (on my birthday no less!). It was really hard. Like, really hard. After learning about my childhood patterns, I wondered that if I had healed them sooner, and if I had learned to stand up for myself sooner, could I have told her sooner that her behavior was hurtful, and helped mend her and the friendship before it got to the point I had to end it? Best case scenario, I called out the behavior sooner and she could take accountability and heal. Worst case scenario, she prove incapable of that and I would have ended the friendship sooner. But instead because I didn't even realize that I was being hurt until it really piled up, I ended our friendship when I realized the pattern. 

But even after that I still hoped she healed and one day was happier. And through the grapevine, it sounded like that happened. For years I had hope that one day we'd run into each other again and I could tell her that I still always cared, and was glad to see her happy. But that never happened. We didn't hang with mutual friends or had any events to run into each other. And now that never will happen. I thought about reaching out multiple times over the years, but didn't see the point. Since I was the one that ended the friendship, and we were never in the same place, I felt it kindest to just leave her be. I didn't know if hearing from me would have been a pleasure or a pain, so I didn't want to stir anything up. And I didn't need any closure. Being able to confront her in detail about everything was enough for me. And since I had already emotionally distanced myself while we were still friends, I wasn't missing anything. I just thought it would be a nice moment to acknowledge I still cared and to see someone who was hurting now be in a better place. Literally every person I've been close to, I still care about them, no matter how they left my day to day life, good or bad.

Still having empathy and care for the people who I've been healing wounds from makes it harder, but I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't be me if I did. I recognize that everyone I've worked through in therapy (with the exception of that co-worker I gave zero Fs about) had their own issues. For those who still have the time and capacity to heal, I want that for them. But I also have acceptance that healing isn't going to happen for everyone. Distance doesn't mean hatred, it just means I have to protect my healing from damaging wounds.

Making space for my emotions is a big thing for me now. I think this is the first time in my life where I have let myself feel 100% of my emotions. It's a lot for someone who is highly sensitive. Not only am I feeling present emotions in the moment, but I am also going back to past hurts and feeling those feelings. It's interesting finding feelings that I was too afraid to feel or too busy to pause for. I am amazed sometimes at how badly some of them hurt and how they didn't knock me over at the time. They hurt so bad sometimes now. Maybe that's because they were left to fester so long.

Some days it's gets to be A LOT. If I don't sleep, or I'm dealing with too many triggers, or something trauma related happens, I can get easily overwhelmed at times. Basically I opened every mental wound from my entire life of at that point 38 years in the matter of 9 months. Sometimes it feels like that was too much too fast. It feels like every wound, while cleaned out, is still raw and easily irritated - the newer ones worst off than the older ones. Thankfully overall I feel much better than I did from before this all started. I've learned a lot and already shown myself I can put the learning into action. But it's really hard sometimes.

I am also working on speaking up for myself more. That comes from a place of acknowledging my emotions in the moment when I have them (as best as I can), and then speaking up for them. It's hard. But it's also amazing how good it feels when done with the right people. I've had a few instances that were hard in the moment, but make me feel so proud. By bringing up things that make me uncomfortable or hurt me, I am showing the other person that I trust them enough to be vulnerable. It's not coming from a place of wanting to tear them down or argue. It's coming from a place of I want the bond between us to be stronger and I want to feel safe to speak about these things so no resentment or fear grows between us. Being able to speak up and having someone validate that  (and apologize if needed) feels so great! I find I trust these friends more because they showed me it's safe to be vulnerable even in tough moments. And being able to talk it out lets us both open up and become stronger. I've been through a "I'm going to be vulnerable and put so much trust in someone" moment, only to have it go about as wrong as it could. But thankfully it happened after years and years of self-work. So instead of learning "this is why you don't trust people" I learned "this is why you don't trust this specific person" and then learned the behaviors that signal an unsafe person in the future.

I know I still have work to do on combating those negative core beliefs about myself. It's hard that when I get stressed or too tired, and I'm feeling bad, my brain likes to slip into "you suck" mode. I find this challenge hard, maybe because one of the people most vocal to me about not treating myself that way was also someone I turned out to be the most scared of, so I question if they actually cared about me and how I spoke to myself, or selfishly they just didn't want to deal with me. I know that after learning all of these things about my past, I sometimes slip into the thought pattern of "if these people who were important to me could do these to me, maybe there is something wrong with me." Sometimes I do question that maybe I don't have any inherent worth, so my only value is what I can do for people. So of course I'm not good enough when I'm not accomplishing what people want or I'm not providing a service to people. Of course I shouldn't have needs and wants because I'm only here to be of use to others. Of course people use me because otherwise why even invest time in me? I know those things aren't true. But our brains have a tricky way of latching onto the bad things.

When I initially uncovered things in therapy, since I was already there, I felt like "well, I guess this is a thing and now I have to deal with this too." But I realized about a year in that actually I didn't have to address anything. I could have left that session feeling too heavy and it too hurt and angry, and just quit. I could have gone into denial. I could have said "it is what it is" and just left it alone. But I didn't. I saw for me the only options was to roll up my sleeves and dig in. And damn it am I proud for that!!

Thankfully, not everything I have learned in therapy is hard and about bad stuff! I learned a lot about recognizing the positive behaviors I receive too! I've done a lot of work to compare hurtful people to those who make me feel seen and safe, so I can really appreciate and gravitate towards them. And thankfully all throughout my life I have had so many people who care about me and made me feel safe, so they far outweigh the bad. Growing up with a great mom and an extended family that was so loving did so much to make sure I grew up more well adjusted than I could have been. And I keep finding so many wonderful friends. The world really is full of great, kind people! And healing is always an option! So few people are really beyond help and beyond kindness, they just need to go on their own journey. As much as these last 2ish years have been really hard, and I've cried A LOT!, I'm taking my power back into my own hands. I can feel confident being happy and healthier, and safer, because I have learned so much and I am healing the parts of me that get in the way. The journey is still not over, but damn look how far I've come!

Who I Want to Be and Who I Want to Find

I am in the early weeks of what I realized needs to be a journey of rediscovering who I am. I see it as a three pronged approached - (1) continue to value and engage with the parts of me that have been consistently bringing me good things, (2) reconnect with part of me I lost or hid because other people made me feel like that things were bad, when really they are beautiful and part of who I am at my core, and (3) build up new parts of me that protect, honor, and enhance the parts of me that already exist. I remember back in 2019 when I was working through a long battle with a occurrence of anxiety, I really wanted to get back to who I was before the anxiety. And for a period during the post-pandemic world I was hoping to get back to me, both how I was feeling so great about my life in the 2nd half of 2019 and how I was earlier. But I realize now that I can't go back to those past version of me. I have to forge ahead and discover this new version, made from bits and pieces but also something new. And hopefully better.

I have spent a lot of time coping with and healing from trauma these last three and a half-ish years. It has been rough. The pandemic itself was a huge trauma, and it also created opportunities for other traumas that would have otherwise been easier to avoid had the world been "normal". Here's a thing about trauma that has really been irritating me through this journey - it doesn't all come up to be resolved at once. It's not like if I break a bone, or even a bunch of bones, and I can go to the doctor, get some x-rays, and then set out on a healing path. With traumas, whether they happened months ago or decades ago, memories will get triggered months or years later that give some new insights. Or we learn some new terminology that gives names to things that felt wrong but we didn't have the vocabulary or knowledge to understand why. It doesn't help that sometimes we will be made to feel like our hurting about things is wrong when it fact it was the thing that made us hurt that was wrong. Plus, we learn about the really big obvious bad things that are harmful to people, and we know that even when those things happen to others there are psychological things that happen that get people trapped in bad spaces. But we don't learn about the more subtle, more insidious ways that we can be hurt psychologically, or the behaviors that can be bad but be twisted into seeming normal or justified. 

A few weeks ago I had a reminder pop up in my YouTube suggestions of all places of coping behaviors that I developed in recent years. That reminder got me thinking about other things that led to me discovering other behaviors on mine were more coping behaviors. The thing that has really had me struggling recently with these discoveries is how much the coping behaviors are intertwined with traits of mine that I value a lot and think are really important parts of who I am. I consider myself an empath and someone who truly genuinely cares about people. There are so many amazing, interesting people out there and whether it's someone I know or a complete stranger, I find so much beauty in the different interactions I get to have with people. I also consider myself to be very perceptive when it comes to picking up on behaviors and personality traits that I feel I can get a better (if still partial) understanding of people than the average person. I think this is all a combination of how my brain naturally works (being empathic and the way it takes in information) and of the skills that I have developed through school, my career, and socially. 

Uncovering and healing from these coping mechanisms has me questioning whether these things about me that I value are genuine or if they are just coping mechanisms in themselves. What if I have only learned to care for and be so observant of people because I need to feel safe. What if I am not a good person after all, and just a surviving person. I have of course been fighting back mentally against this. Yes, there were times when I quieted myself and had power taken from me, and I told myself I was being supportive or it wasn't meant that way so I shouldn't make a big deal of it. Those are definite coping mechanisms that I used my skills to mask. But there are so many other times when I have exerted energy to care. And so many people that I put effort into caring for and showing up for that I don't have coping mechanisms with. I think that my biggest relief is knowing that with so many people I did not transfer over these coping mechanisms and was able to be my full self in spaces I felt safe. Yes, I did carry hurt and healing with me wherever I went, but I was still able to show up as the full me.

Going forward I want to continue to value and live these and so many other great things about myself feeling confident in who I am. I think that these skills are not coping mechanisms, they are just parts of me that can make me vulnerable to being misused. Not everyone shows up the same as me. I have to learn that just because I want to be open, vulnerable, and using empathy, that doesn't mean those I interact with can. Some people have not developed themselves enough to show up that way, some people are purely looking out for themselves, and others out right have bad intentions. It is up to me to gage whether I am being met in the same way instead of just assuming that I am. I learned that it is both okay that people have bad reactions from their trauma that need to be empathized with AND that past trauma does not excuse a pattern of current bad behavior. I learned that it's okay to be hurt by something that was not done with bad intentions. I learned that I can be supportive but I also need to stand up for myself. I learned that understanding and empathizing with people doesn't mean I have to accept all of their behavior that stems from that. I learned that if I have a problem with someone and they don't validate or accept my experience, I don't have to accept that - I can say I am valid and you are being unreasonable by not listening and I do not have to accept your solution or your behavior towards me.

Overall I learned that being empathetic and understanding are great qualities, but they are just two tools in the much larger toolbox of being a well rounded person. I have some really strong tools with connecting and appreciating others, and also some strong tools with taking an inner look at myself to improve. What I need now is to add tools to stand up for myself, to advocate for myself, to be brave enough to call things out. Because at the end of the day the people who truly value and care about you will call you out on things to help you and the relationship between the two of you, and NOT call you out on things to diminish and control you. Being able to take fair feedback shows you value people and you value self growth. Being able to give fair feedback means you value the other person and feel safe enough to share, and allows that other person either to show they value you by listening and that self growth is important to them, or to show that your energies are better elsewhere because they don't value you.

Honestly, part of me these last few weeks has been mad at myself for behaving in ways that hold me back and diminish me. And part of me has been mad at myself for ever letting me feel bad for being a caring person that takes others into account. I try my best with the information that I have, and now I have more information through therapy work and terminology that will mean the best I can do in the future is more informed than before. I am going to keep working at treasuring the things I like about myself, while keeping in mind that not every part is the right part in every scenario, and building up the parts of me that are right for the scenarios I struggle with. My mental health, and frankly my emotional safety and the way I am treated, those are not my fault but those are my responsibility. 

I would like to take a brief tangent to mention how all of my experiences with therapy and mental health make me feel very adamant that as a society we lack literacy in a bunch of this stuff. Maybe this is something taught in schools now, but I doubt it. There will should be more education for everyday people outside of going to therapy the teaches people how behaviors and words are helpful or hurtful so that we can learn how to interact in healthy ways and have this kind of vocabulary to talk about things.

Currently I am also on a dating journey to hopefully find my person. It has been hard being on a healing journey while trying to undertake a dating journey. I have taken lengthy breaks this year and last to focus on myself. Recently I have been asking myself am I really ready for a relationship. I came to the conclusion that yes, I am ready for a healthy relationship. Everyone is going to have things happen to them that make periods of their life hard, and I don't think there's really a time to be perfectly ready. I think there are times to be obviously not ready, but I think it really comes down to I am capable of doing what I need to be a good partner and can commit to working through things, even if I am still working through other things. I realized that what I don't feel ready for is protecting myself from someone unhealthy. I am still relatively newly aware of ways that I have given power to toxic behaviors. And I haven't had a lot of opportunities to put my learning about boundaries into play. I know that someone who is capable for being a healthy partner can help me feel safe to be open and vulnerable. But I am still worried that I won't be aware enough or I will make excuses for someone who does not want to or can't treat me well. But I am going to try not to worry about that so much and just take things a step at a time. I am putting hope and trust into myself to be better going forward, and can only prove that to myself if/when that time comes.

I have also been thinking about what I am looking for. I know what kind of traits I am looking for in a man - someone kind, good sense of humor, emotionally intelligent, some common interests. But I realized I had not spend really any time in the past thinking about what I am looking for in a relationship. I know that in the past my focus as really been on what I have to offer. I feel like I would be a great partner that has a lot of love to give and really wants to love someone. With this quest for a man I have been focused a lot more on what I want to get instead of what I have to give. 

I don't want to say I have been thinking about "what I deserve" in a relationship. I think that sounds kind of selfish and arrogant. Rather, I think of it as asking myself what I need from a relationship that will make me feel I am having my needs met. And obviously I want to avoid trauma - I've been traumatized by family, friends and coworkers - I don't want to add romantic partner to that list (which would make me lucky, unfortunately, compared to most). Here's what I came up with:

• Feeling Understood - I know that I have strength in understanding people, but I have not always felt understood in return. I need someone that is both capable and desires to understand me. I think about my BFF who has shown me this many times. I love the way that they ask me things because they were wondering how I would feel about them and truly wanted to know. They put effort into getting to know me, even after all these years, and I hope I still do the same. They also have shown me they know me in ways and times that helped me feel good about myself when I was lost. I think that the people close to us have this great opportunity to know us free of the self doubts and fears we carry around. I also remember a coworker that early in our friendship made some observation about me that was really off, but then as we got to know each other they showed they learned me and their observations about me were very accurate. I also really need someone who can and will understand me outside of their own view point to see me from mine. Not everyone thinks the same and has the same values or worldviews, and being able to see me through my lens is helpful. Or maybe I just need someone in similar views so they don't have to try so hard. I remember this time I told someone that I see myself aligned with Lawful Good (although I admit I know very, very little of DND). In response this person just said that all people are inherently selfish and no one can be more than neutral on the good/bad scale. Not only did I feel like this is a very different world view than me (I believe in an inherent goodness in people), but it also felt very invalidating of me as a person. To me, being kind and loving are so important not just to how I interact with the world, but how I think the world thrives in general. (I am also a "follow the rules unless they are unjust/bad" kind of person - basically I put goodness before lawfulness, but don't be unlawful just because you don't like rules or they are inconvenient.)
• Safety - I don't think a few years ago I would even think about this. But some therapy work I have done this year made me realize the importance of physical, mental and emotional safety. I learned that at many times in my life I have learned and had reiterated the bad lesson that I can't express a boundary or something that bothers me because people won't validate me, and instead it lets them know a weakness they can exploit. But I need that safety. Whether it's the safety to express a difference of opinion on something random and unimportant, or safety to draw an important boundary. I need to know that even if there's a disagreement or it's hard, I am still safe.
• Communication - duh. I know that there are places I still struggle with this, but I know that I am way more open and vulnerable than I have ever been, I am always looking for ways to improve, and even when I falter I at least show up to try and try again.
• Want to be Wanted - I am looking for someone who is going to make it very clear on a regular basis that they choose me. Maybe their face lights up when I walk into the room. Maybe they send me random messages or memes to let me know I was on their mind. I want someone that tells me regularly that being with me makes them happy. I want someone who makes it clear they see me in their life for the indefinite future and wants to do what needs to be done to keep me there. I am on the internet way too much and hearing horror stories of guys that string women along but are never really interesting. And all these terms - bread crumbing, keeping someone on the hook, others I am sure - the fact they happen so often with such definable behaviors, it's just gross.
• Best Friend - I really am looking for my new best friend. And yes I know that takes time, and I will probably naturally and naturely be inclined to move kind of slow, but I am ready to take that time down that path. This will literally become the person I choose to spend the most time with. I want things to not only be loving and sexy and romantic, I also want all the best friend stuff too - enjoying doing stuff together, sharing funny things, goofing around, just chilling. When I am not having a rough time, I am a really fun, silly person with lots of interests and random things to say. I want someone who wants all of that. I want someone to have dance parties in the kitchen with. I want someone to excitedly explain all my songs to while riding in the car with my iPod on random. I love video games, so like there's no risk of some girlfriend who complains about how much gaming time a guy has.

I know that at the end of the day, I really need to keep in mind both what I have to offer AND what I need to feel my needs are met. A relationship is about two people. I can't find a healthy relationship if I neglect either or let my future partner neglect either. It can be too easy that if you focus just on yourself or just on your partner that there becomes an imbalance where one person gets what they want at the expense of the other, whether intentionally or not. And knowing that I am more predisposed to be walked on than the other way, it is important to me to bring my needs into the conversation. I just can't overcorrect.

2024 will be an interesting year. I really am hoping it is a year for more growth and joy, and new things. But I also know that I have gone into years with positive hopes just for those year to suck ass in new and stupid ways. So I will just keep it as interesting. No matter what happens, I will keep working and keep trying. Someone told me recently that we shouldn't focus on being our best self, but rather our favorite self. I like this a lot too. I have had to abandoned many favorite selves in the past, and I am DEFINITELY not my favorite self now. But I am working on it. She's in here and she is going to be amazing!

Metaphorically Ready for Spring

Too many months ago to remember precisely when, a friend said to me something like I was in a winter season of my life. I wish that like real seasons that feeling was only for a few months, but alas that's not the case. In a very self vulnerable moment the other day I found myself thinking "I'm tired of being so resilient." How many times have I had to put my head down and just push through the difficulties? How many times have I had to rally myself to just keep going, take it day by day, whatever? It really has felt like what if this time I can't push through? There are times where I wonder how I used to juggle so much with ease with so much b.s. going on, and I just can't seem to do that as well anymore. 

That got me looking back over my life. Because part of me is like "okay Dayna, it can't have been that bad. Look at all the terrible things that people go through and you haven't". And also life is hard. Sometimes it's non-stop hard and maybe it's never not hard and I'm just being a whiny baby because I'm tired. But another part of me is like "sure, life can be hard and maybe there's always a juggling of things to keep life balanced and moving forward, but people get to experience periods of their life when they feel contented, where things feel manageable, where the biggest stressors are just relatively mild and mundane daily life stuff." Because looking back over the last decade-ish of my life there was definitely a LOT more time spent in stressful situations or head spaces that were oppressive, as compared to times that were fine. And maybe I have a point with myself saying I'm tired of being resilient because while I've never experienced something life shatteringly horrible, things are more often than not bad compared to fine.

It's funny because going through therapy and looking back on my like birth through college years, it's interesting to realize the bad stuff there and how it's definitely affected me a lot more now as an older, more self aware adult than it did as it was happening as a kid and young adult. Maybe it's easier to focus on the positive as a kid. Maybe there was enough good to weight out the bad. Maybe I was just too young and lacked too much knowledge about things to realize bad stuff was happening. Probably bits of all of the above. It's always funny having conversations with people about things that happen when we were younger that felt normal to us, but get weird reactions from others. I will say that a few months ago I had a great conversation with a friend who I have a shared life experience with that it was so nice to talk about. It was something I don't really talk about and didn't really have anyone I knew with the same experience, so it was nice to finally after over a decade talk about something in a way that felt friendly, open, and casual.

Thinking over things recently has made me realize just how chill and relatively stress free my law school days were compared to the time since. As you read this you must think either Dayna is nuts or she's so smart that law school was easy so I hate her. Believe me, law school was not easy. There were plenty of stress and difficulty. But it was all manageable. It was the kind of stress that was challenging, but not oppressive. I mean, I was at a point in my life where all I had to focus on was school. I didn't have any other life commitments. I lived and worked (except for some internships) with the same two blocks. My life was really contained. I had friends close by and so many things were scheduled for me. The thing I learned about school versus work is that school puts limits on how much you can do because time and experience has taught and institutionalized how much work one can realistically do. Even if it's hard, school cuts you off. But work won't. Sure, some jobs don't have enough work to keep people busy. Must be nice. But many places will dump things on top of you with no end, and it's up to you to learn to say when enough is enough. Sometimes that's by setting boundaries about how much work you can realistically do and say no to other stuff. Sometimes that's letting things fail to prove it's too much. Sometimes that quitting and going somewhere else because the people handing out the work won't listen.

It's funny because I've learned a lot about boundaries this spring with my therapy work - even as an adult I love some good worksheets and learning new things! Work Dayna is great with communicating, setting, and maintaining boundaries. Personal Life Dayna not so much. Maybe it's because Work Dayna burnt out so many times the boundary setting grew out of necessity. Personal Life Dayna has probably hit an analogous point now too. Or at the very least now I have worksheets that taught me the vocabulary of boundaries, how to help express mine, and how to know when others are violating them. Seriously, why isn't this taught in school?! Or is it now but I'm just too old?

My first year post bar exam was actually pretty nice. I had a couple interim part time jobs. I even stopped drinking coffee at one because it was stress free and I slept great. The one month of my life I look back on most fondly was that month when I wasn't working but I had accepted a job with my current employer because I got to not work but also I no longer had to worry about being indefinitely unemployed and running out of money. My month long sabbatical I took for December 2022 was almost as nice - the getting paid to not work was amazing - I am just more world weary and melancholy.

Those first few years of my job were horrible. I probably burnt out 3-5 times in three years. I finally took an improv class in 2017 because my whole life had become my job and I was miserable. I worked too much, took the stress home, didn't have enough personal outlets. The worst part was one person in particular that made my life hell. I'm no mental health professional, so my opinion is pure lay-person educated guessing, but this person is the only person I've spent significant time with that I would put good money on being diagnosed as a narcissist. Watching videos of how to tell you've been subjected to narcissistic abuse, I was like "wait, that seems REALLY familiar!" Thankfully for years now work has been fine. No more crazy oppressive ours, I work with so many amazing people, and most importantly no matter how stressful it can be or how hard things go, I've learned to leave it at work. I don't leave it in the office because my office is now the backend of my living room, but I leave it in the work hours. 

I remember 2016 being a very hard year. It started off with my grandma dying - my grandma who I spent so much time with and was so close to as a child. Right behind there was the typical Q1 work reorg that was very difficult and I had to do the work of multiple people on a team that I didn't belong on for a boss that didn't support me. That was the summer when the AC in our apartment went was out for 44 days because the slum lords of the property management company didn't want to pay to replace it. They got 4 different AC companies to say it was so broken it needed to be replaced. And while it was too hot my car also died, which sucked, but I did enjoy having a new car. I didn't enjoy withholding rent to force AC repairs and getting an eviction notice. We didn't actually get evicted because we were in the right with the AC being broken, but that doesn't stop bullies from trying to scare us. Thankfully by my October Ireland trip the year had calmed down, but damn I thought that one was a rough one and no more like that for awhile please!

Retrospectively I consider 2017 my hiding year. I challenged myself to read a book a week that year, so spent many evenings and weekends reading. I enjoyed it, but by the end of the year my anxiety had really begun to peak. Looking back, I really had a lot of stress and stuff wearing down my mental health that I was just ignoring. I hid a lot behind a bunch of books. 2018 was bad because what? Another really stressful work reorg? That was also when my anxiety just kept getting worse to the point it was disrupting my ability to just exist day to day. October 2018 was when I finally went to therapy for the first time. The end of 2018 and the first half of 2019 was a lot of healing from lots of stressors and learning anxiety managing techniques.

Honestly in the last 10 years, it really seems like the 2nd half of 2019 through early March 2020 was the only time I really felt good. Like any stress was manageable. I was content with my life and just living in the moment. No eye on a big thing in the future, no big oppressive source of stress. Just normal day to day, manageable things. It felt really good to be in a good place, to have put in so much work and have it really pay off.

And then 2020 happened. It's funny to remember there were a couple months in 2020 that were normal. I don't really need to go into detail about how oppressively hard 2020 and the pandemic were because we all lived it. Coming out of the pandemic in Summer 2021 was rough too. Although I was really excited to get back into the world and pick my life back up from the high it was in right before then, I learned very quickly I was NOT in the same place mentally to just jump back into an active social life and navigate the world as I had done before. I am still not quite as comfortable in crowded places as I used to be and haven't been as enthused about going to concerts as I used to be. But I did the work. I listened to my mind and body about when I hit my limits. As someone who likes to arrive when the party starts and stays until it shuts down, having to leave early or miss things altogether because I didn't have the energy was hard. But by listening to my mind and body, I worked myself back up to my old tolerances. 

Was it omicron that made us have a shitty winter '21/'22? I just remember thinking once that clears up, 2022 is going to be my year! I'm going to put myself out there more than ever, take on new things, finally be in an even better place than I was in the back end of 2019. But instead more trauma. I will say that I am so proud of myself for quickly going back to therapy. I had been meaning to go back since I quit in late 2020, and I really didn't want to handle new stuff alone. But of course I wasn't alone. There was something about being at home so much during the pandemic where I didn't have to hold back my emotions that I got reaquatinted with my sensitivity. I identify as highly sensitive, but I learned as a kid that I was "too sensitive" so I didn't learn to articulate difficult emotions and I learned to not cry in front of other people. And I had been working since law school on being more open with friends because I was allowed to struggle and I was allowed to have weaknesses and I was allowed to talk about these things with other people. So while things have been hard, and I've processed a lot a rough stuff in therapy these last 18 months, I have been in the best place healing wise. I have good coping skills that make me feel safe confiding in my friends and keep me from hiding in fear of trusting people. When it was hard I could rely on people for support, whether it was a trusted friend listening to what I was wrestling with or just having people who I could laugh with and forget my troubles for a few hours. A couple months ago I had something really scary happen and I didn't want to go home and be alone. I immediately reached out a close friend with no hesitation to see if I could spend time with them. I think in the past I would be a little hesitant to "bother" someone in such a place. But during a time that very easily could have scared me away from trusting people, I learned how to securely and opening rely on the people who love me. 

I've been thinking lately about how going to therapy is like playing video games. I guess probably closest to playing like a Soulsborne game, where you know you're going to get your ass kicked but the challenge is worth the grind. Not that I've ever really played one of those. I tried to play Bloodborne twice and couldn't get past the first boss both times and quit. But I didn't quit therapy! It's like you start out by jumping in and devoting regular time to it because you really want to just start making progress so you can get past the basics and really be in the meat of everything. After awhile you feel like you've really made some progress, but you can tell there's still so much to uncover and so much more progress to make. Occasionally when you think you've made some great process you'll encounter something that just kicks your ass so hard it almost feels like you're back at the beginning (or they take your gear away, which is such b.s. in games!). For awhile I'd been feeling like I was at that point in a game where you swear it should be over and you're kind of tired of playing that game, but every time you think "yay, I finally see the end in sight" something else happens that's like "how is there another boss to fight?" or "wow, this new thing I opened up about or concept I learned in therapy made me realize the treatment I received was worse and went on longer than I thought". But eventually you'll come (hopefully, whether you realize it or not) to the final boss - that final piece of work, stretch of time, or realization that takes you from being in the thick of processing and healing to being in that place were you can put down the analyzing and you've felt all the feelings, and can finally move away from the trauma. Like the scars (emotional or otherwise) will still be there and may pop up time to time, but like you've gone through it and out the other side. I've said to myself a lot when facing big, difficult emotions that sometimes the only way out is through (and I hear that in Patrick Stump's voice as a lyric from the Fall Out Boy song Bob Dylan).

Sometimes the final boss (both literally and metaphorically) is obvious and you've fought it a few times throughout the game and then you have that final showdown at the end where you finally emerge victorious. But sometimes you don't know the final boss or think you know, but actually it's something else entirely. You'll be questing along thinking any fight is about to be your last fight, any new discovery and processing moment is the last thing you'll uncover to work through, and then bam! There it is! The big ole final boss and it's such a surprise but also so obvious because it's been right in front of your nose the whole time that you didn't even notice it was there. You feel both stupid and vindicated at the same time, and now everything that has come before gets thrown into new perspective despite the hours, weeks, months, years to get there. And the fight tests everything you've learned up to that point and you think maybe this is it - maybe I lose because I'm not strong enough for this. Maybe I should run away. But no! You've come this far! Look at all the progress you've made! You have all these skills now! Just fight this last big boss and then it's done! I mean, it may be done or there may be a lot of clean up to do. But you've at least come to the end of the story. You know all there is to know, you have seen what came before through the final lens, and now it's time to process this last final things before moving on to a new story. Maybe the hero won and the villain lost. Maybe the cutscenes make it ambiguous, and everyone and no one was really right or wrong. Maybe you beat the boss but get sucked into a giant whole to be trapped in space and time, so you actually lost but the only way to finish the game was to accept defeat so you can go play something else that you like better. Maybe there will be DLC or a sequel, but some games are left to be one and done.

Semi-tangent: I will say The Last of Us 2 was one of those games that I felt like really did go on too long, and the last level could very easily been left out. And when it just kept going and going, I was so ready to be done! I mean, I enjoyed it and finished it, but it felt unnecessary.

Speaking of video games and real life parallels, I am really into horror video games. I've noticed that when I play a horror video and something scary starts chasing me, and I can't fight back (I'm looking a lot at you, Outlast!), I tend to completely lose my ability to reason about to do and instead just run in the opposite direction of the monster chasing me. And then once I'm safe again I look around, ask where am I, and then have to figure out how the heck I get myself back to where I need to be. Things get more difficult with progression when I have to maneuver past whatever was chasing me, which requires me to keep my head despite my brain yelling "threat, run, ruuuuuuunnnn". Turns out this happens in real life too. Except the results, in my opinion, are much more comical. Because it turns out the horror video game characters I have control of when running in fear have much more compose movement mechanics than I do when I get suddenly scared by something my brain reads as "threat, run, ruuuuuuunnnn" and I may have literally tripped my way out of a room or two. I have literally had times when it felt like part of my brain hijacked the rest of my body to walk me in another direction. I didn't realize I had an autopilot override! It's also interesting to think about how much easier to play a part of a horror game is when you know mechanically the scary thing can't actually get near you in some sections, even though the atmosphere and other stuff has changed. It's just the knowledge that you can move freely about a space under certain conditions without being on constant guard that can make the mind relax and actually focus.

Anyway, the point I have been intending to build up to after ALL of that rambling "this is why I need a break in my life" is that I feel like (or hope I feel like) I can finally get to a place again where I can feel content with my life. I am really trying to focus right now on rediscovering myself. I've realized that I have experienced so much in the last 10ish years, and even the last 3ish years, that I am never really going to get back to a past contented version of me. That woman doesn't exist anymore. She has been shaped by all the experiences that have happened since then. And while in some says that is sad, mostly I think it's a good thing. I have learned a lot about myself through these experiences and through the vulnerable, hard but beneficial experience of going to therapy. I think that right now I am discovering the new parts of me and putting intention into using learning to better myself. I am also rediscovering parts of myself I never really got to develop, and learning to use them in positive adult ways. I am also rediscovering things that brought me joy that I let go of because of other people made me feel bad about them. I may feel really tired of being resilient, but I have also learned that I am doing a better job in some ways that I thought, and what I really need to do is trust myself and advocate for myself more. I need to take all the positive things, all the grace, all the love, all the caring and understanding that I give others and give it to myself.

I don't know if the coming months, the coming new year have some restful contentment in store for me, or if my next oppressive stressful period is about to hit soon. But I've gotten stronger and more informed with everything each time. So even when it's tiring, I have so many people and fun times to bring joy that I'll be okay. And there's always jokes. Trauma just makes comedians better, right?