Permission

 For some reason last night, I was in the mood for Up. And I haven't watched it since it came out, so I wanted to re-visit it. Spoilers: it still makes me cry, ha.

But it was interesting, because I did make me cry for different reasons this time. (This is shaping up to be a great post [that's sarcasm].)
(....is that the right punctuation? Someone help me out here.)


I first saw Up when it was originally released in theaters. Earlier that week I had been to my grandmother's funeral on one side of my famiy. At the end of that week, my grandfather on the other side of my family told me he was no longer going to take chemo treatments. That night my niece spent the night and so we went to Up.

So with that intro....
I silently cried through the entire movie. I have never been so grateful for 3D glasses in my life. My niece was unwitting and I sat there, leaning on the other arm of the chair, trying to unconspicuously wipe tears away from my eyes. And when Carl picks up her chair when the whole house is shaken? SOB. SOB, that chair. Ellie's chair. Carl's chair. Sob. It's such a perfect detail, but what a heart-breaker.
My niece and I left (also worthy of note, I think this was the movie I accidentally threw my keys away in the trash can with our drinks, and we had to go back and fish them out. Insert faceslap emoji here.) We both enjoyed it, she loved Carl & Ellie's story at the beginning the most (excellent job, Pixar) and my crying was actually really cathartic all things considered. 

But what got me this time - almost eleven years later, and the losses of all of my grandparents by this point, one I had taken care of- was when Carl rediscovers Ellie's Adventure book. When he's finally on top of Paradise Falls, what he's fought for the entire time, and has left Kevin and Russell and Dug to their own devices. And he's looking through Ellie's Adventure book, and the pages slip, and he realizes she's added to the book. And she's added photos of their life (are you crying yet?) together, and at the end she has written "Thanks for the adventure - now go have a new one! Love, Ellie."

..........

AND THEN CARL EMPTIES HIS HOUSE AND DONS THE BADGES AND GOES AFTER HIS FRIENDS, IT'S BEAUTIFUL, PEOPLE. HOW ARE YOU NOT CRYING.


Look.... if I'm not lying, if I'm being brutally honest, I still look for that piece of paper, all these years later. Literally. Every time I go through old documents.
I still look for permission.
From any of my losses. Somewhere. Someone. Please give me permission to move on.
Someone please tell me it's okay.

And that was so.... for lack of a better word, to use it again.... cathartic to see.
Permission. 

Written so well. A reminder that what you had with them is not wiped out. It is not gone. 
But there is still.... more.
And that's... okay. 

And they want you to go for it. 

A Decade of Grief

Well, that's a whiz-bang, exciting title. :)

So.... are we doing 2009-2019, or 2010-2020? Who cares, life is hard enough, let's just pick up in 2009, that leads into 2010.

This is mostly for me, to be honest. So let's just jump right in.

2009 I lost two of my still living four grandparents, one from each side. I had been adopted by one set of them, and it ended up being a pretty devastating blow.

Actually, when I first saw people posting decade posts, I thought "please. I don't know even remember what I was thinking or feeling in 2010. That was ten years ago."

And then I rememebered, "Oh wait. I lost grandpa in 2009. I know exactly where I was in 2010."

In 2010 I was struggling with severe depression, but I didn't know it. I thought I wasn't struggling with it, because I was constantly hanging out with friends, and I naively thought to myself "I know what depression is like, I've had it so many times before, and it would never let me be out like this all the time." But I was very wrong. I remember specifically driving home a cold evening in late 2010 from work and suddenly feeling like a fog had lifted from my head.
"Oh.... I'm depressed."
I had gained about fifty pounds. I actually couldn't understand why my clothes weren't fitting, I hadn't even comprehended it. I had cut my hair as short as I ever had, hated it, and then for some reason went back and cut it shorter? I was spending a lot of time with friends, but out of avoidance with things going on at home. The other big in-your-face there's-a-problem moment for me was when I walked in, sat on the couch and tried to talk to my grandmother, and I couldn't. I couldn't really form sentences. I was so socially worn out, I couldn't think straight, I couldn't even really talk, I was genuinely exhausted. I had to go lay down and fall asleep. That was pretty much all of 2010.

2011, things improved. I realized what was happening. I realized I was depressed and grieving. I realized I was stressed because all of the pressure was on me now to take care of my grandma. And I realized I was running away from things. And once all of that got through to me, I made changes. I still spent time with friends, but I made grandma a priority. I forced myself to lay in bed 30 minutes every night and stay awake, because I learned it was far more important for me to have a little bit of time to myself and quiet and awake than 30 extra minutes of sleep. That worked. I began working out with friends. I joined a calorie counting app, and it worked. I dropped 40 pounds that year. I slowly began growing my hair back out. Things were on the up and up. I felt better, I felt like after now three experiences with grief, that I was beginning to understand it better, and that helped. I was still worried and stressed about some things, but I felt like I was in a better position to deal with it.

And then in 2012 I suddenly lost my aunt.
This.... was not just an aunt. She had really become more of a second mother to me, she was the one who kept in touch me with and pulling me back into the family when I wanted to be distant. She and I were emotionally in sync and could read each other from across a room. I bawled on her shoulder, and at times she bawled on mine, and I was grateful for that. I loved having that adult almost daughter-like relationship. She still missed dad just as much as I did, and I needed that too. I loved her so much. She was precious to me.
And then she was gone. Just like that.
This was now my fifth loss, and my fourth one that made also genuinely, and entirely, change my life.
I don't want to make it sound like all five didn't effect me, I just mean this was now the fourth that completely upended my life.
But this time was slightly different. I knew grief a little better now. I don't know that anyone ever can have a full understanding of how grief works - it's different every single time, because every single time every relationship is different, how you lost them is different, you're a different person after each loss, it's always different. But I had a much better idea.
Her death hit me physically moreso than any of the others. I remember sobbing wracking sobs for her night after night. I had flashbacks, specifically of her funeral, and I had never had flashbacks before that point. I remember walking into my kitchen months after her funeral, and suddenly caving over and having to grab myself by my knees to catch myself because suddenly I thought of her and it was too much.
But I was open about it this time. I didn't try to hide it. I started going on walks around our neighborhood and openly arguing with God about it. I told Him how angry I was. I told Him how unfair it felt. I let all the anger come to the surface, and I tried really hard to grieve and not shove it down, and it worked. I mean, I still struggled with depression. This time was not pleasant. But this was the best I had ever handled a loss up to this point, as terrible as it sounds, and maybe even as ridiculous as it sounds in light of what I said about it earlier. But it was all physically there, on the surface. And afterward - way afterward, years afterward - I coped with her loss better than I still sometimes struggle with the earliest ones, the ones I shoved down so far.
That, and I had no doubt she I knew I loved her. That's important, that's what I've walked away with the most after all of the losses. The one I knew had no doubt I loved her, that's the one I've coped the best with.
What I'm saying is call your mom. Tell your loved ones. I don't care how awkward it is or feels. I promise you, you will not be sorry you did it. It matters to you, as much as it  matters to them.

In 2013, things got harder. We begin to realize my other grandpa was having issues with dementia. That statement makes it sound like we just got the diagnosis and that was it, but that... wasn't it. We were told other things were going on, we were constantly taking him back to hospitals and doctors being told it could possibly be this or that and this got complicated. And in the meantime, he was just getting worse.

In 2014 we moved him into a nursing home, and that was a hard decision to make. They did take great care of him, which was incredible, but it was still stressful on our family. There were so many other factors I'm not mentioning here. But he appeared settled.
I was about to take a new job, one that would mean I was further from home, but able to help out more with the bills. I started that late in the year and was commuting.
But that summer, I began to realize my grandma was beginning to struggle a bit. She was having a few mental issues I was worried about. I remember when she was having trouble remembering something, that we had already talked about several times, and how worried she was over it even though we had confirmed it was taken care of. I remember how she took her dinner scraps back to the bathroom to throw them down the toilet, instead of the trash in the kitchen. After one of these moments, I drove to a parking lot and sobbed in my car. I couldn't let her hear me cry in the house and know it was over her. I knew the stress was going to be too much, I knew that whenever I lost her - whenever that was going to be - it was going to be too much for me. I knew I needed to get healthy first. I called my friend in the parking lot and told her I thought I needed to see a therapist.
And then, days before Thanksgiving, she had her big stroke. We actually got really, really, incredibly lucky. She did not have any major side effects from it afterward. We got her to the hospital in time. She managed to go home and go to Thanksgiving, which she was grateful for. But it was the moment that really slammed me in the face I needed help.

In early 2015, we moved closer to family and my job. It was a huge blessing, but also just incredibly stressful. I was moving her out of the last home she had lived in with my grandfather, and basically her hometown. I was devastated to do that. Months later, she told me she was glad we had made the move and that new this house was the right size for her. I'm still incredibly grateful she told me that. I needed to hear that.
And then my grandpa died in the middle of 2015.
I had actually gotten really close to him in those last couple years. I visited him almost weekly until we moved - and even then biweekly - and I really loved his stories he told me while he had his dementia. We did a lot of things together in that nursing home - he told me we saw baseball games together, and filmed a Cheerios commercial together, and all about his day, and I loved that. We were worried about his last daughter, and how she would cope. (She is doing well now, just as an update in case anyone was concerned.)
Outside of his loss, back at home, I had gotten in the swing of taking care of grandma for the most part and she was doing well. We had family close that could help check in on her. I began to see a therapist to help me cope with the stress and past losses. Things mostly began to smooth out.

In 2016, my aunt was able to work it out where she could come live with my grandma and I, and that was huge. I was so grateful, and grandma was so happy, and I'm still so tremendously blessed that that happened. That was huge for both of our lives, and not just in relieving the stress, but also just in building deeper relationships. I continued to see my therapist. My job was going well.
And then suddenly on Christmas Eve, we lost her.

I can't wrap all of that loss up in one post. It was so much. My last living immediate family member. The grandma that had helped raise me, adopted me. The grandma that loved me unconditionally. The grandma I had seen and spent time with almost every single day of my life in one way or another, except for college. The grandma I spent every day after school with.

2017. Man, 2017. All grieving is hellish, but this was a whole new world for me. In April 2017 I began have extreme anxiety. I also sprained my ankle, that's never healed right. I also had a car wreck, that didn't cause major problems, but caused enough problems I had to figure them out. I had extreme depression. I was terrified to eat, because I was suddenly afraid I'd be allergic to it, or choke on it, and no one could help me. I was terrified to cook, even though I had spent the previous two years cooking all of our meals, because I was afraid I'd cause damage or cook it incorrectly and make myself sick. A friend asked me recently what triggered my anxiety during that time, and I said everything. And he, genuinely and not sarcastically, said "Literally, just the act of being alive for you, just existing, caused you anxiety?" And I told him yes, that was very apt. I began to live by myself for the very first time.
I was devastated. I was lost.

2018, not a lot better. I was incredibly lonely. I was incredibly depressed. I stumbled through my days. I ended my sessions with my therapist, before I was ready, but for specific and necessary reasons.

And that continued into about mid 2019. And then I'm not sure what happened entirely. I had been practicing, for months, on how to control my anxiety and tricks and tools to manage it, and it began to get easier. I began to experiment more with cooking and food, not a lot, but some. I began to spend some time with friends, and not have panic attacks about it. I realized more about how anxiety worked, so it wasn't quite as stressful. I had a few new experiences because I was feeling better, and that continued to make me feel better, because I enjoyed things a little easier and felt more accomplished. I sobbed again at Christmas, but also loved it too. And I allowed myself to feel both those things, and realize they're both a part of Christmas. And that's fine.

And I end the decade, with minutes to spare, writing this to remember. It really wasn't all bad, but this was the bulk of this decade. I do want to remember. I don't want to forget. It was hard, it was stressful, but I've developed a lot. A lot changed in this decade. I learned a lot more about grief. At the end of this year, I'm realizing how important it is to let people know you love them. At the end of this year, I don't want to be as distant from people. And that's huge for me. That's a massive shift.

At the beginning of this decade, I was distant from people because of grief. At the end of this decade, I want to be closer to people. Because of grief. I understand it differently now.

Whether you're distant, or close, it doesn't make the grief any less. It's still going to be hell, just in a different way. The only control you have over it all, is if you know in the end that person knows you loved them. It's not going to make the grief any less or any less intense. It will still be incredibly brutal and intense.
But. It will make it just the tiniest bit of comfort. Because you will be able to rest in that knowledge that they knew. And in that time of agony, any comfort is a refuge. Out of all the losses, the ones I question if they knew how I felt, those are the ones I struggle with the most, years later. Even though I grieve all of them still, honestly, the ones I question are the ones that hurt the most. 
I realize every situation is different, and letting people know you love them may not work for everyone. But I bet it would work for a lot of people.

I promised myself I'd have this done before midnight. I want this written down, so I can help myself remember what this decade was like, but I also want to continue moving forward. I have three minutes to go.

So thank you for listening, if there's anyone out there. And thank you for letting me get it down somewhere.

Now I'm going to go watch the ball drop and raise a toast (read: can of Dr. Pepper) to 2020. :)

Much love.

Allowing It

"Well, how have I not made note of every word you've ever said?
And time is not on our side, but I pretend that it's alright.
Before you leave: you must know you are beloved,
and before you leave, remember I was with you."

I had gone to Olive Garden for lunch this weekend. That's not something I normally do, but it had been a really long week & weekend at work, and I had been hungry for pasta for months and decided with the overtime coming I could splurge a little.

(Olive Garden is not the point of this post, by the way, ha.)

And I was eating, like normal. I didn't feel super great, but figured I was just worn out. I was staring up at the TV, showing house renovation shows on mute, reading the captions, letting other thoughts quietly pick away at different things in the back of my head. And before I was through eating my entree (shrimp scampi, for those needing to know) it hit.

And I felt it. I knew.

Lately, anxiety has taken on a new tactic. I've heard people talk about it in a similar way to this before, but I'd never really experienced it quite this way myself until a few weeks ago. Currently it's decided to feel like it's a weight, or creature, sitting heavy on my shoulders, wrapping my whole neck and head in tension, making it feel like it's hard to breathe. It feels like a trap that's sprung and attacked your head and neck and upper shoulders. I recognized it, I knew what was happening, I reminded myself of it and began talking myself through it. I tried to go back in my thoughts and pinpoint what I was thinking about at the moment it hit, but I couldn't. My stomach instantly turned and I started feeling genuinely ill. I asked for the check, paid my bill and left.

I sat in the parking lot in my car and kept trying every trick in the book I had to get out from under it.
What tools do you have with you? What do you have right now that would be useful to you? I turned the AC on blast, cranked up Mumford & Sons, and buried my face in my hands to shut out light. I kept trying to work my way back. I finally felt the tears starting to form, which is actually good news for me I've learned. It usually means the anxiety is cresting, and will start to even out soon. And then I heard it in the back of my mind, what I was searching for, why it had hit. And I'm always a little embarrassed when this is the reason why, because for some of them it's been so long now, but it's still truth. And it has to come to the forefront, because shoving it down did more trauma than facing it:
I miss them so much.

I knew I had touched the nerve. And the only thing I could do was bring it back to the surface.
I miss them so much. I miss them all. I'm so sorry they're still not here. I wish they didn't have to go for me to realize how much I loved them. I wish I was older when they went so I had a chance to tell them. I'll never know if they knew. I miss grandma so much. I miss mom. I miss dad. I miss Phyllis. I miss grandpa. I miss my grandparents. I miss them all. I miss my whole family. And then, I actually started to laugh with relief. I had at least found the nugget that was tucked in there wrecking it all. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why in that moment I was so sick with it. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe I really was actually sick with something. Maybe it's the cold front has moved in, and weather changes can affect me, especially cold. Maybe it was the house reno shows I used to watch with grandma. Maybe it was I was suddenly lonely. It was probably a mix of all of them and more that I just don't realize.

When it finally eased up and I was clear headed, I drove across the parking lot to a store I had intended to go to anyway. I still felt kind of sick, and even more worn out, and I knew I needed a distraction to get out of my head.

I walked in, cried some more in their bathroom (and laughed at myself for doing so, which is fine with me, because anxiety hates being laughed at, ha. Well, now we've officially cried in Big Lots restroom. We'll add that to our growing list, with Whataburger, ahaha.) And when I walked out Mumford & Sons began playing over the store radio.

....

I felt incredibly looked after in that moment. It was a small thing, but it was so much in that moment. It feels overdramatic to say it felt like God had reached out to me and reminded me it was going to be okay, but that's what it felt like in that moment. It was even the beginning of the song, I even got the listen to the whole thing. And that's when I began to really calm down. I wandered through the store. I looked for distractions. I followed where the radio was loudest until the song was over. I reminded myself I had nowhere to be. I perused through aisles of Christmas decorations. It made me think of grandma. We went to the Big Lots almost every year those last five years or so, looking through the decorations. But it made me smile. It wasn't painful.

After about 20 minutes, I sat down in a chair at the store for a minute, because anxiety will make you feel really tired. But I was also almost felt giddy. I felt significantly better. I still didn't feel great the rest of the day, and I did decide afterward to go home and rest. But I was functional. There was no bear trap clinging to my head. I was lighter.

It's okay to be sick with grief. It's okay to miss your loved ones over 20 years. We want to move on, and somehow we think that you can't do both. We think you can't "move on" while you're still grieving. Maybe you can't. I don't know the psychology of it. Maybe I have my terms wrong.

I know there is such as thing as being stuck in grief, and I suspect I probably am or have been in the past. But I also know this whole thing is a journey, death and grief are parts of your life, they'll come in and out, they're not necessarily static.

It's okay to still love those people 20 years later and still miss them.

I'm not recommending you don't continue to grow and develop and learn and love, I'm actually recommending that you do. That's the only way you're going to heal. And I'm working on that for myself. But at the exact same time, it's okay to still love those people you lost and still miss them. You loved them. Of course, it's okay. You're going to need them at different points in your life, for different reasons at different ages, you'll appreciate them in different ways and miss them for different reasons. And that's okay.

Allow yourself to do so. You loved them.

Finding the Balance

I think there's a fine line between replacing old memories and creating new ones.

After a loss, especially one of those that devastate you, there's so many different ways to respond. I have a tendency to both surround myself and yet still bury the memories. I surround myself with their things and things that remind me of them. And at the same time, my instinct in the past as been to try and never remember them. There's so much pain wrapped up in those memories - even the happy ones now - that I had put great effort for years into shoving them so far down that they have only recently been resurfacing, and only in bits and pieces. I'm glad they're resurfacing - and I was always told they would when I was ready for them - but they're still hard to maintain.

And on the other hand, going back to the idea of surrounding yourself with them, I assume sometimes you want to just wrap yourself in those memories and you live in fear of forgetting.

I've been thinking about this lately, and it struck me today as I put up a new (and recent) photo of my aunt and I on the wall. I love it, she looks so stunningly happy, and it made me smile as I sat on the couch and looked up at it. I looked at the other photos in the nearby vicinity, one taken just a few years ago with another aunt, one taken about ten years ago now but with someone I had lost. But I noticed them all mingling together. And so I started thinking about it again.

When I first moved in, I didn't have a lot of things that were purely mine. That sounds really dumb, I definitely have more things than I need, but so many of them were keepsakes or inherited items. And I loved that, I love that I have these sweet items and I'm grateful I didn't have to purchase a lot of things, please don't misunderstand any of that. But one day I looked around and realized it was almost like my whole apartment was a shrine to those I had lost. It didn't even feel like mine, it just felt like a memorial to everyone who had passed away.

And there's nothing wrong with honoring those you love and wrapping yourself in the warmth of their things, but.... at some point, when is it your life? When is it your personality injected in there too? After all, you live there. You come home to it every day. And I noticed some days it just felt like a funeral all over again.

And to be fair, I didn't have the headspace or the desire to change that for a few years. You don't realize, until you've been through it a few times, how long grief can last. That first year, for me, is always just shock. That second year is hell. And the third year, it seems, I finally start to gain a little ground. And I don't think it's just me, I think there's some substance in that. That first year you're just trying desperately to stay alive. The second is when the shock has worn off, and yet somehow you're still here, and the pain and the misery hits you in full, with no protective shock barrier anymore. And  somewhere around the third, you've started to develop a few new memories to ease some of the loss.  

And, to be fair, in those first couple years, you don't want to develop new memories. Why would you? It just means you're creating new things without someone you love so much. Why would you even want that? I had zero desire, for anything, for about two and a half years after grandma died.  I have just, within the last few months, felt some ground steadying beneath my feet. I didn't even feel like I knew what my personality was anymore during that time. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know even what I liked. People, so sweetly, kept saying I should find something I enjoyed and do it. But I didn't enjoy anything. I didn't realize how much pain I was in, I just know whatever was happening I had no idea how to navigate it.

But this year, I started splurging a little bit more. I bought a few new things I realized I did like. I made a point to buy a few seasonal items throughout the year, because I discovered that tremendously helped my depression. (I think it helped me feel like I was moving through and actually celebrating the year, instead of constantly coming home to the same thing every single day.) I decided I was going to try plants, even though I didn't really know what I was doing at the beginning and had the lowest of interests in it - but it was interest and I desperately clung to it. Now it's turned into one of my favorite hobbies. While I still don't have a lot of things I do outside of the apartment to fill free time, I've noticed enough growth and change and development now, that I'm less worried about it at the moment.

Which brings us back up to today, when I noticed the mix of photos and began to look around my apartment and realized the new and old now happily mingling together. It is now less of a shrine and more of a home. My grandmother's old mirror stands among my fall decorations and my ZZ plant. Next to it is a new lamp, that is one I love but also happens to be reminiscent of one she had. :) On an old table, one that I've never known life without, sits photos of new children added to our families. New experiences with loved ones, like the carnival with my aunt, are hung next to a birthday party from two years ago and a get together from my grandpa's years ago. My mom's sunflower coasters now hang out with mine from the Plaza District and McMenamins. Tickets from art exhibits. A new Halloween costume created sitting at my grandma's dining room table.There's a little bit of life here now, and it genuinely makes me cry, but they are happy tears. Finding the balance. Learning that we're not forgetting, and not replacing our old experiences and memories with loved ones. Just adding to them.

Better

This is really not a completed post. Well, it sort of is, but it's not very edited or cleaned up. I'm just tinkering with things, still working them out in the written form too, and not trying to feel too locked down by getting it just right at the moment.

I've been doing really well. Surprisingly, gratefully well.

That's not to say I don't still struggle with anxiety, but within the last several weeks I've been managing it better. I haven't felt like I've been paralyzed by terror, I've actually felt quite significantly lighter.

But last night late it did hit. I was in bed, reading, with the back of my mind half-working on some combinations to question I had when suddenly I realized it was all over me. My breath was tight, my body was tight and my mind felt like it was building up in layers of fear and I immediately began telling myself "It's okay, it's okay, you're okay," which seems to be my immediate response anymore - not that that alone does a lot of good, ha - but it's an impulse reaction. No, no, no, don't panic, you're fine, you're safe, don't freak out, don't fear, but it's too late, you are already afraid. It doesn't matter that there's not really a reason to be afraid, that you're seemingly not in immediate danger. What matters is you're scared.
And actually, realizing that alone has helped me a lot, in a couple different ways.

1) It changes the question.
A couple years ago when I first started realizing what I was struggling with was anxiety, which did take awhile, and I finally started trying to work on it, I started asking myself "What is causing your anxiety? What are you thinking about?" when it would strike up.
But truth be told, I wasn't able to answer that often. I mean, I usually had no clue. Sometimes I could point out things. Oh, I'm going to this event. I'm about to talk to someone. I've got a lot going on at work. This thing is stressing me out. But usually, I was left feeling clueless and frustrated. Beats me, really, I was just standing here. I was just sitting here. I didn't even think I was stressed. Suddenly I'm just overwhelmed.
But when I realized anxiety was primarily fear based, I started asking myself "What are you afraid of?" And that question I can usually answer in spades. I'm usually highly in tune with what I'm absolutely terrified of in that moment. Oh, I'm definitely terrified of hanging out with a group. I'm terrified of making terrible financial decisions. I'm terrified if this is morally wrong. I'm deeply afraid right now that I'm going to get hurt.
It doesn't sound that different, but it often changes the mental conversation for me. And it clues me in to what's flaring up beneath the surface. Even if the fear isn't necessarily "realistic," it doesn't matter, I'm still living in fear of it and it's still eating me inside out.

2) It's like emotional inflammation.
One of the first ways I really started to visualize anxiety was massive red, infected tissue. All I could think of to call it was inflammation, it just felt like everything was highly inflamed and irritated and when I went to describe it it was often as this massive, red infected....blob....or tissue or something that was in my head. Later I realized that was actually pretty true, my emotions were inflamed. My therapist, in a previous conversation, had told me that he had worked with cancer patients on pain management about imagining their pain as blue, as it cooling off and calming down. So.... I tried that. I began to envision that red, pulsating inflamed mass as cooler, in blues, as getting smaller and smaller and.... it helped. It didn't solve it. But it was a trick that helped calm me down.
My emotions were inflamed. My fear, my anxiety, my grief, everything was ripped open and left raw. And then they felt like they were getting raked back open every moment of every day. They needed to heal. But first that inflammation had to come down. My anxiety needed to come down.

Again, imagining things as blue, it doesn't always help. It sounds absurd. But now that it's a trick I've gotten more accurate at using, it often helps a lot.
And, if you're anything like me, a lot of tricks and tools do sound ridiculous. I never got on board with how I was told about grounding, "You sit in your chair and feel the arms of the chair and describe the way the arms feel to you. And then move to another part of the chair."
I just could never do that.
But I've learned I do ground myself in similar ways, but ways that are just tailored more for me, and therefore work better for me. I personally love blankets. I've become a very tactile person and so I started using that to my advantage. I often ground myself by wrapping up in soft blankets and being very aware of it on my skin. That's really soothing for me.
Last night when things flared up and everything felt suddenly intense, I pressed the backs of my fingers against my headboard. It felt cold. It was something I could touch that brought me back into the moment.

3) The more tricks, the better.
Look, you're smart. And you know yourself pretty well. And you're going to outwit yourself. Your anxiety knows all the ins and outs of your system because it's you. It knows just how to play you. I feel like you are essentially fighting yourself.
So learn all the tricks and learn to use them. It doesn't matter if they feel silly, if they work use them. Because certain tricks aren't always going to work in all situations. You'll learn how to attack your anxiety with tricks and you'll get to a point where you may be able to quickly tell if that particular trick/ tool is helping in that moment. And if it's not, try another one. Try another one. Try another one. Don't be afraid to attack it with every tool in your belt. Because one alone may not work, but several of them combined together just might. Pick away at it until it gives way, or at least until it gives enough you can continue on. And the more apt you become at using these tools, the less energy they often take from you. They'll become like any accomplishment that gets easier as you practice. And practice! When it hits, and it probably often does, practice, practice, practice. Begin to look at those times as chances to practice. It puts you back in control instead of letting your anxiety have free reign. Build up that muscle and push back.
And don't expect to always win. You probably won't. Anxiety will win. But they're just battles, just skirmishes. They're not the war. Give yourself the grace to fall down, because you can get back up. There's probably reasons, and possibly very good reasons, why you have full-fledged anxiety. It's going to take some time to reduce that fear and smooth things out. And that's okay.

4) Do something you can control.
As I sat there, stunned, trying to process that it had hit me so hard and came out of nowhere, the very first tool that came to my mind was do something.
It was late, all I had left to do was brush my teeth, but I got up and did it. And even that tiny action helped get me started pushing back.
Do something that makes you feel productive or accomplished or puts you back in control. It doesn't have to be a huge, heroic action. Do something small. Sometimes I clean a counter. Sometimes I get outside the house. Sometimes I do jumping jacks. It doesn't have to be a huge declaration or goal. Just check something off quick that lets you feel like it's not running you, that you're back in control and then begin to pick at it from there.

In the end, I brushed my teeth, laid back down, curled up under blankets, buried my head in my hands and cut out a lot of stimulus and pressed my hand up against the headboard. After about twenty minutes, I came out of it, almost giddy with relief. I still don't often win quite that well, nor am I usually in a position where I can actually lie down. But that's why you need lots of tools. To help you in whatever situation - work, home, out with friends, wherever - you may be in.  


I'm clearly not a therapist, I'm clearly not a doctor. I'm not professional help. I'm not someone who knows what they're doing, really. I'm just somebody who currently lives with anxiety and is in the process of working out their own kinks and thought I'd mention some things that helped me, in case they help you.

Grief & Harry Potter

To be fair, there were very few days after I lost grandma where I woke up genuinely disoriented. I was always keenly aware of where I was and what had happened. And that even continued into after I had moved into my first place for the very first time.

But there was one morning, probably sometime in late July or August, after everyone had left. It was one of the first weekends I had had completely off, alone in my apartment, with no one. And I woke up extremely disoriented.

I remembered pretty quickly, and was grateful it ended up being only that one time, but that morning was one of the worst. I woke up in a fog, disoriented, incredibly confused. The apartment seemed confusing, and felt unfamiliar, and I knew no one was going to be there. There was nothing else in the apartment with me. It feels appropriate here to say I was devastated, but the truth is looking back, I think I was devastated the whole time. But this was one particular morning I remember feeling the sheer severity of it. I was not at work, I had no one around, I had no idea what to do with myself and I was alone.
(I understand "I had no one around" and "I was alone" sound like the same statement, but I assure you, I felt both. I felt all of it. No one was around and I felt, very, very, very alone.)

I had no idea what to do. Honestly, I just wanted to reach out to someone that was in a similar situation to mine. I wanted to find someone who had lost their family. I wanted information on how to cope. I wanted books, message boards, something, anything to hold onto, to help me feel like I wasn't alone in this situation. I knew it wasn't a totally unique situation, but as I desperately searched online for any kind of material, it was pretty bleak. There's a lot on grief. There's a lot on loss of parents. Loss of whole family, not quite so much. That's a whole new loss. And it was awhile before I fully realized that it's actually two separate losses combined: the loss of your loved one, and also the loss of your immediate family. And I feel like they should be recognized as much, because they're both enormous blows.

My counselor never really approved of the idea of looking for books on this subject. He felt like this pushed me back, kept me focusing on the problem and not moving forward. I told him I thought he was wrong, and that I needed something to help me sort through it, just to acknowledge that it was incredibly painful and that someone else had been there and made it through it. Like a beacon, or a light. A path. Take any metaphor like that you want.
And mind you, this was just months afterward. The shock hadn't even worn off. So this was not me not "trying to push ahead." This felt like me still in the middle of the crater after an explosion had just gone off. Where do you go? What do you do? How are you still alive? What do you do next? Can anyone help you figure it out?

So on that awful, awful morning, I pulled up my laptop and searched even harder for books and came up with nothing again. I was almost distraught.

And with all of that introduction, it may feel like a joke to say "And then at the bottom of the article, someone mentioned Harry Potter," but that's exactly what happened. I blinked. I hadn't considered fiction (full, of course, of loss of families.) It mentioned it as a 'bonus' feature on their grief list, not one they really included, but brought up for your consideration anyway. I loved Harry Potter and had considered re-reading it for some time before everything had happened anyway. And I was desperate. So I immediately shut down my laptop and ran and grabbed my copy. I spent the day curled up in bed, re-reading Sorcerer's Stone and crying all through it. But it felt so good. It felt like I finally did have something to hold onto: here was a character that had made it. I didn't even care at this point that he was fiction. There was Harry Potter, and all these characters that I loved and adventures that were wild and topics that were relevant to me. It was warm and familiar. I focused on the soft blankets and the comfort from the book and it all washed warm and soothing over me.

There was still going to be serious struggles ahead, but all I needed in that moment was something to help get me through that one day, and it succeeded. Harry Potter would end up carrying me through a few weeks as I dove back into the series as a whole. And as afraid as I was that that piece of me would never be understood, it was to some extent reflected in that book series, and for that moment that was enough.

(Addendum here, because it needs to be said: I do have many, many friends and family who have loved me for so long and were, with Christ, the biggest weight carriers here for me. I was not alone.  I never, ever want that to be unsung or unsaid or misunderstood.  I can't even begin to imagine what this would have been like if even one of them was missing. They were all and have always been such beautiful people helping keep me together in such beautiful ways. Harry Potter, and other small things, would help to start piecing things back together in my own mind, and moving me forward on my own when I was by myself, but Christ & my loved ones were always the ones holding me together when I couldn't.)

Anxiety: The Learning Curve

I'm learning, over and over again, that I am dealing daily now with anxiety.

Now, I'm worried that when I say "I have anxiety" you hear: "Sometimes situations make me nervous and uncomfortable."

No.

Yes, in the past, I might've said I had anxiety, and in those cases I would have meant "Sometimes situations make me nervous and uncomfortable." But I have since learned, through experience, that's not the same thing as what I'm dealing with now. And unfortunately, anxiety is a term that can be used for both, just to different degrees.

So for the sake of argument, just for today, let's say "nervous" is when you getting a little anxious in a situation or about a situation and you're glad when it's over. Let's say "anxious" for what I really have come to understand as anxiety on a daily basis. Or maybe it's generalized anxiety disorder? That's probably more accurate, but I don't really know anymore.

Because I have learned, for me at least, anxiety is like whack-a-mole. That's one of the ways I visualize it most frequently, and seems to run consistently true. It's hard to describe it to you, because it's not always the same. One time I had anxiety so bad, it caused severe toothpain and it was so specific in one spot, and lasted for a few days, that I actually went to the dentist. I had no idea it was anxiety. They got me in quickly since I was in pain and found....nothing. Nothing was wrong with the tooth. I could tell by the time I opened my mouth for them to look and then they were just....silent. And then they gently asked: "....are you stressed about anything right now?"

This was a few years ago, and I didn't want to emotionally vomit all over my nice dentist who got me in same day, and I was so surprised nothing was wrong, I just sort of uncomfortably said I was moving, which was true, and he kindly replied, "Well, that can certainly be a stressful situation." He told me to keep an eye on it just in case and call if anything changed. Within an hour, it was gone.

What I did not tell the nice dentist, because even I hadn't fully comprehended where I was mentally at at the time, was Yes, I'm stressed, my last living immediate family member died five months ago, and she also practically raised me, and then adopted me, and I've lived with her most of my life, and then I became her caretaker and she died. And now I'm moving out on my own for the very first time, and trying to decide where to freaking move, and going through all these boxes, and trying to keep my head above water and everything smooth and taken care of, and I no longer feel like I have a purpose in life, please help me. 
That would have been more truthful.

But it's not always physical pain.

The first time I went to a movie by myself after grandma died, it slammed me. I didn't expect it. You have to understand, before she died I did a lot on my own. I never thought twice about going to a movie by myself. I never thought twice about running somewhere, eating out by myself, nothing. It was an incredibly common occurrence. And it was Kong: Skull Island and I really wanted to see it. And then when I got there, bought my ticket and went in and the movie started, I felt the closest thing I had had to a panic attack at the time. I didn't think I was going to make it through the movie. I was so overwhelmed, I'm not even sure what I felt overwhelmed by, but anxiety welled up in my chest and head and I wanted to hurry out of the theater. It was so distressing, I just knew I felt like something was terribly, terribly wrong, I did not want to go to this movie by myself. I really didn't want to be there at all, but I definitely did not want to go by myself. I felt like my heart was racing and that I was about to become physically sick. I was in a smaller theatre with spaced out seats and no one beside me. This was not a place where I was surrounded by people. I tried to remind myself I used to do this all the time, that this was normal, but it didn't matter. I was afraid and I really didn't understand why.

What saved me? Actually, physically checking my heartrate. I placed my hand over my heart and felt that it was beating normally. It was not racing. My mind was racing and my emotions were racing, but not my heart. I was physically okay. I realized I had tricked myself into believing it was racing. I left my hand and felt it thud along normally for awhile and it was soothing. It didn't take away my anxiety, it still remained there through the rest of the movie, but it did come back under control and I was able to manage it. And more importantly, I understood what was happening.

Currently? Anxiety manifests itself consistently at night. This just started more frequently the last few months. It started out too silent. I've given up trying to sleep at night without music. And honestly, I don't even know if that's anxiety. That may just be...it's too silent.
And it's not just that it's too silent. Suddenly it's just... I don't know. Too hard to slow down? Too dark? Too overwhelming thinking of the next day? I have no idea. There doesn't seem to be a specific something egging it on. Suddenly I can just feel it welling up in my chest, and it's a little harder to breathe, and it's too hard to lay still. Suddenly I'm tensing all throughout my body and writhing all over the bed. And I've learned: fine. Let it work through me. Let it run it's course. I'm anxious. Let it come to the surface. And then... I either wear myself out or it's done. I can fall asleep.

And I'm learning, this will probably change. It's Anxiety: Whack-a-Mole Edition, you learn how it manifests itself in one area and how to cope with it and manage it, and then BAM. It will show itself somewhere else. And so you're back to the question of "Uh, is this also anxiety?" followed by it's friend, "Great, if so, what do I do this time?" and the also important "And then what's causing it?" Perennial questions.

I think anxiety is hard because I still often think of it as "Sometimes I just get nervous and uncomfortable in specific situations" too, and it's not. It's overwhelming sometimes. It's a problem, it's more than "I'm kind of shy," though I am shy, so that also doesn't help, ha. It's not just applicable to being around people or social situations, though it also applies to those too. It's often just when I'm standing around, at home by myself or doing something I've done a million times. Which is what makes it so. frustrating. It's very fluid.

It's also hard, because this is still kind of new. It's not something I had before, nor is it something I really expected when I had the loss. There were lots of things I suspected might happen or ways I might feel whenever I lost grandma. This was never one of them. This was an unexpected side effect.

But I'm learning. This has been a huge learning curve for me over the past few years. And the truth is, I don't really want to talk about like this. I'd rather keep it kind of vague - y'know, honest but not entirely so truthful? And I think anxiety would prefer I keep it tucked away too, hidden, not drug so far out in the open. That's the whole point, right? Keep me afraid, keep pulling me away from those I love? Keep me living consumed in my head where no one can see? Even though this has been a side effect from grief, and someone else may struggle with this one day too and they should know, "hey, this can happen, but you're not alone"?

I don't know. I just know I'm tired of giving into you. So... take that anxiety. Whack.