My thoughts circle back to being/feeling incredible lonely regularly. Its part of trauma I have come to know. Feeling isolated, different than ‚others‘ and questioning ‚God‘/the Universe/fate. Its a feeling that sucks the joy out of my life quicker than anything else and brings me to my knees more than any pain will ever be able to.
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Writing this on Friday deep into having the cold on top of my exhaustion is messing with my mental being.
It feels like too much, too much sickness, too little strength, too little strength to help myself, too little life in me to be happy while being bed ridden. I start questioning myself and if anything was caused by my mental health but the reality is: I was freaking exhausted before the cold and having fever on top of exhaustion is a lot for any body, so my allergies go crazy as well because my immunsystem is simply down. I‘m trying to hold on to my saneness but it brings back ALL the trauma of being constanly sick and being home/bed ridden without being able to help myself. I feel helpless and I feel angy and it feels unfair but I can help myself ans everything will be fine in a few days and there is incledible medicine that can treat fever very well. Still urg!
Before this all cold craziness hit me I was reading ‚When the heart waits‘ by Sue Monk Kidd after hearing her story on Oprahs Supersoul Podcast and it has been inspiring. I‘m only a couple chapters in but its good. She talks about waiting:
Something interesting happened 4 weeks ago – it all of the sudden clicked and I knew what I am supposed to study and where to go with my life!
Nothing has kept me more up at night or has made me question myself than realizing that where I am at right now, what I am set to have my diploma in is not what brings me joy or brings me life. It was this weird thing of ‚I can still imagine myself studying and working in that field. I know I am and will be good at and the people at my school are seriously awesome human beings‘ but at the same time it gave me so much anxiety and imagining to go back there in September felt like something I was dreading. At the same I had absolutely NO CLUE what else I was supposed to study or work in/at and that left me standing there very confused and frankly very scared. What if its me? What if I’ll never be able to have enough energy and life in me to work/study joyfully? What if from here on everything will be only half ok and I will always have to fight against anxiety and fear of failing and the fear of having it all taken away without me being able to have a say in it?
And then all of the sudden it clicked..VIEW POST
I’m exhausted to the point that I don’t even know how to describe it or put it into words. It feels like I am drained to the point that I can’t find my strength again without something coming from something else than me. VIEW POST
I was talking to a friend the other day and it became so clear how we all tend to just share the good or paint a picture of someone else’s life and forget to fill in the blanks. The blanks that are the struggle, the hard and scary moments, the courage it took to get to that moment. The pain, the grief or simply doubt. You can see achievements and moments of highs but we all have doubts and experience hard times that test us.VIEW POST
Rocky Mountains, Canada, 2017
It seems so easy to sweep it all under the carpet, only talk about the sunny side of life but oh my its so important to talk about all this other stuff. We look at pictures and listen to stories and go “oh my god she is so good and I wish that was me” but we dont hear or see her struggle, we dont know her fight and we dont know her story – even in friendship its so easy to only show one side of it all. How often do we think “its only me”? I at least do a thousand times a day.
Every time I‘m in the deep of something it feels too hard too sad too much to share but when I read back on it a week or months later I think “well that sucked but thats life sometimes and not too much to share” – funny how that perspective changes.
Its so hard to stay open and vulnerable when I´m hurting. It feels even harder to put it all into words. Ever since I read in “the body keeps score” by Bessel van der Kolk that traumatized people can experience a very real struggle putting into words what they experienced or are still experiencing – I recognize that happening to myself. Every time I get overwhelmed or feel like I have been thrown under the bus because of everything and anything thats been triggering my trauma I just get quiet. I wont talk to Albrecht about it unless I make an conscious effort, I forget to write my blog and I tend to skip writting in my journal. It´s if I am holding my breath, trying not to feel, not to know, not to move and numb myself hoping it will solve itself by itself. Exhaling seems impossible, moving seems out of reach and feeling emotions seems very dangerous. So if I disappear and forget to write a blog post – I simply forget to put words to my experience.
I was talking to a good girlfriend of mine the other day and soon I realized that I gave her the advice I needed to hear but didnt even know I needed.
“it feels like it will NEVER end and life feels like it will never be good again but it will. Today is already better than yesterday so why shouldnt it be even better a year from now?”
„But I want my old life back – I dont want all this crap – I was really happy and content before.” “I´m so sorry for the loss but I am also so sure something good will come of it. We will grow through this.”
“Instead of fixing on one event in the future that I am afraid of `I will never be able to get back to school‘ I should focus on the emotions I´m running away from. Instead of focusing on me and my emotion I apparently tend to ignore them and am rather thinking about a possible event in the future I most likely can´t change”
“Feelings of ‚this will never end‘ ‚everything will be bad‘ ‚I‘m the only one‘ is part of it all BUT ITS NOT TRUE. Life has gotten SO GOOD!!”
So lets be open and show it all – not just the “everything is so good” side but also the “this is what it took me to get here”.
Sending you lots of love!
Madita
Life lately has been crazy thanks to this lady
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Grabkapelle Stuttgart 6th of October 2018
Sometimes life gets in the way of posting and I am so ok with that! And sometimes you have been a way from home for a week, hang up light fixtures in your living room, have a friends stay with you and everything feels new and fresh and wonderful!
And sometimes fresh, new and wonderful does not feel safe to you and thats a struggle. Its daunting if you crave new and wonderful but don´t know how to not be stressed by it, how to be present and simply how to function. And how to feel – oh feeling things can be scary!VIEW POST
Paris 2016
“We say: ‘Here I am, pain. I give up. All that stuff really happened. I’ll let myself feel it now. Then I’ll tell the story and let other people feel it, too.’ Everyone has a history, everyone has a story to tell. When you write your true identity, it is a love offering to the world because it helps everyone who hears it feel braver and less alone. We all need to know that we are seen and heard. We don’t need our lives to be different, or easier, we just need someone to see the pain. To know what we’ve faced and overcome. To say: Yes. I see this. This is real. We don’t need a magician to take it all away – we just need a witness.” Glennon DoyleVIEW POST
I´m back home and I can´t even tell you what a blessing it is to come home to a home and a city that you love and feel good about!!
I´ve been journaling, watercoloring and reading a lot lately and it has brought me on this path of selfdiscovery (although I had that term) and it feels AWESOME! There is this weird paradox of totally knowing myself and then being totally lost and questioning everything. But it feels so good to finally be able to not only question everything but have the courage and time and space of mind to really see and feel and love and grow! There is a season for everything and I love stepping into this season of growth. I´m learning to love the place in life I´m in right now even though I never decided to end up here and I´m learning to love and trust myself and my body again after a long time where I felt like I couldn´t because it was the source of a lot of pain and trauma. It´s still hard and days where I can´t for the life of me figure out what I feel and what I need, I sit angry on my couch and don´t love myself. Instead of sitting there I want to know and have it all rather than experiencing a frustrating and challenging process of growth. And to top if of I feel like I´m the only person on this planet to feel so stuck. I´m learning though that not only I have days like this but everyone has them. Days where you want to move the world but you rather need a day with your book on the couch but you give yourself a hard time for needing it.
I´ve listened to the “Unspoken” podcast with Sophia Bush the other day and she said something that really spoke to me:
If you were my 4 year old child, I would never allow for anyone in the room to take your energy to the point it made you exhausted. We have to learn to love ourselves that way. I can´t give the world to you – you have to go home and give it to yourself. I have to give it to myself. I have to go home, eat, put myself to bed, respect my existence. It´s hard but it´s important that with whatever form of a public life you lead that you start to respect your existence enought to know that you can not possibly give a piece of yourself to everyone who wants it. Because there would be nothing left. And you can say that with love.
Sending you lots of love!
Madita