Awkward Tales from the Shadow Side: Reflections Underneath

I stand in front of the mirror

Armour on

Battle worn, cracked and brittle

Some areas thick and rigid with hasty repair

Is this the way you love me?

Lifting the helmet, what can’t be seen, as they reside so deep, are the howling banshees who live inside. Burrowed in, born of survival, fear and pain. Revealed, tired, wanting eyes.

The cuirass goes next, throat exposed

Words have died here

Breath extinguished

Fine network of scars unseen but felt

Pauldron lifted, the weight had held my arms in place to brace against the blows. Shoulders curled forward with the phantom weight of all that was, without the bindings now threatening to disengage

Plackart next, twisted scars over where the heart resides

Thick, thorny vines at once piercing and protecting the beating centre

Jagged lumps of torn tissue across the upper back holding my arms in place

Faulds removed, one by one, exposing my sex. Sometimes taken, sometimes gifted

Mistaken often for the sole root of power – it is but one area I can hold sacred

The cuisse loosened to fall away, revealing legs with nearly invisible trails of scars, some inflicted through war, some used as a release to quiet the banshees on their terror.

Here I stand, the mirror reflecting all that was hidden beneath the armour

The ugly truth of the damage. The damage that created the need for the armour.

Can you love me this way?

Can I love me this way?

Bad Saturday Poetry

I want to tell a chapter.

So easy to write of dragons, heros, battles and mystical villains.

But this chapter is ripe with horrible truth. One that runs on a loop in my head.

To tell the story, I need the words, but they have disappeared.

Fear, anger, a sadness so deep I don’t know if it has a bottom.

To keep it trapped in my head will surly pull me back into muck that I’ve fought my whole life to get out of.

I want to tell a chapter but it’s ugly and dark. It is not for everyone. And I can understand. But I can’t hold this on my own.

Trust, the words are coming. I’m trying. Trust, I am not alone. I’m trying.

I want to tell a chapter

Awkward Tales From the Shadow Side – for the child that was me, for the child I have, for the children lost and not yet found

There’s so many things crashed inside my head right now. The weight of the world seems to be bearing down today, I’m not a damn thing I can do about it.

Universally I feel devastated today, I can’t help but think how we have undercut and undervalued whole peoples because they were different. I think of the thousands of Indigenous children who were stolen, abused, and murdered. I think of all the parents and families that felt that missing piece, who feel that missing piece and that there is no way to make this right. The best we can do is shine a light.

Universally I feel crushed by this never ending pandemic, the reality of how it affects mental health. How exhausting it is, to be in a push/pull of society between trying to do what’s best for the ‘we’, with out a heavy cost to the ‘me’.

Today I also feel in my own personal heart space a confusion of heaviness. Grieving for the devastated child that still resides in me.

As I am on the cusp of parenting a newly minted teen ( in less than 72 hours she will officially enter the teens), I feel so much loss and grief. I did not really expect it. I did not expect to remember the loneliness I felt at her age. The fear. The deep abandonment of loosing my Mom the year before and an absent alcoholic father.

I feel lost now. How do I parent her? How do I protect her from the horrors of this world, that I keenly experienced? How do I know if it is the right guidance- what she needs VS what I needed/wanted at that age. Her situation is so very different than mine. I try to never impose the ‘me’ needs over the reality that she is not me and she has different needs. That was good until she surpassed me at still having both parents, intact and present.

I had tried to set up much in the way of distraction today, but it all has fallen apart.

So into my head I will stay, for just a little while, I’ll listen to the little girl with the wounded heart. Who is still so frightened and alone. Who navigated a dangerous place and came out with scars and wounds yet to be healed. But grew into someone mostly intact, praise her for growing into a loving mother who cares, who worries, who’s willing to grow.

I will go stand in the sun, and remind myself that even though I did it alone, my daughter isn’t. That she is a fortunate one, not like the thousands of children still not yet found but always cherished.

I know that if I lead with my heart and that she knows I’m leading with my heart, it will all be OK. And in the future, hopefully, she won’t be sitting on a warm fall day, with tears on her cheeks, mourning for the child that she was, for the child that felt abandoned and lost and hopeless.

That she will be sitting on a warm fall day with a smile knowing deeply how much she was loved and cherished and protected.

When the Levee in My Head Breaks

The screaming in my head leaks out

Every sensation amplified and painful

Control is lost

Monsters move in

I can’t speak words

I cry, rage, fear, disappointment

Irrational

Shaking till it feels like I will explode

Curl tighter and tighter into that ball

‘I’m sorry’ are the only words that can be made of out the mush in my mouth

Why sorry?

For all the things I’ve ever (not) done

For breaking

For being

What triggered this? You want to know- all of it, none of it- the crowded loneliness in my head

The work I’ve done, today feels for naught

I am so far away- what do you need? I’m asked. I don’t know -comes the swift reply

I need this to stop

I need to be truly heard

I need quiet in my head

I need the pain to go away

I need the weight of responsibility lightened

I need to be held together till the shaking stops

I need it to be recognized it was never all mine, even though I took it, it was never all mine

Not praise nor encouragement for accountability

But understanding it’s too much and it was never all mine

I make a deal with the monsters, they can have their space,

just give me enough clarity to keep one foot in front of the other, a thought or two and a dry eye when others are near.

Fix the mask once more- temporarily hope it holds. Ignore the discomfort, swallow the bile building in my stomach.

Let’s just play pretend on more day.

Awkward Tales from the Shadows- Start Point

Other stories on this blog do a decent job of explaining a few things about me. As this journal progresses I imagine so much more will be revealed. But a little back story to what brought me to this ‘start point’.

I’m firmly entrenched in midlife, chronologically but in my head I still feel like I’m in my early 20s- I’d like to think that is perpetuated by my eternal curiosity.

I had a lot of trauma in my younger years. I have GAD ( generalized anxiety disorder) and CPTSD, those two combined at time are a big rollercoaster of hellish fun.

I struggle with chronic pain, some resulting from my mental health issues, some from old injuries and sadly I’m sure some is a little from age.

I am a practicing Pagan, a Grey Witch ( if such a title is needed).

I am a survivor of rape and abuse.

I work as a massage therapist, energy healer, teacher, tarot reader, intuitive and writer.

I am a mother to an incredible teen daughter and a biological mother to an amazing young man.

I am a wife, sister and friend.

I am amazingly strong and easily hurt.

I have hope that seems to stay like a beacon of light even when I feel taken down by despair

How did I come to the ‘dark night’ awakening?

I can not pin point one moment, but a cascade of things.

I dreaded my 40s for as long as I could remember, a fatalistic view really. My mother died at 44, I was 12. That death shadow hung over me, somewhere in my head I had always believed I too would be gone young. To that end, I did enough for my mental health to ‘survive’ to keep a lid on all the poison. I had fooled myself into believing I had a handle on my ‘stuff’. Because honestly could someone who didn’t ‘have it together’ how could I achieve so much?

I thought I had begun to do positive work, building a strong life.

Just after my 45th birthday there was a tipping event involving betrayal, abandonment, humiliation and a break down of self.

I was so lost, just trying to make it through the day and fill the expectations of the roles I play. My anxiety was getting worse, social anxiety symptoms that I hadn’t experienced in years took me down hard. To complicate matters, within a year, as a planet we entered a pandemic that is ongoing and we are feeling the acceleration of the effects of climate change. The darkness and fear was closing in. The grasping of things, friends, comprise of self, use of substances for escape all becoming a sand trap I was silently drowning in.

The cross roads epiphany struck like lightening ‘work through this, find your life spark or face soul and/or real death.’

First came the stacks of books, workshops and podcasts. I journaled, I had recognitions, insight and so much, however the amount of information and emotion surfacing became overwhelming.

Then the inner knowledge I need help filtering the all information in relation to myself. Due to the tipping event I did not feel that anyone in my circle was a reliable source of deep support. Also knowing that I was entering a place of really wanting to be able to observe myself with a ( hopefully loving) critical eye, professional help was needed. This was hard for me, I had not done therapy since I was a kid, I’d always believed I was self sufficient/smart enough to work through my things with books, workshops and podcasts. Finally making that decision, I was choosing self love. The Shadow work was really about to take a deep direction.

And so it began…

Waking in an Anxiety Attack

Wake up from a dead sleep

So many thoughts I can’t grasp one

No breath

Feeling I’m going to split apart

Gulping for air

Fear

The smallest I can go

Arms wrapped around my self

Knees tightly into chest

Nothing slows

The speed of every impulse rushing through

So fast it may just disappear

The fog of everything and nothing

Sickness rises

From a dream? From life?

Try to count

Try to focus

Try to pray

Lose track of the mantra I cling to, to tie me down

Muscles armour, the shell protecting the insides from coming out

Smaller still

Jaw so tightly clenched, small moans escape

Inside the skull deafening screams fill the void

In the darkness I wait for the light to return

I Am Not Ok

Today I broke.

It’s been along time coming, this is beyond the ‘ugly’ cry. This was pure unadulterated rage and disappointment.

Curled up in the corner of the tub, hot water running over me, mixing with the hot tears streaming down my face. The rhythm from the water providing a background to the guttural howl ripping through my throat

Today I can’t. Yet I have to.

Dangled carrot of some normality my brain is refusing, for fear of let down

Trying to reconcile how we treat each other vs the good game most of us talk

Crushed by the weight of constant uncertainty, distrust, disappointment

The chronic pain I thought I had a handle on, has been chipping away at my ability to do my self care, my life

Screaming into the void

Feeling like I’m saying the same thing over and over, on deafness it falls

Today wrap me in softness, sit with me, allow me to cry, allow me to rage, allow me to hurt and not feel guilty for it.

I’m not asking for a fix, I’m not wanting pity.

I’m not wanting to hear it will get better

I don’t want to hear how strong I am.

Today I’m asking to be heard, loved, validated as is. Because today I’m not ok.

15 Months

I see you.

It’s wearing on you. The things that have been emotionally and mentally pushing down on you are starting to seep out.

The mental exhaustion from not knowing from minute to minute what’s coming, what the right thing, the safe thing is to do.

The emotional weariness from bearing witness to the constant ignorance, violence and disconnect.

It is so full inside of you that you are numb, detached as a way of preservation.

Yet, there are dull headaches, your appetite is all over, sleep waivers between thick to nonexistent but no rest to be found. Restlessness but no drive.

And then the pain, this is a manifestation of the heart, soul and mind. Dull stiffness in the joints, a deep ache in the muscles, a sensitive tenderness woven into the skin.

Words can not replace soothing touch.

Electronics can not replace the energetic connections of being together. We are told ‘just a little longer’. Hollow sounds they’ve become

Some days are ok. Some days are hell.

I’m here with you. I see this. I feel this.

The Sixteenth Card

When do you call time?

Jam your hands and feet against the wall

Brace against the fall.

STOP

Enough now, it’s time.

From a distance what you’d have witness would be this.

A beautiful scene. Tall tower, blue sky-

The cracks began to show.

In a blink fire, explosion

The tower collapses

Ruble everywhere.

STOP

The destruction is done, no more

The air acrid with smoke- the tower has fallen

The sky blotted out, the tower is no more.

The landing was painful

I am not unscathed

There is blood, breaks, putrid wounds

Tears, fear, a heavy heart

STOP

Stillness, let it settle, let the pieces fall

Time to clean wounds, set the breaks

Wipe the soot from my eyes.

The lightening dark, clearing of smoke.

This hurts, but it’s purifying

Dissolve to ash.

STOP

Time to start again, from the elements

Air, Water, Fire, Earth,

Spirit

Weave together, first form the heart

Then breath.

Bone, nerve, muscle

Skin- sensation

Brain, thought, creative, memory

Ahh memory and wisdom

Those scars I’ll bear

BEGIN

Dark Dismantling

We all have something that we are terrified of. Something that we dread, that we push from our minds, that lays in wait in the dark places.

Sometimes it’s rational fears, sometimes it may appear to be irrational. Sometimes it’s a rational fear that has grown so large it can’t be contained to an ‘appropriate’ size.

I know I’m not the only one struggling. It’s getting harder to speak up because it seems there is no space. Everyone has something. We are all so starved to be heard, validated and soothed. Yet it seems there is very few to listen.

But here I sit in the predawn hours wrestling some of my very specific monsters.

Parts of my career are in flux.

The part where I do not work for myself has me shaken and insecure about my abilities due to ‘ratings on a score card’, the cold devalued feeling that my contributions are now subpar. The removal of any feeling of team. No human emotional considerations, conversations or care.

I wrestle with how my body is not able to tolerate the physical exertion of my career ( where I do work for myself in service of others) to the extent I used to be able to work.

I am still capable, but where my comfort number was 6 it’s now 3-4.

Constant pain to varying degrees.

This is coupled with trying to figure out other parts of my life, relationships with others and myself. I am turned inside out. My contents scattered. My identity wrapped in questions. The assurance I used to get from what I thought I knew, what I thought I was…… no longer valid. Detached

Is this the darkest part of the journey? ( at least until death?) and who is going to come out the other side? Who will shine the light during my dark dismantling?