I broke down this week. I felt like I was not being appreciated or quite honestly even seen. It wears on you after a while. It’s an all too familiar feeling of numbness which brings back tidal waves on emotion in and of itself from past trauma. There’s beauty in being vulnerable, but there is also immense pain. The kind of pain you don’t really know how to put into words. Your heart is numb.

We are all stressed right now, that's no secret. We are dealing with financial stress, job stress, relationship stress, then we add COVID stress. It sucks.

It was recently recommended to me that I investigate more about the stress cycle and how to successfully complete it before adding additional stress. (cough work cough)

What is the stress cycle and how to complete it?

“I’ve been struggling...I’ve had thoughts of self harm and suicide. I didn’t follow through, but I was in a dark place”. My heart stopped. I could not believe sitting next to my beautiful friend that these words were coming out of her mouth. I felt like I was being punched in the gut and wanted to vomit all simultaneously. This strong, brave, incredible woman had reached her breaking point. I just wanted to hold her and remind her that there are so many options and ways to seek help I just wanted to cry. I still want to cry just writing this.

Gaslighting was something I didn’t know ANYTHING about until about 4 months into my therapy experience and I think this is something that we as a society need to do a way better job of educating our young women about. Here’s the low down according to dictionary.com. Gaslighting means you “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity”. Well this happened to me and I was completely blind to it at the time. I went into such a deep depression that I had completely lost myself which if you have followed me over the last 18 months you know all about.

Quarantine sucks straight up sucks.

It's fricken hard. So I'm going to tell you something that I am sure you've heard, but I am going to tell you again. IT SUCKS FOR EVERYONE. IT IS NOT JUST YOU. So quit your pity party and try to make the best of it. It's all we can do at this point.