January 1st, 2019… I started the year off running/ jogging my first 5K. It felt great and I set a goal to run the Houston Half-marathon next year. I started working really hard to make that happen. I love to run. In fact, running probably helped save my life three years ago around this time. I had lost my job for the second time in year and had no idea how I was going take care of my family or find another one at that point. In that moment, I wanted to break, but instead, I decided that I needed to change something, anything. I knew that in order to avoid completely slipping into a depression and becoming a prisoner to my bedroom, I needed to get up and move. So I committed, to getting up every morning and moving for 20 minutes. No matter what it was walking, running, treadmill, dance. I had to move for 20 minutes every morning. Within a few weeks, I decided that I wanted to step up my movement to an actual workout. So I downloaded this running app that would increase your speed and endurance with virtual coaching during your walk/run time. I would run for 20, eventually 30 , and after a while 60 minutes. I started losing weight and feeling much better about myself. I ran off about 65 pounds over the course of 7 months. I was proud of my progress.
Since then, running is my favorite workout. I don’t usually like the outside because of the heat and the dirt and well … nature, but I love to run at the park or on a trail. There is this sense of calm that I get as I push my body past its limit just enough to shave a few seconds off my last time, or to go 1/4 mile longer than my last run. Sometimes my runs are reflective of what is going on in my head. I run faster and longer when I need to clear some head space. On those days that I am struggling to find answers, frustrated or just emotional, I find one of my favorite playlists and go for it. Finishing a run, having accomplished a little more than the last one, having set a target and reached it, and even feeling the soreness build in my legs afterward… nothing short of zen. When I reach a new goal or milestone, its invigorating. I used to love to post the new accomplishments, longer distances, better times, higher calorie burn, etc. When I finally found a job, I hated having to move to the treadmill because I didn’t get the same feeling, I didn’t feel the same level of release, but I made it work. Finishing my first 5K and not in last place was exhilarating. I also saw many of the people I work out with and others that I follow completed the Houston Marathon or 1/2 Marathon. For the first time ever, I thought I want to run 13.1 miles next year. Previously, this idea would have been laughable for me. Not anymore. 13.1 miles… I’ve run about 6.5 before, so I just need to double that and I will be there. I tried to find a 5K to run per month and then towards the end of the year I would start full on training to run this 1/2 marathon. I felt like setting that goal would push me to work harder, lose more weight, live healthier, and reach for the stars. If I was able to complete the 1/2 in 2020, why wouldn’t I be able to do the whole 26.2 in 2021. It feels good to set goals in the beginning. It feels even better to smash those goals and move beyond it. I’ve talked about this before, but there was a time where my goal was simply to not harm myself in any way for the day. What progress I’d made by January 2019 to be considering running a marathon. I never imagined that I would ever get back to a place where I would consider hurting myself let alone, taking my own life. But here we are. Its ok, this time is different. How is this time different? I am different. I know what it feels like to believe you can conquer a 26.2 mile run, and it feels good. The desire to want to achieve something that at a point in your life you felt was impossible, changes the way your mind and spirit are wired. Feeling defeated enough to make me want to end my life, again, is the worst feeling in the world, but in the last couple of years since I made the decision to start running, the part of me that wants to fight, the part of me that desires to win, to prove “them” wrong, has taken over. That part of me wants to break down doors, and smash windows, until whatever is hurting me is no longer a threat, even if its me. My spirit kicks in. The difference between now and 2015 – 2016, I know defeat, and I’ve learned that it is a choice. I can choose to let the illness win, or I can chose to fight it until the very end. I acknowledge that I might get tired. I admit that there are times when I want to surrender, but I choose to keep fighting. I choose to smile when the weight of the world is so heavy I am crushed beneath it. I choose to show you better than I can tell you.
“Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’” – unknown
16 days later, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. Yes, walking pneumonia. I hadn’t been sick, and I have never had any sort of respiratory issues. 7 days of doing nothing, no workouts, no work, no walks with the dog. I was barely able to leave the house. I had to be on an inhaler, antibiotics, and a steroid.
To most people, being off work would be great. Not me, being off work means I am stuck, trapped in the house. It means that I might even have to depend on someone else to get me through the days of bed rest that I might have to endure. It meant losing, although temporarily, my freedom to come and go as I pleased. 7 days of nothing means, I can’t be too busy for anything. I like being busy. Being busy helps me remain distracted from all the things that are hurting me. Staying busy allowed me the space to not dwell on the worst parts of my current situation. Keeping busy helped me to justify why I hadn’t started looking for my own place 2.5 years after losing my apartment. Remember, I lost my job back in 2016, after that went my apartment. I had to move back home with my entire family. It was supposed to be temporary, but it took a full year and three months for me to find a permanent position. For 15 months, I drove for Uber, collected unemployment and took contract positions pay $20 an hour, just to pay my bills. This didn’t afford my family much else. Keeping busy allowed me to remain a tad bit detached from the fact that my kids were not living in the same home as I am. A decision I hated to make, but as I deal with some of the very same struggles I have before, and start to face the fact that I have been living in a mental state of being “triggered” 75% of the time, I know was best for my children. It sucks for us all, but they are better off not being in the same home as me until I can find a more permanent place for us, and I can mentally be better for them. Being still risks having the time to face my pain. I don’t want to.
I can remember expecting to hear from the doctor that she had made a mistake in my diagnosis, so I called every day the office was open from Thursday to Tuesday, trying to get released to go back to work. I didn’t want to be sick, let a lone have pneumonia. Pneumonia is something old people get, not me. I don’t have asthma, and I have never really had any other respiratory issues, so how did I get it? That is a question that never really got answered, other than I got enough fluid in my lungs and it got infected. Getting diagnosed with pneumonia, forced me to stop dead in my tracks. I kept getting this feeling that I needed to take a break, slow down, maybe even take a vacation, but I ignored it, for months. I never let up at the gym, I only took off of work when it was necessary. I can remember telling the doctor, I can’t afford to be sick. When I told friends about it, they would send me links to articles about Kim Porter, the young former supermodel that passed away from complications of pneumonia. That was annoying. I wasn’t going to die.
I didn’t want to be home for 7 days. I hate being at home. Let’s be honest, I didn’t have a home. I had a sofa, sometimes a twin bed, but I didn’t (still don’t) have a home. I was living with family. They made it very clear that I was an unwanted guest in their home. I don’t want to be stuck here for 7 days with these people and no way out. I hate it here. I don’t want my mom checking my every move, asking if I took my medication. She called me hard headed at least 100 times in those 7 days and at least another 48 after that. My mom wants to mother me and I hate being mothered. I am an adult with children… don’t “sMOTHER” me! Everything about being sick, slowing down and having to follow someone else’s orders was making me stir crazy. I snuck out of the house at least three times. I told my mother she was annoying at least 1000 times. I hate being sick… I hate having to be taken care of by others. No, I hate having to be taken care of because at the end of the day, I have no one to take care of me.
Yes, I have family and great friends, but no one for me. Being sick and having to lean on your mother and sister is a blaring reminder of just how single you are. Single… something I have to deal with everyday. Being sick made me feel more alone than ever. I am not ready to face that level of loneliness… I need to get back to my life of being too busy to notice… I hate that I am lonely.
“We are all born alone and die alone. The loneliness is definitely part of the journey of life.”- Jenova Chen
I thought that with my follow-up visit, I would be in better shape. NOPE!
At my follow-up appointment, I was released to go back to work, but I needed to see two specialists, cardiologist and a pulmonary specialist. I was informed that I had developed exercise induced asthma, my phantom heart murmur (undetectable for the last 15 years) was present and louder than my actual heartbeat.
I thought that after 7 days of doing nothing, my body would have recovered and allowed me to get back to my normal life. I felt so much better, I didn’t have that nagging pain anymore, surely the doctor is going to release me back to my regular life. She did, but not before dropping a bomb first. My heart murmur had re-appeared. When I was a baby, the doctor discovered I had this heart murmur. It was more of a nuisance than anything. I had to take antibiotics whenever I went to the dentist, and I had to see the cardiologist once a year. Sometime around 7th or 8th grade, the doctor decided that he needed to close it up surgically. The idea was terrifying. The surgery was like 4 hours long or something and they were going to go in through the artery in my leg and implant some device to close it up. Well, right about the time they started to put the IV in my hand, the surgery got cancelled. I thought what I heard was that I was healed, but clearly I misunderstood. When I was in my 20’s, I had to go back to the cardiologist because I started having very strange cardiac symptoms when I worked out. After a bunch of tests, the doctor couldn’t see it. As in, he was unable to locate it, take a picture of it, and plan a surgical procedure to correct it. He then labeled it a phantom murmur. I wasn’t cured, but there was nothing he could do because, he couldn’t see it. I decided to see it as a positive, some sort of miracle that I had been spared a surgery that came with very severe complications for some.
Hearing that it was back… talk about bursting a bubble. Let’s fast forward to my 8th month of pregnancy with my 2nd child. I went to the ER for about the 5th time because I was swelling, and having contractions. I felt horrible. It wasn’t time for her to come, but she had been trying to come for weeks. They ran an EKG, and hooked me up to the fetal monitor. After about 2 hours of waiting and restlessness, the doctor finally came back and told me that they were keeping me over night. There were some delays in the EKG and that was an indication that I might have an arrhythmia. My hear was skipping beats while my baby was inside me. She was fine, but because she was large and needed additional space, she had moved my internal organs around and it caused stress on my heart and lungs. I was placed on bed rest.
Here I was at 36 rediscovering a childhood issue that should have been resolved, but never was, and discovering that I have developed asthma, something most people are born with and have a lifetime to learn to live with. I don’t even know what an asthma attack would feel like. I have been out of breath more times this year than I have been my entire life. I have had about 5 panic attacks this year, and I have to say that not being able to catch my breath because I am hyperventilating is compounded when you can’t actually catch your breath.
Have you ever felt like you were suffocating? I have. I mean literally suffocating because I can’t breathe, and feeling like the walls have closed in and all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room because I can’t calm my thoughts. I can’t stop feeling like I am going to die alone. Alone, as in unmarried, and unattached to anyone other than my children. I can’t stop questioning every decision I have ever made in parenting my children, right down to the “donors” that helped to create them. I can’t silence the screams in my head because I never let them escape my mouth.
Great; now, not only am I suffocating mentally, now, at times, I will physically be suffocating. Not only do I feel extremely empty inside, but now, there is a real and pronounced echo in my heart. Thanks Doc! My heart is empty and I am running low on air. How do I run with all this? I need to know, physically, how do I run with asthma and a very loud heart murmur?
The doctor went on to tell me that both conditions were likely due to my elevated blood pressure (it was fine the week before, what happened?). So I left with another prescription, and feeling like my body was betraying me.
February 8th, 2019, as I sit at church, trying to participate in the conversation, I feel my body begin to swell, my feet are twice their regular size, and I feel like I have a fishbowl on my head. My friend sitting next to me notices, and tells me I need to go to the ER. I sit through the remainder of the service, and I go home. My BP is about 160/115, I decide to lay down and go to sleep, maybe I can sleep it off. Maybe I was just stressed. Well the next morning, my blood pressure was even higher, so I end up in the ER. They run all kinds of tests and refer me to my doctor again because I was in no immediate cardiac danger… I’m not even sure what that means, I guess I wasn’t having a heart attack or stroke, so I was good enough to go home.
So I noticed a few weeks prior that my ankles would swell. Nothing that appeared to serious, but it was noticeable. So I tried to eat a little better, elevate my feet, and rest a little more. I added more water to my diet. I didn’t think it was serious, until the doctor started to talk about the high blood pressure. She also informed me that the asthma and heart murmur combined with my elevated pressure were just all working together causing my body more undue stress. I took the medication she gave me, but I hated the fact that I had to. I had been working out consistently and mostly eating right, how come it wasn’t working. Was there something more going on?
I allowed myself to get caught up in a swirl of thoughts, my own medical diagnosis, the thought of my immortality, leaving my children on an earth without me, how my current life circumstance/ situation had created this moment. Studies have shown that when you live in poorer neighborhoods, the access to healthy food is limited. The grocery stores have smaller produce departments, they don’t have the same variety of foods, and the price of what they do have is significantly higher. Well about 6 months prior to this, I made the decision to move in with my sister. She has moved into a new rental home and to get away from what I knew to be a toxic situation, I thought that would be better for me mentally. For what its worth, since 2016, I have been trying to rebuild, not from bricks, but from ashes. I have lived with my entire family, my mother, my sister, my brother, my brother-in-law, my two nieces, and my dog. No this home is not big enough for all of us, but it’s what we had. Once again, I have the ashes to rebuild from, so I am rolling with the punches, praying for another opportunity to get to a better situation. When my sister moved, I saw that opportunity. Her home was 15 minutes from downtown, not 25, there were fewer people, and most likely less chaos, or turmoil. This, in my mind, was the next step.
Was it THE step? By no means, but in my head, at the time, it was a step forward. Over the course of the next few months, I came to realize that my move was in fact extremely convenient. My commute home went from 1 hr and 20 minutes to about 50 minutes. I could sleep until 4:30 am and still get to the gym at 5:00 am. Absolutely convenient. Now in this situation, I also fell into the convenience of picking up dinner instead of making it myself. Now, in my “old” neighborhood, I had a few options more than in my sister’s. My sister lives in one of those areas that doesn’t have a lot in the way of healthy food options. So I took what I could get. I got the cheapest most convenient thing I could most days.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that had become my life. Taking what I could get. Not creating my own way, praying for a way to be made, and not even following ways that had been previously laid. I was just taking what I could get. I ate a lot of fast food, a lot of processed food, and now it was silently going to kill me. I wasn’t making the extra effort to make my own food, to go to the grocery store. I was settling for what was available to me, that wouldn’t create a “stink” for others, and that I could get with the least amount of effort and cost. But, it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t what my body needed, and it wasn’t going to move me forward in my weight loss goals, it wasn’t going to give me a longer life, and it wasn’t going to sustain me in any way. But it was convenient.
I must acknowledge now, that I had taken what I could get in most aspects of my life. Remember the ashes. All I had were ashes and I started living my life accordingly. I dated guys that were convenient. I allowed others to make decisions for myself and for my kids because all I had were ashes. All I had were the clothes in my bag and the things in my storage. Who was I to go against the grain. I slept on the sofa, and the floors, and shared a bed with my nieces. I allowed myself to become a guest in a home that belonged to my father.
I had become a guest in my own life, a bystander in my own destiny. I see it now, but in the midst, I think my body knew it. My blood pressure rising was a combination of factors, in my mind. It was not eating right out of convenience. It was feeling like I didn’t have control of my own circumstance. Most of all it was feeling defeated about my ability to change my situation and whether or not God was ever going to answer my prayers. My frustration boiled over. Stress can kill you. I was stressed, but I wouldn’t allow myself to feel it. I was subconsciously hopeless this whole time and I wouldn’t allow myself to admit that. Not even in my own heart would I allow myself to admit that I had lost hope. If you recall, I wrote a blog this time last year about why you should have hope. In it I talked about how hope is connected to faith. I said, “Without hope, there is no Faith. Without faith, there is no way to please God. Therefore, I must have hope no matter how terrible life gets, hope is the one tool I must keep it handy. Where is your hope? Find it and keep it close.without hope, there is no Faith.”
We are three parts: mind, body, and spirit. Separate components, all interconnected as one being. My spirit is troubled, my mind in a free-fall, and my body is in panic mode. My blood pressure, a physical manifestation of everything I was feeling spiritually and emotionally. My spiritual and emotional turmoil led to emotional eating, a sense of defeat, and ultimately caused my physical body to change and not for the better. All the while, still holding the ashes of the life I had.
“In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”
―
So I work on managing my stress, trying to get back in the gym, but somehow, I over do it and end up hurting my back. I spent a week babying a recurring problem. Toward the end of February, my monthly cycle comes like clockwork… but it doesn’t stop. So I google “long a$$” periods in so many words. One of the symptoms, PREGNANCY! Nope, how is that possible. It’s been nine years and I have PCOS. I can’t be pregnant. Yes I am! It was March 15th.
Immediately, I start to wrestle with all of the possible outcomes. I was 4 weeks pregnant when I found out, and made my mind up that it was in no one’s best interest for me to be a mom of 3.
With all of my health issues, I started praying for the restoration of my health and physical strength. I wasn’t feeling particularly stronger, and in fact started to feel different. Before I ever took the pregnancy test, I knew the result. I didn’t want to face that, but I had to confirm that gut wrenching feeling. So I took the test, and sent a picture to the father. I shut down. He tried to calm me down, tell me that we would make the best of the situation. At least I think that is what he was saying, but I didn’t let me him talk at all. I interrupted him mid sentence and said, “NO! We are not going to pretend like we even like each other enough to co-parent. This isn’t happening.” We got off the phone, I went to work and I started calling around to try to get this taken care of. I was calling clinics that terminate unwanted pregnancies. I was trying to gather information on aborting my baby. Needless to say, it was out there. I got it and made an appointment. Truth is, I never in my right mind would want to have an abortion. The idea of terminating a life, growing in my belly, breathing the same air that I breathe, sharing my blood, is devastating. When did I become that girl. A girl that uses abortion as a form of birth control. How did I become that girl? A few ways I guess.
I am already a mom. Of 2. Of 2 children with no present father. I am a single mother of 2 children, living with relatives, 1.5 full years on my current job, newly promoted. I am a 36-year old single mother of 2 children, living with relatives, 1.5 full years on my current job, and newly promoted. I could repeat that sentence a million times and add more and more to it, but I think you get the point. With all of my recent health issues, I had to acknowledge that I had passed the age where most women are encouraged to get pregnant. My doctor referred to it as advanced maternal age. My pregnancy was deems a geriatric pregnancy. But we can get into the health risks later.
Let’s just focus on my life at the time. I was terrified, shocked, happy, confused, and a host of other emotions. I lived with my sister remember, I was sleeping on couches, and floors and sharing a bed with my nieces at times. My living children live with my father and step-mother and visit my sister’s home with me on weekends. (Remember I lost my job and had to move with family.) How could I bring another baby into this fractured situation. I didn’t even know my body could conceive any more. It’s been 9 years since my last pregnancy, and I have PCOS, a condition that renders most women infertile. I never believed that I would ever get pregnant again even if I tried. But here I was 4 weeks pregnant. 4 weeks pregnant, and alone for the third time.
I shut the father out completely. I didn’t want to know what he wanted. I didn’t want to hear any lies about how we could make it work. Most of all, I didn’t want to hear him say that he didn’t want a baby with me. Those words never came out of his mouth, but I didn’t want him to have the chance to say. it. I was afraid of that level of rejection again. Its one thing when a man decides to leave you and move on with his life, it’s a whole other thing when they reject their own flesh and blood in order to avoid any attachment to you. I don’t know if I could have survived that again. I didn’t want to be faced with the feeling that I wasn’t good enough again. Not like that. The reality is, I don’t feel like I have ever been good enough for the men I have chosen to be with. I just wasn’t enough to move to the next level with. I wasn’t good enough to take home to meet his mother said the man before the man who would become my son’s father. I wasn’t good enough to marry or respect as a partner said my son’s father. I wasn’t good enough to have a baby with, said my daughter’s father. I wasn’t good enough to build a life with, said my ex. I just wasn’t good enough for them, so I wasn’t about to let another man, tell me that I was good enough to lay with, make a baby with, but not good enough to commit to.
Now this isn’t your typical case of having low self-esteem. I know my worth, you just don’t know how much someone else values you until you demand they pay full price. So there came some point in all of this that that I stopped. I tend to leave the ball in his court. If he wants me, he’ll let me know. I don’t ask for more, I don’t pursue more. I just wait it out to see if he ever decides I am the one. Baby father #3 was no different. We had been seeing each other off and on for over 10 years. There were several multi-year breaks in between our random hookups, and points of catching up, but this time I started asking some of the tough questions, never really got any answers, but I at least started to ask them. When I found out we had conceived, I “knew” that it would not be in our best interest to keep it. I have complicated history with my pregnancies and I couldn’t ignore the risks that had already presented themselves during and after the first two. Most of all, I wasn’t willing to bring another life into the space, of not being good enough to have a family with. He never said that, but I was not about to give him the chance. I shut him out and pretty much didn’t tell anyone that might try to persuade my decision one way or the other. I had to decide for myself.
So I allowed myself to live with the guilt of making yet another mistake, taking the life of my child, living with the wonder of what it would be, what impact it could have made on the world. I, at times, allowed myself to try and consider keeping it. How bad would that have been? Each day, however, I was reminded that I couldn’t be a mom again, not this way. I wasn’t worthy of this baby, or the right to decide to be a mom again because I wasn’t doing such a great job with the two I had here already. Either way, I heard those words, I wasn’t worthy of being this child’s mother. Maybe I never was worthy of that privilege.
“No one blames her.”
“That never matters,” said Alec. “Not when you blame yourself.”
― City of Lost Souls
I am not mentally stable, I am not financially stable. I still live with my family. My kids are with my parents 5 days out of the week so that I can work. Well, over the course of the next 5 weeks. I tried to change my own mind, convince myself that I didn’t need to terminate the pregnancy, but then, my blood pressure spiked again. Higher than before. My blood pressure meds were not interacting with my being pregnant well. I was transported back to 2010 when I had to go on bed rest for heart arrhythmia. Yes, my heart was skipping beats so significant that I was hospitalized and couldn’t work. So now, as much as I wanted to keep the baby, I couldn’t put my own life at risk again. I can’t even get into the emotional piece of what those 5 weeks felt like, but for now, the pain of terminating my pregnancy was nothing compared to the emotional scar that will never heal. That was April 18th.
5 weeks of agony. 5 weeks of struggle, and indecisiveness. 5 weeks of shutting out everyone else, pleading with God to help me. I think I asked God to forgive me with every though I had for the entire 5 weeks. I was 9 weeks and 4 days pregnant with a baby I have named Steele. It was too early to know if it was a boy or a girl, but I hated calling them “it”. At this point, my grandmother had been in the hospital since the beginning of April, the townhouse I had begun to renovate was gutted, and my puppies were stuck outside and escaping every day. I can recall going to my son’s tournament one weekend right after finding out and watching all of these moms trying to manage their toddlers in these crowded ballrooms, packing carriers, and strollers and trying to make space for them every step of the way. At some point, I could feel the panic rising. How would I manage my life pregnant, and then with a new baby. My kids were active, my children are a handful.
Everyday, my body felt something different. I would swell, experience extreme fatigue, my back would spasm. I would have to use the restroom because my stomach was weak. I experienced morning sickness for the first time. Smells would turn my stomach. For me it was pregnancy magnified 1,000 times. I went over and over it, but I didn’t know how I could be a mom again. I couldn’t reconcile bringing another life into my broken family. Yes I have plenty of love to go around, but as much love as I show my kids, they still ask about their fathers, and want to know them. I couldn’t be sure of what Steele would have in a father. I could never bring myself to ask him either. I just had to shut him out.
I went to the clinic, saw the doctor, did the consultation, had the ultrasound, and made up my mind very early, something like 2 weeks after finding out. But for some reason I pushed the procedure out. I think some of it was that financially things kept coming up, but the other side of that was trying to have as much time as I could with my baby before I killed it. 9 weeks and 4 days, Steele grew inside my body. My fluid retaining, empty-hearted, asthmatic body. In my advanced maternal age, my body wasn’t responding well to pregnancy this time. I got extremely concerned and overwhelmed by the fact that so many women die during child-birth. I saw all the stories about black women who died during child-birth due to a slew of complications. I was terrified that in trying to do what most would consider the right thing and have the baby, I might but my self at-risk and possibly leave my two that were already here without the only biological parent. I eventually go through with the procedure and terminate the pregnancy, and it was the most painful thing I have ever experienced.
I literally felt my baby being ripped from the wall of my uterus. I was heavily sedated for a period of time, and went home to lay down. The next couple of days, I didn’t feel anything, and I tried to go for a run in order to numb the emotions of what I had done. I could only go so long and so fast before it felt like my insides were about to slip through my cervix and spill onto the ground. Funny thing is, as I felt the physical pain, my emotions over the whole thing were gut wrenching. So much so, I didn’t take the prescribed pain meds for days because I felt like I needed to feel the pain. I wanted to feel the pain. it was better than the numbness I had been feeling when my mind could no longer take the guilt I felt. Most of all, I deserved to feel every ounce of it.
Not one day has gone by that I haven’t thought of Steele and who they could have become. I often describe to others that I lost a baby this year, and I realize that they believe it was a miscarriage, I don’t correct them unless I feel like it’s a safe enough space to share the story. But despite choosing to terminate the pregnancy, I still loved Steele as much as I loved my other children, and didn’t want them to come here into this madness that is my life. I wasn’t equipped for a baby, and I didn’t want my child to suffer here on earth because of it. I lost so much that day. I wanted a family, never this. I have had dreams about Steele since I found out them. I couldn’t even allow myself to be happy for a moment because I can’t recall ever being able to be happy about being pregnant. With my son, my mother cursed me out. She told me that I wouldn’t make a good mother and I should consider having an abortion. She and my father said the same thing when I got pregnant with my daughter. Sometimes I think my shortcomings as a parent are a direct reflection of what was poured into me. I’ll be a little honest in this moment, I never really felt like my parents poured a whole lot into me, or set even a half way decent example of how to be a parent. But that is another post for another day.
Its kind of silly, but I have prayed a few times that God would send my baby back to me. When I say that I lost a lot that day, I am acknowledging that I lost a bit of faith in that moment. With both of my other kids, I was able to get to a place where I knew that God would take care of us. I knew that it would work out and be ok. I could never bring myself to believe that with Steele. In one of my dreams, Steele was a girl. She was chunky, fair-skinned girl, but I kept losing her. In another, she was taken away from me. I can recall one dream in which I handed her over to my sister, I blinked, and was in a dreamland insane asylum. I never got to a place of peace in making one decision or the other. Even now, I miss her. I miss her and she was never actually here for me to hold and touch. But I wonder about her. I still cry sometimes because I want my baby back. I wish I hadn’t lost hope. I wish my faith was stronger that day.
“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” – Judith Olney
May 3rd, my Grandmother passes away. After fighting for nearly a month, she finally let go and went home to be with the Lord. She had peace. You can argue that this isn’t physical, but my heart broke that day. Losing my grandmother was the straw that broke the camels back. I wanted my baby back. I needed my Granny back. The pressure was something I could feel physically.
My grandmother was the best human being to ever walk this earth. She had a huge heart for God and His people. She spread love every where she went. She was a servant, and she loved everyone unconditionally. My grandmother had a servant’s heart. She was humble. She was kind. She was honest. She was the absolute best and she love me. She loved me in spite of all of it. She was everything to everyone who knew her and everyone who knew her, loved her. We were all truly blessed to have her in our lives. She lived 85 beautiful years on this earth, and I would give anything for just one more day. Just one more day to say I love you. To know that you were still here. To know that I still had someone who saw me for the person God made me and not for all of the ways I had disappointed them.
Its been said that I have your face, and for the most part, I do. However trying to grieve the loss of you is even harder when I see you every time I look in the mirror. I’ve always said this, maybe just to myself, but I always wanted to be just like you. When I thought of what a good person was, a godly person, you were always the first to come to mind. I wanted you to be proud of me and who I was becoming. I wished I had known and been there to see the times you had to defend me against my own family and their harsh words, their unwarranted criticism, and their unwillingness to try to understand me. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so defeated and undesirable. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so unloved and mostly unloveable.
You see, I’ve been made to feel like I have not lived up to my potential. Maybe that is true, but the people telling me that I hadn’t, also never once offered to help me get to the place they felt I should be. My Granny never once made me feel that way. No matter how infrequent my calls were, no matter how many Thanksgiving Days I was absent for, she was always excited to see me. She always let me know how much she loved me. She would get up and make me breakfast. Even when I was little, no matter what she made for everyone else, she always made me a small meal that she knew I would like and eat. It didn’t bother her one bit that I was a picky eater and she always gave me a snack even if I only at 4 of the 6 green beans she gave me. My Granny was a saint. Despite the terrible ending to my parents relationship, my Granny treated my mother like her own daughter. She always answered her calls, she was always loving towards her and never said a negative word about her to me or around us, if she ever did.
My Granny was a grateful woman, a faithful woman. She was who we all should strive to be. This world seems so cold without her. I didn’t have to talk to her to know she loved me. It brings me joy to KNOW she has gone home to be with the Lord. Even more so, she is with the love of her life and reunited with her son, my uncle Ronny. It doesn’t change the fact that we weren’t quite ready for her to go and I didn’t want her to go that way. Not in a hospital, but in the home my Granddaddy built. I know she had to go, and she probably stayed longer than God or Granddaddy wanted her to, but they let her have her way for a while. I added this song because I imagine this was her feeling when she knew her time was near.
Every now and then I hear her call my name, “Debbie Sue”. A name only she could call me and get me to respond to. I find comfort in it because it means God let her take the time to visit me among all the others she needs to tend to. Thank you Lord for that.
For weeks now, I have felt this heaviness in my chest. My limbs at times are too heavy to move. Some mornings, my feet hurt when they touch the floor. I smile when I think of you, but my heart aches when I remember that you are gone. I was enough for you, even if I am never enough for anyone else on this earth. It was an honor to be one of yours. I see you everyday in the mirror, in fresh flowers, in the open and clear skies. I hear your voice in the darkness, your love, a love could only have come from God has comforted me from the day I was born, and the memory of it keeps me in your absence. You meant the world to all of us because you made it better. I miss you Granny! Can you hold her for me now?
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” -A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)
June 13th, 2019, was supposed to be a good day. Instead, I felt the weight of my anxiety and it triggered physical pain and a lost desire to move in any way. The heaviness of depression was sitting in my arms and legs and it hurt to move. I didn’t want to move.
Before I get to June 13th, I am going to start with June 10th. It was the night before I was leaving to take a day trip to reconnect with a friend. I was excited because after everything I had been through this year, I was looking forward to a day away from my regular life. I was packing and suddenly, none of my clothes fit the way they needed to. I didn’t like the way I looked in anything. I needed to dye my hair, a new pair of shoes, my car was a mess. I was about to cancel. I wanted to cancel. I just threw some stuff in a bag and went to lay down. The next day I spent about 10 hours mulling over my decision to stay or go. I decide to go, but I could feel my pressure rise, and my anxiety had triggered the twitch in my eye and that strange shooting tingle through my arms. I would spend the next 2 days with this and worse feelings. My friend is late getting in, so I had to change my plans for a few hours, but I finally get to them and I couldn’t be happier. The anxiety didn’t leave me, but I felt like being near them was a safe space. We spend the night talking and then sleeping after a long day of travel for both of us. The next morning, we both did our own thing and took care of business, that afternoon we go to a bar and have drinks. I still have this tingling feeling I get when I am anxious, but I am completely enjoying myself. Just he and I, talking and getting to know each other after 10 years. Needless to say, after the third drink, I start to feel different. Still tingly, but different. I think for a few hours, while “buzzed”, I was able to relax a bit. We meet up with his co-worker and uber to a restaurant to meet my friend and her “date”. I still feel okay, but as they ordered more drinks, I asked for water, trying to be mindful of my limits. At some point though, I was drinking again. This time because I felt like I needed to. That tingling sensation had become a crawling. My skin was crawling. I felt like my body was filling with fluid. This was a true physical sensation. Maybe I had too much tequila, maybe the last one with the salt on the rim triggered an allergic reaction (happens more than I care to talk about), maybe something I ate had way too much sodium. Either way, I physically wasn’t right. I was trying to enjoy myself, but I couldn’t help but point out that I was swollen, that I really wanted to go home, that I wasn’t really having as much fun as everyone else. I couldn’t get any one to hear me though. I wanted to go back to the hotel room and spend more time with my friend before we had to part ways the next morning, but no one could hear me.
The truth is, I felt so insecure about being there, I wasn’t the same person physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. I was terrified that this man would see me, hear my story, and run. So the entire time I had him close, I questioned whether or not I was good enough for him. Did he think I was beautiful? Did he find my friend to be more fun and attractive than me? What were his motives? Would he want to see me again after this trip? Was he listening when I told him about my mental illness and instability? Would that make him like me less?
Later on that night, we all parted ways, but he decided that he would stay at the bar we went to and not only stay, but stay to talk to another woman. I asked him twice if he would be coming, and he didn’t. So in the uber back to the hotel, I lost it. Every vengeful thing I could think of came to mind. As far as I was concerned, he answered every one of my questions, and in turn totally rejected me. Needless to say, when he finally made it back, we argued a few times. Eventually, we settled down and made a point to talk later. But shortly thereafter, every time I would send him a text, my entire body would tingle and my heart would race, and my mind would go to places I struggle with bringing it back from. I came home June 13th. It was supposed to be a good. Instead, it was the start of my latest breakdown. I didn’t sleep for nearly 36 hours, I had consumed more alcohol the night before than I had all year. My emotions were all over the place, and a co-worker had to take me outside, look me in the eye and tell me that I was in the middle of a manic episode and I needed to go home and sleep. By the time I made it there, I had cried for nearly 45 minutes straight and I had to call my company’s EAP line. I knew there was no way I could come down on my own. I believe this episode of mania lasted about a week and a half. I saw the therapist 3 times with in those 10 days. I had to finally admit to the therapist, and to myself, that I was not ok. I had to acknowledge that in that moment, I had nothing left in me to give to anyone. I was weak and felt like I wanted to die. I found myself back in that place of wanting to die. My arms were heavy, my legs ached, and my knees were weak. There was tension in my shoulders and my heart beat so fast it felt like it would explode. I won’t mention what my blood pressure was, but if I didn’t do it myself, it likely could have killed me. My heart was broken, and all the while struggling to keep me alive. But I didn’t really know if I wanted to live. I couldn’t take anything more. I was physically too weak to carry anything else.
“And none can ever deny the strangeness of the heart. As it defies all logic and laws. Feels light when it’s occupied, But gets heavy when rendered empty.”
―
June 28th, 2019, I was informed that my pap and biopsy revealed pre-cancerous cells in my cervix. After a couple more tests, the expectation is to have a procedure done to remove those cells. I couldn’t even listen to all of the risks, causes, etc because all I heard was early and cancerous. To some, its nothing big, but to me, it could go either way.
So after all that I have experienced this year, getting this news left me speechless. I found myself talking to God, better yet, I found myself throwing my hands in the air and shouting, “Really!!” I remember posting on my social media page, “Dear 2019, You win. a defeated and very tired woman.” I received a lot of encouragement from friends and associates that day, but I also got a lot of “be grateful for what you have” messages as well. To the point I blocked and haven’t spoken to some very close friends since that day, and I honestly don’t intend to.
You see getting that news caused me a great deal of worry. I couldn’t really wrap my head around what the nurse was telling me, what it all meant, and what the outcome was expected to be. As someone one who naturally and to my own detriment processes everything , I was unable to process the news. It literally didn’t compute. I felt like my brain broke as I was listening to the nurse. I was at work when I got the call, and I managed to finish the rest of my day, but when I left work it finally started to hit me. While no, I don’t have cancer, I have pre-cancerous cells, not only do I have pre-cancerous cells, my doctor has put me on antibiotics, to ensure that I don’t have any bacterial infections because that could cause complications with the procedure they want to perform so, that would prolong when they would be able to “cure” me and remove the cells. At this point, I am doing to “math” and have decided that I don’t know how long these cells have been here, and I don’t really know how long I have until they become cancerous cells. Yes, I was likely over thinking, and this could be quite common, but these cells were inside my body. I ran through all the possible scenarios including the ones that lead to me needing to get my affairs in order to make sure that my children were taken care of. I can’t help it, but this is how my mind works and its annoying as well as extremely difficult at times.
Needless to say, I reached out to a few people and let them know what was happening, and I found myself in the midst of conversations that pretty much said to me, “Even though you are going through hell right now, you should be grateful it’s not worse.” I was even told, “Maybe God is going to give you what you want and you won’t have to commit suicide.” I was met with a lot of conversation about how they were in situations similar or worse than mine. I heard all about how they were still grateful when they went through it because they knew God was going to work it out. I was told that God wasn’t giving me good things because I wasn’t grateful for my life. By the end of that day, I was angry. So very angry. A couple of days later, I had a conversation with my God-mother and told her about the last few days and how I was feeling. I told about the conversations and how frustrated I was. She laughed and said (and i am paraphrasing), that is because you’ve grown in your relationship with God enough to that it is His will and not your own. She advised me to ignore the well-intended crap that people are trying to feed me and talk to God about my anger, and even in my anger pray.
You see I know God well enough to know that no matter how much I pray the outcome is one thing, if His will goes against my own, His will wins every time. There isn’t enough gratitude on my part to change that. I went on to discuss with her that I wish we would stop selling this narrative in the church that God is this genie, or even some sort of robotic reward giver. I prayed to God for a husband, and He gave me a ministry. Stop feeding the cliché, “think positive, positive things will come” narrative to people who are in distress. It just isn’t true. Every person that ever had cancer prayed for a healing, and I know many personally that were the most positive, God-fearing, God-loving, God-serving people I know. But the cancer still killed them. Even if the cancer didn’t the treatment did. Yes God is pleased by our obedience, but His will be done. If God had answered my prayers, I wouldn’t be here sharing so much of my darkest places and moments with the world. I wouldn’t be trying to help the people I reach, I would be free of my illness, married, and a millionaire. If thoughts and prayers were all it took to change God’s plan for this world, He wouldn’t be God.
We have to stop feeding people the lies. Most of all, we have to stop telling people who are hurting and dismayed to look at how bad someone else has it as a means to feel better. You can’t in one moment tell people to stop comparing themselves to other as a means to gauge how well they are faring with the rest of their peers because its unhealthy and then in their darkest moment show them someone worse off and make them feel ungrateful. If all you have for someone when they reach out to you about being discouraged, defeated, feeling bad, negative, worried, or struggling in any way is a comparison or a cliché, hang up, stop talking, offer to pray for them, and leave them alone. You are not helping.
They don’t need your crappy advice. They need your support. Listen and don’t talk. Tell them that you are sorry they are going through it and that you are there to listen and pray with them if need be, but don’t advise them to think about someone else in a worse situation. They have, and that is likely why the situation has built up to a point they need to reach out to you. Be honored by that, and be helpful.
I blocked to close friends because of their well-intended crap. I have had enough crap this year. I’m not taking anyone else’s.
“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” ― Impressions of Theophrastus Such
“silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.” ―
I couldn’t decide on which quote to use. Realize that this was just the first half of my 2019…. I am bracing for what is next.
My 2019 body has not been good to my mind…so much so, I found myself here:
The physical setbacks I’ve had this year started to make me feel mentally weak. So I prayed for healing, and restoration. My prayer was answered with the baby. My body had reversed a condition I had dealt with for 20 years. I was some how extremely and unknowingly fertile again. I should find some peace in that. I should see the symbolism and hope in the fact that God gave me Steele, and if I am true to what faith teaches us, He gave her to me even when He knew I couldn’t have her. Despite it all, for 6 months, I put on a brave face, I masked my physical pain, I hid the pain I felt emotionally because there was no real place to put it. I work very hard to compartmentalize, and eventually even that had spilled into my personal life, and my personal life had spilled a little into my work life because each were equally pulling on me emotionally and altering my safe places. Prompting these two videos.
For a person like me, when I begin to feel unsafe mentally, I spiritually start to drown. There isn’t enough scripture in the world to comfort me. Gasp… shock… horror….How on earth could you say that? Because the devil himself knows scripture. I had plenty of people sending me scripture, quoting scripture, I was even reading it myself, but none of that scripture held me up when my knees were physically shaking and about to collapse. Scripture from a cold heart doesn’t resonate with a person like me. One of the most encouraging and uplifting messages I have received in this time of darkness was also the absolute least eloquent, “curse word” riddled, ebonics filled messages I have ever received. But it was genuine. I needed genuine. I needed love, comfort, compassion, and safety. I didn’t get that from a lot of people, but I got everything I needed from the people God needed me to connect or reconnect with. Many were uncomfortable with my cry for help, but that cry opened the door to a healing process I didn’t even know needed to begin. For 5 months and 15 days, I had convinced myself that I was okay. That I was handling it, that I didn’t look like what I was going through. I was DEAD wrong.
As much as I hated what happened to me at work, it sparked an anger within me. Anger isn’t always a bad thing. If you know how to make that anger productive. Anger typically conjures a desire to act. I was so angry about the fact that someone violated the safe spaces I had created for myself, and for all its worth the safe place that I created PAUSE; to be, that I first thought to shut it down, but now have decided that I have to try to help as many people as possible so that they never feel as violated as I did that day.
If God were the genie we all try to make Him to be when we say pray and God will grant you the desire of your heart and think positive and positive things will come, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be apart of the conversation on mental health, because I could have prayed it away all those years ago. God’s will be done… I am here because God told me to be. I am here because God kept me from the fate I had planned for myself. I am here, with all the depression and anxiety, rage and obsessive tendencies because God chose for me to be. God decided He needed me to go through 5 months and 28 days of turmoil, pain, loss, and confusion for a reason. I wish I knew specifically why it had to be the things I went through, but I know that it must have been to get me to this place. A place where I could make my space safe again. A place where I could force the safety I desired by taking control and not allowing anyone to violate that safety. God needed me to take charge of my life again and to recognize the strength He had given me since birth. Before now, I had relinquished a lot of my control, so much of my power to the will of the unknown. If you are confused by that, I didn’t give it to anyone, no person, not God, I just tossed it in the air like confetti and let it fall where it may. I told someone jokingly that I felt like Job from the bible. It was a joke at the time, but the best jokes are funny because they are true. If you know the story, Job had lost a lot… the equivalent of several billion $$ of fortune, all of his heirs, his wife hated him, and he didn’t “know” why…. by the end of it though, he took his anger and frustration to the only One who could answer his questions, change his situation, and take it from him. God.
I have spent sometime sitting in my anger with God, for sending me a child He knew I couldn’t care for, for taking my grandmother before I could make her proud of me again, for exposing the parts of my life that were killing me and causing me pain. Most of all, I had to truly accept for myself and admit that I was livid at the fact that I had to endure all of this alone. “God after all that I have been through, you could have at least sent me a man who would love me in spite of.” Yeah, I know.
So that is where I am now, I am in therapy for my earthly self, but I am also seeing God regularly to deal with our issues and mending our relationship. I am holding myself accountable for the craziness and actively working to listen to God for His side of things. I don’t always agree with His methods, but I have to trust in His outcome.
He didn’t heal me, He didn’t take the pain away, and He hasn’t granted many of my wishes, but He has kept me. He is holding onto all of the pieces waiting patiently for me to allow Him to help me put me back together.
That was just 5 months and 28 days.
