The Start of My Healing Journey:Trigger Happy Jack

Maybe "Trigger Happy Jack" is not a song that some people would pick for a post about healing but I find it pair well. I mean, I guess, I could have picked The Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun" or that wore out, played old disco song that everyone latches onto after a bad break up. Nope. This song by Poe is the one I want to write to tonight.

Although I have made some effort in the last three years to get closure, mend the broken bits and arrange the pieces in the right order, it didn't really start to happen in any meaningful way until a few weeks ago. Counseling helped but the focus was all wrong. I am not a person who likes or even clings to labels, except maybe for mom, I pretty fond of that one but other wise I would prefer not to cling to a label or whatever, so that being said I guess I kept tightening my bootstraps and marching on.

I am okay. I am fine. There's nothing wrong with me. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I am as okay as woman living in southwestern Ohio who has a trigger of overweight, unfortunately featured blondes can be. I am sure it's perfectly normal for any sort of colored paper attached to my front door or car to incite a complete loss of all sympathetic functions. And dude, it's totally funny, it's part of my schtick that I can't remember shit from the moment I walk from one room to the next. I am okay. I am okay.

I am not okay. (Yes, I thought about MCR but it was entirely too obvious a song.)

When I read that Sparkle book, my jaw dropped for real and not in some underhanded click-bait sort of way when I read about what trauma is by definition in the mental health community. It's not just my divorce that needs triaged. What I have called life for most of the last seven years has been acute trauma wrapped in upheaval, and I am sure that it leaves you wondering how I didn't realize sooner. Shrug. I didn't. I deal with life and I keep moving forward and THAT, my friends, is a bit of a character defect. I wasn't admitting the pain so rather than healing I just got a seriously of poorly healed scabs.

I have been picking at them. A few of them need to be opened up by a professional and properly repacked but I am not there yet. I have had amazing synchronicities happen with resources coming along and that has been tremendously helpful. I am learning to look out for me in a way that I probably (honestly) never have. I have spent an inordinately dreadful amount of time operating at less than. It's time to get up to speed.

Not too quickly though because as much as I want to be on the top of my game, I am seeing the value in being still in this space and taking the time to have a proper cry (literally and figuratively).  I can appreciate the concerns that I may be isolating myself. Boundaries need to be drawn. I am in regular contact with my own personal Justice League and yes, we are considering costumes. I have skipped over proper healing at so many other points in my life that I thought that maybe it was time to make time to be fully better.

This book I am reading as part of the book launch is phenomenal and I am only 30% in to it. Thank God that the Kindle highlighter will never run dry. It's nice to have some validation that I am not losing my mind or otherwise crazy. While I am finding that I do have to digest this slowly because some sentences bring a flood of memories, I am eager to finish the book and take positive steps forward. I am praying that this book continues to be a positive and pertinent tool for my healing journey.

So, tonight I raise my glass of water and propose a toast: here's to the end of Jedi mind tricks and all the other bullshit I have let drag me down for 25 years. 25 years based on having my first date at 15. Totally sure there is older drama but Jesus, I am not going to for sainthood...just sanity.