Today was 10 steps backwards. Two days ago was another 10 steps backwards.

I do want to share with you about my guilt trip experience, but that will have to wait.

It is astonishing how a certain type of stress can derail the whole operation and put you back so far. It’s the unexpected stress that put this train off her tracks this week. If I am zooming out at my life recently, it’s not really today’s event, or Monday’s event. It’s my unprocessed feelings from the weekend.

Truthfully I did a lot of avoiding on the weekend. I was wading into the water of big, unfamiliar, vintage feelings. I dipped my toe in a little bit. Three significant events, I guess you would call them, lining up one day after the next. It was a lot for me as a grown woman to experience. It makes me think about me as a 9 year old trying to deal with that. The solution back then was to push it all down and away. Rightfully so, I did not have the skills to cope with the magnitude of those feelings. It makes sense then why my brain decided to turn off my work memory.

I am just working out right now why it felt like huge strides backwards. My feelings from childhood are still coming up. I asked for help and I wasn’t given what I needed. There we go. That’s the real truth. True for back then and now. I’ve been to so many doctors I have lost count at this stage. I am a victim of the medical system here. Victim is the right choice of word here. I don’t have a family doctor yet, unfortunately. So I get the terrible job of retelling my story over and over to quite frankly deaf ears. I actively advocate for what I need and the support I need from doctors and I am met with the bandaid solution of medication. I have done enough drugs and drunk enough bandaid beers to reach my lifetime quota. I don’t want any more risk of hurting my brain more than I already have. I am not ashamed to admit that.

Before you come at me with what I should be trying or taking, if it’s medication, I ain’t interested. My body, my choice. There’s obviously way more background story that I don’t care to get into.

I did get help today from a psychiatrist which I am incredibly thankful for the help offered. They agreed to the rest that I was advocating for myself. This was such a huge relief for me. I feel optimistic and yet my body was so heavy. I feel grateful my body gave me that heaviness so easily. I have been working on that a lot. It is a reward for my hard work to receive those bodily feelings, truly.

The psychiatrist told me the last pills I was prescribed was the very last option they would ever prescribe for someone with trauma. Coz it *can* make things much worse, which it did. No wonder I am scarred from that experience.

Today wasn’t pretty for me. I had a Trauma Therapy class which I was barely present for. This is so unlike me, coz this course is changing my life and I have already done a lot of therapy. The therapy I have done so far is incredible, so that really tells you something about this house. I really value the content taught and I could not shake the email I read 30 mins prior. I couldn’t shake Monday’s energy either. I guess all the energy I avoided on the weekend was also present.

I couldn’t shake it coz I was feeling loss of control. This is a key part of my story.

The point of this post is that I stuck to my commitment of my new pastime of sauna+swim. I made a PB of 1000m. I really enjoyed the strokes, the focus of breath, the mediation, being submerged in water is heaven. I was really not channelling the energy like I wanted to though. The point was to move my body. Help shift this insane heaviness within my body. I think the real progress made for me was not complaining about needing to do it, like I usually do. No, today was intentionally knowing this was the way forward.

Them damn endorphins, eh.

The only way is through. You just have to find it.