Tag: Depression

Houston, In My Own Words, Lifestyle, On the Town

Musings in a Storm; Hurricane Beryl

RaeAnna

One Week Later…

On Sunday, July 7, 2024, I started taking pictures as the bands of Hurricane Beryl started to sweep over Houston. Alone in my house, I went to bed wondering what condition my world would be in when I woke. The power went out while I was on the phone with my fiancée (who lives in Australia) at seven in the morning on Monday, July 8, 2024. She went to bed for the night, and my weather watch began. Two hours later, I lost cell reception and internet. As an avid read, writer, picture taker with literally nothing to do, I decided to document the storm. I’ve been through my fair share of hurricanes, storms, tornados, and derechos at this point in my life. But, for the first time, I was bored during it.

I spent Sunday night and Monday taking pictures. The following pieces I wrote over three days in a notebook; then transcribed on my tablet in a note that I, later, turned into a .doc, which is now my first post in months. Each piece stands alone; though there are likely themes to be found. Some bring levity, and some are quite dark. They’re all very much me. The photos separate piece from piece. So, enjoy.

Open front door of Pearl Bar onto Washington Avenue as the bands of Hurricane Beryl begin.
Pearl Bar’s front door opens onto Washington Avenue as the bands of Hurricane Beryl begin.
  • Laying, clothed in very little, with the windows open: I’m hot. The kind of hot that feels like it’ll never get better. The kind of hot that makes air heavy in the lungs. If this isn’t nostalgic, it would be misery.
  • Laying on a sheet-covered couch—because cotton is cooler than brushed velvet—my underwear and bra stick to me. I’m glistening with sweat. I’ve read three-quarters of one of the best novels I’ve ever consumed. I realize: I’d be working if it weren’t for Hurricane Beryl shutting down the fourth largest city in the United States. A category one. No internet. No power. No communication with the outside world. It took a natural disaster for me to have my first real day off since the day after I put my dog to sleep… three months ago. There’s literally nothing to be done but pick up sticks and read. And I’m not about to go pick up sticks.
  • Laying on the couch, the only breeze I can feel is the hot breath from the dogs who love me so much they can’t find another spot to lay except my lap in all 3,000 square feet of this damn house. My day was spent reading and writing, the old-fashioned way. I love days like these. Ones where I lay by an open window, reading, drinking tea, and listening to nature. Today, doing just that, Instead of the birds, beach, breeze, city, leaves, I’d normally find lulling, I’m currently being serenaded by my much too nice neighbors’ generator. I hate them. But they’re too nice to hate, even in this heat.
A friend walking her dog as the storm started to roll in Sunday, July 7, 2024.

I have so many unanswered questions. | Does my mother believe in heaven? | What is the worst lie I’ve ever told? | Why do fascia confuse scientists so much? | Does Beau resent me for rescuing Tessa and the Puppies? | Why didn’t he protect me? | What will I regret when I lay dying? | Will she still think I’m beautiful in 50 years when she walks into our room after brushing her teeth to find me reading on the same side of the bed I’ve slept in for the majority of our lives? | Why did that question make me cry? | How did performing on stage go from being my whole life to a place I haven’t been in a decade? | Does he know he’s the villain in my story? | Why do I like Peach Rings but peaches not so much? | Do my dogs know how much I love them? | There are happy-sad people and sad-happy people and sad-sad people, but are there happy-happy people? | What’s even the point? | Why do I think I’m interesting enough to be a writer? | Can she remember the smell of the space between my shoulder blades the way I remember her? | When we leave the house, do our pets think we’re going for pupcups and dog walks and pet stores and beach adventures because that’s all they do with us? | Do they feel abandoned? | Am I capable of writing a book? | When does it get better?

Beau and Bear anxious over the thunder.

As I drive through my neighborhood, there is a ton of damage. Trees felled. Roofs in streets. Families raking yards. Neighbors calling on each other. Hands being lended. Bayous overflowing.

The general post-natural disaster mahem and comradery.

Beau’s head hangs out the passenger window. Soaking up the breeze as much as the sun. She’s always loved a car ride. I drive slowly as much out of safety as curiosity.

As we slowly creep down the street, the decimation of homes, trees, and fences allows us a public viewing into private moments. On the main road, a backyard fence lays half across the sidewalk, half across the street. A multi-generational Asian family sits around a table on their back patio. Mom, dad, and grandma stare with a mixture of defeat and exhaustion. Martini in every hand. All the while, their ten[ish?] year-old son flits around the backyard with the joy of a kid in a world devoid of technology.

Using the dictionaries I loved so much in college to look up the gender of a noun. #old #nerd

Sometimes, I feel like Pyoter, my robot vacuum—named because a) I like men who clean b) I can yell at a man when it fucks up c) I speak Russian d) it just felt right—who is currently sat, wheels run-up a dog toy, in the corner where the hearth meets the wall.

Pyotr does a great job. A real go-getter. He’s aged, but his battery isn’t suffering. With the right care, he does as well as he ever did. His years show in the collection of dust and scuffs. He’s reliable and beloved. But he’s stuck. He’s not out of battery. He’s not full either. Nor is he empty. He’s kind of in the middle phase of vaccing the floors: where enough progress has been made, it seems like things could be done. Nowhere near perfect, but definitely above the expectation people have when I tell them, “I have five dogs.” Pyotr has the capability to do a great job, not just the average state my floors exist in now.

But he’s stuck.

I’m sitting on the couch engrossed in a book about a rich, lesbian writer who’s suffering from severe depression, childhood trauma, depersonalization, derealization, some delusions, and can’t finish her novel—that’s actually a memoir—which has put her in a trust funded [see what I did there] psychiatrists’ office not to feel and do better but to write again. Same. But I’m too poor for a psychiatrist to help me finish my damn book. Also the protagonist(antagonist?) is younger and further in her book than me. Fuck her. Now, I’m realizing, I am genuinely jealous of a genuinely ill and equally fictional woman. Then, again, I’m also (mostly undiagnosed) mentally ill. I mentioned I’m too poor for a psychiatrist? yes. This tracks.

Anyway.

I promise these two are related as to why, sometimes, I feel like Pyotr.

He’s stuck.

I’m stuck.

He needs me to get up, move him, push the button so he can be unstoppable. The problem therein lies: I won’t get up.

My brain is home to: CPTSD, childhood trauma, rape, violence, audhd, stripping, and more. At 33, like my floors, I’m doing better than you’d assume. To the outside world, I’m doing great. But I have so much energy. My mind is only getting more interesting. I know there’s potential. Somewhere. What’s been done is good enough; it really is.

It’s not good enough for me.

I’m wheels up on my own metaphorical dog toy. Therefore, I have no—completely devoid of metaphor here—no ability to stand up and press Pyotr’s button so he can go do great things for my mental health through dog glitter confiscation.

Which is a symptom of my own being stuck.

I need a me to come in and unstick me, so I can unstick Pyotr. So, he can finish the floors. So, I can finish my bestselling book. So, I can afford my wife’s dream job of being a rockstar. Then, I’ll be unstoppable. And maybe, but probably not, have a little more money. (I plan on my wife’s first tour eating up the $37 advance I get from that “bestseller.”)

But, I’m going to go back to reading.

MOM! It’s wet!

I know I dated men for so, so, so many reasons. It’s something I’ve written about loads. Thought about far more. Why did I spend a whole lot of years dating a gender I have literally zero attraction to? There’s a bit to it I hate and don’t admit to often. But it’s also true and part of it.

Dating men is inherently traumatic. (For all women, yes. They are our natural predators. I’d choose the bear, but no one is asking me.) But for me. As a gay woman with years of sexual Trauma with a capital t. Sex, every single consensual time, was traumatic. Some more. Some less. I was walking a tightrope above a flowing lava river of memories I am deeply afraid of and equally curious about. I have an entire lived-life that I don’t really remember so well. It’s there. But not. I know I can. But do I want to?

With the right circumstances, those memories come back. Do I want them? Nope. Do I need them? Healing is a long, painful journey. I quickly realized… The easiest way to remember the memories living in my body and not so much my mind was sex with men. With the force of a freight train going down a hill with no brakes or conductor, every new rememberance would chug right over my mental health. 

To be clear, this was all done consensually and unconsciously. It took me a long time to figure out what I was doing. Eventually, sex with men didn’t bring back memories. I think I’d collected all the Trauma I could the old fashioned way. 

I took all the puzzle pieces and put them together. My puzzle was definitely found at a rummage sale because pieces are missing. I have enough of them to have a really clear understanding of who I am and where I come from. Then I took the time to heal. Like really heal. I’m not healed. Clearly. But I’m better.

Then I came out. Not because I hadn’t known I was gay before. But I needed to reTraumatize myself over and over and over again to uncover the hardest truths I needed to know so I could get to a place where I wasn’t so actively trying to die.

Too many years into an already full life. I’m out, I’m proud, I’m a functional calamity. At 33, I’m really fucking happily engaged to the most incredible woman. And I think… deep down, I might actively want to live.

The anxious ones were kept in their safe spaces.

With generators and chainsaws and bugs and children and dogs and sirens and storms, the world has never seemed louder. More intrusive. More in my space. 

So, I put in earplugs to drown out the noise. I try to find sleep laying on the couch with all the windows open in a breezeless night in July. There’s still a ringing. A haunting that won’t go away. It’s louder in my brain than any of the aforementioned noises could ever be loud in real life.

I wish this were just tinnitus. But no. 

Not new, but particularly jarring tonight. As a little girl, I used to think of it as an alarm sounding. That voice my mom told me about. It told me when I was doing something wrong. When I was being bad. It didn’t take me long to learn: that alarm never relented.

So, it didn’t take long to know: I was just bad. Most of the time, I still believe it. That I deserved it all. Every malintent, violence, shame. 

But some days, more than there used to be, I think: maybe it’s all the alarms I didn’t listen to, warning me of all the people I believed.

Sometimes, it hurts being alone in my own head.

So, I take the earplugs out. Letting the sound of crickets and generators drown out the alarms I didn’t know how to listen to.

A lot of sniffing and following me around the house.

Stuck in a house with no electricity, no air conditioning, no reception, no internet, and no help at the height of southern Texas summer is a lot like camping. Except terrible. 

If I tell you it was a first. I’m probably lying to you. 

When I think about the unedited version of my whole life. The one common thread has been lying. Changing the narrative of my history. Sometimes, as it’s happening.

I tell firsts as if they’re not really seconds or thirds of fiftieths because they are more palatable. Cleaner. Easy. 

Because, the thing is, the first time… well, that’s the first time I’ll write about. 

But 

To friends who know me, there’s the first time I talk about like it was a passing thing because looking at the threads that wove my Trauma, it hardly even feels like it matters. 

Then 

There’s the first time that felt like the first time. Only three people have seen that pain. 

However

There’s the first time that was the real first time. I’ve never spoken it out loud. To even think of it pulls all the air that ever was from my lungs. Even writing—admitting to it here—scares me so much. I want to run. I want to hide. There is pain I so instinctively don’t want to be true that if I never speak it, never share it, maybe it’s not. But lately, in traffic, on walks, alone, in the moments where my mind wanders… I keep being led there. I’ve had to stop writing three times so my eyes could see the spelling errors I’ll edit out through tears sometime between me writing and you reading this. If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t edit this one out. This is hard. This is brave. This feels like dying.

Telling firsts which weren’t actually firsts, I’m lying to you. I’m not lying to myself. I was there. I know the truth. I always have. I just wish I didn’t. So I tell the firsts I’m comfortable with. Because I’m better. But I’m not fucking healed.

A lot of naps.

My love for you is a very well tended garden.

It’s an allegory I like because I like gardens. Not a perfect one since I don’t like gardening. In this figurative garden, I have no problems being a figurative gardener. Although, my darling dearest, the literal garden is your literal responsibility. 

When a garden is planted, watered, tended, weeded, watered, tended, weeded, planted, so on and so forth, it will grow and thrive. New things will come. Some things will wither. Sometimes, it doesn’t *seem* to be doing so well because of winter or drought or too much rain or not enough sun, but a very well tended garden always survives, coming back stronger and more beautiful each time because the soil keeps getting richer. It is always growing and changing because it was never not well tended.

My love for you is that. A bit simplistic, but you get the idea. 

An Observer

Ludicrous! Not the rapper. The idea!!!!

The idea! at one point in time… a very, much too long point in time in my life, I thought it was important to carry a small suitcase on my shoulder everywhere I went.

They’re known as purses.

Highly helpful for the ladyfolk in a world where the ladyfolk are legally not allowed functional pockets [if pockets at all—depending on your state and county legislation]. Not really, but that’s how it feels shopping.

Anyway. I carried a large purse because I deemed it necessary to carry every single item anyone could need in events ranging from a wedding to a natural disaster. True fact. The pouch-thing I carried inside my purse was so well stocked with all sorts of odds and ends, it really did come in handy at both weddings (two friends) and a natural disaster (hurricane Florence). It was hefty! Lifting the damn thing, which sits utterly-and-quite-suddenly-forsaken, dusty, and on the top shelf in my entryway, put down never to be picked up again until… now, when it feels like something between training for an Iron Man and giving up completely.

I had purses—yes plural—big enough to carry the well-stocked pouch-thing, wallet, phone, a tiny tripod, book, pen, tablet, all my friends’ things, and a brush every single time I left the house.

It is baffling to me.

I don’t even brush my hair anymore. 

I was very lucky.

I don’t like my body.

I don’t think I see what other people see.

All I see is endurance. Not the long-distance running kind. The servived kind.

I look at my body and see every flaw. Every dimple. Every stretch mark. Every varicose vein. Every lump. Every wrinkle. Every sag. Every scar. I’m vain. Sure. But…

I see pain. I see a body I didn’t think belonged to me, had control over, a right to. I see a body that I think of as not me. What happens and happened to this body… that’s not me. It’s just a body. Because if they did that to my body and I am my body, they did that to me. And they knew me. And they still did it. Then looked me in the eye and called it love.

I don’t want to look at my body and see that.

I don’t.

But, I take beautiful pictures of my body in beautiful places. They call the place beautiful. They call the body beautiful. But I just want to keep a record. I want proof. I want to know that I was there. I did it. This body did enough to get to those places.

But also…

I hope one day I look back on all the pictures I’ve taken in beautiful clothes in beautiful places with beautiful people and think, maybe, ‘I was beautiful once.’ I guess, that’s how I’ve always—well, not always—known to not give up yet. That’s hope, an emotion I’m rarely accused of. I haven’t lost it. So, maybe, one day, I will look back at all the art I made with eyes that somehow found enough self-love (it hurt me far more to write than for you to read) to think: ‘As much as I hated it every singe time, I deserved to be called beautiful.’

But I guess that’s healing from being treated like an ugly thing for so very long.

The water was high.

Life is an exhausting to do list. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Anxiety Is A Fickle Bitch

RaeAnna

Anxiety is a fickle bitch. 

But so am I. 

Anxious has pretty much been the main component of my internal personality since the moment my mother decided she wanted to be a mom, making my existence an inevitability within the reality I occupy. Though, it took me 29 years to be able to admit and name it.

Posting pictures like this is a vulnerability and therefore anxiety in and of itself.

I kind of had this belief everyone lived in a perpetual state of trepidation that something horrific would happen for the simple act of daring to breathe when they don’t deserve that air let alone a roof let alone *gasp* joy. Mmmm… apparently, a healthy percentage of the population doesn’t wake up thinking, ‘huh, again?’ Wild. Mentally stable people are real and live among us. I’ve even met one or two. 

I, as a human, am not completely devoid of intelligence—though, there is loads of proof to the contrary. I’m also incredibly rational. Anxiety could not possibly compete with my capabilities for logic and analysis. Jk lol smiley face. My anxiety also possesses a finesse for semantics and strong predilection for emotional manipulation. 

Even as I write this, I keep thinking, “Is this too dark? Will anyone read this? Am I being relatable or psycho? Am I funny? Is this even well written? Do I need to quit my job and live in a tent beneath an overpass?” The reality is. I’m not writing this for you. I’m not writing this for her. I’m not writing this for them. I’m not writing this for anyone. I’m writing this for me. For whatever fucking reason, some people read this and send messages saying pretty words just frequently enough for me to know putting my inside thoughts not just outside but on the internet—of all places—is doing some good. I’ve turned my deepest shames and anxieties and fears and guilts and traumas into a little, tiny career for myself. 

Some days, it feels like writing and publishing helps. A lot of days, it feels like it’s a facade of a sacred act to waterboard myself with all the pain I’m already drowning in. Why the fuck do I keep doing this to myself? Is it fucking worth it? Is feeling like this helpful to me, myself, and I? Am I better off because I look my most painful moments in the eye every goddamn day? 

Anxiety says: no. You just like the attention.  

Logic says: Yeah… super fun being known as the girl who got raped over and over and over again. I know how many hugs I’ve given. I know how many tear stained shirts I’ve washed. I know how many stories I’ve been the first person in the world to hear from someone who had felt as alone as I did so many years ago. I know I’m not alone anymore. I know the joy of celebrating justice for another. I know the joy of holding space for people to break and put themselves back together again. I know that I am living a life I could not have dreamed to hope I would live to see. I know if I hadn’t spent the last thirteen years writing, I would not be okay enough to be where I’m at, let alone really chasing the joy I’m chasing. 

Which is exactly why I post them. Exposure therapy.

My best friend is also a frenetic ball of anxiety. One day, we were going back and forth with the things creating anxiety in our souls. I typed, “My brain…” and autocorrect changed it to, “My Brian…” Honestly, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that myself. Personifying and gendering objects and feelings male with basic bitch names has been something I do for a long time. It’s really easy to tell a frustrating appliance or ill-founded anxiety/depression to fuck right off. Pyoter, the Rumba, is yelled at quite often around the house. Being the raging lesbian woman I am… women are rational, while men are testosterone, I mean, aggression. So, I followed the autocorrect miss-send with a “From now on our anxiety brains are Brian.” Oh boy, we talk shit about Brian. 

Dealing with anxiety has gotten easier. Not really because life has gotten easier or the anxiety has lessened. At 32, I know, I’m going to be okay. Because I am going to be okay. I’ve been through quite a lot. It hasn’t always been good, but I’ve gotten through. I’m not great, but I’m doing okay. I’m in a really good place. I have people who love me and I love in return. Not a single person in my life gives me a single brick of foundation for anxiety. I just got back from Australia and Cambodia, and I’m heading down under again a lot sooner than expected. My bills are paid. I have food in my fridge. My dogs are safe and happy and healthy. My credit score went up last month. I haven’t had a serious suicidal ideation in over a year. I’ve made some really amazing new friends in the last year, nine months, even three months. Every day, I have some real, tangible joy. So, when the anxieties about life, love, people, money, travel, health pop up, I have a lot of anecdotal analysis to prove: It is getting better, and I might actually like this life. Maybe, one day, I’ll even deserve it. 

So, Fuck Brian. That dude sucks. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Did Breaking My Hand Break My Spirit

RaeAnna

            The last three months have been a special kind of hell. A hell, I hope to never repeat again in the entirety of my life.

This bathroom was a place I could go to break alone a little bit at a time every day.

            On August 15, my best friend, roommate, and puppy co-pawrent had a hip replacement because the military was hard on his body. After eight months of working with the VA and repeated fuck ups on their part—I have opinions on how we treat vets—he finally had the surgery. I cleared out two months of my schedule to be there through it all. Fuck were there some bad days and scares, but he is getting back to normal, and I’m finally catching up on all the sleep I lost.
            Was a hip replacement the reason the last three months have been hard? No. Was it a contributing factor? Yes.
            I’m going to ignore deaths, family emergencies, near death of a beloved dog, work, wonky relationships, difficult travels, and all those things—which are definite contributors because they made everything harder—but that’s life. I could have dealt with them all much better if I’d had my fucking hand. We’re going to go on a teensy tangent to set the stage, though. So, bear with me.
            I am a writer. Shocking. I don’t actually enjoy anything about the writing process until it’s done. But akin to breathing, I must write, or I’ll die. I found out I won’t die, but I must write. It’s how I process stress, life, challenges, love, and everything in between. I carry pen and paper with me everywhere in case an idea or feeling needs to be written down. There is something about the act of writing that helps release whatever it is from my body. I prefer handwriting those things. When that’s not feasible, I write emails on my phone or computer. Voice memos are not the same. I need the physical act of writing.
            I have always been active. Looking back, training to be a professional ballerina and cheerleading got me through growing up. I was extremely active in college and never stopped. In the last year, I have really started being active for old-RaeAnna’s mental acuity and current-RaeAnna’s mental state. But when my stress levels rise, so does the exercise. (Ha that rhymed.) I had a really stressful spring, and I dove into all the exercise I could take. I got happy. I got fit. I started running races during Pride Month. I was finally in a place where I felt happy in my body for the first time since I was at the height of my ballet abilities… only fourteen years ago. It’s fine. Also, I tend to swell a lot when I work out. (This will be important later.) (Done with the 239 word tangent now.)
            I cope with stress by writing and exercising—or going to my friend’s house to play piano, but that requires more effort and two functional hands.
            At the end of August, I broke my right hand. Breaking either hand would be unpleasant but breaking my dominant hand… heinous. It was the bone inside my hand of my pointer finger and some fun things with my knuckles. Do you know how much you use your dominant pointer finger? A whole shit ton. Just typing this, I’m using it constantly. Not to mention literally living. It is also the hand I have nerve damage in, so that’s fun. All the fun. Hands are important. Don’t be a dumbass, RaeAnna
            Not only am I writer, I’m a lesbian. If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you, but oh the jokes.
            The how isn’t even an interesting story. But I ended up with some deep cuts that had to heal before I could have a cast. I spent three weeks braced, changing the bandage every couple days. It was awful. I was in shit tons of pain and had nothing to really protect it from… falling, the six dogs, sleeping, existing. I couldn’t even drive because my car’s a goddamn stick shift. Those first three weeks, I was still very much alone in taking care of my six pack [of dogs] and Dylan and the house and everything in between. I ended up not taking on any work at all for a month and a half because I physically couldn’t. Dylan and I were trapped in the house together and pretty much went on a three week long binge of all our favorite shows and hoped we wouldn’t hate each other. Then again, we survived the pandemic, but we were mobile then. As a Type A doer and goer, not being able to do anything really took a fucking toll.
            The amount of stress I was under to keep the immediate beings in my life together and fed—the bare minimum—with a broken dominant hand was awful. But then there were so many things happening with my friends and family that were stressful in their own right, and I could do nothing.
            Hell.
            I was trapped in my own personal hell.
            I could not do anything to help the people I love. I could hardly do what I needed to get by. Washing my own hair? Really hard. Shaving? Not happening. Cooking? How about DoorDash. Work? I’m out of the office. Could I type? Kinda, very slowly, very painfully. It was easier to all but stop working, which is hard because I love my job. I love working. It’s fun for me and keeps my brain busy. It also helps relieve stress because then I’m doing something!
            Being in a brace: not great.
            Being in a cast: much worse.
            Being in a brace, I could at least go for walks because I could adjust the bandage when I swelled. I’m too much of a fall risk to go running with a broken hand. I don’t know many limits, but I recognize that one. I could take it off to wash my hand. There was more movement, which is exactly the opposite of what I needed. But being able to let my hand out for a couple minutes every day helped with the anxiety and panic of being restricted, confined, limited.
            Being in a cast, I could not go for walks anymore. First of all, the idea of working out and sweating in the cast I’d be living in for over a month. No thank you. I had a brother who had a habit of breaking bones as a kid, so I knew the funk. Avoided that with everything I had. The bigger issue… I live in Houston. Though your Instagram is full of fall vibes, it’s still in the humid 90s here. Under cool weather circumstances, I swell when exercising. In hot weather, I really swell. Swelling in a cast is really fucking painful.

Showers have always been the space I can cry, but showering with a cast on… don’t do it. Unless you’re having it taken off immediately after a shower photoshoot.

            Once the cast went on, I was immediately filled with panic and anxiety.
            My life has been tough, even during the good parts. Trauma, rape, abuse, neglect, and just about everything in between has been a part of my story at one point in time or another. Even during the good periods, I still get triggered. So I write about it, and I’m okay. I have worked my ass off to heal. I have made a career out of sharing my stories. So when times are tough, I turn to writing and working out more. Because I know what I need, I know how to cope and manage, I know how to be a good human to myself so I can be a good human to everyone.
            Even when I had no control over my life, I have had control over my body. Outside of lifting really heavy things and extreme sports, there isn’t much I can’t or haven’t been able to do. I’m in my 30s and have never not been able to do the splits. I’ve always been able to count on my body to do what I need it to do without many limitations. (I have torn my ACL, broken toes, pulled/torn muscles and ligaments, popped things in and out of their sockets, but the ballerina in me knows how to push through with that super-duper healthy mentality.) Losing my fucking right hand…. It took away the two things I have always been able to do to cope with stress: move and write.
            I didn’t lose my hand’s functionality during a good period. I lost my hand and ability to cope with stress during one of the most stressful periods I’ve been dealt in about a decade. I was trapped in my head and in my house, which historically have not been safe places for me to be trapped.
            The following story should not be replicated, but I’m a grown up and I can make my own bad decisions and then be open about it on the internet where even my closest friends will be finding out about it. Cause you can’t be mad at me now…. Love you, I’m fine, k, thanks, bye. Anyways.
            The first night I had the cast on, to put it kindly, I lost my shit. It was tight. “That’s normal,” they say. I couldn’t hold a fork. I couldn’t do anything but barely wiggle my fingers. The difference between brace and cast was huge—mentally even bigger. I started having an anxiety attack that evening, which rolled into a panic attack, which rolled into an anxiety attack, and so the cycle went until about seven in the morning. When I grabbed a pair of scissors.
            Why did I do this? Well, a good portion of this was because I had never felt so limited. I needed my freedom. Immediately. It unlocked a few memories from childhood. And when I say unlocked, I knew they were there and had talked about them with two of my best friends, they know and that’s it. I don’t think I had realized the extent of how fucking abusive those stories were until I was trapped in that cast that night. What happened was not normal parenting. And the fact is, I’m not going to write about a lot of those things publicly until my parents are dead. I will let them live with their dignity. But it made the panic and anxiety attacks worse because PTSD loves to show up to the party at the worst time with a flash mob. The other reason: it wasn’t just in my head. I couldn’t feel my hand; my fingers were turning blue. All rationality had left my brain hours ago. So, I grabbed the scissors. I hacked it off. By the end, my left hand looked like I’d gone up against Muhammad Ali and won (duh). Fiberglass is a bitch, I have lesbian nails, so there was a lot of tearing and hacking and angry crying as I stabbed at this thing that felt like it was taking my life away. It was desperate and not cute and alone on the couch in the living room. Even the dogs were put away. I was raw and breaking. Being around anyone, even the dogs, would have broke me wide open. I knew, from experience, if I caved into that depth of pain, I wasn’t in a place where I would be able to pick myself up again for a good long time. And I didn’t have the luxury to break; everything and everyone was depending on me to keep going.
            The moment the cast came off, I started regaining feeling in my hand. It was an immediate ‘I’m okay.’ It wasn’t a problem anymore. The anxiety and panic disappeared immediately. Braced my hand. Took a nap. Eventually, I talked myself into allowing another cast because I might not be great at taking care of myself, I do know the importance of saving my hand. It was a looser cast that didn’t go as far up my forearm. It was still really hard, but it was easier to manage. Mentally and physically.
            When I broke my hand and saw the next two to three months ahead, I thought I knew what it would be like. I was a dancer who’d been through many restrictive and even debilitating injuries to my feet, knees, hips, elbow. So, losing the ability to move, exercise, exist in my body fully wasn’t new. I thought I knew what it was like to have something I loved and need taken away from me. But I’ve always had writing, since I picked up a pen at two years old. I had no idea what it was like to not be able to write. Even this piece, something that once would have taken me an hour or two to write, is taking me three days because my hand gets tired.
            The only positive the cast gave me that I didn’t have in the brace: driving my car. The cast was sturdy enough I could shift without pain. I could see my friends. Do some things. It didn’t solve my problem, but it did help just enough to keep me sane.
            My friends showed up. As much as I let them. My best friends, Kelsey and Alex, found out two days later. The rest of my best friends found out a week later. Everyone else was kept in the dark until I posted on social media a month after the cast had been on. In times of crisis, I tend to retreat inward. I’m private and introverted, though social media and my writing tells a different story; you’re only getting what I want you to know. This is open and vulnerable but still curated. Even those closest to me, I struggle with vulnerability. At best, I think I’m forgettable, that my life and problems are a burden or uninteresting, so I tend to under share when there’s a lack of direct questions. Everyone was so gracious and offered to help in any and every way. They gave me understanding and told me they couldn’t even begin to get what I was going through as a writer. Lesbian jokes were made to lighten the mood. Even new friends had an expression of knowing this was hard for me in a way it wouldn’t be for most people since writing is more than just my job.
            I started having panic attacks every day on my bathroom floor. No one knew. Dylan only found out when he surprised me by climbing the stairs for the first time after surgery and to find me in the bathroom. In that moment, he knew how much I’d been holding it together for him and the dogs, while I was crumbling. He knows what it takes for me to get to that point. I was alone while being surrounded by people who, as much as they could and wanted to help, couldn’t give me what I needed.

I haven’t been so raw and broken in well over a decade. I’ve also learned those periods leave me ready to grow. God I hope I get to grow from this.

            My junior year of high school, I started getting a stress rash. It was horrible. Junior year, in a generation and a school dedicated to creating resumes for the Ivy’s, was hard. Overscheduled, overworked, we were a class of high functioning, sleep deprived young adults. Alone, it could have triggered a stress rash, but I had the fun sprinkles and cherry on top of that overwhelming sundae, consisting of getting raped on the daily, a highly abusive mother, a younger brother I tried to protect, and working 20 to 30 hours a week. That stress rash would come and go until I left everyone and everything behind to go to college and start over. It hasn’t had much of a resurgence since then. But oh fuck did it come back a few days after the cast. I was in agony and started doing what I did in high school even though it was in the humid 90s: wearing bulky sweaters and layers to keep me from scratching my fucking skin off. Things I didn’t know in high school that I know now that help get rid of the rash but have also kept it away for well over a decade:
            1)     Benadryl, if it doesn’t help the itching, it will put me to sleep until the itching goes away. I also had the time to sleep, which I did not in high school.
            2)     It hasn’t been around much because I can write now. I live in a home where my words are my own until I decide to share them. I was never able to write anything real in high school or before because my mother would find it and make me pay.
            3)     This pain and restriction, it wasn’t forever. Though it felt like it.  
            I made it a month in the cast. That was long enough. Should it have stayed on longer? Yes. Could I take it any longer? No. It was healed enough the cast could come off. Recovery could begin. Life and work could slowly start to resume.
            I am usually very realistic to a fault. I was not. I was delusional to a fault. I thought, once the cast came off, everything would be back to normal. Hahaha, wrong. So wrong. I lost so much strength. It’s still incredibly delicate and painful. The skin where the cuts were is still fresh and sensitive. It’s ridiculous, and I hate it. I don’t like feeling weak or incapable.
            Instead of dwelling on what I can’t do: writing as much as I used to, opening things, yoga, handstands, cracking my knuckles, dexterity, handwriting, etc. I’m concentrating on the fact, I can write and I can move again.
            I’m doing what I need to be okay mentally while still being kind to my hand as it is. I wear a compression glove a lot to help support it. When I’m not actively using my hand, I wear a stiffer brace to let it relax safely. I’ve started focusing my energy on getting back into working again and moving my body. I can’t yet do the things I really loved doing before, like yoga or trail running (I fall sometimes. I’m clumsy, okay). But I’m trying new things. I’ve taken up racquet sports to build my hand strength. I’ve started lifting because I’ve been meaning to and now it’s one of the things I can mostly do. I’ve gotten into swimming again for the first time in two decades. No playing mermaids here, I’m doing laps.
            The road to getting my hand back to what it was will take a while. There’s also a chance there will be a new normal. Either way, I’m okay. And looking back over the last three months, it was hell. I was not okay. I’m leaving out so much shit that I went through because it’s none of your business, and I’m also not writing a book here. But it’s also the first time my life has been that horrible and I haven’t woken up in the morning thinking “God-fucking-damnit.” Life was bad, but I didn’t want to die. And for me, the life I’ve lived, that is huge. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I’ve Lost My Christmas Spirit

RaeAnna

I love Christmas. It is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday because it is a season. Yes I am usually that human who starts playing Christmas music around midnight on November 1st. I could give Buddy the Elf a run for his Christmas cheer, and our likeness this time of year has been referenced more than a few times. 

I really did dress up just for this picture. I was not feeling it at all… and actually cried a fair bit of today.

Normally I bake like I’m Mrs. Claus trying to take on world hunger. I fill my Instagram feed with all the Christmassy things I’m dragging everyone in my circle to do. I dress in ridiculously over the top red and green ensembles for a month straight. I read and review all the latest Christmas rom-coms. All the new and cringey Hallmark movies are watched, along with Netflix and Hulu. I am not normally the gooey romantic type, but at Christmas I become a trope steeped in tradition and sentimentality. 

Today is Christmas Day, and I’m sitting in a Starbucks watching the sun rise writing this. Christmas has always been that one time of year that I could not be stopped… But over the last few years, I have been not so slowly losing my Christmas spirit. To the point that this year the only reason I even have a tree in the house is because of my pawtner. I don’t think I would have bothered to get one. The reason my office tree is set up is because he brought it into the house and stuck it in my way until I decorated it. Very few Christmas cookies were baked. I have watched all of five Christmas movies, zero Hallmark, and only because of other people. I have taken a total of none Christmassy pictures. I’ve posted zero Christmas book reviews. I didn’t even do anything for Christmas Eve yesterday. My person is in town, who I have spent eleven years of my life with, and all we did was lay on the couch and watch movies and order Chinese. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?!?

Depression. Anxiety. PTSD.

I hate using these things as crutches or excuses, but I’m finally to a point where I can/have to admit: They have been seriously affecting my life. I have been in survival mode for so fucking long. Doing what I can to get by and make everyone around me feel better. Things had to go. Pieces of my soul, life, person, career, heart have been left behind bit by bit.. So much in my life has been sacrificed to maintain the status quo, to make it through, to keep existing. The struggle to not give in to the parts of me that just wants to call it quits. I have too many dogs who depend on me for that bullshit. Although, it’s not just depression, anxiety, and PTSD, there are outside factors that have been exacerbating and contributing to my current less than optimal mental status. I spent 2020 being a mess at the heart of puppy chaos. 2021 has been spent figuring out what needs to go, what needs to change, and what I want. 2022 will be the year I get the hell out of this dark pit I’ve called home for about 30 and a half years. I think I know who I am again… for once. If I don’t, I’m at least heading in a direction I don’t gutterally hate. 

It’s Christmas. People always use the New Year or birthdays as a starting over point, but Christmas has always been my time to shine. It’s always been a starting and end point. The place where the year ends and I can begin looking forward to next year. I doubt this will make sense to anyone, but it’s what works for me. I’m using today as my reset button. Things have to change. I need to get back to me. I want to love Christmas again. Next year, I will. 

I let Christmas go this year; it’s what I needed to do. I took it easy and posted nothing. I celebrated a little with the people I care about most. Today, the day of, will be a good day. It’s a simple day. I get to spend it with the people I want to, and those who I don’t get to see, I’ll call. I’ll cook, watch movies, drink hot cocoa, and go see Christmas lights. I’m healthy. The dogs are fed and happy. I have a home. I’m not where I want to be, but I think I’m on my way. I’m starting to do things for me again… for the first time? I’m tired, but I am looking forward to what the next year will bring. I’m going to put my head down and work, work, work to get to where I need to be for myself, for my dogs, for those I love. 

It may not feel like Christmas for me now, but a lot can change in 365 days.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Have Been Self Censoring

RaeAnna

Right after college, I started writing a lot about my experiences as a rape survivor. After a while, I started being inundated with messages from people—strangers, friends, and family alike—asking questions or just letting me know how much my stories helped them through their own recovery. Once I was able to accept I had been in a sexually, domestically, psychologically, and financially abusive relationship, I started talking. I did a whole lot of reading, researching, and listening too. But I started talking. I talked to friends, I talked to strangers who had their own stories, I got up and spoke in front of groups, I lectured at a university, I performed slam poetry, and I wrote. It was a part of me, and a part I was not going to hide. 

Except I have been doing just that. Hiding. Not necessarily on purpose. It’s been pretty inadvertent. A byproduct of my life, relationships, working, and the world at large. I’ve had a hard time writing. I can blame a lot of it on the pandemic, a lack of motivation, wanting a break from reliving those painful memories, and/or a surge in depression and anxiety. Although, that would only be a half truth. 

Living is choosing pain.

I have been censoring myself. 

Censorship is something I really do not like, but that opinion is a completely different piece. Yet, I have been taking part in censorship, and, in my opinion, the very worst form of censorship: self-censorship. Over the course of my blogging/content creating/writing journey, I have written and posted about depression, anxiety, being a rape servivor, PTSD, mental health, and all that jazz. Except, I’ve written and posted about the sunny side of those stories. There’s a way to write about trauma and pain with a sense of humor, a brief overview, a silver lining to make it palatable. A piece that makes people go, that’s a bummer and continue on their days without being weighed down by the story they’ve just read.  

For the longest time, it remained a mystery. Why couldn’t I write? Why couldn’t I post anything I did write? Because I love the fact that my darkest pain can be a light for other survivors. To share the burden, help others heal, create a community, be seen was so meaningful.  

The answer was simple: I didn’t want to hurt anyone. 

I have always been bad at opening myself up to people. Showing emotions and vulnerability is not a strength. If anything, I’m realizing at 30, the people I thought knew me best really don’t know me well at all. It’s not their fault. Not even remotely. I am so private about everything, that I don’t let those closest see me. They have proven they care over and over again, but being open does not come naturally. Instead, I allow myself to exist in their lives as a fairly emotionally one-dimensional human. I’ve been censoring my existence to everyone my entire life. Censoring comes easy. It’s easier than being raw and open. It’s hard letting the entire world really see you. Especially when most of what there is to see is pain.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Friedrich Nietzsche

I don’t shy away from hard work, and I have always found it much easier to write than speak (my friends are used to getting letters expressing my emotions when I’m feeling anything other than Happy), so that’s really not the reason I have been silent on the topics that mean the most to me for the last five years. 

Pain. My reality, my truth causes other people pain. Pain, not discomfort at the violent and abusive behavior they’re being brought into. My pain causes others pain because the experiences that I was forced to endure challenges their perception of me, themselves, and life. I deny my experiences to maintain peace, which denies a huge part of who I am, which only causes me more pain. I was taught to tip-toe and hush-hush, make myself small, and never hurt anyone’s feelings or create waves even if that means not speaking the truth or denying the truth completely. So I have been protecting feelings. Other people’s feelings. Feelings belonging to people who wouldn’t give a second thought to what it’s like to be in me.

I live a non-traditional life. I like it this way. It makes me happier. I watch people struggle to fit into a box that society has made for them. They find happiness or contentment. Sometimes they don’t. But I’m not convinced they’re all soaking up all the happiness and joy the world has to offer. I’m not happy when I’m conforming or doing what is expected of me. Though I’m good at it, I’m miserable chasing the traditional ideals. Those who have chosen to be in my non-traditional life support and love me no matter what. I don’t talk about so much of it anymore because it makes things difficult for some. I don’t even think about it anymore because I’ve spent so much time overthinking how a post or picture will upset the status quo.    

People take my silence as shame or guilt. I’ve made some really hard choices. I’ve made out of the box choices. I’ve made dangerous choices. I’ve made stupid choices. I’ve made choices for love. I’ve made choices for money. I’ve made choices out of necessity. I’ve made choices with great repercussions. I’ve made choices of all kinds. I’ve mostly made them alone. I have been very alone yet surrounded by people my entire life. As an adult, I’m more comfortable alone than in partnership because I will be solely responsible for my choices no matter the outcome. The one thing I am not is guilty or ashamed. I am not ashamed of the life I live or the person I have become or the person I was or the things I did. In fact, I’m pretty fucking proud of every choice I made because so often I made desperate choices when there were very few options and none of them were good. But I have not lived with that pride because it causes pain.

At 30 with a lot of very serious health problems, I am goddamn tired. I am tired of always censoring what I say because it hurts people. I am tired of having to not talk about huge swaths of my life because it hurts people. I’m tired of not being able to be me all the time because it hurts people. I’m not going to continue to be small because it makes other people’s lives uncomfortable. 

I’m not censoring myself anymore. It’s all going to be out there. Because I’m not being real. I’m not being authentic. I’m not doing everything I can to make the world a better place. 

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

In Seven Days, I Turn 30 Years Old

RaeAnna

This past year has been quite the year. So long!

I turned twenty-nine. 

I rescued a dog, who had thirteen puppies. 

I raised those puppies and that dog in the midst of a global pandemic while depending on the kindness of family and friends as we bought a house as we dealt with rare puppy disorders as we coped with Dylan losing his job as my work slowed down to a near halt as we criss-crossed the country. 

Me living my life.

For the first three months of the pandemic, I was stuck inside with fifteen dogs, of which thirteen were completely dependent upon their mama and me. I was run ragged to the point of complete exhaustion. My body was even starting to give out under the physical strain of toting around thirteen large puppies. 

As a constant struggler of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in a perpetual nihilistic crisis, it was not an ideal time to be trapped inside with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company. 

Now, I work from home under normal circumstances, so I am very used to my own company. I used to joke about never leaving the house, but that’s not nearly true. I was always on the go. Having lunch with friends, traveling, going to dog parks, attending events, exploring fun Houston things, creating content, and so much more. My calendar and life were filled with talented people who inspire me. 

Everything changed. The puppies gave me a brief respite. They’ve helped alleviate the catastrophic train wreck that would have been my mental health with their pure existence in my life. But during the pandemic, I’ve felt like I’m watching my impending quarter-life crisis trundling right at me for all of the reasons: imagined and real. 

I turn thirty in one week. I am not one of those women who are scared of turning thirty. In fact, I quite embrace it. The vast majority of me is so ready to be out of my twenties. Those really sucked a big D. I’ve gone so far as to preemptively tell people I’m thirty for the last few months because why the fuck not. At the same time, thirty does come with its fair share of burdens.

As a woman, this is an age where culture, society, the media are persistently confronting me with an alarm clock ticking down the time left on my worth to and in this world. 

I feel like time is running out. I’m almost thirty. Society is a barrage that, as a woman, life ends at thirty. I know it doesn’t. So far all the women I know over thirty have not ceased to exist when their 10,957 day arrived. But, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t help internalizing all the cues telling me life as I know it is over for me and, in a week, I’ll be shipped off to the glue factor with last month’s Kentucky Derby winner—who even remembers that horse anyways. I think if we took the part where I had to age in society out of the equation, I wouldn’t care at all. If I could hermit á la Michel de Montaigne circa 1571, I don’t think I would give a rats ass about aging and this post wouldn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, I must be of this world.

Me wearing the bikini and being all but thirty in this world because I can and will and won’t stop.

I would be 100% lying to you if I said, “I have not ended up covered in snot crying on the kitchen floor being held by my partner as the dogs try to figure out what’s wrong with their seemingly resilient mama because I’m getting older and the world will stop looking at me and stop caring because I have a gray hair (I haven’t found one yet; that’s not a lie) and the hints of forehead wrinkles so none of my big dreams will come true because they haven’t come to fruition yet and all this work has been for naught and fucking life is hard.” That would be a lie. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t happen at regular intervals over the last two years. I’m not scared of getting older, but I’m scared of how the world will treat me as I get older. The world hasn’t been kind to me for the first thirty years when I was apparently worth something, so how the hell is it going to be for the next seventy years? Society tells me: not great. 

Life is terrifying. There is so much to process, handle, solve, enjoy, escape, see, do, taste, smell, and avoid all the time; honestly, I love each and every one of those pieces of living life. But being an aging woman is just terrifying. I know it’s different for me than it was for my mother and grandmothers, but things haven’t changed so much that wrinkles and grays and numbers don’t matter in the world. They do. And I don’t really care for anyone to tell me otherwise because my entire life all I’ve ever been validated for is my looks and what that means for my place in the world. The marriage I could make, the doors that will open, the way life will be “easier” because I was tall, thin, fair. So for me and my life experience, the moment my boobs start to droop, my waistline starts to expand, my hair starts to thin, my skin starts to slacken, what will I be? Who will care? It doesn’t matter and has never mattered that I’m intelligent, well-spoken, a linguist, possess a wicked wit, kind, giving, accepting, an activist, a writer, a creative, a critic, a dog mom, a friend, and all the other things that actually make me me and interesting and complex. My existence has always and almost solely been validated and made worthy by the way I look. 

Who I am has always just been a positive addendum to the way I look. 

I have never liked close up portraits. My teeth are funny. My nose is weird. I’m hyper critical of everything. As I get older, I see the lines, the pores, the acne that had never been there, everything. But if I don’t take them now, I never will, and I’ll look back and say, “damnit, I should have.” And I don’t do regret.

So… I love getting older. I’m wiser, funnier, smarter, humbler, more experienced, a better listener, a better talker, a deeper thinker than I was at twenty. I think I’m cuter, but that’s probably because I know how to do my makeup better. I truly and completely love getting older. Life is so much better than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, a year ago. I know myself more completely. I am happier at a week away from thirty than I was at a week away from twenty. 

But… I’m scared of getting older. I don’t know how the world will treat me. I know how the world has treated women. I know how I want the world to treat women. And goddamnit, I have the audacity to age like the women who’ve come before me.

Now… I can only do one thing. Wake up tomorrow and keep on living my life. I’m going to moisturize and exercise—sometimes, infrequently, it will become a habit—to fight off aging physically, emotionally, but most of all mentally. More than anything, I’m going to keep working on my dreams. I’m going to keep creating new dreams. I’m going to strive for happiness. I’m going to live my life fully and enthusiastically surrounded by weirdos who love life and me. I’m going to support women and be everyone’s cheerleader. I’m going to be kind and find beauty in my body as it changes with the days and years I have ahead of me. I’m going to write. I’m going to lift up women’s voices of all ages because the world needs to remember that we women continue to evolve not stagnate. I’m going to tell my stories because I have seventy more years of stories, and I’ve hardly started on telling the first thirty years. My life isn’t over. I’m not done living. I will age with audacity.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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