Being helpful or hiding? Being honest... *sigh*

 Daddy died in September 2021. Dan and I split that November. Ash and I got our own place. I posted my last blog in March 2022 when I got my tattoo.

It's hard to get started again. I had a flow, a rhythm, a style, and a voice. I have been struggling to remember where I was then. I finally realized that none of that matters. I was a different person two years ago. It's not about where I was then, it's about where I am now.

I quit blogging because I didn't want to inadvertently turn this into a bitter, my-ex-sucks rant or an oh-woe-is-me pity party. Not saying those things didn't happen, because they did. But nobody else needed to see that. At least that's what I was telling myself.

I started this blog in December 2020 after my diagnoses of lymphedema and diabetes, at the recommendation of my diabetic educator. He pointed out that it obviously helped me to write out what I'm going through and there just aren't a lot of places online where people can find someone else who knows what they are going through. So, here we are. 

I have always tried to be real. I try not to candy coat what I'm going through or bullshit. Being honest is hard.

My two years of silence have not been honest. Honestly, if I go quiet, I'm probably hiding something. This hiatus has been one long lie of omission. I stopped writing when I started to backslide. It was just a little at first. I only gained a couple of pounds the first month. But I already knew why it was happening and that it was only going to snowball. 

I stopped blogging to resist the temptation to post lies and bullshit. I wasn't avoiding lying to myself though. I am the only person I am actually good at lying to. There are not a lot of people who read my blog, and that's ok. But most of the people who read it are the people I want the most to be open with. So I stopped blogging because my masking wasn't holding up and I didn't want them all to see that I was failing. I didn't want everyone else to be as disappointed in me as I was. I used the excuse that these kind of posts were not going to be helpful to anyone else, "forgetting" that my primary reason for this blog was to take care of myself.

This one guy I know, who is much too humble to want to be singled out online, has mentioned to me - just one or two HUNDRED times - that in order for me to truly be able to help other people, I have to help me first. Now, I'm not saying that he's right, but...

If I don't acknowledge where I am really at, even - and maybe especially - if I don't like it, I will keep trying to move forward from the height of my achievement. I'm not there anymore. I'm not quite back to where I started, but it's way too close for comfort. So... no more facebook/photoshop highlight life. It's all or nothing. I am going to do my best to being as open and honest and vulnerable as possible. This is the only way I can truly move forward, from the place where I really am RIGHT NOW, and maybe show at least one other person who is struggling that the struggle is a part of the process. The long, frustrating, beautiful process of growth.

So what happened? Life. Daddy died. Dan and I split. I started trauma therapy. My toxic job became unbearable. I changed jobs. I lost my therapist. I moved three times.

All of 2022, I was slowly losing the progress I had gained and getting harder and harder on myself. Heaping on the guilt and shame and worsening my own depression until when 2023 started, I just said fuck it. I started eating and doing whatever the fuck I wanted, ignoring what I knew the consequences would be. By  mid 2023, I was tired of dealing with the consequences and started wanting to want to do better. I was making some half-hearted attempts at progress, but let every little tiny setback stop me again. I was trying to find motivation. As of right now, I have finally reached the point that I WANT to make the changes and do better again.

In looking over some of my older writings, I found a conversation with eleven-year-old Olivia. Money was tight and we were talking about ways to save money. She said that even though we used the internet for music and games and shows, we didn't really NEED it. She said we could live without it "if we have to, but I don't think that will happen because I know you'll figure it out, Mom. You always figure it out."

When I read that tonight, my asshole brain immediately started attacking the value of the sentiment:

 - kids that age always have faith in their parents

- she knows better than that now

- I was never that strong

- etc.

But then I said no. I stopped that bullshit thinking. I thought of a story she wrote recently and read to me that talked about seemingly random points in her life to build a concept. There are three points that are relevant to my story.

1. When she was 13 and I was diagnosed with lymphedema, she googled and learned that, ultimately, untreated lymphedema could be terminal. She says now that the writing was dramatized for a better story, and in the later points that is probably true, but back then, she was legit scared I was going to die. That is part of what motivated me to be healthier. She needed to know I would be ok. 

2. She talked about how hard I worked and that I got better than any of the doctors thought I would be able to because it is super rare that anyone does the work to reverse any of the progression of the illness. I could tell in her voice, how proud she was of me in those moments. She was happier knowing that I was going to be ok. 

3. She said that her mom quit trying to be healthy. She mentioned that every time I had extra money I was going out to eat. She questioned again whether or not I was going to die. She says that she's really not worried that I'm going to die. That's probably true. 

Seeing my situation through her eyes, of course, made me cry each time for different reasons. But she reminded me that I am not just doing this for me. I am doing this so that the people who love me don't have to watch me slowly kill myself. Even in my rough spots over the last couple of years, I have not been suicidal. So if I am not going to take myself out in a quick and relatively painless way, why the hell am I doing it the slow and painful way?

Thursday morning I woke up almost too sore to move and completely exhausted, which is pretty much my normal. I have a 24 minute commute, according to google maps. I drive 20 minutes on the turnpike, switch to the highway for a few miles to get to my exit and then I'm at the parking garage within a minute or two. 

I was struggling to stay awake, also not unexpected. I had my coffee, my music was cranked, and my windows were down so I had 40 degree winds blasting at 80 mph. I don't remember the drive. I do remember getting to my exit. 

At my exit, construction restricts the road to my exit on the right and one other lane continuing forward on the left. Yay, road destruction. As the left lane begins to slow down due to the bottleneck, many people going past my exit drive in the right lane to cut in front of people moving forward. And then there are some assholes who move right to cut off my lane so they can advance a few cars and then cut off someone in the left lane. I don't know which kind of asshole was driving the black Honda CR-V, but they didn't deserve to get rear-ended. 

I opened my eyes and hit the brakes, going somewhere between 50 and 70 mph. When I realized I couldn't stop in time, I yanked the wheel to the right. Sorentos are a roll-over risk because they are so high-centered. I could feel the car leaning towards the tipping point. My over-correction was going to take me off the wide shoulder onto a slope that would probably roll my car. I swerved back to the left, only mildly less drastically. By the time I was finally back in control, I was pumped up on adrenaline, shaky, scared, and barely made my exit. I almost rear-ended a car at highway speeds. I almost rolled my car. I just paid it off and I almost totaled it. I legit could have died. Is refusing to take care of myself to this point really any different than suicide?

I got out my cpap that night. I hadn't needed it in three years. I didn't want to admit that I needed it now. I cleaned the mask (and I need to order a new one) and I cried myself to sleep for being such a failure. It doesn't matter anymore how much I want to deny my condition. I don't want to die. 

I've only used my cpap for three nights now but I am already more alert, wake up easier, and with a lesser degree of pain. I can't deny that I need it when I see the benefits of using it so clearly.

I went grocery shopping yesterday and tried to make healthier choices than I have been. I tried not to shame or guilt myself for not doing better. 

I bought things to pre-make my breakfast sandwiches for the week. I have started going back to my support group and I am working to find a new therapist. 

I know how hard this path is going to be because I have done it before. 

I know I have a group of amazing people in my life who will support me because they have done it before, and have continued to support me even when I didn't. 

I know I can get through this because I have done it before. 

All I have to figure out now... Am I Sisyphus?