My truth today is that complex trauma and toxic workplaces don’t mix. I am EXHAUSTED. I am facing some of the darkest moments…again. Anyone with any kind of PTSD understands what I am saying here. You get poked. You think the situation in front of you is one thing, but in today’s reality, it may be something else entirely. Does this sound like jibberish? I promise it’s not. But, hey, welcome to my world! Some days, what is up is down and what is down is up. I need a frigging PTSD compass to figure this shit out!

I spend a lot of time by myself. My head is a VERY busy place when I am alone. Lots of talking, lots of judging, and lots of wishing I could JUST. GET. BETTER.

PTSD is real, and it is HARD to deal with. Because of the massive amounts of trauma I experienced throughout my entire childhood and well into adulthood, and the subsequent PTSD, I spent the majority of my life unconsciously shutting down parts of myself so that I could somehow feel safe. There was some part of me that understood this is how you survive. When you spend decades doing this, you one day realize that you don’t know who you really are or even what you are capable of achieving. That SUCKS when you get to be around my lovely age and realize you are looking at a total stranger in the mirror.

The thing is, even with shutting down for all of those years, I achieved certain goals that I thought were true markers of success. I have two degrees. I became a highly paid executive in an industry that celebrates and rewards men while denigrating female leaders (there were very few of us). I earned these things as a single mom, coming from a dirt-poor existence. I am a very independent woman. This was a HUGE goal for me–DEPEND ON NO ONE. Ugh. The not-so-funny part of all of this is that the things I thought were important turned out not to be as important as I thought they were.

You know what is important? Unconditional love. Having deep compassion for yourself and others. Being of service to others because it makes your heart sing. Understanding your purpose in this world and doing everything you can to share your gifts with everyone. Loving with your entire mind, heart, body, and soul. Lovine FEARLESSLY. Being IN love and losing your mind in a seriously beautiful way. Losing yourself in music and dance. Losing yourself in your imagination and letting that seep into the way you relate to the world. Laughing. AT ANYTHING. Lifting yourself up by the heartstrings. KNOWING WHO YOU ARE.

Knowing who you are is a lifelong journey. And there is no end to it. That is what I believe. Are we always the same? I am not. I change daily. I surprise myself at times. I constantly grow. I am so afraid that if I stop growing, I will die. I never want to die from refusing to connect with the world and allowing that to change me. I have questions about so many things, and dreams that I have yet to fulfill. I want to be an author. I want to finally fall in love so wholeheartedly that the whole world changes for me. I want to learn forgiveness (which I do think I recently started to figure out). I want to build an amazing life that does not include PTSD. However, this isn’t possible. I am trying to find a way to sit with PTSD and treat it like a friend, rather than something that completely takes me over for days and weeks at a time.

Right now, it is work that is driving me crazy. LITERALLY. My buttons are getting pushed left and right, and I have TONS of work to do, but PTSD has shaken me to my core off and on for days. At least I am grateful that I know it is happening. I need to sleep for days to recover from the last couple of weeks though. I am just bone tired.

That’s all for today.