I have finally finished school! (Again...I know) I hope this will leave me a bit more time for this blog. I have missed writing and I can tell when I haven't done it in a while. One of the many changes going on in my life right now is that my therapist of six years is closing his practice. If you have read this blog, he has been a big part of keeping this recovery journey going. At some points, he was able to provide support to keep my nose above water. This notification was not a complete surprise. He has been working on his doctorate for most of our time together. His availability had been declining and I figured a job change had been coming for some time. I am super happy for him and can't verbalized enough how supportive he has been through all of these years.
I was quite surprised that I was able to connect with a new provider so quickly. The last time I went shopping for a therapist, it was 2-5 months, depending to connect with someone. I hope that others are able to connect as quickly as well. Therapy can be such an important tool in finding the stability, recovery, or direction. I had my intake with the new provider last week. Intakes are always rapid fire questions to get some background, figure out some jumping off points, and get enough information to convince insurance to pay for services (sigh). Earlier this week, she sent me a treatment plan. I came with some things that I really want to work on that prevent me from experiencing all the happiness that I have in my life. The treatment plan is highly reflective of everything I wanted to address. It was a very hopeful feeling. For as long as I can remember, I was motivated to attend work. I would work when I was sick. I would pick up shifts. I would be there. Even in the midst of my use, I still got up, hungover, and went to work. I am sure that my memory of that time is a little fuzzy but I am pretty sure my attendance was decent. I was late a lot, but I did show up. Fast forward to about 2014. Something changed. I was in graduate school. I wasn't having the greatest experience with the school and found the internship to be difficult. I started pushing the lines of what I could get away with in terms of calling in and not attending class. In short, I got away with it. I was still able to get everything done. This behavior started to roll over into work. I took a semester off and worked full time. I started getting into conflict with people and started calling in. I justified this because I was just support and the world would go on with out me being there. I would spend an hour calculating out if I could afford not to go, decided I could, and then called in. Rarely was I actually sick. I started out with the counseling job pretty strongly. I was motivated by making a good impression. Well, at about a year in, I started with slowly with calling in. I didn't find the consequences of calling in all that horrible and just kept down that path. I did have some health issues going on during that time. I think a lot of my illnesses were driven by stress. I was constantly stressed. I was unhappy in my job/environment. In 2018, I started doing some more exciting things like buying a house. I had all this motivation and drive to decorate my house, paint, etc. Then, I broke my foot. I have lived in this place since 2018, and have completed maybe one or two projects since that time. I lost all desire. I think about what I would like to do. I have lots of ideas. I fail to activate, so to speak. I talked with my new provider today about how frustrating this is to me. I feel like I should need external motivation to do things I am interested in doing. I fight with myself when I have fun things planned. I don't attend things that I want to. One of the benefits of my current position is that I really "can't" call in sick. I mean, I can, it's just that no one is available to replace me. So, for me to call in sick which I have done once in the past two years, I need to do it early in the day. I can't simply wake up an hour before my shift and decide I am too tired. In my mind, there is no option. I have to go so I have no problem. I am wishing that I felt the same way about my other job and my social life. I want to, yet, I don't. Why? I have felt for a while that I had developed a habit around this lack of attendance. It became "easy" to do? I didn't really get in trouble for it? There have been consequences to that behavior, but apparently not significant enough to create some change. Honestly, I will adopt a whole lot of misery to avoid change. Change is hard. Change requires effort for more than one day. I may not have 100% success as I am learning to make and sustain change. Ugh....that sounds harder than just staying this way, limping along. Right? I have become acutely aware of how much this bothers me now and I do want to figure out how to get back to how I used to be years ago. We talked about findings some ways to "activate" so to speak. Usually if I actually get up and start moving, I rarely go back to bed and will go. I told her about how I will have an hour long conversation with myself about going and not going, going and not going. Then I manage to stress myself out and I just want to crawl back into bed and avoid the world. Avoiding is the issue. I am avoiding my environment by going back to sleep. I am avoiding things because of anxiety. The more time I spend avoiding things, the stronger my ability gets to justify the avoidance. I only have to justify it to myself so it doesn't take much to do it. In early recovery, I was challenged by my provider back then to push through some of those thoughts and go out. She encouraged me to find things that I liked. Take a class. Go make some art. Meet up with friends. I was willing to make any change I could so that the quality of my life would improve. Early recovery was incredibly hard. Many of my "friends" were gone. I had to learn to socialize without alcohol. I had financial issues related to all the use. I was lonely. That was plenty of misery to support a desire to make some change. It worked too. I feel like I was the most successful in 2012-2013. I was doing DBT. I was socializing. I was spending time with my family. I took some classes. Now, the "misery" is not as extreme today as it was back then. I am stuck. I have been stuck for quite some time. What I learned today is that I am feeding avoidance. Once she said that, I was like "Duh! Of course I am! How did I not see this?" Some times it is these little things that are so profound. I was challenged to view these internal conversation as my desire versus avoidance instead of me fighting me. Shifting that language is highly meaningful for me. I don't need people to criticize me much because I am EXCELLENT at providing plenty of negative feedback to myself. Me fighting me feels like more of the same. The avoidance part of me is very strong right now. The desire part of me is getting a bit frustrated. I want to use that frustration to drive some personal change. I think that is possible. I will be sure to circle back to this topic as it is an interesting one for me to consider while I am making some changes. I feed my avoidance for a lot of years so it is going to take a bit of time to get this ship moving in a different direction. I hope to provide you all with more entries over the next month! Thanks again, as always, for reading :) Julie
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Image by Gino Crescoli from Pixabay Luckily for all of you who read this blog, I am between assignments in school right now. I am feeling a little lost without having something to write! I am doing a competency-based RN-MSN (Masters of Science in Nursing) which is 16 courses with 3-5 assessments per course. The assessments range from 3 to 20 pages. For the last 7 months, I have been pumping out paper, after paper. I am kinda weird, I know. I have really enjoyed it. The unfortunate part is that doesn't leave a whole lot of motivation to update my blog even though writing about something other than quality improvement would be desirable. So, here we are!
In my last blog, I mentioned watching all sorts of videos about the culture around toxic positivity and hustle culture. The post dabbled into the role of social media in that. While I do like aspects of social media, there are plenty of aspects that leave me wondering if I should even be on it as much as I am. I do know when to take a break. I also know that there are times when my mood is not right to be scrolling through my FB feed. One of those times is when I am feeling sorry for myself. If I want a way to feed self-pity, surfing through the supposed "perfect life" of everyone else is pretty dangerous. My headspace isn't in the right place to challenge what I am seeing. In a "normal" state for me, I can remind myself that the heavily edited material that I am looking at and not get my undies in too big of a bunch when I see toxic positivity memes in my face. Self-pity is a tough one for me. It's a fine line between having valid feelings about the hand we are dealt. There are plenty of times that grief, loss, and trauma that questioning "why the hell is this happening to me?" is warranted and justified. So, I looked up the definition of self-pity. In my mind, I know when I cross over into self-pity but I would have a really difficult time explaining to someone else where that line is. Dictionary. com: "excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles." Yes, that makes sense to me. And.....how is excessive defined? When do I go to far? The first inpatient treatment I went to, I was highly emotional when I transferred from detox into treatment. I was so relieved to be there. My detox was unpleasant, long, and very difficult. That alone left me in an emotional spot. Beyond that, though, I felt so broken. It felt like the bottom had fallen out. I didn't know what life was going to be now. I was scared of the work I was going to need to do to find sobriety. I felt like I was different too. I clearly remember my first group session, everyone went around the group and shared something about themselves. I just started crying out of sheer relief. I wasn't all that different. These are my people! I knew exactly what they were talking about. I knew they understood me! Yeah! Fast forward 24 hours, that tune changed a little bit. I sat down with my counselor and we needed to put together a treatment plan and an outline of the assignments I was to complete during my time there. I started to share how horrible I felt that my family had assisted to redo my condo and I couldn't afford it anymore. I felt like like I was given all of these resources and opportunities in my life. I had managed to screw that all up because of my alcohol use. I "should" be an alcoholic. I "should" know better. I am divorced, looking at foreclosure, I am physical and mentally ill. I shared a few more things and the counselor said, "well, a priority topic for you is going to be self-pity." Whoa. That was rude. I legitimately felt bad for having all of this opportunity and falling apart! It took about two weeks before I shared anything in individual session with her because I didn't take that feedback very well. It wasn't that she was wrong. I was in a self-pity spiral. It's not uncommon at all for people with addiction to become self-absorbed and fall into the self-pity trap. What may look like a series of excuses for why life is so horrible and you can't expect anything of me is a whole lot of self-pity. I didn't say things like that to make excuses, I wanted people to feel sorry for me and then turn around and tell me what an amazing person I am. I was looking for validation. I was looking for someone to tell me that I wasn't such a horrible person. The problem, though, if people did, it was only a matter of hours or days before I did something else to make my life or someone else's life terrible. Then I started with the self-pity so that people would tell me, AGAIN, that I was not a bad person. I have mentioned in previous blogs that the first year of my recovery was tough. I was angry, mad, annoyed, etc. etc. Some of that was driven by my self-pity. I was about to lose my nursing license due to my use. My family knew I needed to find recovery and were making changes to support me making changes (which is a nice way of saying - boundaries and expectations were set, some behaviors would no longer be tolerated). Things were changing. Addiction was still running the show for that first year even though I wasn't drinking anymore. I spent time complaining about how the Board of Nursing program took away my choice to drink. Great, now I am sober, but life still sucks. When I got into outpatient treatment, I had a counselor tell me "HSPS didn't take away your choice to drink. You still can. It's just that there are consequences to that decision. You don't like having the consequences because you rare did before." I sat on that for about a week or so before I decided she was right. As I started down the path of mental health therapy, I had a lot of work to do to re-frame how I was seeing things. Addiction is a selfish disease. I could easily suck the air out of the room with the problems in my life and myself when I was using. Yes, I had SOME problems. But, I also had a lot of situations I MADE into problems so I could continue to fuel the "whoa is me" narrative. I didn't listen to anything anyone had to say except for compliments about myself. If people wanted to offer me some advice about making changes, they would hear very quickly that nothing was going to work. Nope. Never. You don't know how horrible everything about my life is every minute of every day. In retrospect, I understand why I was doing what I was doing. It was another good year of therapy to balance feeling unhappy about situations and not turning it into a full on pity-party. That line was not very clear to me. I had viewed the world from a victim standpoint for years. And by years, I mean 20+ years. I didn't know there was another perspective to be had. My therapist worked with me to see that I engaged in that behavior to find validation. I required so much external validation to survive. I had nothing good to say internally so I found reasons to validate what I was feeling inside. I probably understood on a deep level that what I was portraying was exaggerated, but I could not help myself to continue to do that because I got something I was seeking. I really don't like that part of myself. I look back on that behavior and see how maladaptive it was. I was manipulative. I actually enjoyed making people feel guilty. I was needy and dramatic. I was exhibiting strong personality traits of borderline personality disorder. I was out of control. The process of changing internal messaging is challenging. For me, re-framing perspectives has been the most successful skill to avoid falling into the self-pity pit. I talked about "comparing" in my last blog post. Re-framing is different than comparing. It can morph into comparing quickly which is not helpful for me. The hardest re-frame was actually changing my approach to addiction. I could continue to complain, moan, bitch, and wallow in the wreckage addiction caused in my life. And I did, deeply, for about a year. Something clicked after that first year and I started to see myself as a survivor of addiction. Many of my brothers and sisters in the world of addiction don't make it. I did. I have some choices to make moving forward about how I want addiction to be told in my story. Yes, it was sucky and resulted in devastation. And I lived to tell my story. Not everyone does. The other big re-frame was looking at validation needs. Let's be honest -- we all need some external validation to prop us up from time to time. However, the primary source of validation and understanding needs to come internally. That is a constant work-in-progress. Life happens and some of what happens cuts me off at the knees. When I think back to early recovery, I had to explore what I wanted to hear from people. First, I wanted people to tell me that I was an amazing nurse. I needed and wanted that validation when I actually wasn't the best nurse due to my physical and mental impairments due to alcoholism. Now that I am sober, I appreciate the feedback that I am a good nurse. I will never turn that down. At the same time, I don't need to hear it in order to get to work. It's OK for me to say, "Yeah, I am a good nurse. I am good teacher. Not everyone is going to jive with me, but I do my best to do right by those I serve." Now, catch me on a bad day when I got my ass handed to me by something or someone? I might see out a little reassurance that that moment time doesn't negate the entirety of my career. I also carry an enormous amount of anxiety. My anxiety has all sorts of messaging that can lead me to seek out assurance or validation. I know today when to step back and see who/what is talking in that moment. Is it really the anxiety talking? If so, let me take a moment to get out of my anxiety state and look at this situation from another perspective. I have so many examples of this in my life. A straightforward one is when I am confronted about something uncomfortable or challenges something I do feel confident about. A friend took a big leap of courage to tell me how I had disappointed them in how I handled something. Because I am a black and white thinker, I thought, oh no, they are right, they are going to dump me as a friend. This is the end of our friendship. I am so horrible. I can't believe I did this. They are totally right. What do I do? Well, first, a sincere apology was warranted and accept responsibility for my actions/decision. Then, a sincere commitment to be better. Guess what, they accepted that and forgave me. If I were in a self-pity place, I would have seen that interaction as an attack on my character. I would have not taken responsibility. I would call four other people and tell my "version" of the situation and make sure those individuals validate me. I would have ended the friendship. I would assume a stance that they hurt me by calling me out. Everyone always does this to me. This is exactly why I don't like letting people get close to me, they just disappoint me by being mean to me. That is not what happened at all. I made a bad call. I am a human being. They cared and loved me enough to have the hard conversation with me, let me know that I had disappointed them, and allowed me the opportunity to make it better. Still friends today. I may continue on this topic in a future blog. As I sit here and think about this topic, it is just interesting to figure out where to find this line. I know some clear cut examples, but I have plenty of situation that sit in the gray! Peace! J Several months ago, I decided to upgrade my YouTube account to premium. It was a little treat to myself so I could watch hours of videos without annoying ads. I can see how easy it is to find a topic and go down the rabbit hole. Not to mention, any video I watch is thrown into the AI machine and 25 similar videos are recommended. I found a few gems here and there so I don't totally hate it.
I have been interested in watching these videos about today's motivational speakers and how toxic positivity is the primary foundation of most of what they talk about. Over the years, I have sought out motivational speakers. A lot of who I looked for were people in recovery. The recovery folks, as far as I remember, never really got on the toxic positivity bandwagon which I am truly grateful for. Having gone through active addiction and continuing to work on mental health, telling me to just "think positive thoughts" wasn't going to cut it. In fact, I get kind of testy if that is the entirety of the message. It's much more complicated than that. Where positivity turns into toxic territory for me is when I am experiencing strong or deep emotions - loss, regret, sadness, loneliness. If I took that leap to be vulnerable with someone and expressed those feelings, I sure as hell don't want to hear, "You are CHOOSING that. Stop it! Think positive thoughts!" The message I hear is those feels are not valid. I need to stuff them down and go on as if nothing is wrong. And, I chose addiction and mental illness to be a part of my life. Seriously? Of all the things I could choose for myself, I chose 18 years of suffering? In my active addiction, I wasn't choosing much of anything because I didn't know getting sober was a possibility for me. I wasn't sure how to get help or what help would work. My brain was so addicted that I confused survival with alcohol. No amount of positive thinking was going to change that. The only "positive" thoughts I had - I was positively going to get drunk the minute I could. When I started DBT, my therapist and worked hard on reframing thoughts and thinking about gratitude. This is not to be confused with "THINK POSITIVE!" messaging. I was on a very basic level trying to change my inner dialogue from "I can't do this" to "Maybe I might be able to". That is a far cry from "I can't so this" to "I can do anything I put my mind to and succeed because I am CHOOSING to ignore my cravings and make every life change I need to support sobriety!" I was choosing to make steps toward a more positive life. But I had years of ingrained beliefs and perceptions that needed to be erased. As I was erasing certain beliefs, I worked with my therapist to substitute more positive beliefs about myself. That is far from someone telling me that the chemical imbalance in my brain is not real. I think back to conversations that I have had with people, hoping that I hadn't crossed that line into toxic positivity. When people seek advice or support from me, especially if that person is in early recovery, I might suggest a gratitude list. List 5 things you are grateful for today. The goal is to simply remind myself that despite having strong negative feelings, there are good things in my life that I need to remain connected to so that the negativity doesn't completely overwhelm me. I really hope that this suggestion was not taken as "ignore all your feelings. Be grateful for something because you have a lot more than other people." It's not about comparing, it's about connection. One the skills in DBT is "comparing" which I was told right out of the gate that this might not be the right skill for me. The great thing about DBT for me is that 20+ skills were laid out in front of me. I learned about them, tried them, and like any good AA meeting, I took what I needed and left the rest. The comparing skill is not about comparing my situation to another person. That can be very dangerous. Self-pity can sneak in and ruin any attempts to shift my mood in a different direction. As an example, I could ask myself why I am sad when there are children dying of starvation across the world? Wow, that is a hell of a comparison. By that standard, I am not allowed to feel bad about anything, ever, because I am not a starving child. That does not mean that I don't care about starving children. I do. And I am allowed to have some challenging feelings as I am finding recovery and working through an episode of depression. A healthier comparison would be "while I am struggling today, my overall situation has improved a lot from 10 years ago when I felt this way and didn't know how to cope with it." I know how to use that skill now, but it took years to figure out a way to not negate my experience and make sure the comparison is relevant. After watching all these videos about toxic positivity, it became very clear to me how easy it is to slip into the oversimplification of complex emotions. A year or two ago I wrote about all the "motivational" memes that were flying through my feed at the time. I don't hate little one line reminders to be grateful or spend time looking at the stars. What I do despise are these overly aggressive suggestions that if I am not in a state of complete happiness I am failing, that I am "choosing" whatever life experience is difficult for me right now, and that basically I am whining. For YEARS, society told people to pick yourself up by your bootstraps. We were finally getting some where with recognition that we are complex beings, with complex emotions, and maybe weren't given the tools to deal with the complexity. We started to recognize that depression isn't "just being sad" and anxiety wasn't "someone over reacting". We started to see that our brains are complex and most everyone could benefit from support now and again to figure out how to navigate rough waters. Now, it feels like we are reverting back to depression being a weakness of character. Anxiety is not real. Mental illness and addiction are 100% a choice. Social media is a double edged sword for me. I feel I have a pretty good grasp on the fact that what most people post on social media is not anywhere near an accurate reflection of what life is day to day. I can tell you that I do choose all pictures of myself wisely. I can tell you that I post funny memes even when I don't feel like laughing. I like to share aspects of my life I am proud of and refrain from using social media as a place to process more complex issues in my daily life. I suppose I do in a way by posting my blog there. That is purposeful on my part as this blog/writing are part of a therapeutic process for myself. I am never obsessed with the number of readers I get. Some times, I get surprised when someone mentions it. Like, "Oh you read it! Thank you!" On the other side, I like social media as a way to connect with people. I work nights, I am too busy. Social media, despite all the ads and algorithms, I like to see what people are up to. I like seeing and sharing in their successes. It gives me a sense of connectedness when my life and schedule keep me from being able to do much of that in person. Anyway, just some thoughts I have had rolling around in my head. I am almost done with school so that I can go back to writing about this that are FAR more interesting to me that nursing curriculum evaluations. :) Love to you all, Julie Despite feeling bad about going the lengths I did to advocate for myself, it worked. I know I am not the only one that struggles with feeling bad about standing up for ourselves. I tried to dig a little deeper to find out why I would feel bad about doing something that was right for myself. Before I jump into that rabbit hole, let me give you a quick update.
For those who didn't read my last blog: I got a review at work. It was very "middle" of the road. I am way better than "middle of the road." I went back and forth for a day with my manager and HR. I was given really lame excuses as to why I was given a 3/5 score. Now we are all on the same page here! I wrote out a page long explanation of why I felt their scoring was grossly inadequate. If there is one thing I do know about myself is that I am a good nurse. It is one area of my life that I am willing to fight for. In fact, threatening my nursing career was one of the few things that got my attention to stop drinking. I said my peace, signed the review that was "OK", and decided it was time to move on. I woke up the next day with a message from my supervisor telling me that my review had been updated. Suddenly I was at a 4.6/5. I was gracious to her for that change. I know that she was told what she was able to give nurses. I don't know what kind of conversation they had in the background but suddenly I went from "generally meets expectations/satisfactory" to "outstanding". I advocated and something changed.'' So, why did I feel bad about that? I thought I was complaining about something that didn't really matter. Reviews are just something that my agency has to do. The raises for this area of healthcare are more dependent on reimbursement rates for services versus actual performance. I was told my 3.5/5 was one of the highest reviews given. If that is the case, I "should" be happy the highest review was mine and leave it alone. I can be highly reactionary in certain situations, so I often wonder if my guilt is the check and balance mechanism I need to keep my mouth in check. All of my justifications for my guilt didn't really seem to explain very well to me why I would need to feel guilty about speaking up. Maybe I need more practice in speaking up. I wanted a career in advocacy when I first got sober. I wanted to share my experience and story in the hopes of making change. I advocated regularly for the patient's I worked over the years. I am capable of advocating. I have advocated for others pretty regularly and on a rare occasion for myself. What becomes so difficult for me is that by advocating for something, someone, or myself, I have to "take a side" so to speak. If I am advocating for change, something in the current set-up is not working. If I am advocating for someone, there is another person in the mix that is not providing what I think is right. If I am advocating for myself, I am telling the other person or entity I disagree with their opinion or perception of me. You know what all three of these situations have in common? I have the potential of upsetting someone, making someone mad, and risking them not respecting or liking me anymore. Ugh. I am 46 years old. At what point in my life do I finally stop caring what other people think or feel about me? I still feel like all of these years into recovery, I still struggle with that people-pleasing, everyone needs to like me phenomenon. Why? I don't like when people are mad at me! I am also under the false pretense that if someone is mad at me, our relationship is over. You know why I believe that? Because I do that to other people. I can get mad about certain things here and there and not destroy the relationships. However, I certainly can destroy a relationship if a certain line is crossed. The sad part about that though, is ghosting someone in that circumstance does not allow them to know what happened. I won't advocate for myself. I put all my anger and resentment on that other person because they "should have known" and the relationship is done. I have cut out a number of people this way. It's probably about 70%-30% split of people who did deserve that (70%) and the rest that didn't even have a change to talk with me about my issue. I am cool with having done what I did related to the review now. I spun around for a few days after the new review came out. Did I overreact in this situation? Why was I making such a big deal? In reality, I know the level of care I provide. I have a lot of choices for work if I want it. I want to work where I am working and I want to be recognized for the level of care I give. Telling me I am "OK" is NOT the perception I have of how I do my job. Ultimately, they agreed. Ultimately, I think they could tell the degree to which I was offended and making no change could result in me giving my notice. A failure to recognize good workers will bite employers in the behind, especially in a tight market. I talked with my therapist and read through the emails. I was very professional (although, I didn't want to me). I made my opinion known and did not accept "we're sorry you feel this way". I provided concrete evidence of why I had earned a higher rating of my performance. My therapist was very proud as he has also received the "Julie-experience" during a moment of profound disagreement. I believe he told me wasn't sure if I was coming back. Likewise, I blew up at work a few times so he knows how I can behave when I am offended. He was such a proud therapist. Now we have to work on this whole "why do I feel guilty for doing something 100% reasonable." Some times issues like these are buried under years of bad habits, ineffective communication skills, and emotional dysregulation. I really felt like when I got sober at age 33, I was really starting at the age of 15 emotionally. I didn't regulate well. I was so used to playing both sides of the fence to keep everyone happy that I rarely took an opinion at all. In fact, I didn't have a solid connection to any opinion. I can't live in the middle all the time! I know this guilt stuff comes down to making someone made at me. I do feel like that desire to have the whole world like me is fading. I am at least will to take a side on something. There are things I will no longer tolerate. I am able to establish boundaries for myself and others. A work in progress I suppose. I thought I better tell folks I won the battle the mediocre review! Take care all! Julie I find advocacy challenging, whether I am advocate for change or for myself. When I started this blog 12 years ago, I had hoped to give a voice to recovery and what it was like in the grips of crippling addiction. I felt so gracious that I got a chance to change my life and pretty impressed with myself that I was able to get there. The road is challenging, no doubt. The road, however, is so much easier to see and I have choices in the direction and speed in which I travel.
This week I had two reviews at work. One was stellar and while I wouldn't expect them to say that I was a big slacker that didn't pull my weight, it is always nice to hear that my time and efforts are appreciated. The feedback from my peers was heartwarming. "I am excited when I see Julie on the schedule." "She learns so quickly and just jumps in wherever!" That is the person I try to be and my jobs have usually acknowledged that. I walked away with a bounce in my step and thanked my peers a lot on Tuesday for sharing such nice things. The second review was "ok". I was recognized as a "stellar nurse," yet only received a "Generally meets expectations/satisfactory." I was legitimately crushed. This review was the worst I have received in the past 20 years. While I don't ever not try to do the best I can, I really feel like I go way above and beyond every day. I drove in harsh weather conditions. I travelled with my patient. I get really creative with our activities. I showed up without calling in except for one shift in 365 days. I picked up over full-time hours to help with coverage when a nurse was out. The family wrote me a card for my birthday last month that said "God gave us to you and we couldn't be any more thrilled with the care you provide. You have an obvious compassion for our girl and your occupation." Let me preface a bit on why I feel quite rejected by this review. Nursing is everything to me. While it shouldn't be the reason I live and breathe, it's pretty close. When I couldn't find a reason to stay sober, threatening my ability to be a nurse was the only thing that broke through the fog of addiction. I agreed to do things for sobriety I never thought I could do or wanted to do. I changed my whole life in 2020. I left a secure job that I was reasonably good at. I took on more student loan debt. I worked as much as I could and attended school full-time. For nursing. Because nursing means so much to me. I kept going and will now secure a masters in nursing by this summer. I am in honors status in school. Nursing is where I excel. In the counseling world, I didn't have the same type of esteem I have as a nurse. I know my worth as a nurse. I know I am good at what I do. I want to learn more. I want to do more. I want to explore. I never quite hit that level of passion in substance abuse, although I carry the same passion about helping people the best way I know how in that world. The focus is becoming more clear that I am meant to teach nurses about behavioral health. Both of my passions are now under the umbrella of being an educator which is beyond exciting for me. So, when I read through my review, I didn't get much for feedback. Three 4 out of 5 ratings and three 3 out of 5 ratings. Now, one thing I know about myself is that I am highly reactive. That reactivity is what gets in trouble. It feeds on my defensiveness and I get quite aggressive as if I am a mama bear defending a child. I can say things that are not constructive and are personal, not professional. I had to take a minute and get that out of my system before I decided what the next step was. I was asked to sign this review. It was not reviewed with me, just submitted to the HR portal. I decided to ask my supervisor why I was given "generally meets expectations". I had received no feedback that I was not meeting expectations. I talked with the family I work for and they were shocked to hear that I would be recognized as an "OK" employee who does the job but not much else. The response was that she cannot give 5s. A 3 is good. This was a high review. I did give you some 4s Feel free to call with questions. I kept the message short and to the point. I did not feel that this review adequately reflected my efforts. I did not find that response helpful. I decided I would only sign this review if I were able to comment. I couldn't figure it out so I emailed HR to get the instructions. I mentioned in that email that "generally meets expectations" and "satisfactory" was not accurate. I met this supervisor once. The family was not solicited for feedback. The comments on the review were minimal. I had no goals in my review. The areas of review were highly generalized with no metrics to compare against to determine my level of achievement. The response I got from that email was that the system is woefully inadequate in its language. HR was sorry I felt this way. I was told I am spoken highly of and my contributions "are noticed" and "appreciated." HR doesn't create goals because no one likes them. Supervisors are coached that 5s are not possible because it means a person has achieved perfection and no person is perfect. Basically, sorry you feel bad. Your review doesn't reflect your efforts. We will not be changing anything. Feel free to add your comments. I wrote back one final note stating I had added my comments and I did sign the review, although I continue to disagree with the perception of my performance in this review. If they would be willing to talk with the family, I feel they would change their minds. I mentioned that it may feel like I am making a big fuss about a decent review, giving me a 3/5 is hurtful. I don't strive to "OK". My supervisor wrote me back again and said this email thread made her think about what marks she gives. She wanted me to know that she advocates for good nurses and apologizes that the language is hurtful. This whole review thing has been just sitting in my head. Did I react to fast and put my feelings out there for no reason? Did I make things worse by speaking my truth? And you know what? No. I didn't do anything wrong. I feel like I advocated for myself to be recognized accurately. I kept my tone professional and acknowledged parts of their reasoning. I will remain steadfast, however, that the final score does not accurately capture everything I have tried to do in this position. I think what really gets me is that this is the first position in quite some time that I am happy doing. Missing only one day of work in the past year means I don't feel the need to talk myself out of every shift. I just get up and do it without a lot of pomp and circumstance. That's a really good thing for me. I will justify missing work in a 1,000 different ways when I am not happy. I talk about this position to others a lot because it feels like a special assignment that is super fun. I demonstrate many technical skills as well. I am willing to do the extra little things to make the team function well and to keep my client safe and happy. I advocated for myself, although nothing changed which is quite the disappointment. I want to say more things but I know I made my point. I know what I do and how well I do it. I know the family has my back. The client and family are extremely happy and that is what matters most to me. I hope that I can move on the feelings of hurt and disappointment in a rapid fashion. I always have 10,000 options for a new job. I don't really want one, though. I will, however, be mindful that if this kind of feedback continues, I will move along to a position that adequately acknowledges my efforts. I guess I didn't know exactly how important those words are to me. I guess when I hold a lot of confidence about something, works like "satisfactory" burst my bubble. I start to doubt myself and think I hold my skills and knowledge higher than I should. For 20 years, my reviews in nursing have always been almost at the top of rating scale. Even when I was using, I still pulled more weight than some of my peers. I have been writing some. I have opted not to publish my last view entries. I sort of lost my way in a few of those entries. Hopefully I can get around to doing some editing and offer more to read. As always, I am excited to see the number of reads I get on my blog. If you are reading this, THANK YOU!!!! Peace, J I haven't been as active this year with writing as I would have liked. I feel as I get older, time moves so incredibly fast and writing seems to fall by the wayside. I have lots of ideas and things to write about. I am hopeful that I will get back into more regular posting in 2023.
The year 2022 - wow - a rollercoaster for sure. The year started off on a very positive note with FINALLY getting my RN. I passed by boards a few days before my birthday. I talked myself out of getting this degree so many times. I am glad I took the plunge and got it done. The pay raise was certainly nice! I started giving some thought to what my next career steps were. I had started working in homecare in early 2021 because the schedule was flexible and gave me some time to get back up on nursing skills at the bedside I hadn't done for about 10 years. I looked at several listings everyday and listened to my classmates who were getting jobs at hospitals or traveling agencies. I heard how much they were getting paid and thought about it for a minute. But only a minute. If there is something that I have learned in my years of working is that EVERY time I have chased money, I end up miserable. The nature of nursing right now is sign on bonuses that required a period of time to stay or else the money has to be paid back. So, if I prioritized the money and went for it, I would need to stay and who knows what would happen if I didn't like it. I didn't do the RN thing to work in the hospital. I have never had any interest. I prefer community-based. Transplant was still on the docket. I had stepped aside last summer. I miss it. The job was incredibly unique and I should probably write a book with all stories and experiences over the years. I was asked if I wanted to stay on the team. As much as I wanted to say "yes", I needed to think about where I wanted my career to go. Transplant is stressful with long hours and any level of chaos per shift. While I thrive sometimes in that, I am also getting older and staying up for 24+ and doing that level of intense work was no longer viable for me. Fortunately, my transplant people put me in contact with another department that was of interest: Education. I started in the education department in May. It was a great transition and I really have a lot of fun with the team and doing training for new hires. It feels natural and like a good spot for me. I was so fortunate to be welcomed with open arms and a flexible schedule so I could keep a causal position. I had been offered a full-time position a few times. Again, I was interested and the money was better than what I make, but I like my current full time job and I like working nights. So, I remained in homecare and shifted my hours over to one client. The experience is beyond what I could have dreamed of. the environment is fun, the client is great, I get to play and goof around with her and get to provide 1:1 nursing so I don't fight to get everything done. I really had no intention of staying after I graduated. I never found anything that offered what I get out of my work experience right now. I complain very little. Would I like more pay? Sure, but it pays the bills, my stress is low, and I have a good time. And I work nights which is by far my preferred schedule. I am more than grateful that my job has been as stable as it has been. 2022 heralded some losses that still raw and painful. One of my best friends, Kim G. left this earth suddenly in July. I cried for weeks and wondered if people ever died from a broken heart. I still tear up thinking about her and wondering why she is gone. Grief is complex and confusing. I just miss her so much. There are times when I am scrolling through my contacts and see her name. I think about all the hours we talked and what I wouldn't give for just one more chat. Then, my baby Duke. Duke was 15 years old and was my co-pilot in life for years. He was a snuggle monster. He had been declining for a while. He had the same condition as his sister. Neither Daisy nor Duke responded to medication management of their condition. I was left to watch them whither away for a year or more. Duke suffered a massive stroke. I had never seen him like he was. He had huge tears in his eyes so I knew that I had to be strong, be his mom, and let him go. I held him as he drifted away. That was the third cat I had to put down since mid-2020. My fragile heart felt like it exploded again. Fortunately, the year has shown me support from my family and friends. As much as I feel heart broken, more than a few people reached out with support and love. My family is amazing and this year brought us new adventures and memories to remind myself that 2022 wasn't all pain. I have amazing friends who reached out and reminded me that I am never alone. They gave me space (but not too much space) when I was struggling, encouraged me to get out when I didn't want to, and checked in to make sure I wasn't hiding from the world. Like I said, time is moving so fast, I would hate to look back and think I missed a ton of it. Part of mending this broken heart is finding a way to move forward with life as it is now. I am still in the process of accepting that life is the way it is now. I just don't want it to be that way and I find it unfair. No one ever told me that life was fair. A work in progress...... For the first time in 10 years, I have plans for New Years! TO and I go way back and have had some pretty similar experiences over the years. When we get together, we talk for hours and hours. We may have to set an alarm to remind us to celebrate the New Year. Otherwise we might just talk right through it (hahhahaha!) Peace and love to you all! Julie Historically, I have been decent at writing something for Thanksgiving. I have to be honest, this year is just getting away from me. Time is moving so fast. So many things have happened. Nevertheless, it is important to spend a moment or two talking about things I am grateful for. In my mind, I have been in a more negative space mainly related to the losses I have experienced. Most recently, I lost my beloved cat Duke. I miss him terribly. He was such a good, sweet kitty.
I had to work Thanksgiving this year. It's only fair since I didn't work a single holiday in 2021 which is really odd for nursing, especially in home care. Our client's needs don't take a day off. I felt somewhat obligated to pull my weight this year. Even though I didn't spend the day with my family, my job is quite nice and it was fun to see the excitement of the client I take care of. I did get to have a very nice breakfast with my Mom after the fact. Being in healthcare, you kind of get used to rescheduling holidays around a work schedule. I am forever and always grateful for my family. I think we do a pretty good job of supporting and encouraging each other. I appreciate that my schedule allows me to see to my Mom a little more often and I even saw my sister and her family twice in one week! All of our schedules can be pretty crazy, so having the ability to see them more frequently is really amazing. Not to mention, the whole Covid isolation period prevented a lot of visits for a really long time. I am also grateful to the various friends in my life. Having lost a really close one reminds me to love the ones I have with me. I haven't been as social as I would like to be. Part of that is my decision to work nights. Part of it is trying to push through feelings of sadness and get out of the house. I have so many wonderful people in my life. So, if I have a "goal" for 2023, it's to connect more with folks. I am also really grateful for my job. After working several years at a place that nearly cost me health, happiness, and sanity, it is beyond amazing to be in the environment I am now. I started working home care in 2021. My school schedule got so wonky that I needed an incredibly flexible position. Home care can offer that. I had no intention of staying. Then, I get my assignments. Fast forward a year and half later, I am still with 2 of my 4 original assignments. I occasionally look around at other jobs out of curiosity. Yeah, I could earn more money. Yeah, I could probably get into leadership. But no. I like my clients. I like the stability. I like the comfort of the environment. I don't see anything that can offer the quality that I have no. I tell people often that I have chased money before. It never ends well. I am in a position to make my ends meet with what I do. Now I have benefits as well for which I am very grateful. I am also grateful for school. I wish I didn't have such an expensive hobby. Alas, school feeds something for me. The type of education I am getting now is up my alley as well. When I went back to school for my first master's, I was excited about it as well. I felt a sense of purpose with that decision. I think I became disillusioned after a short while wondering if I had made the right decision. When I returned to school for my RN and now my MSN, it just feels right. The nursing stuff is my jam. I get pretty excited about the possibilities when I am done. Who know where this all might lead. I am also grateful to all the folk who take time to read my blog. It means so much to me!! I hope you all had a great holiday! Julie Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay My life has no shortage of profound experiences. Some of them negative, many of them positive. I find myself watching documentaries about people who have gone through some kind of transformation or connected with something that changed life as they knew it. Recently, I have been watching the documentaries about cults and see how easy it would be for people to get sucked in. In short, people like me. I feel like I am continuing to search for something but I don't know what. Some bigger? Something better? Something more? Something less? This nagging "something" is not going away. In some ways, I find this "something" to be a strong feeling.
When I wanted to study abroad so badly my junior year of high school and again my junior year in college, I thought these were going to be life changes experiences. They were! Don't get me wrong, Those experiences didn't change my life in the way that I thought they would. Maybe my expectations were incorrect, or, more likely, I didn't know what I thought "life-changing" meant. I have great memories and connections from those days. While many of those days were hard and I experienced home-sickness just about every day while I was gone, I saw and experienced some pretty amazing things. Then, I thought settling down and getting married would be the way my life would be. Well, we all know how that worked out. I won't say I will "never" get married or be in a significant relationship again, but my experiences have not been super positive and caused more heart-ache in my life. Because my heart is breaking for the loss of a few people and things right now, my heart is sort of shut off to those connections. While the connections are happy and fun, deep relationships have been lost whether I lost relationships because of my personal actions, I lost the relationship because of death, or the relationship failed over time. Any way I slice this one, really close relationships often have difficult endings for me. Seeking out a relationship while assuming it is going to end badly is probably not the best mindset to approach that whole ordeal. Recovery then came. Recovery changed my life, no doubt. When I was learning things in the beginning, it was so exciting. Everything was so new and refreshing. When I watch a makeover show, I feel like I could submit my photo from detox and my photo of now and it would be clear how dramatically my life had changed for the positive. These feelings motivated me to go further in my education and even change careers. Again, I made some great connections, but the experience of grad school was huge letdown for me. I felt like I was going to change the world and spread recovery. I was going to do something big and exciting! I was going to see myself in doing something in advocacy. My first big position had that momentum. And, again, a huge letdown. Not only did the position drive me to the brink of sanity, all of the things that I thought were going to fulfill that "something" never happened. A majority of people didn't care what I was doing and my message fell flat. In 2014, I got a chance to go a mission trip. I had heard so many stories about people having a life-changing experience on these trips. I made some great connections on this trip and really had some big ideas about things that I wanted to accomplish on that trip. Sadly, I learned how corrupt the area was that we traveled to and the severe limitations of what we could actually do during our time there. I talked with some of my other group members who had been on these trips before and they even said this mission trip was disappointing. So, I keep accomplishing things. I keep doing things - generally schooling. I have some ideas of things that I would like to do. But my life is missing something. I think this "something" is screaming louder after the loss of my friend, Kim. Life is so short and tomorrow is never guaranteed. If it were all to end suddenly, did I do what I wanted to do. In cliché terms - I have lived, I have laughed, I have loved. So, yeah I got some of the basics there. Have I accomplished what I wanted to? For the most part and I am doing what I want to do in terms of my career and my recovery. If it were all to end suddenly, I sure as hell hope that I am sober. That would be the biggest thing to me at this point. Yet, here I am with this nagging something that is been hanging in my life since about 2013. What is it? What do I need? What do I want? I wish I knew because hanging with this feeling for nearly 10 years is driving me batty. The search remains "in process" I guess. Maybe I will sit with the universe and send out some stronger messages - "Hey, what's the 'thing' I need?" I hope everyone is well. Take care of you!! Jules Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay So, I am feeling a bit better than I was when I posted my last entry. Writing has proven to be an effective way for me to process complex issues. Most of the time, I don't really have an ending in mind when I start. I know I have a topic that I have been thinking about and start from there. This entry, however, I am not exactly sure where I am going. I kept hearing and seeing the message that today or this moment is all that we have. The past is the past. The future is unknown. I learned a lot about mindfulness and staying present. Both AA and DBT spend a great deal of time on these topics. The purpose of this topic for me was simplicity.
Dragging the negative past with me complicates my current moment. Worrying about the future I can't know anything about distracts me from what is happening in front of me. I had to learn to leave the past in the past and stay out of the future. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. The past is full of valuable lessons and experiences. There is no harm in reminiscing about that. Thinking about the future is important. I could develop any goals or plans if I didn't think about what needs to be done to get there. I think what becomes the challenge for me is not staying in the past or the future. I am much more likely to stay in the past than the future; however, I can easily be found in both depending on what I am thinking about. When I think about my job and career, I am always forward thinking. What is the next goal? What is the next step? What's the next thing? The answer for the past 10 years has been education. I had a goal of getting my masters before 40, done. I decided to go back and finish my RN, done. I want to teach. so, back in school again with another master's degree to get where I feel like I want to go. I look forward to school which is so strange. My high school and undergrad educational experiences were much more about the social aspect. I did what I needed to do to keep a decent grad point average, but really didn't have academia as my central focus. Starting with my LPN and forward, I figured out I was pretty good at school. I have been collecting degrees ever since then. I am not sure how long this next degree will take. I am pretty excited to get started in a few weeks and see where things go. In other areas of my life, things aren't always so clear. I have many positive aspects of my life - family and friends being a true highlight. I am often told that I don't always have the best balance in my life. Basically, I am too career heavy with working a little more than full-time and school. Honestly, school and work make me pretty happy. I enjoy being a nurse in the various roles I current hold. I don't foresee making any significant changes in the near future. While my ultimate goal is teaching, I need to get a few years of "RN" experience under my belt. The 18 years of "LPN" experience don't always count for much in certain cases. While this is all fine and good, I know that I am in need of something more than just a professional/educational life. I think back to when I first got into recovery and people would ask me what I did for fun. Man, that was a hard question. The easiest (and true) answer was spending time with my nephew. I was a first time aunt and found great joy in that experience. Beyond that, though, I struggled to figure out what I did for fun. I can answer that question a little bit easier now (14 years later). I like crafting and doing projects. I like writing and reading. I like being with friends and family. What I think is so different between today and 12-14 years ago is that I was learning in my personal life. Everything was new and exciting. Whoa, values - cool, I have some, let's dive deeper. Did you know that I can take charge of my thoughts? So cool. I now get why my brain does some of the things that it does. WOW! To a certain degree, I have come to understand who I am as a person and as a person in recovery. I could argue that I have changed over time, therefore, my learning is never over on a personal front. That is true and I would hope for anyone reading that we constantly strive to learn more about ourselves over time. The learning I experience on a personal front these days isn't quite as stimulating as it once was. I am working to maintain and understand my present life. Back then, it was learning about what I was (an active alcoholic with significant mental health concerns) and what I could be (learning to live sober and figure out who I am). I have some to understand a lot about myself; yet I have this desire, almost yearning to be something different. Not better, just different. I felt this feeling/emptiness when I started in the counseling field. I felt like there was something bigger out there for me. I was really going to find it working in the field of recovery. Recovery was a huge thing and I truly felt that recovery as a career would take me to places I never could have imagined. I started out strong with doing a lot of public speaking, doing radio and even local cable access TV in WI. That slowly faded away and the path of counseling nearly drowned me. That was an incredible let down and I struggled with that disappointment for quite some time. Fortunately, I had school to keep me afloat knowing that my RN career would likely revitalize that feeling again. It has for the most part as I hope to bring my RN and recovery careers together again via teaching, that feeling of "something bigger" is residing in my personal life now. I have no idea what this "thing" is. I guess I will have to continue to search internally to see what it is that I feel I want/need to do. As I write this entry, I feel like writing has something to do with it. I have toyed around with a book for a long time. I even started a book at one point. I get lost in which direction I want to go. I am good at talking, maybe I should do a podcast. Then I think that committing to either of these while I am in school yet again is more than I could do. Or, am I getting the message all wrong and I should just go out and do super fun things all the time. That is not is not a bad life to live either. I am uncertain. I hope by implementing mindfulness, maybe I can calm this busy mind enough to hear the calling or direction I should be heading. Thanks all for the support after my last entry. Know that I am OK and will be OK. Love, J If I remember correctly, I have touched on the subject of regrets here and there especially when it has come to making some big decisions about changing my life's direction. As I mentioned in my last blog, I try not to get stuck in regret because there is nothing I can really do to change what has happened. On some level, regret is healthy for me. If I feeling regretful about something, I find it important to know why. Was it something against my value system? Was it something impulsive? Did I spend enough time thinking about? Most importantly, did I not listen to myself when I had major doubts about that decision? Exploring regret can be important so I can learn what I need to learn from that situation.
Some situations, though, leave me feeling regretful about actions I did not take or parts of my life that I let pass by. These are the times I want to be careful about regret. Yes, learn something from it, but don't get stuck here. Well, for the past few weeks, I got "stuck there." "There" isn't super easy for me to define at the moment other than I know that I was hit upside the head with grief. In that grief, I started down the rabbit hole of regrets about words left unsaid, actions not taken, and honestly, just wondering why things happen. I met with my therapist because I knew I was getting stuck. If I stayed there much longer, I would probably be looking into a relapse of my depression. The depression I feel today is situational and at the same time a long-term thing. I lost my Dad at 14. I lost an amazing friend in 2004. I lost my marriage. I lost a major relationship. I lost another friend in 2021. And now one of my best friends in 2022. When a new loss comes down the pike, I feel like the loss and pain from all of these other situations comes flying back leaving me wonder if I hadn't dealt with previously. Is that why the compounding grief has returned? Or is this just the deal? So my therapist asked me a month ago, "what is your goal with grief?" I spun on that question for a few weeks. Is there a goal to be had? After weeks so stewing on it, he tells me that there really isn't a "goal" to strive for because loss changes life. If there is goal, it might be to learn to live with grief and not fight it every time it surfaces. Maybe I just don't know how to live with grief. I've said it before and I will say it again, I don't understand grief. I don't get these feelings and what I am supposed to do with them. I cry. I don't feel better. I think of the happier times; I end up getting kind of mad. When I think of those times, that it what I want right now. I want that person with me. Here. Now. Then these feelings would go away. That, sadly, is not the reality, so I am in place to figure out how to "accept" all of this. Acceptance was likely the most powerful thing that happened to me when I was getting sober. I had to accept that life was going to be different now. I had to accept that some things I destroyed were no longer fixable. I had to accept that a different life was needed. I needed to accept change. Although it was hard and scary, acceptance became less scary and even helpful when I saw the number of positive changes that were occurring in my life because I finally accepted that I can't drink normally. I will never drink normally. If I want to live, I need to stop. In retrospect, acceptance changed the game and helped me to put everything in its place. I even had a 12 step plan to work through all the regrets of my past actions! Acceptance is part of this grief process too. I need to accept that KG is gone. I can't help but think about all the times she was such a rock for me when I was finding my way through a divorce and sobriety. I feel regret that I was not as good of a friend back to her. I feel regret for all those things we were going to get on the schedule in the next few months. Now it's too late. I am sad that my friend is gone and there is nothing I can do about it. At this time, I feel like if I weren't sad and grieving every moment I wouldn't be doing justice to just how important she was in my life. How do you just go on? I feel if I don't hold on tight to this grief I will lose her and all the others whom I have lost. I am not in a space to feel like living a happy life honors them in any way. Me feeling some level of pain feels more appropriate. My therapist, of course, had many suggestions of way to honor her memory and the memories of the others that I have lost. I know he is right, that's why I pay the man. But, I am not ready for that. I am not ready to be 100% OK with all of this and have life move forward as if nothing happened. By just moving on, I, again, feel like I am saying "I am OK without you." I'm not. Currently, I am not able to reconcile these things in a way that makes sense for me. It's a process, I get it. The process is incredibly frustrating though. On the healthier side of all of this, I know I can't stop my life. I will continue to pile things onto the "regret pile" if I let other relationships weaken or stop pursuing goals. The people whom I have lost would be annoyed if I did that. I believe all of their souls are at peace now with each of them struggling with different battles while here. If they are at peace, shouldn't my grieving heart appreciate that....even just a little? Personally, when I go, I want people to tell goofy stories and laugh their asses off about fun adventures, my ridiculous stories, or obsessive love of cats. I don't want anybody's life to stop because mine did. After 30+ years, I am sure my Dad would feel that. "Onward, Googs!" (That was my nickname). RC has come to me and let me know that we were cool. I had major regrets with him. These more recent losses, though, are very fresh. It took me probably 10 years to come to a good place with my Dad. About 12 years to be at peace with RC. The pain of those losses does come flying back with new losses. 2020-2022 have been crappy years for losses. I know so many people who have experienced devastating and crippling losses. I have talked with some folks about this whole grief process and how they appear to have adjusted so amazingly. Well, come to find out (I am inserting a little sarcasm here), what I see on social media isn't a 100% reflection of anyone's life. Even my own page reflects that. What appears like effortless transitions are really people still working through their grief and searching for the same thing I am. Peace. Understanding. Acceptance. So, part of my process of not getting stuck in regret is writing. So I am doing my best to muster some energy and courage to speak my truth. I am OK. I will be OK. I am just very, very sad and wish my friend was here to give me a hug. She would tell me I was going to make it. I've been through tough times before. I can do it again. Today, though, I don't want to be strong. I want to know why she is gone. I want one last conversation. I want one last hug. One last laugh together. I can't have that and it makes my heart hurt. Love to everyone out there <3 Julie |
AuthorJust a girl in the world trying to live a sober and happy life. Archives
April 2024
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