My Reality

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 The reality is I had a chaotic childhood and “teenhood”, especially during my teen years. It causes me a lot of struggle and a want, no, a need for control. It came out in weird ways. Getting mad at my sister for moving stuff of mine into our bathroom. Picking at my skin. Scream crying over my hair if something felt even a little off. Always move objects in my room around, a lot or just a few inches until it felt “right”.  Throwing up because I was terrified of the day ahead was the only way, in my mind that I could do to control my nerves and there was the bonus of it having the possibility of getting me out of going. I felt pure hatred and nausea towards the sound of metal scratching on one another. Or silverware scratching on a plate. Never doing the dishes no matter how much I got yelled at. Hiding food and dishes in my room so they didn’t know how much I ate or didn’t. I am tired so early in the day bc I keep just going and going from the second I wake up without even considering breathing and enjoying what I am looking at. If I felt “off” or like something was going to go wrong, the day was over in my mind. I struggled to get out of bed I would just sit there thinking about all the things. I needed to do, school, work, clean, take care of my cat, etc. the list would keep going. I would yell at myself to get up, tell myself I’m so lazy and just get out of bed. Some days I could get out of bed after some time while others well... I would just cancel or call in sick. If I wasn’t canceling, I would be late so I just started saying that I loved being late. Even now I set alarms for 3 hours ahead of when I need to be somewhere so I can have time to freak out and then get on with the day.  Or I would be lucky enough to get triggered by a weird sound, something falling, or even an ambulance. It would be the end of my day when that happened, I wouldn’t calm down until I knew my siblings were okay. Yes, triggers are very real and not something to joke about. They happen because even after the trauma is over you still have the worry and the memories. It takes a long time to feel safe again, especially after so many years of fighting and only surviving.

These are some of the MANY ways trauma and/or an anxiety disorder can present. It is how things are for me, especially when things are at their worst. It’s not something to joke about or make fun of. It’s serious, it’s hard. I’m not being lazy, I’m not faking it, and I’m not a horrible daughter, friend, girlfriend, student, or employee. I am just someone who has to do things differently to be able to do everything I want to do. 

It is okay to not be okay. But it is also okay to be okay. 

It is not a competition on who has it worse. Everyone has their own issues that are difficult for them to handle, there is no need to compare.

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Creative Genius (Week One)

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          During the second half of class, we are practicing the art therapy techniques and the theories that were explored in the first half of class. At the end of the week, we are to create a blog post about the class and the art that is created. In this first class, we just discussed the concept of being a "Creative Genius" In that discussion,  it was argued whether or not we all had the ability to be a creative genius. Through that discussion for our practical part of the day we wrote about a moment when we felt that we were a creative genius, I described an event from one of my big panic attacks, where I tried to help myself by making a list of how I could one day get out of the unsafe and panic-inducing hell hole of a home that I was in.      Thus, when asked what brings out that creativity, I concluded that it came out as: (a) trying to help me protect myself and my feelings, (b) finding a way to soothe myself, and (c) to feel sa...
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