Category: Mental Health

  • Letting Go…. Not 15 Years Old Anymore

    I’ve had PTSD for quite a while now. I guess I didn’t realize how my brain changed during my traumatic experiences growing up. And after I grew up… (*kinda*) I have always wanted to be better than I was. Thinking that I was still 15 years old, I saw everyone as not liking me. Or…

  • 5/18/25. I am finally enough

    I look at myself now, and I see things differently. When I was a teenager, I was allowed to do things I should never have done. I made choices to avoid being alone. And my ability to determine who was safe and was not, I had no ability to sense. I saw a very small…

  • Teeth, Quality, and Breaking Down

    I had all my teeth removed by the time I was in my 20’s. I didn’t exactly care for myself. Depression and poverty. Not fun times. Insurance will cover removal of teeth at $0 copay to over $1000 for a root canal and crown. I had two kids and a husband. I had no money.…

  • Safety – Feeling Denied (Until I Left)

    I hated what the Upper Peninsula of Michigan represented as a kid. Many people from outside of that area looked at it as … well, undeveloped and people were hicks. Drink beer, go to jail, sing stupid songs, go to deer camp, and lose MANY MANY IQ points in the process. I didn’t feel like…

  • Where Am I?

    Good question. I’m here, I think. Trying to understand… Myself. Who I’ve started to become. I don’t think people (some more than others) realize how difficult it is to explain to someone how you feel. How awful and miserable it is. You convey the desperation of your situation and how it just feels neverending. It…

  • Feelings about Me & The Future

    It has been an extraordinary adventure. I’m fourty (murmurs random number) years old. I’ve been dealing with PTSD largely since I was 11 years old. My feelings were large and I had no one to really help me unpack them. Go to the therapist my mom says. Her therapist. Karen. I didn’t want her. I…

  • What IS PTSD? How Do I Have It?

    PTSD hasn’t been recognized for that long, clinically. PTSD is recognized globally as a Mental Health Diagnosis. It’s become part of the DSM in the United States in the 1980’s. Although it’s been described for approximately 3000 years. According to Herodotus’ description of an Athenian soldier that became blind after the Battle of Marathon in…

  • Criminal/Bad/Evil/Unusual/Ugly Behavior

    I think everyone throughout time (mostly) that experienced trauma (abuse, neglect, incest/molestation/rape, crime, poverty…. etc), people will find a way to adapt. Positively or negatively. I like choose your own adventure books. I like the opportunity to be a woman and to be able to use her voice. I like that I have the freedom…

  • Trauma & Me

    It’s hard to remember the good things. It honestly is. And after so much criticism from people who purported to love me, I almost shut down my blog. I decided to keep going because after all, this is for me. Not for anyone else. I started out with this as a means of reflecting on my life.  I realize that…

  • Tying it all together

    My life is a complicated mess. Tying together the family dysfunction, the RYR2 gene mutation, my rebelliousness, and the IALC (Independent Apostolic Lutheran Church – or Laestadianism.) My family (or at least four generations back) came from Finland. Lars Levi Laestadius created this religion called Laestadianism. It’s Lutheran. IALC is founded with the ideas of…