Healing with those models is important. If you get lost in it, it’s good for you. I have a friend who I guess is still on Facebook who did that. Listen, do what makes you happy. If that makes you happy, do it. I don’t do it enough, make art like that. But I am doing more. And you’re right—community is everything.
I’ve always been good at making genuine friends—unlike I used to in relationships, I don’t attach to my friends, which makes it easier to see things with clarity. I’d been hurt by friends in the past—one stole from me in 9th grade the year I went to a private school, and I became more…aware. (I actually checked myself out of that school after an 11th grader became obsessed with me when he would see me walking home from school, so I just didn’t turn in the check for the next year and ended up at a public high school where I met genuinely good friends who I hope are all the happiest in their lives.)
But as for your family—those sound like good connections. It sounds like your wife loves you unconditionally. That’s so important. I love my person unconditionally as well, and having struggled with C-PTSD (I’m still jumpy with loud noises and I am extremely sensitive to and resistant to deception when I sense it. It scares me until I can sort it out.). But I know how to be still and to wait for answers to come. It’s a journey. When you have trauma, even when you create your own paradise, which is what I’ve been doing, meticulously crafting a world of egalitarian creative play where we embrace our authentic selves and our individual autonomy while harmoniously celebrating one another. It’s a good world. And it’s real now. The old world was not for me. I considered how Eden was described and when I finally figured out how to see the world in metaphor (that Barnes & Noble Sparknotes DE work was what did it), I considered what life could be. I considered the music that told the truth—heaven is a place on earth. Metaphorically, it’s a state of mind. The reason it’s hard to think clearly and create when you’re in “hell” is because it’s so hard to get out of those hurt feelings and negative emotions caused by the limiting beliefs perpetuated by trauma.
I had to just say thank you for the lesson, choose to see the good, and then tell myself (repeatedly) that I am abundant and I love my life and I deserve the life I designed. I just kept writing it and thinking it and living like it was real until it became so. I started a new one today. I want to see a future that is healed and safe for everyone. I’ve seen too much suffering and I want to help, however I can. That’s why I want us to work together doing whatever it is that breathes love and life into us.
And also, I want people to stop feeling the needless shame for what was done to them or past choices. That held me back, too. Shame makes us feel unworthy, and it was never ours. I had no problem letting go of shame and guilt when Deepak Chopra wisely pointed out that they were not necessary. They only keep the vibes low. So when they come up, I get compassionately curious. What am I feeling? What happened when I felt that? And then I just ask…okay, where is this coming from? And then I say—now, what hurt me isn’t about me—and that adds so much more clarity. And I followed the threads back to the beginning to see how it all began and why and I can forgive all of that in them and in me. I mean, they were just doing what felt right at the time. It’s why I try to declutter what’s inside, so I can breathe and can see.
I hope you’re okay. And I appreciate your vulnerable writing. I love seeing your love in this. You have such a good heart and soul. It’s obvious. I’m glad you have the things that you have to hold space for you and to truly love and care about you.
🫶Thank you for wanting to read mine. It means so much. Stories helped me more than I can say. The first book I listened to (intuitive people, I’ve read tend to listen better than they see reading—I do miss a lot reading, and listening is pleasant when doing mundane things that don’t interest me) was Tara Schuster’s Buy Yourself the F—king Lilies. In it, she gave me permission to do what nobody else would—feel my feelings. She gave me permission to admit that hurtful behaviors hurt when I was being told I was doing it wrong after my husband died. These people still say hurtful things—like my mom—you care about things that don’t matter—when I told her that it hurt my feelings that when she and my dad toured my house, which I love, that they were only critical and pointed out what they saw as flaws. I said—I bought this house. I found it and loved it. Why would you not want your daughter to be independent? They didn’t.
They’re from the group that wants to breed codependency and who will stop at nothing to control people’s minds, which is why I am such a free-thinking radical. I was right for me all along. But the reality is—if it matters to you, then it matters, and anyone who tells you that your FEELINGS (the truest part of you) are wrong for how you feel them, then they are really telling you that they are not safe for you. And I cried about it. I cry about a lot. But I also let it go. That was really when I started to just put my parents down. They’re helping me with my daughters right now because of the work I’m doing and just recovering from this schizoaffective episode I was shoved into, and I just talked to my youngest, and I cried about that, too. I couldn’t figure out why I was avoiding going over there, but it’s my parents’ house. It’s too much trauma. I can’t. I told my mom on the phone when my daughter said she forgot what my voice sounded like that I can’t go there. I will come get them and take them places, but I can’t go. I can’t be there. It’s the house. It’s the neighborhood.
Trauma lives there. I don’t need to keep going back to the house that broke me. But for my daughters, I know it’s safe and happy, and I said as much. I said that I was just leaving them to go do meetings and while they’re old enough to watch themselves (my parents did the same thing to us after my 5th grade year when they fixed up the house in Leesburg that summer, which was honestly quite nice considering how controlling they were (we mostly just reveled in making mashups and DIY slushies with icy pops), but they need someone with them. They don’t need to be abandoned. And while I know this is a form of abandonment, as soon as I get them home—and I will as soon as I can—I’ll invest in making up for it. I know we can heal from these things. But make no mistake—it saved my life for Tara to tell me that I was allowed to let the things that hurt that everyone in the South says to just “get over” actually hurt. She was a lifeline. And she was the one I went to see in Topanga when Glow in the F—king Dark came out. In that book, she nearly killed herself when a man she’d fallen in love with who she was a bit ambivalent over and she broke up. She couldn’t understand her response. She ended it with him, she said.
She then talked about her Dad whose behavior was selfish. He didn’t care about her unless it was on his terms (boy this sounds familiar), and so, she cut him off for two years having developed a sense of self that showed her she deserved BETTER treatment. I was paying attention. Unlike most people, her dad went to therapy during her absence, and he ended up coming back and is better. Not perfect, but better, which goes to show that healing and transformation are choices. We are malleable. Just as we can devolve, we can evolve. At the time, I was thinking of the then-and-now-gone partner I had who spent the entire trip screaming at me every time I had the audacity to call him. I’d booked the plane ticket without telling him. Because I knew he’d manipulate me into not going, and I didn’t want to be. I’d never do that to a person who was actually decent and kind and communicative. But I knew I had to choose myself. Also, he’d physically assaulted me the month before, so fuck him.
But I’m glad I went. Tara’s story empowered me with the first book—it was my first toolkit that I just kept filling, and then again in April 2023. In that book, she talked about getting a sense of purpose. And I had always thought I had a purpose, but I didn’t. I had a self-serving dream to write really good books that my ego felt needed to be really good or else, which paralyzed the hell out of me to do anything other than dance around writing. I ended up—during my little manifesting project—as I said gratitude for all of the things I wanted to do and create, how thankful I was for the individuals I’d be helping with the publishing company I have / am creating, etc. And I have always known we are meant to help others, and I’d already established I wanted to help eliminate needless suffering (in the form largely of the abuse I’d been issued) by helping the tender sweet people like my Daniel who had been hurt by the selfish actions of others and like me. At first.
Then I saw I was creating more suffering in those who are like my mom who are so traumatized and afraid that they hide behind every construct and employ group think for safety. Having once been in the church, as were many, I did this as well. I can listen to messages and hear the truth in the lies, but I still avoid it—church. Or people like that, but I do pray for them, but I cannot break a wall that does not want to come down. I tried for 4.5 years. It was literally the definition of insanity. I have a tendency to only see the good in people. We project what we reflect, so I see the light. And when I see one that’s so bright, I just go to it. I can’t help it.
But the reality is that I had to learn how to witness behaviors and trust actions over words. Words have great power over me, and they have great power in general. Having learned to manifest, I did learn that. Oh Jesus, did I learn. So, by doing those things (it took a while to figure out what I needed to do), I was able to be true to myself, use my words wisely (er…wiserly?) as much as I can being human, and watch what people DO. And when I see the behaviors that are anathema for peace, I close that door. We aren’t to help those who cannot and will not help themselves. And we cannot force and control a person’s journey. If we do, we break them. I have been broken by hurtful people in the past—the person who cussed me out. And I have been hurt by helpful people, but I can see how it was done with love, and that is a beautiful investment. To know that there are people who see you, even if they don’t say so. But I will say, I’ve realized it’s nice for them to say so. So, I do see you, and I see the good that you do. And it’s a lot to keep up with for non-techy people like me—the stuff about technical security, but the stuff about emotional and energetic security, of that I have done the work. Basically, I need what you write. It’s good. And real.
Healing with those models is important. If you get lost in it, it’s good for you. I have a friend who I guess is still on Facebook who did that. Listen, do what makes you happy. If that makes you happy, do it. I don’t do it enough, make art like that. But I am doing more. And you’re right—community is everything.
I’ve always been good at making genuine friends—unlike I used to in relationships, I don’t attach to my friends, which makes it easier to see things with clarity. I’d been hurt by friends in the past—one stole from me in 9th grade the year I went to a private school, and I became more…aware. (I actually checked myself out of that school after an 11th grader became obsessed with me when he would see me walking home from school, so I just didn’t turn in the check for the next year and ended up at a public high school where I met genuinely good friends who I hope are all the happiest in their lives.)
But as for your family—those sound like good connections. It sounds like your wife loves you unconditionally. That’s so important. I love my person unconditionally as well, and having struggled with C-PTSD (I’m still jumpy with loud noises and I am extremely sensitive to and resistant to deception when I sense it. It scares me until I can sort it out.). But I know how to be still and to wait for answers to come. It’s a journey. When you have trauma, even when you create your own paradise, which is what I’ve been doing, meticulously crafting a world of egalitarian creative play where we embrace our authentic selves and our individual autonomy while harmoniously celebrating one another. It’s a good world. And it’s real now. The old world was not for me. I considered how Eden was described and when I finally figured out how to see the world in metaphor (that Barnes & Noble Sparknotes DE work was what did it), I considered what life could be. I considered the music that told the truth—heaven is a place on earth. Metaphorically, it’s a state of mind. The reason it’s hard to think clearly and create when you’re in “hell” is because it’s so hard to get out of those hurt feelings and negative emotions caused by the limiting beliefs perpetuated by trauma.
I had to just say thank you for the lesson, choose to see the good, and then tell myself (repeatedly) that I am abundant and I love my life and I deserve the life I designed. I just kept writing it and thinking it and living like it was real until it became so. I started a new one today. I want to see a future that is healed and safe for everyone. I’ve seen too much suffering and I want to help, however I can. That’s why I want us to work together doing whatever it is that breathes love and life into us.
And also, I want people to stop feeling the needless shame for what was done to them or past choices. That held me back, too. Shame makes us feel unworthy, and it was never ours. I had no problem letting go of shame and guilt when Deepak Chopra wisely pointed out that they were not necessary. They only keep the vibes low. So when they come up, I get compassionately curious. What am I feeling? What happened when I felt that? And then I just ask…okay, where is this coming from? And then I say—now, what hurt me isn’t about me—and that adds so much more clarity. And I followed the threads back to the beginning to see how it all began and why and I can forgive all of that in them and in me. I mean, they were just doing what felt right at the time. It’s why I try to declutter what’s inside, so I can breathe and can see.
I hope you’re okay. And I appreciate your vulnerable writing. I love seeing your love in this. You have such a good heart and soul. It’s obvious. I’m glad you have the things that you have to hold space for you and to truly love and care about you.
Thanks Amy and thanks for sharing your story too
🫶Thank you for wanting to read mine. It means so much. Stories helped me more than I can say. The first book I listened to (intuitive people, I’ve read tend to listen better than they see reading—I do miss a lot reading, and listening is pleasant when doing mundane things that don’t interest me) was Tara Schuster’s Buy Yourself the F—king Lilies. In it, she gave me permission to do what nobody else would—feel my feelings. She gave me permission to admit that hurtful behaviors hurt when I was being told I was doing it wrong after my husband died. These people still say hurtful things—like my mom—you care about things that don’t matter—when I told her that it hurt my feelings that when she and my dad toured my house, which I love, that they were only critical and pointed out what they saw as flaws. I said—I bought this house. I found it and loved it. Why would you not want your daughter to be independent? They didn’t.
They’re from the group that wants to breed codependency and who will stop at nothing to control people’s minds, which is why I am such a free-thinking radical. I was right for me all along. But the reality is—if it matters to you, then it matters, and anyone who tells you that your FEELINGS (the truest part of you) are wrong for how you feel them, then they are really telling you that they are not safe for you. And I cried about it. I cry about a lot. But I also let it go. That was really when I started to just put my parents down. They’re helping me with my daughters right now because of the work I’m doing and just recovering from this schizoaffective episode I was shoved into, and I just talked to my youngest, and I cried about that, too. I couldn’t figure out why I was avoiding going over there, but it’s my parents’ house. It’s too much trauma. I can’t. I told my mom on the phone when my daughter said she forgot what my voice sounded like that I can’t go there. I will come get them and take them places, but I can’t go. I can’t be there. It’s the house. It’s the neighborhood.
Trauma lives there. I don’t need to keep going back to the house that broke me. But for my daughters, I know it’s safe and happy, and I said as much. I said that I was just leaving them to go do meetings and while they’re old enough to watch themselves (my parents did the same thing to us after my 5th grade year when they fixed up the house in Leesburg that summer, which was honestly quite nice considering how controlling they were (we mostly just reveled in making mashups and DIY slushies with icy pops), but they need someone with them. They don’t need to be abandoned. And while I know this is a form of abandonment, as soon as I get them home—and I will as soon as I can—I’ll invest in making up for it. I know we can heal from these things. But make no mistake—it saved my life for Tara to tell me that I was allowed to let the things that hurt that everyone in the South says to just “get over” actually hurt. She was a lifeline. And she was the one I went to see in Topanga when Glow in the F—king Dark came out. In that book, she nearly killed herself when a man she’d fallen in love with who she was a bit ambivalent over and she broke up. She couldn’t understand her response. She ended it with him, she said.
She then talked about her Dad whose behavior was selfish. He didn’t care about her unless it was on his terms (boy this sounds familiar), and so, she cut him off for two years having developed a sense of self that showed her she deserved BETTER treatment. I was paying attention. Unlike most people, her dad went to therapy during her absence, and he ended up coming back and is better. Not perfect, but better, which goes to show that healing and transformation are choices. We are malleable. Just as we can devolve, we can evolve. At the time, I was thinking of the then-and-now-gone partner I had who spent the entire trip screaming at me every time I had the audacity to call him. I’d booked the plane ticket without telling him. Because I knew he’d manipulate me into not going, and I didn’t want to be. I’d never do that to a person who was actually decent and kind and communicative. But I knew I had to choose myself. Also, he’d physically assaulted me the month before, so fuck him.
But I’m glad I went. Tara’s story empowered me with the first book—it was my first toolkit that I just kept filling, and then again in April 2023. In that book, she talked about getting a sense of purpose. And I had always thought I had a purpose, but I didn’t. I had a self-serving dream to write really good books that my ego felt needed to be really good or else, which paralyzed the hell out of me to do anything other than dance around writing. I ended up—during my little manifesting project—as I said gratitude for all of the things I wanted to do and create, how thankful I was for the individuals I’d be helping with the publishing company I have / am creating, etc. And I have always known we are meant to help others, and I’d already established I wanted to help eliminate needless suffering (in the form largely of the abuse I’d been issued) by helping the tender sweet people like my Daniel who had been hurt by the selfish actions of others and like me. At first.
Then I saw I was creating more suffering in those who are like my mom who are so traumatized and afraid that they hide behind every construct and employ group think for safety. Having once been in the church, as were many, I did this as well. I can listen to messages and hear the truth in the lies, but I still avoid it—church. Or people like that, but I do pray for them, but I cannot break a wall that does not want to come down. I tried for 4.5 years. It was literally the definition of insanity. I have a tendency to only see the good in people. We project what we reflect, so I see the light. And when I see one that’s so bright, I just go to it. I can’t help it.
But the reality is that I had to learn how to witness behaviors and trust actions over words. Words have great power over me, and they have great power in general. Having learned to manifest, I did learn that. Oh Jesus, did I learn. So, by doing those things (it took a while to figure out what I needed to do), I was able to be true to myself, use my words wisely (er…wiserly?) as much as I can being human, and watch what people DO. And when I see the behaviors that are anathema for peace, I close that door. We aren’t to help those who cannot and will not help themselves. And we cannot force and control a person’s journey. If we do, we break them. I have been broken by hurtful people in the past—the person who cussed me out. And I have been hurt by helpful people, but I can see how it was done with love, and that is a beautiful investment. To know that there are people who see you, even if they don’t say so. But I will say, I’ve realized it’s nice for them to say so. So, I do see you, and I see the good that you do. And it’s a lot to keep up with for non-techy people like me—the stuff about technical security, but the stuff about emotional and energetic security, of that I have done the work. Basically, I need what you write. It’s good. And real.
I appreciate that and I will keep doing it for as long as I'm able to 😁