Tag: trauma

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Being Strong

Darkness falls around me like a shroud. It’s not the darkness I fear but the night. My dreams are haunted by the never ending trauma of my past. But yet I sleep to escape the torment of the day, a reprieve from reality. My nightmares devour my only since of peace. Maybe, just maybe, tonight will be different; peace and calm will flood my mind leaving no space for terror. How I long for peace of mind, the end to my battlefield, the never ending struggle to just survive. Depression and anxiety has stolen anything that resembles a ‘normal’ life. It is my deepest longing to just be okay, to just feel ‘normal’ for once, to love life.

Morning comes again bringing with it the light of a new day. But I know today will be a struggle, most days are, some worse then others. I know this all sounds horrible and who would want to read such depressing and hopeless accounts of a day in the life of a struggling mentally ill person. But it is what it is! Try living with it for day in and day out. Not much fun believe me. I guess when I say mentally ill, many people conjure up ideas of a ravenous lunatic, an out of control insane person. But depression/anxiety is probably the exact opposite. Depression for me can be compared to being in a constant state of grief, that never really goes away. And this so interferes with the function of life’s everyday tasks and stresses. Life as to move on but it’s like I’m always trying to play catch up, but I never really do.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve said I’m fine just because I didn’t want to burden others with just how I was really feeling. Ashamed to admit to the truth of how I really felt. So everyday I fight, fight to be okay. But I’m tired, tired of being strong when really I’m not strong at all. The ‘cover’ to my book may look great on the outside but on the inside it’s ripped and torn. So like the old saying goes, ‘Never judge a book by it’s cover’. Afraid that if I open the cover, the pages of my heart would fall out for all the world to see, and if they saw maybe they would judge me and consider it all weakness. When all along I know it can’t be weakness, I ‘know’ it’s not weakness but my mind tells me it is. And everyday I tell myself, over and over again, that it’s not what I feel but what I know. I cannot live my life by feelings but what I know to be the truth. And to live with this hellish disorder of the brain; I have to be strong in order to survive.

Tomorrow may be a ‘good’ day and by a good day I am not defining it by those who do not suffer from a mental illness, there’s no comparison. I live my life by hope, hoping that tomorrow will be a good day. If I lost my will to hope, I would have nothing left but an empty well of darkness. So I will press on, I will not quit the fight, even when overwhelming fatigue and exhaustion have left me lifeless; I will not give in. I will fight for my life. To those who are struggling and feel like you have no hope, take it from me, if I can do it, then so can you. I believe in you!

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2020; A Year We Would Not Soon Forget

January 20, 2017 was my first post to my blog; www.harrislisa72.com. Life & Times Of  “The Tuckers”. ‘Living with severe depression and anxiety. Raising a child with cerebral palsy. The ups and downs of life; the rain and the sunshine’. A form of therapy that brought me through many very dark days. And here I am, January 2, 2021; posting again. Never in my life did I think this blog would last for years and would eventually be published into a book. And may I go further and say, books (two at the least). I can always dream; dreams do come true. This, I feel, will be a cause to pause from writing about my illness. As therapeutic as blogging has been for me, it has also been exhausting and draining; I’ve been misunderstood, stigmatized, traumatized and ridiculed. But that came with no surprise to me; it’s what having a mental illness does to a person. But I still had to write the truth, no matter what. What was meant to start out as therapy for myself, also became a means to help others, through my own experiences with a mental illness. I learned that, much like everything in life, we cannot change the world; nor did I think I could. But I did think I could help one person at a time. And if that meant putting my heart and soul into my writing (raw & honest) then I was willing to do so.  If it meant helping someone else, to save one life, then I was successful in what I set out to do.

In 2012, I had my last relapse, and was told by my doctor that I would not be going back to work; if ever. And here I am in 2021, still fighting my disabling, crippling, tormenting illness; an illness that has left me fighting for that one ‘good day’. But inside this physical body a war is still raging against my mental health. Over the past few years, life has introduced many triggers, many uphill climbs, many times when I just had to crawl. But I fight with what I have and there are times when that may not be much. But I fight!

When I look back over the past year, and wonder how I survived, I really am in awe that I am doing as well as I am. The year was filled with much sadness, loss, sickness, discouragement and I could go on, but what amazes me the most, is that we are still fighting; fighting against all odds.

When Lauren was diagnosed with Spastic Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy in 2014, we knew we were going to encounter many challenges and obstacles; but we had no idea just how many; it was one thing after another, there was no end. We were told, when she was around one year old, that her vision was affected, they just couldn’t tell us just how much she was seeing. Being the naïve parents we were, we just  thought,  when she gets a little older she’ll just need glasses and that’ll take care of her vision. We were so wrong again.  When she was referred to the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind), we were literary in shock. We realized then that Lauren’s vision was not going to be corrected with a pair of glasses. My God, how were we going to get through this? How were we going to accept this? Sometimes you just don’t have a choice. Then she was referred to APSEA (Atlantic Provinces Education Authority) in March 2020. Their findings were what led to her being diagnosed with CVI (Cortical Visual Impairment). This has more to do with how the brain is interpreting what the eye is seeing. There is no cure per se. With intervention, improvement is possible, but not a lot of hope, in my opinion.

The year, 2020, began with Lisa’s surgery on March 16. This surgery was supposedly a routine surgery that would only require an overnight stay in the hospital. However, due to complications resulting from the surgery, Lisa was rushed back into the OR for emergency , life-saving surgery on March 17. This surgery resulted in  her being put in ICU on a ventilator, fighting for her life.

And if that weren’t  bad enough, the hospital was now on lockdown due to the worldwide pandemic of the Covid19 virus. Lisa had to experience this all alone because there were no visitors allowed in the hospital;  not even her distraught husband. You talk about an hell on earth, and that was exactly what we were experiencing. Lisa stayed in the hospital for eight days. Once released, we thought we were on the road to recovery; so we thought. To make a long story short, within five months Lisa was back in the hospital from August 23- September 3, due to more complications from that first surgery back in March 16, 2020; a nightmare for us all, especially our two children, Logan & Lauren.

Then, once Lisa was back home and settled in again, she had to find the courage to tell me that my sweet niece, Tonya, had suddenly passed away. Shock, grief and bereavement totally shot me down! The feeling of disbelief consumed my mind. How could this be? She was so young! Our whole family was lost in a sea of grief. A part of all of us was missing; that piece of your heart that you hold close to you, had now gone to Heaven.

It seemed like the year could not get any worse, but the pandemic was sweeping the world! Schools were closed for the remainder of the school year. Lisa was pretty much out of commission; what was supposed to initially be a six week recovery period, ended up to be a full year for recovery. And, here we were with a child that had CP, requiring 24/7 care; care that we had to provide on our own.  All the while, we continued to try to give our nine year old little boy as normal a life as possible.  In spite of it all, he was a trooper and we are so proud of him.

I had to believe that God was in the midst of all this chaos, because this was something we could not handle in our human strength. I prayed for God’s strength, comfort and protection to make it through these most trying times. He was and is faithful!                                                                                                                         

 

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Living Through Trauma

When I sit in my ‘man cave’ (our office) I feel like I’m in my safe place and I can close the door and leave the world outside. But that’s not really true, I believe it creeps in under the door and through the cracks. But it’s in my ‘man cave’ that I find refuge, strength and distraction; my greatest source of therapy. For it’s here I can read, write my blogs, paint and just mediate or pray. Oh yah, I forgot, and I become ‘Walter on da line’. All of these various activities have helped so much in helping me escape the darkness or that feeling of knowing that something is just not right. That nagging, gut wrenching feeling of uneasiness. Words really cannot describe how it really feels.

As I sit here in the early hours of the morning, there’s a deafening silence. I’m not comfortable with silence, it scares me, afraid of what thoughts I might hear. So I grab my pencil and start writing, I’ve needed to write but didn’t know what to say or where to start. You would think I have said everything I needed to say by now. But everyday brings new challenges, something new that triggers my brain to want to write about. Mental illness certainly has given me lots to share and the topics are endless.

Today I want to talk about trauma and how it affects your life, how we deal with it and how someone with a mental illness, especially depression and anxiety, can cope with it and survive. Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Over my lifetime I have encountered many traumatizing experiences, all of which triggered my depression and anxiety disorder. So dealing with trauma in your life, while at the same time living with a mental illness, hits you with a double whammy. You are fighting two battles at the same time, which makes it even more distressing.

I’m going to be honest with you, there really aren’t any concrete answers. There’s no one thing that I can say to you that will make the pain go away, except time and that just deadens it for a while. There’s a lot of truth to the phrase, ‘time heals all wounds’. But I always say, ‘they leave such ugly scars’. Especially when it comes to trauma; we have to take just one day at a time and with each day there will come some healing.

I am not a trained professional, nor do I claim to be; but I have lived and survived through many traumatic experiences in my life.

I believe the first step is to talk to someone; whether that being a professional therapist, councillor, trusted friend or partner. Knowing that you are not alone and you have support is certainly your first step on your journey to healing.

We also have to accept that bad things happen to good people. It’s a part of life that we all will have to deal with at some time or another. I compare my life to a boat on the ocean. There are some days when we have a beautiful calm but then there are other days when we are in the midst of the raging seas. But we have to remember, storms don’t last forever; we just need to ride out the storm and eventually (sometimes longer then others) the storm will cease and the calm will come again.

If our trauma was caused by someone else; we have to forgive, we must ‘love your enemy’. Now that doesn’t happen overnight. Ecclesiastes says, ‘there’s a time to love and a time to hate’. Right now we may be at the hating stage, but with time we can learn to love again and let go of the anger. Holding on to anger and hate only hurts ourselves, so there are and were many times when I had to let it go and free myself and learn to forgive.

We also need to recognize our strength. Life may at times knock us down but we have to get up again. I believe experiencing painful events and trauma in our lives makes us more resilient. When we see that we have already survived, we know we can make it through again. We just have to keep getting up, never stay down.

Experiencing trauma in our lives can also give us greater compassion for other trauma survivors. We can relate on a new level because we ‘get it’. And relating to others can further provide a source of strength. It certainly gives us a sense of purpose in life when we know we are helping others and bringing some good into an already hurting world.

So if and when we do experience trauma in our lives, we can work through it and with time, will find healing and the hurt won’t hurt so bad. I hope I have encouraged you today and have given you some food for thought. We are stronger then we think, even in the roughest seas.

 

 

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“Our Story”

This blog  is taken from a speech I presented at Church just recently. I told my story there before entitled, A Broken Mind, which can still be found on our website at www.harrislisa72.com. But this blog isn’t just about me, it’s about my family; Lisa, Logan and Lauren. A family that is struggling and at times broken but I want to share with you the power of the human spirit to overcome any adversity with the help of God and a determination to never quit, never give up on hope. I have to make clear that this is not a onetime fix but a daily, conscious effort that requires a strength that is far beyond all human comprehension.

John 16:33                                                                                                                                                   I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. IN THIS WORLD YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Our lives as been anything but trouble free, we have had more then our share of trials and tribulations. The storms of our lives have been many, there have been times when our ship was barely above water, we were sinking but I believe we were not in that ship alone. And that is why we are still riding out the storm. The storms may have beaten us down, exhausted us and at times left us for dead. But its these experiences and life altering traumas that have forced us to put our total dependence on God. For what we have experienced, are experiencing and what we are going to experience, we have to trust in the God of the impossible, the God that cannot fail, the God who has a plan for our lives; a plan we may not see at the moment.

I speak as a realist, not a pessimist. One thing I want to be is totally honest, totally real. I cannot say to you that we don’t question, doubt and have moments when we feel like we are somewhere wandering in the wilderness. But  we realize if we are going to survive this storm of life, we will have to put our trust and hope in the resurrected Christ. The Christ who died and rose again and today is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us, what an amazing promise! That is what gives me hope, that is what gives us the strength to go on.

Let me just elaborate for a few moments on our not so ‘normal life’; by society’s standards. We don’t portray the perfect ‘facebook’, ‘cookie cutter life’. Let me take you back to my father’s death, my first real traumatic experience. He was a man of God, a man of faith and wisdom. Life certainly wasn’t always easy but he trusted God that tomorrow was going to be better, he never lost faith. When all nine children and Mom were gathered around his bed, he said before his passing that what truly mattered was right here in this room; his family and God; nothing else mattered when it came to material things. And right now I believe Dad is just ‘Gone Home’. He taught me what was important in life and what truly mattered in the end.

After  some months after his passing, Lisa and I had time to think and ponder over our own lives. After been married for eleven years with no children we thought about what Dad taught us on his deathbed and maybe we should have children too; just not nine! So the fun began, before long we were pregnant, although the doctors told Lisa she wasn’t. But Lisa knew she was; a Mother’s intuition. We decided to take a little vacation to the Dominican Republic. This trip would turn out to be one of the most traumatic experiences of our life. To make a long story short; while on the plane returning home, Lisa felt sick and decided to go back to the washroom on the plane. She never returned to her seat again, it ended with Lisa unconscious on the floor of the plane. Barely a pulse and turning blue; Lisa was dying. Once the plane landed, Lisa was rushed by ambulance to the nearest hospital, where we learned Lisa was hemorrhaging from an ectopic pregnancy and was taken for emergency surgery, where we lost our baby, Lisa lost  80% of her blood volume and was minutes from dying. This was the beginning of the storms of ‘our’ lives.

It was a long and traumatic journey back to real life. For months we grieved the loss of our baby in silence. We still so desperately wanted to have a baby but were told that would be impossible. But we never gave up, to fast forward; we went to Calgary for IVF; invetro fertilization and to defy all odds and with God’s intervention we were pregnant and seven months later we had a handsome baby boy who we named Logan. He was the joy of our lives.

But then when Logan was around a year old, I began to have severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. And that was where my story began and I was given a life altering diagnosis, that left me both mentally and physically disabled. And since that time until now I have struggled and still struggling to regain my life back. Then in the midst of all this trauma, we were miraculously blessed with a baby girl. She was certainly a light in the darkness; sunshine in the midst of all the rain. But then on her first birthday Lauren was diagnosed with spastic guadriplegia cerebral palsy- a life altering diagnosis for all of us. Our world fell apart. Trying to describe CP and what that involves is much like trying to describe my own diagnosis; both very complex and complicated. And to try and explain what either is, is impossible unless you experience it for yourself.

We were forced to make major life changes and had to move to Bay Roberts. And the storms have never ended, there’s been and will always be some unforseen battle and that is the reality. But in order to survive such traumatic and life changing experiences we have had to place our trust in God and believe that He is in the storm with us, He is in our ship and we will not sink. The minute we take our eyes off Him, it’s then we’ll sink. There are places I’ve seen His hand at work; in spite of all the trauma, trials and tribulations, there are so many miracles that present itself in our lives: 1. Our marriage as survived, struggling but surviving. Statistics show that majority of marriages don’t survive when faced with the ordeals that we have encountered. 2. The miracle that Lauren was conceived in the first place, when we were told it would be impossible for us to get pregnant on our own. 3. That Logan was fertilized in a petri dish and was viable to be implanted within Lisa’s womb and was successful; is not only amazing but a miracle. 4. That I can stand behind this pulpit, when I was in the acute stage of my illness I could barely stand at all. 5. That Lisa was capable of carrying a baby after the trauma she had experienced when we lost our first baby. So, I just want to say, ‘thank you Lord, for your blessings on us’.

Many times when discouragement knocks on our heart’s door and we find it difficult to see the light of day; we have to remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness. I don’t portray to be ‘Christian of the Year’ but I do say, ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace, so unworthy of the blood’. But yet He died for unworthy me, thank you just isn’t enough, His mercy rewrote my life. For without Calvary I would not be where I am today. So all the Glory belongs to Him. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

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The Aftermath of my Depression and Anxiety

It’s ironic how I wrote this blog; I wrote the content before I wrote the opening paragraph. That’s me, never do things the normal  way, just being my unique self. The main thing is, I still get the job done. This being a chronic disorder, I still have to face each day has if I’m climbing a mountain. It takes hard work, perseverance and stamina. But you do what you have to do in order to survive.

Nighttime comes and I and I anticipate my escape from my thoughts and feelings, just maybe sleep will give me some reprieve. I do sleep fairly well, thanks to mirtazaphine , but my dreams/nightmares are frightening and tormenting. Just last night, I was on a locked down physc ward and trying to escape; but there was no way out. Because of the trauma I experienced during that period of my illness, seems to haunt me even to this day. I guess it’s my biggest fear that those days will return. I try not to live in fear but deep down in my subconscious, that fear at times resurfaces. I do trust and pray that God will spare me the horrific trauma of ever having to relive that nightmare.

Morning arrives and the first thing I have to do is to debrief myself; that those dreams and nightmares are just that, they are not real. But none the less they are a constant reminder of my past living hell, that will try to follow me through my day. I guess I am still experiencing a lot of post traumatic thoughts that I just can’t turn on or shut off. But I just pray that God will one day allow me to forget.

After debriefing is done and I desperately try to move past it; I am faced with the thoughts of how am I going to face the day with my limited strength and focus. My head is in a fog. The day seems so overwhelming and I feel so powerless over it, it’s then I go to my knees and ask God once again, for the thousandth time, to give me strength, purpose and wisdom. Even when I have days when I feel I can’t do this anymore, and I do have those days, then I believe God moves in and carries me.

Do I believe my illness has made me weak? Well sometimes I do think that but then that still small voice tells me; you are strong. If I were weak I would have given up a long time ago. Society taught us has men, that if we show our emotions then we must be weak; that is so far from the truth. It does show that we have compassion, humbleness and a caring spirit.  And to those who have succumbed to this illness, I am most certainly not saying they are weak but the pain of their illness was just too unbearable. If I were weak (by society’s standards), I would have given up a long time ago. But I pray that God will give me “continued” strength for everyday that lies ahead. Because in our little family we have so many uncertainties, unknowns and fears. But we will conquer  them one day, one hour, one minute at a time, through the strength of our Heavenly Father. Because there are days when you wonder how you are going to keep going, but you just do! What choice do we have?

One of the biggest adjustments still to this day is performing a task, a task that before just came natural and you didn’t even have to think about it; you just did it. But now that task seems so big, overwhelming and I have to over rationalize it. It is still a work in progress and I believe one day will get easier. A good example would be, I’m singing in the Christmas Cantata. Now, I have been singing since I came out of the womb and absolutely love it, it’s my passion. But now it comes with much fear, thoughts of; I can’t do it, I’m not good enough, inadequate and the list goes on. I have to do much mind control and self talk to override those negative thoughts. None the less, it takes much hard work to perform any task and that can be just exhausting. My day is only half done and fatigue overwhelms me. So I do what I can, just on a lower scale and try not to take on more than I can handle.

Have you ever had a task to do and you had to go to the next room in the house to do it and by the time you got there, you forgot what the task was? Well that’s the story of my life now. Just the other day I was supposed to be returning the water jug to the refrigerator and when I realized it, I had the coffee pot; now that’s scary. Because of my disorder, it’s my brain that’s affected, thus my memory and train of thought are/was highly affected. Now whether that’s from the medication, ECT treatments or aftershocks of the disorder; I’m not quite sure what the cause is. Maybe all of the above. Whatever the case, I cannot trust to my memory anymore, if there’s something I need to remember, I have to write it down.  If I have a speaking engagement, I have to write it down; I cannot trust my mind. Then there are times when I’m in the middle of a conversation and I just loose my train of thought. This happens too frequently and becomes a little bothersome. Maybe I need to eat more bananas, they’re supposed to be brain food.

So you see, even after all this time, I still have to fight this dreaded disorder. But I am so thankful for my improvement and believing that with each day will come renewed strength. It’s because of this hope that I can face each new day, despite my disturbed feelings of depression and anxiety.