On Meds, Hard Stuff, Pain and Glennon!

I did it.  I've been laying in my bed since I put the kids on the bus just trying to escape all that is happening. My bed is my sanctuary.  It's my spot.  Kind of like my robe- its my comfort.  It's my place to go to pretend the world isn't happening.  As I laid there and did exactly the opposite of what I said I was going to do- which was come here to the blog- I remembered what happened last night.  I went to Glennon.  My most favorite, truth-telling human who makes me feel less insane and listened to all she had to say on just about everything.  It was incredible.  However, that's not what I remembered that got me out of my bed.  After the show and after the meet and greet- I was headed outside to the car.  A woman, with blonde hair and whose name I do remember but will not disclose since I didn't ask permission came through the door outside to yell my name.  "Lindsay!  Are you Lindsay?  I read your blog.  And, I think its fantastic.  Thank you for putting it out there."   I shook her hand, personally introduced myself and I will never forget her.  Thank you, kind woman, for going out of your way- to make my day.  Thank you for caring what I have to say.   Today, I climbed out of my bed and came here just because of you.

The road to Glennon.

   Lord knows I take the road less traveled.  Every time.  We've all addressed this.  We know this.  Yada Yada.  Moving on.  Lets talk about my road to see Glennon.  Well, it started about a year ago.  I saw she was coming to a church in Michigan.  I got tickets, made my friends get tickets, was so excited about the day…and then I bailed.  Insert Crossfit competition.  Stupid Crossfit competition trumped my Glennon night because, well fitness.  Fitness trumps all.  Duh,  rule of life.  Still not happy about it.  Still was annoyed all day.  Whatever.  It passed.  About a year later I noticed she is coming again.  This time I buy a ticket.  Tell my friends to buy a ticket but guess what?  Sold out.  Perf.  Didn't care.  Going Alone.   As luck would have it my dear friend, Krista, scores a ticket about two weeks ago.  Fantastic.  Now I get a partner in my crime.  So, show starts at 7:00PM and we are over an hour away.  Obviously we are concerned about missing a meal so we decide to leave at 3:00 so we can drive there and eat an early dinner and still be there by doors opening at 5:30PM.  Perfect plan. All goes well on the way down.  We laugh, listen to music and find a bar to grab a drink and food at.  After we eat we come out to a parking ticket.  Who in Gods name put the meter there while we were eating?  Neither of us saw a damn meter when we went in to eat so it can hardly be our fault that we didn't put money in it.  Moving on.  So, we get to the venue and they serve drinks.  In Glass.  Because I think they think adults can handle that.  Haha.  Not I!  I sit down in my second row seat and promptly dump my entire drink all over Krista and myself and chair.  Mostly Krista.  And that's just because I love her so much that I must have been basically sitting on her lap for this to happen.  Her silk shirt loved it.  No problem.  Again.  Next, we are soaking wet and waiting 1.5 hours for it start and so we grab our phones to check out whats happening in the world.  Except our phones are in Canada.  We were  most definitely in Grosse Pointe Farms but somehow to annoy the shit out of me- my phone decided it was in Canada.  Yay.  Oh you know, just another day.  Anyways, Glennon was adorable and animated and fun and talked about all the important stuff.  Marriage, play dates that all Mom's hate, perfect children that really aren't perfect, love, anxiety, suffering and pain.

 Pain resonated with me the most.  I'm in pain.  Have been for a long time.  I can smile and put on clothes and go out into the world now where I couldn't a year ago but I give meds the credit for that.  And that's totally fine by me because clearly I need a little something to help.  She talked about running from pain and hiding.  That's me.  That's what I used to do and sometimes still do. I was Anorexic for so long.  So many years of changing the pain.  Not walking through the pain of what was hurting but changing it to the pain of hunger, the pain of illness, the pain of fear.  What she said was really true.  Pain demands to be felt.  Basically, I numbed myself out and passed that pain on to my family.  My parents, sister, friends- anyone who cared about me- I gave them that pain and I took the lesser pain of an eating disorder.  Guess what?  That didn't fix it.  I overcame and went on to fix my life and get married and have babies.  I stayed strong and dealt with the life that was handed to me in having a baby that might not live.  I did more than survive it- I rose to the occasion.  I took care of him, fought for him and got him into every specialist that I wanted.  I stayed up all night, held him all day.  For years.  And then- I gave back.  Over and Over- I gave back.  My point in this is that I have strength.  I can walk through the hard stuff.  I can rise to any occasion.  Its in there.  Its in all of us.  Its just if we allow ourselves to see it.  Lets not forget the most recent though.  Lets not forget that I've been hiding out in severe anxiety.  Debilitating anxiety that stole the last year of my life.  Life felt hard again and I went back into my old habits.  My habit of hiding out.  My habit of escaping the pain.  I'll take the sobbing, the loneliness, the anxiety attacks that cripple my body, the fear, all of it.  Because, once again the pain crept in and I crept out.  I forgot who I was.  I forgot that its in me.  I forgot to stand up.  This is where the change has to happen.  This where I have to get up.  I have to talk to people, stop hiding, answer texts, be me.  Even disheveled and messy and broken and hurting- I have to show up anyway.  I have to.  We all do.  Because, guess what?  Its going to hurt anyway.  Its still going to hurt.  Mask it, numb it, ignore it, run from it or walk your ass through it.  That's the difference.  That's what I'm gonna do.  I'm gonna walk directly through fire until the flame burns out and hopefully-maybe I can kill it.  For now.

This picture PERFECTLY captures my true self at this time.  Perfection.

I've got some serious things happening right now. I've got really hard stuff.   Things I'm not withholding from you but things I don't have words for yet.  I've told you that I'm a thinker.  I would never want to speak specifically about something until I've thought it completely through.  I don't really think details are ever that important. If you're suffering than you're suffering no matter what the cause.  Be kind to people.  Sometimes the people you expect the least have the most pain.  It takes zero effort or money or anything to just be kind.  

MEDS:  Here is some irony for you.  I went for my monthly med review on Wednesday.  Turns out I'm the most stable I have been and don't have to go back for 8 weeks.  Laugh.  Its OK. This- this human that is writing to you is deemed "stable."  That's fantastic.  Well, guess it goes to show you just how far I've come.  Good God help us all.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that your kids don't' make you insane and that you remember that you really have it in you to rise.  Its there.  Find it.