Let me take you back to June. I had not yet started my monthly injections (thank you Xolair!) and was almost at the end of the 16-week pain program that really wasn’t any help. Imagine my surprise while scrolling on social media one day when I see that a local theatre company is putting on a production of Clue. Now, aside from FLSA (Which, is that theatre or just playing silly games with friends? You decide haha), I had not done any theatre since Rent back in 2010. I was absolutely terrified but knew I had to at least give it a shot. Shot fired… and missed (maybe there wasn’t enough bullets in the gun). I wasn’t cast but knew that I would regret it if I wasn’t involved in the production in some way, shape, or form. I immediately reached out to the producers and offered up my services. After a couple of weeks of back and forth emails they asked, “Would you be interested in being the Assistant Stage Manager?”

HELL YES I WOULD BE!

Let the games begin…

When rehearsals started I was admittedly nervous having been out of that world for so long, but I quickly formed a tight bond with my co-stage manager (now affectionately called my long-lost brother, whether he likes it or not) and that made the process a little bit easier. Was the whole thing actually easy? No. Should it have been has hard as it was? Absolutely not! I will not go into all the gory details that was this production as some things are better left between trauma-bonded friends.

But as I’m running around for 90 minutes straight absolutely drenched in sweat, where’s what I learned about myself:

I am so much stronger than I thought possible

These last 4 years (almost) since getting Covid have been hell on my body. And even before that, battling muscle and joint pain, GI trouble, blood pressure issues, and a whole laundry list of other things every single day has made for decades of questioning if I’d ever live a normal life. Even when rehearsals started, I was telling people that I didn’t know if I was physically up to everything. My monthly injections (thank you Xolair!) had just started, I wasn’t aware of the full effects yet, and was simply doubting my abilities. However, a hellish week of tech and 6 sold-out shows later, I can now definitively say that I’m much more capable than I thought I was.

Yes, my disease sucks. Yes, there are days that I wish I could just be normal and not have to watch every single thing I eat. Yes, there are times where I question every decision my doctors are making.

But here’s the thing…

I’ve lived so much of my life either questioning my own limits or letting other people dictate what those limits are. Letting people’s judgement of me form my own opinions of myself until they become “fact” in my head. Telling myself, “I could never do that,” so many times without ever having actually tried.

Is this something I could have done prior to my current treatments? Probably not. The monthly injections that I get (thank you Xoliar!) have made such an incredible improvement to my overall health that sometimes there are days where I forget that I’m sick… and then I push too hard and end up in a flare but, ya know, it’s all about the balance. If you had told me at this point last year that I not only would have been stage managing a play but that, in the course of that ASM role, I would be running around, moving furniture and doors, exquisitely managing a chaotic backstage, all while continuing to monitor my own health and stop myself from flaring, I would have laughed in your face and called you crazy. But here I am! We closed 2 weeks ago and while I did take a week off to recover (which I ended up needing only because my annual October cold hit), I didn’t really need the recovery time. My body managed the chaos!

Now, you may be asking, “Danielle, what about your mental health? How has that been holding up?”

Well, I am pleased to say that for the first time in I don’t know how long I have not slipped into an October depression. Sure there are moments, but that’s always going to happen. For the most part I am doing really well. Over the course of the show I hit a breaking point, but because of the nature of what we were dealing with it was going to happen. I still pulled through, though, and I think that’s the greater lesson that I’ve learned from all of this.

I continue to pull through. No matter what comes my way, no matter what hurdles I come across, I still continue to find my way to the other side. And what have I found on the other side? Community, friendship, and a better sense of what I’m capable of.

Here’s hoping it stays this way!

- Danielle

Anyone who knows me personally has probably heard me say the words, “I’ve been sick for 20 years.” That, in a way, is accurate, but there’s much more to it than that. For the last year I’ve been actively working with doctors and specialist to try and figure out what’s actually wrong - but how did i even get here? Let’s take a little journey back in time.

It’s not secret that I have very little memories from my childhood and those that exist are fairly disjointed. Into my teenage years there’s more memories, but because of trauma a lot of those are also blurry. When I think about my physical health, I know that I’ve always had hip and back pain as well as headaches. I think when I was a teen I just assumed the headaches were because of whatever medication my psych team was trying at the time. The back pain was always associated with my hips - and that was something I was simply born with. As far as other issues, GI problems were always fairly prevalent, but it’s not like I ate healthy so that had to be the reason… right?

It wasn’t until I got to college that things took a little bit of a turn. In October 2005, I started on Lamictal (for the bipolar diagnosis that I didn’t actually have) and for the next 2 years or so, I was always sick. By that I mean I would get a cold for about 2-3 weeks, have a week to a week and a half where I felt ok, and then immediately get sick again. I practically lived in the health center at my college and they had no idea what was going on. My body was showing no sign of anything. Strep? Negative. Mono? Negative. Every single test was negative but I just kept getting sick. Any time I had blood drawn, my white blood cells were perfectly normal. It wasn’t until I went for a physical one year and had a regular CBC done where I noticed that my white blood cells were low… lower than normal! So what was happening is every time I got sick and my WBC count went up, it only went up into “normal range.”

You can imagine this made people scratch their heads!

In 2008 when I needed to have my gallbladder out, the first surgeon I saw turned me away because my body was showing no sign of infection. The second surgeon, thankfully, decided to take it out since I kept having attacks… and it’s a good thing he did! According to him, it was the “most infected gallbladder” he’d seen in someone my age. And yet my body wasn’t showing the infection. How could that be?

I kept trying to consult with my PCP at the time to get her to run more tests, but she wouldn’t listen to me. When I got a positive ANA (Antinuclear Antibody), which is usually an indication of an autoimmune disease, she told me it was nothing. When I started getting really bad migraines in 2009 and got referred to a neurologist, he brushed everything off, gave me medication for the migraines, and sent me on my way. I was truly beginning to think that I was going to live the rest of my life sick and in pain without any kind of assistance.

At one point, following a routine CBC, I really took a look at my blood work results. If doctor’s weren’t going to help me then I was going to do the research on my own. I noticed that it was my Lymphocytes that were lower than everything else. It was almost as if the Lamictal was attacking them somehow and that was leaving me defenseless to viruses and infections. When I came off of Lamictal in 2018/19, it took about a year or so for my system to adjust but in that time I got hit with what felt like a rapid fire triple whammy:

1. September 2019: a month-long flu

2. December 2019: a hacky horrific cough that led to…

3. December 2019 - March 2020: Pityriasis Rosea - a viral rash that results from a viral infection as an immune response

Everything seemed relatively ok after that (despite the state of the world) and I think being isolated at home actually may have helped my immune system recover. However, when I got Covid for the first time in December 2021 everything changed. It was as if everything that was already wrong with me - that I’d been finding a way to deal with for so many years - got turned up to 11. My body felt weak, I could barely make it up the stairs to my apartment, I wanted to pass out all the time, I couldn’t eat without becoming drenched in sweat… everything was harder! I kept trying to find ways to deal with it hoping that eventually things would pass, but nothing ever did.

When I moved to Vermont I knew that I was going to start really taking strides in my physical health. I had to wait 6 months before I could get in with a PCP which gave me plenty of time to prepare. I told her my biggest concerns and for the first time in my life someone listened! I was so overwhelmed that I started bawling my eyes out in her office. Not only had I never felt heard or seen by a doctor before, but she never once blamed any of my problems on my weight or made me feel like I was just making everything up. She immediately ordered a bunch of bloodwork and, once that started to come back, she put in referrals for further testing and specialists.

Since last February, I have had the following:

• 48 hour holter monitor

• echocardiogram

• stress test

• 3 chest x-rays

• pulmonary function test

• allergy testing (environmental only)

• PET scan

… plus countless tubes of blood. The PET scan was following some lab work that was run by Rheumatology - which was an appointment I waited 10 months for! The lab in question (IL2 Receptor) showed that my T-cells were extremely high. This can typically indicate an overactive immune system. When the PET scan came back, I “lit up like a Christmas tree” - or so I kept saying. I knew it was going to be one or the other: either it would show nothing or it would show everything. I had several points that lit up and showed a lot of lymphatic activity. That can only mean 1 thing…

A trip to oncology.

Oncology. That word alone is terrifying. Add in the word biopsy and you’re in a tailspin of emotions and worst case scenarios. When I got in to meet with him, I was basically convinced I had cancer. He ran an ultrasound on my neck, found the lymph node in question, and scheduled a biopsy for the following week. I kept using the word “cancer” in regular sentences when talking to people because, if it did end up being that, I wanted to be prepared. I was saying things like, “Yeah, let’s plan for that… assuming I don’t have cancer.” I could tell my attitude was weighing on people, but it was the only way I could think to copy with all the emotions I was feeling at the time.

On February 28, at 5:30am, I arrived at UVM to get the questionable lymph node excised from my neck. Everything went well - except for some issues when the intubation tube came out - and just a few days later the results came back.

BENIGN!

No cancer for this girl! Just an overactive lymph node. So what next? Why are my T-cells so high and why am I continuously sick?

I had an appointment with my PCP that Wednesday and let her know the good news while throwing out some theories. One of which I’d been sitting on for a while - MCAS.

MCAS: Mast Cell Activation Syndrome

By now you’re probably asking, “Danielle, what the hell is that?!” I will try to explain it as simply as I can. Every person has mast cells. They are part of your immune system. Those with some kind of mast cell issue, like MCAS, will have overactive mast cells that become activated from anything and everything. Could be a virus, could be an allergic reaction, could be a change in the weather. Most people with MCAS have a long list of foods that they cannot consume in order to avoid an allergic reaction. Based on my reactions to certain foods plus my T-cells and other systematic problems I’m having, my PCP went with my theory and ran the first test for MCAS: tryptase. A normal tryptase should be under 10. Mine was 18.5.

Ding ding! We have a winner!

Thankfully, I already had an appointment schedule with the allergist that same week and when I brought the results to him, he finally listened to me. I am now on a “cocktail” of medications to help keep flare-ups at bay, while also trying my best to stay away from the foods that I know trigger a reaction… which is not always easy! While this does not solve any problems, having some kind of answer to why I always feel sick at least makes me know that I’m not completely crazy.

Just in the last few months, I have been somewhat diagnosed with:

• Fibromyalgia

• Hypermobility

• MCAS

I am still awaiting a referral from neurology as I’m not entirely sure the fibro/hypermobile diagnoses are correct and think it may be something else - based on my headaches - but that is many many months away. For now we treat the pain and MCAS and go from there.

That brings us to today.

When I started working with this PCP last year, I figured we’d find someone autoimmune and I’d get on a treatment plan of some kind and that would be that. Not that I thought it would be a simple process, but over the course of 1) waiting for rheumatology and 2) seeing the results of the PET scan, my research has now gone in a completely different direction. Why do so much research on my own? Because I’ve had to all of these years. I’ve learned that if I go into an appointment informed, it not only helps me to ask the right questions, but allows me to advocate for myself.

Which brings me to my next point…

Had I had someone to advocate for me all those years ago, I may have been able to get a diagnosis of some kind which maybe would have made the last 10, 15, 20 years a little bit easier on me… or maybe nothing would have changed. Who knows! I can’t play the what if game no matter how bad I want to. I also know that I always have to advocate for myself because chances are that no one else will. That’s not to say that I don’t have people to support me right now… I do! But at the end of the day I really only have myself. That may be a negative way of looking at it, but I actually think it’s more realistic. People have their own lives and their own concerns - maybe they’re even dealing with their own health issues as well. You never really know what’s going on in someone’s life so being able to have your own back is just as important as being there for others.

I have learned a lot over the last year and, if nothing else, I’ve proven that I’m even more resilient than I’d previously given myself credit for. The allergist wanted to praise my PCP for running the correct tests, but she just wanted to give me the props for advocating for myself. At the end of the day, I may be in this day to day battle solo, but I’ve got an army I can call upon when needed.

- Danielle

The thing I’ve learned the most on this journey is that it’s not always the trauma itself that needs to be worked through, but the feelings associated with the trauma. Often times I will feel something in my body, a panic attack starting to come on, and it will take me a while before I realize that something was triggered. That is what happened in July. It wasn’t anything specific that happened, but merely a combination of circumstances that built up to a massive episode. This was then followed by more unfortunate circumstances until, now 4 months later, I’m just starting to really come out of it.

Over the last 4 months I’ve found myself leaning back into old habits - the ones that you try your best to overcome but then fall back into when all seems hopeless. And that’s truly how I was feeling… hopeless. I find that in times like that, the voice in my head that is beating me down, telling me I’m worthless and a loser and will be alone forever, sounds awfully familiar. When I’m in a good headspace, I’m able to confront that voice and tell it to fuck off, but after the events of that July episode, and the weeks that followed, I couldn’t fight back. It was like trying to swim against the current - I would make a small amount of progress and begin to move forward, only to find myself knocked back several feet… tired and defeated.

Now, however, it feels as though the sea has finally calmed and I can swim away from the tide that was attempting to pull me under.

I always have to remind myself that healing isn’t linear, but when I have these hard times that last for months, it becomes more and more difficult to remember that. I have to, quite literally, force myself to think differently. It had gotten to the point, earlier this year, when I was able to brush off a small dissociative episode and simply file away the trigger, but the last few weeks that hasn’t been the case. I’ve found myself dissociating more and more which has made every aspect of life harder. This morning on my drive into work was the first time in months that I was finally able to have that conversation with myself - why are we dissociated? (And yes I use a “we” when speaking to myself - it’s a coping mechanism!)

Like I learned 2 years ago when I started this healing journey, talking myself through these triggers, out loud as if I’m having a conversation with someone, is the best way to figure out the cause. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that the more I talk, the more likely I am to come to a conclusion about something. When you have no one around to talk to… you talk to yourself! I realized this morning that it had been a long time since I’d actually had these conversations which only made the last 4 months even harder. It got to the point during my drive this morning that I had to start really thinking about what I even did over the last few months because I couldn’t remember. That’s how I know that I’ve been so dissociated - the memories start to come back as I allow myself to move past the trauma and triggers.

I’ve done a lot of “reclaiming” in the last 6 years - places, movies, music, books - things that I wanted to enjoy and experience because I wanted to and not because someone else forced them onto me. It’s also been a way to replace bad memories with good ones. I think for the remainder of 2024, I need to reclaim myself - spend some time with me because I enjoy my company. Do the things I like doing because they bring me joy. In other words… FIND THE JOY AGAIN! I have let the stress of life and trauma triggers dictate my wellbeing and mental health for so many months now that I truly feel as though I’ve missed out on just enjoying being alive. Because at the end of the day, I am happy to be alive. There are always things I’m going to wish were different, but I only have control over so many things. I can’t control other people’s actions, but I can control how I react to them.

It’s been so long since I’ve stepped foot out of the warehouse that I didn’t even realize how comfortable I’d become. I know it’s time to step away, but leaving is never easy. With one last look around the office, I stand up from my desk, gather my things, door off the light, and lock the door behind me. I glance around the warehouse - there’s still so much work to be done. How can I ever leave while things are in such disarray? The thoughts creep in, but I push them down. Yes, there’s still work to do, but it doesn’t need to be a full-time job anymore. At this point it’s mostly just clean-up, the majority of the organizing having already been taken care of. As I walk through the shelves piled high with boxes, I think back to how cluttered everything was when I first got here. There may still be more to do, but you should always leave a place better than how you found it.

As I’m walking, I pause in front of the vault - the impenetrable vault that takes up so much space I wonder how it got here in the first place. Although, now that I’m really looking at it, it seems smaller than when I first started working. Has it shrunk? I didn’t think that was possible. Maybe it just seemed so large because I was so desperate to see what it held inside, but now that I’m leaving it doesn’t matter as much. I reflect on what it could contain but the mystery no longer consumes me.

I continue towards the exit and pass the long wall of file cabinets perfectly organized by year and alphabetized. Wow! It may not seem like much to someone else, but I’m proud of what’s been done. I can look at those files and know they are perfectly preserved where they need to be, only to be called upon when the time calls for it. They are no longer cluttered in dusty boxes piled high ready to tip over at a moment’s notice. I turn the key in the top right corner, locking the files up tight, knowing that I can access them if I need to, but trusting in myself to have the knowledge of what they contain without having to dig deeper.

As I tuck the key into my pocket and get to the door, I take one last look around. What once seemed like an impossible task has become but a passing blip of my life. I’ll still pop in every now and then to pick up here and there, make sure nothing has fallen too much into disrepair - but I know those visits will be few and far between. I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye. These are not tears of sadness or regret - these are tears of joy, gratitude, and pride.

“Goodbye,” I whisper as I turn out the lights and lock the door behind me.

- Danielle

Recently, I was hanging out with a new friend and everything was going great. We were getting along and I was having no trouble opening up to them. The following day, however, I was finding myself very dissociated. My anxiety was starting to climb and I assumed that I knew what had been triggered and tried my best to talk myself out of the dissociated state. Unfortunately, it only got worse as the day went on. By the time night rolled around, I was in a full-blown panic attack - the kind where you can’t catch your breath and feel like you’re dying. I was texting with this new friend and they were trying their best to figure out what happened, what went wrong, and how to help. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to articulate what had happened.

The next morning, waking with a clearer head, I knew exactly what had happened. It made so much sense that I was baffled why I didn’t realize it sooner. But the truth is, when you’re in it, you can’t always see the reasoning. However, even though I had figured out the cause, I could not fully pull myself out of the dissociated state. It was a long week of self-reflection, meditation, and talking myself through it. One thing my therapist always tries to have me do is to sit with the feelings of a memory. She reminds me constantly that it’s not the memory itself that’s important, but the feeling associated with the memory. Once I was able to name that, things became a little bit easier.

But here’s the biggest issue…

Living with PTSD or CPTSD is more complex than most people realize. Even if you think you know what all of your triggers are, something could happen one day and it feels like you’re back at square one. For me, the trigger was due to something that I had not been exposed to for years - something that was buried so far down that I barely even remembered it. Once it surfaced, though, it was like a tidal wave of memories and I couldn’t stop it. If this had happened even two years ago, I would have been so knocked down by the wave, it would have taken me weeks, if not months, to recover - if I recovered at all. But I also know that if this had happened prior to this healing journey, that my response to it and my actions following would have been completely different than they have been. While I can’t always see the progress I’ve made, it’s situations like this that really show me how far I’ve come.

I know I am stronger than I give myself credit for and as a dear friend reminded me recently - HEALING IS NOT LINEAR. I’ve said this to myself and others so many times, but in the throws of a crisis and severe dissociation, I couldn’t get to that reminder myself. I know there are going to be hard days - that’s just part of life when living with trauma. But the growth is in how I’m able to overcome it. When I get hit by a ton of bricks, am I able to push them all off at once or do I need to dig myself out brick by brick? As long as I’m working on getting myself out, the speed at which it happens doesn’t matter.

- Danielle

Of course she cares about my physical health, but at this particular moment she was asking about my mental health. In the last few weeks, I have taken on a significant amount of responsibility due to some people resigning and leaving us in a bit of a tough spot. We went from a team of 7 to a team of 4 almost overnight and basically had to scramble to figure out what wasn’t done, what wasn’t done correctly, and how to manage things moving forward. Me being me, I took on a lot of it. I was finding myself getting very burnt out, stressing over small tasks, and crying in my office. I was getting extremely overwhelmed and the other 3 could see it. We made it through and things are getting better, but there’s still a long way to go.

Which brings me to the task that my boss gave me.

She asked me to come up with a list of things I’ve accomplished over the last few weeks as well as a list of things I’ve learned. My first thought was, “Accomplished?! I haven’t accomplished anything!” But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I realized that I absolutely have. The exact list doesn’t matter right now, but the point of the matter is that I immediately doubted myself when tasked with this. Why? Why am I so quick to dim my shine?

I feel like the answer to that is simple: because I’ve never been in an environment that has allowed me to shine. Most of my working life, I’ve been places where my mistakes were put under a microscope but my wins were never celebrated. It’s why after 3 months at my new job I started having panic attacks every day because I was so sure they were going to turn around and realize they made a mistake hiring me. It’s why I put so much pressure on myself to step up during these weeks of transition because working hard shows that you care and are valuable. It’s why at the end of 2 weeks I was so burnt out that I slept for an entire weekend and couldn’t get out of bed.

None of these are good things and it wasn’t until I started this job that I realized how unhealthy all of my previous jobs were. At this new job I am valued for what I bring to the table. I am valued for my compassion. I am valued for being me. I don’t have to dim my shine nor do I have to try to push down those pesky emotions when I’m beginning to feel burnt out. I am encouraged to speak about it. I’ve come a long way from being fired for having a panic attack.

That, in and of itself, is an accomplishment. I always feel like I haven’t accomplished anything - that I’ve been stuck for years while everyone else grows around me. But when I actually stop to think about it, I can see so much that just isn’t true. I am not the person who ran away to New York 6 years ago nor am I the person who stumbled into a relationship that turned abusive 15 years ago. Healing isn’t linear and I am constantly changing and evolving. My life may not look like what I thought it was “supposed” to be, but I doubt there are many people who can say their lives turned out exactly as they thought it would.

Even as I write this, I am going through a bad medical flare and up later than I usually am because I simply can’t get comfortable. The shirt I’m wearing says:

Growth: grow through what you go through.

Truer words have never been spoken.

I’ve repeated this to myself so often over the last 5 years that it’s starting to lose it’s meaning a little bit. While I’ve always known that healing is, in fact, not linear, I never truly let myself live in that headspace. I would tell myself that every bad day was a setback and fall into an immediate downward spiral. Never good!

A little over a year ago, in early November 2022, I made a promise to myself: I was going to start actually processing my trauma. I was depressed, alone, unemployed, and feeling like a failure. I figured it was the best time to tackle it because, if nothing else, it gave me something to do.

But where to start?

The only thing I could think to do was to simply allow the memories to come up. Anyone that lives with PTSD, CPTSD, or any kind of traumatic event in their past understands that when memories surface we have a tendency to push them down. It’s easier to suppress the memory of the thing than to actually deal with it. Memory gets triggered, bad feelings emerge, and the feelings are so overwhelming that we find any way to make them go away. For me, it was always distraction - do something else, change the subject… anything to make it go away. That meant that if I wanted to actually start healing, I would need to let the memories come through, sit with the feelings, and force myself to work through everything.

I’ll be honest. At first, it was very unsettling. I had gotten so used to forcing my way out of dissociation that allowing myself to sit in those moments was difficult… but let me back up a minute.

What is dissociation?

Disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity.

So what does that mean exactly? Basically, the human brain is a fascinating thing. When bad memories are triggered, your brain will try to protect you from reliving it. This is especially true for those living with PTSD and CPTSD. I refer to it as my “trauma brain” and people who have been in my life for the last year know what I mean when I say my “trauma brain” is overactive. Trauma changes how your brain functions, literally causing brain damage. When you’ve experience trauma, your brain will do everything in its power to ensure that you are protected from reliving it. In my case, when memories are triggered, I will dissociate (to varying degrees) and have to basically wait it out until it passes.

For years, I passed this off as “zoning out” or “daydreaming” or whatever you want to call it. Once I realized what was actually happening, I was able to make it work for me. So I started letting the dissociation happen. I allowed myself to sit in the feeling, whatever it was, and, once I was able to, talk myself through it. Literally. It has gotten to the point where, after a year, I can almost pull myself out of a dissociative episode (in a healthy way!) and figure out what was triggered. Sometimes it’s a memory, but more often than not it’s a feeling. Yes, the feeling is usually going to be tied to a memory or two, but the feeling associated with the memory is more important than the memory itself.

The more I started working through these things, the more memories and feelings began to surface. It got to a point where I was able to picture what the process looked like. Allow me to elaborate…

My brain is a warehouse. Row after row of tall shelves filled with files and boxes… aka unprocessed memories. There are also endless file cabinets of memories that have already been processed. Events that I know exactly when they occurred, down to the date, are filed accordingly. Think of the most organized file cabinet you’ve ever seen. That is what some of these look like. Other files may be a bit less organized, but I know at least the month and year that something happened. The least organized may just be a time of year or maybe even just the year itself, but the event is filed and, therefore, processed.

On the shelves, there are files and boxes. Some of them I’m able to pull down and know exactly where it goes. I can file it away and move on. Some of the boxes may be labeled with a year, or range of years, and it will take some time to actually sift through it all. Then there are the dusty boxes all the way at the back that are just, well, boxes of unknown stuff. You know the ones I mean, right? Everyone has them in their attic or basement. You put it there for safe keeping because it was stuff you thought you’d need at some point, but you honestly have no idea what’s in there anymore. In the mind warehouse, these boxes are always random and I have no idea what they might contain. Those will take the longest to go through.

In the center of the warehouse is the vault. The vault is locked up with no entry. There is a keypad and a card swipe, but I don’t have no way into it. Inside the vault there are memories that I do not have access to. I do not know how many or from what part of my life they’re from. The only way I even know when a vault memory is triggered is when I lose time. Thankfully, this does not happen often, but it does happen. For a while I was determined to find out what’s inside, but I think I’ve finally gotten to the point where it’s not as important. Working through the emotions associated with those memories is the important part… whatever is behind that big steel door is secondary.

So why is all of this important?

Finding a way to work through triggered memories allows me to not only move on from them but to heal in the process. Often, people think that healing from trauma is nothing more than moving on from the traumatic event, but it’s so much more than that. I had to heal from the trauma, not just learn to live with it… and that’s the difference. This process, this healing journey, has allowed me to finally begin to live a life that is not defined by my past or my trauma. There are days when it feels like I’ll never fully heal. Sometimes the dissociation is so heavy that I need to just lay down and sleep. It takes everything out of me and I can’t imagine that it’ll ever get better.

Then there are the times where I’m able to be in a situation, have a memory pop up, and turn it into a positive. Ultimately, that’s the goal. I know there’s no way that every single traumatic memory will ever leave me. I don’t think it’s actually possible given that I have no way of knowing what I don’t remember. But being able to take something, flip it, and reclaim is a beautiful positive that I’ve actually been able to accomplish.

Allow me to close with this…

While I may be in a position now where I can make those positives, that has only been a recent development. It wasn’t until only a few months ago that I started being able to see things just a little differently. This process has been long and difficult and there is still so much more work to be done. Every day I discover something new, add more files to the cabinets, and find more hidden boxes. Maybe one day I’ll be able to walk away from the warehouse altogether and truly move on. Or maybe I will live with this for the rest of my life. There’s really no way to know. What I do know, however, is that I finally feel at peace (for the most part) and am determined to live my life to its fullest instead of simply letting life happen to me.

- Danielle

When I lost my job last September (2022), I wasn’t just devastated at having been fired, I was embarrassed. I couldn’t wrap my head around it and, as evidence by my last post, I fell into a deep deep depression. It was possibly one of the darkest depressions I’ve ever had in my life, and it went on for months. Sure I was applying to jobs every single day and even getting interviews, but the longer my unemployment dragged on, the worse I felt.

Over the course of 6 months, I had 19 interviews. Yes, you read that correctly… 19! I’ve had people ask me why I kept track and the reason is that I wanted to know just how long it would take. I have a Master’s degree, well over 10 years of professional working experience, and, as far as I’m concerned, I think I’m fairly smart. I clearly looked good on paper or I wouldn’t have gotten the interviews to begin with, right? Something was holding people back from hiring me. And, yes, I fully believed that the right job would come along when it was right for me, but when you get rejection after rejection after rejection (and not just from interviews, but from the applications as well), it beats you down. Having a running tally made me feel as if I had some semblance of control when I had absolutely none.

Not only that, but I had to fight to even get unemployment. My initial request was denied citing something completely different from what I was told that day. Again, I felt nothing but defeated and it took me weeks to finally decide to fight the claim. I’m so glad I did because when my appeal came through the determination from the NYDOL was that I was “dismissed without cause.” Yes, having money is good, but the justification that I was right gave me the tiniest bit of hope. Unfortunately, though, the State of NY only gives you 6 months of unemployment… no exceptions, no extensions. So by mid-March I was, once again, at a complete loss. I had 19 interviews without a single offer. I was seeing the same job postings over and over again, even ones that I’d already interviewed for were being reposted. I was stuck in a never-ending loop.

When my unemployment ran out, I felt as though I only had 1 option: I needed to leave New York. I had gone there because it felt like something was calling me, pulling me in. After 4 years, I’m not sure I ever found out what that was. I knew that I had made progress on myself and definitely changed significantly from the person I was when I arrived, but other than that my time in NYC was just, to put it simply… hard. But making the decision to leave NY and actually doing it are 2 completely different things. First, I needed to figure out where I would go and then I needed to actually get a job in said place. Given my track record of the previous 6 months (and the last 10 years!), I was not hopeful.

I started thinking about what I’ve always wanted in terms of places to live and I narrowed it down to a few locations. All there was to do at that point was start applying. As I knew from when I was trying to move to NYC, getting a job out of state isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Most employers don’t want to wait until you can move and won’t even interview you unless you’re local. After about a week of looking out of state, I landed an interview with a company in northern Vermont. I was excited but skeptical, which I think is a good way to look at things when on the job hunt anyway. Thankfully, the interview went great and I got an offer the following day!

It was time to switch into gear. Look for an apartment, figure out moving costs… let’s go!

Throughout the month of April everything seemed to be falling into place so perfectly that it made me anxious waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things don’t just work out that like for me. That’s not the story of my life. But nothing drastic happened and by May 1st I was moving into my new apartment. Everything just felt too good to be true…

And as the summer rolled on, I found out that it was.

Going into the details of what happened over the 5ish months that I worked for that company would simply take too long and, honestly, it doesn’t feel worth it to me. I am trying to let go of the anger that I feel towards the people involved and truly move on with my life. What I will say is that going through what I did with that company challenged me in a way I had never been challenged before and showed me, more than anything, just how far I’ve come. I’m going to elaborate on this in another post (wow, Danielle, 2 posts? You’re on a roll!), but I’ve spent the last year putting actual effort into healing and processing my trauma. Everything that I went through from the time I moved to Vermont until early/mid-October should have broken me, and there were times when it almost did. I screamed and cried and had panic attacks, but at the end of it all I knew that I handled it better than I would have a year prior.

Where am I now? I’m working a much better job with a much better company and I’m genuinely happy with it. Does everything happen for a reason? I used to believe this, but it’s hard to really know if that’s true when you’ve been through so much. I do think that some things happen for a reason, but not everything. I know that the last 5 years have been some of the hardest of my life. I know that if I had never moved to NYC there are certain people that would not be in my life. I know that if I hadn’t pushed myself as hard as I have this past year, that I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this right now.

I feel like there is still so much more I could write, and maybe some day I will. Maybe one day I’ll sit and put all of these experiences into another book and tell a whole brand new story… or maybe I’ll simply move on. Only time will tell and, right now, time is what I’ve got.

- Danielle

A little over a month ago I lost my job. There are so many things that went wrong from very early on after accepting that position and it really never got better. First of all, I took a significant pay cut and even though I was told during my interview that there would be opportunities for overtime, I was denied it when I asked. For 7 months I endured one of the most toxic work environments of my life. This was made harder by the fact that I actually, for the first time ever, truly enjoyed my job. I liked what I was doing, liked the majority of the people that I worked with, and didn’t really dread going in every day. In all honesty, there was only 1 major problem…

My boss.

The woman who hired me liked me… at first. After a few weeks of working there, I started to notice a shift in her behavior. She wasn’t talking to me as much and seemed snippy in her emails. I asked her if there was a problem or if I’d done something, and she never responded. My mid-March, after being there for about a month, I spent every day thinking I was going to get fired. When my 90 day/3 month probationary period was up, I was sick with anxiety that this was it. However, I was told that I was doing a good job. When asked if I had any concerns, I brought them up and was told, “It’s not personal. It’s my job to make sure things are done correctly.” Ok, fair enough. I tried to move past the attitude she was throwing my way.

As the weeks wore on, however, her attitude only got worse. Several more times I asked, “Have a done something? I’d really like to know,” and each and every time I was ignored. She and I even sat down with the head of the department for a mediation of sorts and were both told to meet the other person halfway. It was during this meeting that she finally explained she had been acting the way she was because of “pushback” she received from me. Ok, understandable… I guess. My issue with that was that she, as a manager, should have said something before it snowballed out of control. She, as a manager, should have pulled me aside at the first sign of “pushback” and said, “Hey, let’s talk about this.” Unfortunately, she did not.

After that meeting, I tried to be as perfect as I could but, as I said, she wouldn’t meet me halfway. On the contrary, things only got worse. By August I was now enduring gaslighting as well as being treated as though I wasn’t even in the room. When a person leaves for the day and says goodbye to every single individual person in the room and simply walks right past you as if you don’t exist… that’s personal.

I had long conversations with the a couple of close colleagues who couldn’t understand what her problem was, but they could see that she was treating me differently than everyone else. At one point I even saw a job posting for my job online and knew that things were never going to get better. This all came to a head in the middle of August when I received a scathing text message from her. I was at the office, she was on vacation, and she took it upon herself to berate me for something. After months of abuse from her, I simply lost it. I was thrown into a full-blown screaming, swearing, crying panic attack. Was it professional? No. Should I have gone into the bathroom or excused myself? Yes. However, it was late at night and there were only a few of us there (and I certainly wasn’t in the right state of mind) so I simply let it all out. Every person that I showed that text to in the weeks to follow told me that I shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of abuse.

3 weeks later I was fired.

On the day I was fired I was told that there was “no visible improvement of performance.” Translation? She doesn’t like me and despite my attempts to get on her good side, nothing was ever going to work. After she stepped out of the room, I asked the HR person for more information and was told, very simply, “I reviewed the emails.” Now, anyone who has ever sent any kind of electronic communication, be it email, text message, IM, etc., knows that 1) things can get lost in translation, and 2) it takes at least 2 people to communicate. There are always at least 2 sides of every conversation. So when I was told, “I reviewed the emails,” it didn’t make sense to me because all communication between me and my boss would have gone both ways. Unfortunately, given her higher position and reputation, her side was taken and her emails left out.

I was escorted out of the office and left with nothing but my word. My word against hers. For 7 months I endured increasing verbal abuse, toxicity, and gaslighting all because a grown adult couldn’t take 5 minutes to pull me aside and explain what I had done wrong. For the rest of my life, I will have a mark on my work history of being fired and will have to explain that it wasn’t my fault, but all I have is my word.

To say it’s been rough would be an understatement. Are there things I could/would have done differently had I known what would happen? Absolutely, but that’s easy to say about any situation once you’re on the other side of it. I’m a month removed so saying, “Oh I should have done xyz,” is easy, but it doesn’t change anything. My mental health took a nosedive and I was already in a pretty vulnerable state. Like I said… it’s been rough.

What does the future hold? I have absolutely no idea. I feel as though that’s a common theme of this blog and will probably continue to be so as long as I keep it running. The future is always going to be unwritten and even if we’d like to be able to predict how something is going to go, it never turns out how we picture it in our heads. If you had asked me back in February if I’d be sitting in my apartment jobless in October, I’d have said there’s no way… but here I am.

Everything we go through teaches us something, right? There are lessons even in the shittiest of circumstances. I left the insurance company because it simply wasn’t the work I wanted to be doing. I went to a non-profit that I thought would be good for me and turned out to be not so great after all. A non-profit that doesn’t fundraise or even understand how to treat people properly? Yeah, that was never going to work out. I left there and took the first job offered thinking I’d finally found the perfect fit and ended up in an even more toxic environment. When I look back at the last 3 years it’s easy to see where mistakes were made. Sometimes I wonder if I should have even come to New York at all. But here’s the thing…

Moving to NY is what I needed at the time that it happened. I needed a fresh start after years of chaos. Severing ties with the insurance company was one of the last things that would truly help me move on from my previous life. I started working for them the week before I moved in with my ex. In my mind, they were intrinsically connected. Each decision since then has simply been to get out of the current situation without any thought about what I might be getting myself into. In the end, all I did was just make things worse. As bad as this situations were, though, they showed me the type of environment that I can no longer tolerate.

As we inch closer to my 4 year anniversary of moving to NY, I can’t help but think back to the feelings I had when I was trying to move here. For months it felt like something was calling me to this city, drawing me in. I could never quite put my finger on it and 4 years later I’m still not sure I know what it was… or if I ever even found it. Maybe it’s still out there waiting for me to discover it, but every day that passes by and I find myself in the same situation, I can’t help but wonder where it all went wrong.

I always pride myself on being honest in this blog so I’m not going to sugarcoat anything. My life is hard and it’s very rare when it’s not. I do have things to be grateful for and I’ll never take those for granted, but with each passing day it’s getting harder and harder. I’ve been honest with friends when I’ve said the only thing keeping me going right now is my cat. If it weren’t for Mojo, well… maybe I won’t go that in depth here. Let’s just say that there are more bad days than good ones, more times when I want to give up than keep going. It’s definitely getting more difficult to find those reasons to not give up.

I know I usually end every blog with some kind of positive spin, but it’s hard to find that right now and I don’t want to just serve fake platitudes to appease people. This is my life and most of the time it really sucks. There’s no magic potion to turn back time or knight on horseback to whisk me away from everything. All I can hope is that maybe, someday, things will get better.

- Danielle

As followers of this blog will know, this past Saturday was the 5 year anniversary of when I lost my baby. Saturday was also the day that I got to see my favorite band for the first time in 4 years. When they announced their summer tour dates and I saw they were playing relatively close by on August 27th, I knew there was no way I could pass that up. It simply seemed meant to be (even if I had to trek out to Long Island for it!). A few things occurred to me as the day went on…

First was the fact that the very first solo thing I did after leaving my ex was, you guessed it, see Dispatch in concert in Boston. It was September 2018 and I had never been to a concert alone before. Movies, sure, that’s easy. Take myself out for a meal or drink? I was just starting to get used to that. But I’d never been to a play, musical, or concert by myself before. I’d always felt that things like that were very communal and better experienced with others. Since moving to NY, obviously, I’ve been to many things on my own and truly learned to enjoy my own company. But for 2018 Danielle this was completely new territory. Needless to say I had an amazing time and knew that it would be the first of many more solo things in my future.

So that’s significant point #1.

Significant point #2 didn’t hit me until I was almost at the venue.

Like I said, I had to head all the way out to Jones Beach on Long Island which, for me, is quite a bit of a schlep… but I’d been there before. I knew it was a beautiful venue, right on the water, and would be the perfect spot to see Dispatch. When would I have been there before? I’m so glad you asked. Back in July of 2010, my ex and I took our very first trip together… 1 night away to see his favorite band at Jones Beach. The fact that I’ve now returned to that venue to see my favorite band, the first band I saw after leaving him, on the 5 year anniversary of losing Alexander is just… see what I mean when I said everything seemed to fall into place?

I don’t even need to go into details about the concert. It was amazing and Dispatch is hands down the best live band. They put on an amazing show and it’s basically impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to their music. I knew I would have fun regardless. But when all of these different things started to come to me, again, it just felt like that was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The last 4 and a half years have felt like a series of moments that came together in such a way that everything worked out exactly as it was meant to. Things don’t always happen the way I think they will and I often have to remind myself that that’s ok. If something isn’t working out, then it wasn’t meant for me. That’s the biggest takeaway from this whole journey, really. You meet the people you’re meant to and experience life as it comes. You can plan and try to predict every minute of your life, but it’ll never turn out the way you thought it would… but that’s ok!

Things haven’t been easy for me lately. I’ve been struggling a lot and I feel as though I’m constantly digging myself out of a hole, only to have more things thrown at me. Not like this is new, but sometimes the digging just gets harder. Nights like Saturday remind me of the good and how hard I’ve worked to achieve it. I never want to lose that feeling. I’ll never forget everything I’ve been through, but I hope for the day when it’s no longer such a big part of me. Saturday night I was able to be the true me, the one I’ve spent so much time chipping away at, and it was truly freeing.

And I have no expectations
Just to be here in the present
And behold you for a second
Before it all goes away

- Danielle

Tucked away in a closet of my apartment are a couple of boxes filled with things: cards, tickets, trinkets collected over the years. I save everything! In one of those boxes is a notebook that I had written in during my brief pregnancy. My plan was to give it as a gift on a special milestone birthday. The last entry is heartbreaking and basically says, “I’m sorry I never got to meet you.” If I were to write a letter to Alexander now, as the person I became through losing him, what would it even say?

Grief changes us in profound ways and it never stops. It’s not linear. There are constant ups and downs as we learn to navigate life through grief and loss. Now, 5 years later, I can honestly say that there are days where I don’t feel the grief like a giant weight on my chest. I can see a baby or even a small child and not want to immediately curl up into a ball and hide from the world. Maybe I’ve learned to live with the loss so much so that it doesn’t feel like an outward presence anymore. It’s very internal now. A tug at the heart, an ache deep in my being of something not here that should be. But even when I feel these downswings into the world of grief, I still think about the person I’ve become through the loss. I’ve learned who I am and what I need out of life. I’ve learned how to set boundaries, but I’ve also learned that it’s ok to let the walls down every now and then. I’ve learned to trust and love and embrace what comes my way.

So if I were to write a letter now, I think it might go something like this…

Dear Alexander.

The day I lost you was the worst day of my life. I never knew it was possible to feel so much grief and loss for someone I never even got the chance to know. Through losing you, though, I became strong. I learned what I need. I’ve learned how I deserve to be treated and what I will no longer tolerate. I learned to trust myself again. Losing you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through, but in the end it made me who I am today.

Love always,

Your mom

It’s not perfect and there’s probably so much more I could say, but it’s honest. I am not the same person I was and I’ll never allow myself to be in a situation where I get remotely close to being that person again.

This me is strong.

This is is a fighter.

This me refuses to give up.

If that’s the only takeaway I have 5 years later, then I think it’s a pretty good one.

- Danielle

This past weekend, I went on the first vacation of my entire life where every single thing was decided by me. Now, this may not sound like a big deal, but hear me out. I’ve traveled quite a bit in my life. From a very young age, I was going to Florida almost every year to see my grandmother. When my dad moved to England, I would go visit him for a week every summer and we traveled around. Traveling and vacations are not a new thing for me. I’ve always loved to travel and the fact that I hadn’t been on a true vacation in nearly 7 years was really taking its toll on me.

When I was with my ex we still traveled. Lots of road trips, but there were a few get-in-a-plane vacations as well. And while I was in charge of booking flights and hotels, he decided everything else: where we went, what we did, what we drank… etc. If I did propose an idea, it was usually met with hostility. There were hardly any trips where we didn’t get into a fight at some point in time (not to push my book here, but most of these stories are in there). I loved getting away, but every vacation was met with aggravation, frustration, and often tears.

In 2018, after I left him, a unique opportunity presented itself when I heard about a music festival happening in New Jersey. I was still living in Massachusetts at the time so this would be my first time away by myself and while I did get to make all of my own decisions that weekend, the whole time was spent at the music festival so there really wasn’t much to decide. Since moving to New York, all of my vacations have been to go “home” back to Massachusetts and stay with my dad for a few days. Yes, it’s still time away, but it never feels like a vacation… it feels like going home.

Last fall I had the idea to take a trip out to California. My reasoning behind the vacation was not the best (plus I really couldn’t afford it), so I ended up canceling. When the tour cities were announced for Freestyle Love Supreme and I saw that they were ending their tour in the same part of California I had originally been planning to go to, I was excited, but I had told a friend of mine to not, under any circumstances, let me buy tickets. I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford the trip and I was trying really hard to make better financial decisions. But if you’ve known me long enough you’ll know that when it comes to FLS I don’t always make the most rational decisions. I told her to get me a couple tickets for the final day only and I’d figure out the hotel and flight at a later date.

The anticipation mounted as the first week in August drew closer and closer. I knew I was going to have a lot of emotions going into this vacation (for a number of reasons), but it wasn’t until I got to JFK on the morning of my flight out that I realized what it was…

This was my first vacation where everything is 100% decided by me.

There is no bigger source of freedom than that. I know people who travel solo all the time and it’s always so great to see their experiences, but when you’ve been living life behind someone else’s wants and needs and then finally get the chance to do it all on your own… there’s no greater feeling. I got to decide what I did, didn’t do, what I ate, whether I wanted to drink or not, who I saw and when. It was all my choice. It was almost as if the last 4 years led up to this exact trip… and it was perfect.

I found that by Sunday night I had a sort of calm to my demeanor… a zen, if you will. I wasn’t allowing petty things to bother me. I was simply existing in the moment and allowing myself to just… be (granted this was before my flight got canceled and I had a mild panic attack outside the theatre, but I digress). There are a number of factors as to why I was feeling the way that I was, but none of them are important. The takeaway from all of this was that after so much time spent worrying about things out of my control and letting my emotions be dictated by outside factors, I was able to truly let go and allow myself to just exist. It may have only been a few days, but a few days can mean so much.

Before I close this out, there’s one other thing I want to talk about. I was going to write another post but it feels within the same realm so let’s just do.

Vulnerability.

Those that have been following me for a while know that I am a member of the FLSA community. It feels like a lifetime since I did my classes, but FLSA allowed me to truly find myself and be vulnerable which are both really hard things to accomplish. The reason this all matters is that I find when I’m around large groups of FLSA members, even those I’ve never met in person before, I never have to worry about them seeing me. I don’t have to mask or try to be someone I’m not because these people have already seen me at my best and worst times.

In my every day life I often have to keep myself very guarded. I don’t fully “fit in” with the people I work with so I never feel like I can be my most authentic self. I have to dress a certain way and act a certain way in order to be accepted. For someone that spent most of her life not really even knowing who she was, that’s a hard thing to fall back into day after day. I’ve found that during my non-work hours, I’ve been adjusting the way I dress to more suit the person that I am now. When I was on vacation I was able to be that person - the person that I’ve grown to actually like - and I never had to worry about whether the people I had planned to see would accept this person or not because they already know and like her.

To make a long story short (too late), this vacation was more than just time away. It gave me the opportunity to be my real, true, authentic self without fear of rejection.

That in and of itself, without any other factors, made the entire trip (canceled flight aggravation and all) completely worth it.

- Danielle

*trigger warning: self-harm and suicidal thoughts*

1 year.

A year ago I was ready to end it all. I had said to friends that I would rather die than live “like this.” What was “this”? Well, I was angry at myself for my weight. I felt that I had allowed my weight to get so bad that there was no coming back from it. I was going through ups and downs of binging and starving and binging again only to them punish myself for eating. I was disgusted with myself and how bad my behavior had gotten. After years of never marking up my skin, I had started cutting myself again. It was, without a doubt, one of the absolute lowest points of my life.

Finally, I opened up to my therapist. I told her what was going on and we tried to come up with a plan. That night, during a Zoom call, a friend noticed something was off and messaged me to see if I was ok. I was honest enough to tell him, “No, I’m not,” and he then brought in others to join what I decided to call Project Danielle. While this was all wonderful and having people behind you is always great, it didn’t help the sinking feeling of not wanting to be alive anymore.

I started just trying to get through each hour, each day, as best I could. I made small changes and, honestly, if it weren’t for Mojo I probably wouldn’t have bothered at all. But as the months went on, I found little things to lean on. In the past I may have looked towards people for comfort, but I was finding comfort in other things. Aspects of myself that I’d never given attention to became akin to wearing a worn-in hoodie. I somehow managed to find comfort in myself.

This was not easy and was definitely a long process. It took me months. Even by the end of 2021, I was still finding myself saying that I didn’t want to live anymore. At that point, it was mostly work-related, but the fact that I was still saying it to people meant that the feelings were still there. I truly believed that there was nothing to live for and that everything I thought was good would just turn out to be bad given enough time.

So where am I now? Am I “better” or at least stable? Who’s to say, really. I’ve begun working towards a solution of sorts to help with my body dysmorphia, though that in and of itself is going to be a journey (more on this at a later date). I’ve managed to settle into a routine with my new job and found a decent place for myself there. And, yes, I’m still finding comfort in those little hidden aspects of myself.

Nothing is ever perfect, but if there’s one thing this last year has taught me it’s that there’s always something to look forward to. Last night I kept thinking about all of the things that have happened in the last year that I would have missed had I given it all up. The conversations never had, people never met, and things never experienced. That alone is enough for me to say, “what comes next?”

Last week I got a new tattoo. I had told myself that if I made it to July, I would get a semicolon tattoo. For those that don’t know about Project Semicolon, their motto is that your story isn’t over. A semicolon doesn’t end a sentence, but merely provides a break. The semicolon tattoo has become a symbol for those who have overcome those dark periods and kept going. But how to design the tattoo for myself, well, that was an endeavor all on its own. Eventually I decided to, once again, lean into those little bits of myself that I found comfort in. The things that helped me and, in some ways, saved me.

The quote, for those that can’t read it, says, “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before.” Now, it wasn’t until after I got the tattoo and watched this episode of Doctor Who that the following day that I realized the quote is actually wrong. He says anyONE not anyBODY. Of course, I began to spiral. Once again, I did something wrong… and this was permanent! But then a friend said, “But what does the quote mean to you?” I realized then and there that, no, the quote isn’t wrong. The biggest reason for my suicidal tendencies last year was my body and body dysmorphia. Having the quote say anyBODY actually fits better than if it were “anyone”.

And, after all, doesn’t the Doctor teach us that no one’s perfect? Because I’m definitely not. Even if everything in my life were to work out the way I dream it will, I still wouldn’t be perfect. This need for perfection that I’ve always had has hindered my ability to cope with changes, no matter how big or small. If someone doesn’t care for me, I assume it’s something that I did and try to figure out a way to “fix” it. If I can fix it, then they’ll like me better, right? It was always, “If I were different, people would accept me,” but I still never accepted myself no matter how much I changed.

The last couple of years have tested a lot of people. I think spending so much time alone during those years, forced me to truly look inward and come to terms with a lot of things… and I’m still working on it. This next phase of the journey is going to require even more introspection, but it’s something I think I’m finally ready for. I’ve found that strength that 1-year-ago me was missing.

If you’re still looking for yours, don’t give up. You’ll find it. I promise.

- Danielle

I've spent most of the last year punishing myself for basically being human. I've convinced myself that I'm damaged so that when I fall back into an old behavior pattern or do something that I think is wrong, I can then go, "See! This is why nothing will ever change!" and continue to be angry at myself over and over again. By saying, "I have a food addiction," I basically made it impossible for me to ever feel safe eating anything! I've said this before, but I will say it again and again: when you are addicted to something that your body needs to live, it is impossible to abstain (aka stay sober) from said thing. I was building up so much guilt inside me that I was making myself sick. Yes, I am unhappy with the way I physically look, but punishing myself for it isn't going to fix anything. Ordering takeout because I've gotten home late and don't have the energy for anything else and then getting angry at myself the next day for it isn't going to fix anything. I'm basically at the point where if I eat anything, regardless of nutritional value and don’t guilt myself afterwards , I feel as though I’ve accomplished something.

Which brings me to my next point...

The idea of someone working 40 hours a week (and actually being out of their house for 55 hours when you include travel/commuting), being the sole person responsible for that house (cooking, cleaning, etc), having the time, energy, and mental capacity to do anything more than they are physically and mentally capable of is just... I don't even have the word for it. When I was home all the time and could take breaks from work whenever I wanted, it was much easier to fit in a workout or cook a healthy meal (or any meal for that matter) and I felt like I had done something good. When I was still with my ex and had another person cooking meals for me, I could come home from work, get in a run or a yoga session, and then dinner would be ready when I was done. This was a luxury I didn't realize was actually a luxury until a couple months ago. I keep thinking there's something wrong with me because I don't have the time or energy to take care of basic tasks, but the truth is... I'm only human and I'm only one person. If my apartment doesn't get clean because I need my single day off in a week to sleep and take care of my mental health... then my apartment doesn't get clean. If I need to order dinner when I get home because I've been too exhausted to even think about cooking... then I need to do that. None of these things make me a bad person.

I think putting myself in the box of "addiction" convinced me that there was something wrong that needed fixing when in reality I just need to do whatever I can to get by each day. Sure there are "healthier" or "better" ways to do things, but given my mental capacity, I have to get by in whatever way I can actually manage. If I can eke out some exercise one day but then can't do it again for a month? That's ok! If I cook and then have leftovers for a week but can't do it the following week? That's ok! Reminding myself that it's perfectly ok is going to be my way of healing the destructive thoughts.

I know another big part of this is also going to have to be dressing the body that I actually have as opposed to the body I wish I had. For the longest time, I’ve really had the same “style” (whatever that means) and never really changed it. I’ve been finding that the things I used to wear simply don’t ring true to who I am anymore. So it’s more than just finding clothes that fit my body and really about finding clothes that fit my soul. Which, yes, I realize how that sounds but I’m learning to try new things and not simply buy things because it’s easier to not think about it. The more thought and effort I put into the choices I make, the better it will be for me in the long run…

And that goes for really every decision.

There’s this woman I follow on TikTok who likes to say that her motto in life is, “I do not receive that.” The first time I heard her explain it, I felt something inside me spark to life. It’s a way of saying, “I don’t appreciate what is happening and will be removing myself from the situation.” Now, this is great when someone is pushing your boundaries, but it also works for self-care as well because when it comes to boundaries, having them with yourself is just as important. People like me, we tend to beat ourselves up over the simplest things. Someone didn’t respond to your text? Well clearly they hate you. Said something “stupid” that you regret? Best to just not talk to anyone ever again. By saying, “I do not receive that,” to myself, I’ve actually been able to slowly (very slowly) pick apart those negative thoughts. Because here’s the thing…

If someone treated me the way I treat myself, I wouldn’t speak to them, would I? I would put up walls and boundaries and basically cut that person off. So why do I allow it from myself? If I’ve earned anything with everything I’ve been through, it’s a little bit of self-love. It’s hard… I know it’s hard, but if i put in a little bit every day maybe this time next year we’ll be celebrating just how far I’ve come.

This “recovery” journey did not end up being what I thought, but I think it became what it needed to be.

Keep going.

You got this <3

- Danielle

So my new job started on February 1st and, honestly, I’m really enjoying it. The work itself is right in that perfect venn diagram of my skills and interests. Which basically means that I don’t wake up in the morning going, “Ugh, I have to go to work!” For the first time in my life, I don’t completely dread having to go in. Sure it’s still work and I don’t make nearly enough money to really keep my head above water, but the people I work with are really great and at the end of the day I recognize that it has definitely been a positive change.

Outside of work things have been… what’s the best way to say this? Let’s just say things have not been so great. I’ve been going back and forth with emotions and I know a big part of that is the lack of therapy in my life. I haven’t met with my therapist since the end of January and have a tentative appointment set with her for May 8th. Having no insurance for 3 months didn’t seem like that big of a deal when I started but now it’s really starting to take a toll. I’ve been finding myself slipping back into old (bad) habits and lashing out. I’ve been battling some pretty bad mood swings and have really just felt “out of it” for a while. The combination of new job/new surroundings + stress + exhaustion + just living inside my head doesn’t equal out to much fun. I actually said to a coworker the other day that being me is exhausting (or something along those lines).

So you see why writing has really had to take a backseat to just… life. Any free moment I have I’m so tired that I can barely see straight, let alone do anything else. I’m hoping that a lot of this clears up once I’m able to be back in therapy, but I also think I just have some major work to do on myself. Things that I’ve been putting off because I was home alone for so long or only around people who understand me. Now I’ve got a whole office of brand new people who really don’t know me yet which causes me to bounce back and forth between 2 things:

1. I put on a happy face and pretend like there is absolutely nothing wrong with me

2. I sit at my desk and don’t attempt to talk to anyone at all

The issue with this is that neither of them are me. I talk… a lot. I talk about my life and my friends and my interests and, yes, my problems too. So to be happy smily and nothing’s wrong OR to not talk at all both feel so unnatural to me that I feel like I’m just faking my way through the day. I spent so much of my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t and I’ve fought so hard to be the person that I am now, that hiding isn’t an option for me. I don’t like hiding, but there’s constantly that fear that these new people that I now spend 40 hours a week with will completely reject me if I act like myself all the time.

You see? Exhausting being me.

I don’t know when I’ll find the brain power to write again. The recovery journal? Yeah, that’s basically dead and, unfortunately, a story for another day.

Oh boy, this month was a doozy! I started my new job on February 1st and adjusting to a new schedule while also trying to maintain healthy habits has not been easy. I’ve had to stop working out for the time being because I simple can’t find the right time of day to get it done. If I work out in the morning, I have to make sure I’m up early enough so that I can 1) workout, 2) clean up afterwards (I sweat… a lot!), 3) eat breakfast, and 4) get ready for work. As it is right now, I make sure I’m at least out of bed no later than 6am which gives me time to make and eat breakfast, have some coffee, and relax a little bit before getting dressed and heading out the door by 7:15. Am I up earlier because Mojo insists on waking me up 4am every day? Yes, but it’s not pleasant. In theory, I could get out of bed by 5, workout, and then continue on with my morning, but so far I haven’t found the energy to actually do this.

The alternative, of course, is to get in a workout when I get home from work but I’ve never been good at that. When you live with another person who is taking care of the cooking, then getting in a workout after your day is through is much easier. But when you live alone, all the responsibilities fall on you. If I get home around, say, 6pm, feed Mojo, change, and workout, I’ll be just starting to cook dinner around 7 probably. That means I’ll be eating no earlier than 7:30 which I really don’t like doing. I prefer to eat earlier in the night so that I don’t get sick when I go to bed. Plus, saying I’m going to actually workout after a long day is just a lie I tell myself… I know it’s never going to happen.

So the physical activity part of my recovery is not going so well. I know that I won’t truly see any major physical changes until I start adding in regular exercise and not having the time to do so is very frustrating. If I were to set an activity goal for March, it would be to slowly add in small toning exercises that can be done while doing other things. Toasting some bread? Do some calf raises. Brewing coffee? How about arm circles? Things like that. I think slowly incorporating these things instead of a full-blown workout routine might be the best way to get myself back to having physical activity part of my every day life.

“But, Danielle, what about the food part? Surely that’s going well, right?”

I wish I could say yes, but like I said… this month has been hard. I’ve been trying my best to stick to the habits I’ve created and develop new ones: meal prep, small portions, etc. I’d say most days I’m actually ok… for the most part, but there are definitely days where that emotional eating comes into play. Adjusting to this new job where I’ve gone from being home all the time to in an office around brand new people 40 hours a week has been really hard. I don’t think I anticipated the emotional impact this would have on me. It’s been very anxiety-inducing and draining, both physically and mentally. Feeling like you don’t fit in somewhere is enough to make anyone turn back to their comfort vices, no matter how bad they are for you. There have definitely been a few days this past month where I’ve binged. Not badly… not nearly has bad as I used to, but it still happening. I contemplated resetting my recovery clock and starting at zero. I wondered over and over again if it was even worth it, if it were doable. I know these are just moments of weakness and no matter how well I’m doing they’re still going to happen, but it’s make this whole journey just that much more difficult.

At the same time, I’m fighting some of the worst body dysmorphia that I’ve ever dealt with before.

I’ve mentioned in a couple previous posts that I don’t feel comfortable in my body. It not only doesn’t feel like it belongs to me, but I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. This becomes a harder thing to deal with when you have to get dressed in real clothes and leave your house every day. When I could live in pajamas and comfy clothes 24/7, it was easier to pretend it wasn’t an issue, but now? Not so much. There were several days during my first couple of weeks at the new job where I found myself crying on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by the remnants of discarded clothing options. As much as I try to fight it and tell myself that being body positive is better than getting down on myself, that’s not as easy as people think it is.

You see, I have what I call my “happy weight”. It’s a place where I know my body is comfortable, I am physically comfortable, and it’s just all around better for me. The last time I was at this weight was probably more than a decade ago. Do you see the problem with this? Bodies change as we get older and it gets harder and harder to lose weight. Things that worked for me then won’t work for me now. I have to work twice as hard to get to the point where my body was its happiest. And as much as I know that all to be true and know that it may never happen, I can’t get that thought out of my head. Will I be unhappy if I don’t get there but can get closer to it than I am now? It’s hard to say. If I know I’ve worked as hard as I possibly can but only get so far, I hope I’ll have enough strength to tell myself that it’s ok… but body dysmorphia might show its ugly face and tell me otherwise. There’s no way to know until it happens.

If you’re following along on this harrowing journey, I thank you for your support. If you haven’t already, please be sure to check out the Instagram page which is updated once a day to give basically a daily play by play of how things are going. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always honest.

Here’s hoping that month 3 goes much better.

- Danielle

Trigger warning: this post will talk deeply about suicidal thoughts, self-harm, eating disorders, and addiction.
If you suffer from or are triggered by any of these things, please proceed with caution.

I’ve been open about my struggles with weight, food, and eating disorders in the past, but what happened this summer, well… that took another turn.

During most of 2020 and into the first half of 2021, I was leaning very heavily on food for comfort, for companionship, for anything really. I kept trying different things to stop my bad behaviors, but nothing stuck because I hadn’t figured out what was wrong. I was eating so much and ended up getting up to the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I was going through periods where I would eat everything in sight until I made myself sick followed by 2 weeks of starving myself. If I was in starvation mode and I ate something, I would punish myself… literally. I was cutting up my arms again just like I did when I was a teenager. It was horribly self-destructive and I was at the very tip of my rope.

By mid-July 2021, I knew I couldn’t live like that anymore. I started confiding in friends, but I was saying things like, “I’d rather die than live like this,” and I meant it. I truly felt like the body I lived in was a cage and that it didn’t belong to me, but I couldn’t find a way out. It seemed to make more sense to just keep hurting myself over and over again than deal with anything else that was going on.

I finally opened up to my therapist and we made a plan. It was simple: don’t order take-out for 30 days. Now, this may not sound like much, but I was ordering delivery almost every night. I would eat dinner… and then order a 2nd dinner. I was eating pizza 4, 5, 6 times a week. Pizza, I’d learned, was my #1 trigger food. What’s a trigger food, you ask? Well it’s something that if I have even a single bite, I won’t be able to stop. Think of an alcoholic when they talk about their “gateway” or “go-to”. For some it might be beer, or others wine, etc. My go-to, my gateway, my trigger is pizza.

My therapist and I started talking in terms of addiction. We started treating my food issues like she would with an alcoholic who was trying to quit drinking. We talked about going to the grocery story like “going to the bar” because it’s exposure either way. We started using words like “food sobriety” and I began counting days. Every day that I didn’t order food was counted.

Here’s where the problem lies…

That’s all I was doing. For the first couple of months I was ok and had actually stayed away from most other “bad” foods but then one night in October I decided to have some pizza. What harm could it do, right? It was just pizza and I’d done so good! Well, that one night of pizza turned into two which turned into many many more. Before I knew it, I had a stack of boxes piled up in my kitchen and no idea how it got that bad. The end of 2021 was really rough for me as I battled with a terrible job and some crazy personal revelations, and once again I turned to food. By the end of December, while sick with Covid, I made a decision: in 2022 I would fully commit to myself.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing, I stop using words like “sobriety” because it’s impossible to be sober from something that you literally need to live. I switched to using terms like “recovery” because that’s what it is. It is an active process of adaptation and reflection and it gets really messy sometimes, but I started with a few simple goals: in January I would cook more, take vitamins every day, and have absolutely no pizza in any way shape or form (that includes frozen!). Today is January 31st and I can say that I stuck to every single goal I made.

Just those few some steps have made me feel so proud of myself. I’ve truly taken big strides in what will be a life-long change. Not every day has been easy and there are absolutely times when I want to grab for foods that I know will make me sick, but if there’s 1 thing I’ve really learned in the last month it’s that I know my body better than I think I do. More often than not, if I’m craving something it’s simply because my body is missing something so I can substitute with a healthy option instead.

I can say with certainty that I feel much more energized and in control of my life than I did a month ago.

Stay tuned for month 2 <3

- Danielle

I am backing this story up to when I assume was exposed. Let me first say that I am vaccinated and boosted. The 2nd vaccination shot made me very sick. I had a fever for about 48 hours and could barely get out of bed. When I was boosted in November, I also got my flu shot at the same time and was then laid up in bed for 4 straight days. Needless to say, I thought I was good to go… then I went to the movies.

On December 16th, like the nerd I am, I went to the very first showing of Spider-Man No Way Home. I’d been to the movies since they re-opened so I wasn’t at all worried about it. It was a crowded theatre (obviously) so I kept my mask on the whole time, but I was still wearing a cloth mask (more on this in a minute). While I had my mask on, though, people around me were eating and drinking so there was less protection.

The following day, Friday the 17th, I met up with friends that night to see Freestyle Love Supreme (yes, again!). One of them handed me a KN95 mask and said, “No more cloth masks. They don’t do anything.” From that point on, I was only wearing KN95s. Flash forward to Monday morning (we’re now at the week of Christmas) and I wake up with a sore throat. I didn’t think anything of it and simply assumed it was allergies or that my radiator was making the air in my apartment dry or something. My nose was dripping into my throat so it must just be post-nasal drip. It couldn’t possibly be Covid after everything I went through with those shots, right?

Tuesday morning I decided to go get tested. I wanted to make sure it was safe for me to go home for Christmas (which I was scheduled to do that Friday). I walk to the nearest testing site, about 10 blocks away, and stand outside in the cold with everyone else looking to do the same thing. About 10 minutes after the scheduled start time, someone comes out and says, “It’s cold outside. If you want to test yourself at home, take this,” and she was handing out at-home tests. I was still convinced I didn’t have Covid so I took a test and went home. After swabbing my nose (which I hate!) the test was negative so I felt good to go.

A few hours later, I get a text from my nephew who lives in the city asking if I got tested because he tested positive. I told him that I tested negative and asked him if he’d talked to his dad yet, because he was supposed to be driving back home with me for Christmas. Another couple hours go by and he says he did… and his younger brother tested positive too. At that point, I knew that there was no way Christmas was happening this year. I had tested negative, but other members of my family hadn’t. Eventually I got my dad on the phone and he explained they’d all been exposed so we decided to just put everything off for a few weeks until everyone was better. It sucked, but it made sense to keep everyone safe.

Meanwhile, I’m still testing negative up through Wednesday night when I took my 2nd at-home test. My sore throat, however, was getting worse. By Thursday morning I had no voice and I was majorly congested. But I had just tested negative the night before. Obviously this is just allergies or something like that. There’s no way I have Covid.

Friday night and Christmas Eve, I make the last stop of the year to the woman I’ve been cat sitting for. I’m definitely sick at this point, but still didn’t think anything of it. I had no fever and it was still really just congestion. By Christmas morning on Saturday, though, I knew something was wrong. I was sick. I texted her immediately and said that I shouldn’t come by until I can get tested which I wouldn’t be able to do until the following morning. I then spent the majority of Christmas Day sleeping. I could barely hold my head up.

Sunday morning. Boxing Day. I walk, again, to the nearest testing place, get a swab up my nose, and ask for an at-home test as well. She reluctantly hands me one when I tell her I work for an elderly woman and I go home hoping against hope that it’ll be negative. However, after only seconds it turns positive. Shit… shit shit shit. I’m devastated. 2021 was not the best year by any means and this was just the icing on the cake of a bad year. I had plans… I had things I was going to do the final week of the year going into 2022. I had tickets to see the final 2 FLS shows before they closed and went on tour. I was supposed to have brunch with a friend on New Year’s Day. There were plans and those were scrapped.

I was angry. I was sad. I was gutted. It felt like what little happiness I had was completely taken away and that I was simply the unluckiest person on the planet.

I told those I’d been around so that they could get tested and then just prepared to be home for the next 10 days. I placed a huge grocery order, emailed my job… I went through all the practical things you’re supposed to do. When all that was done I sank as far as you can sink, really. Physically I was really sick, but mentally? Mentally I was a complete mess. By the time the PCR results came in a couple days later, I didn’t even have emotion to respond with. I knew it would be positive by the way I’d been feeling, and I was already in isolation. Getting that positive really meant nothing at that point.

Isolation.

When you live alone, don’t really know your neighbors, and all of your friends live elsewhere, getting sick is the hardest thing. You’re already isolated from the world so that you don’t get anyone else sick, but then you’re just… alone. There’s no one to take care of the little things that need to get done (despite how sick I am, Mojo still likes to be fed). I had people asking if I needed anything, if they could send me things, but the stubborn independent person that I am told everyone no. “No, thank you, I’m good. But I appreciate you asking.” I’ve never learned how to let people help me and that makes things really hard when you literally can’t do anything but stay inside your own apartment.

The days went on and my symptoms eventually improved. After about a week, my congestion mostly cleared up and my coughed eased. Now 2 full weeks after testing positive, I’ve gone from spending the whole day coughing to clearing my throat a thousand times a day. It doesn’t sound like an improvement, but it definitely is. Here’s the kicker though…

When I finally left my apartment this past Thursday, I was filled with so much anxiety that by Thursday night I had made myself sick from it. After being in isolation for so long, going out into the world, into busy stores, onto the subway was too much. I had errands to run so I had no choice, but it was beyond stressful. All I wanted to do was climb back into my safe little bubble at home and never leave again.

That’s the hardest part… re-entering the world after what you’ve just gone through. You know that you’re keeping yourself and others safe by distancing and wearing a good mask (or any mask for that matter), but others don’t have the same courtesy. The couple times I’ve been on the subway the last few of days, I am still seeing people without masks… despite the more than numerous signs posted everywhere and PA announcements telling you that it’s required.

It’s frustrating. I don’t want to get sick again. I’m honestly not even sure my body could handle it again. You see, I don’t have a diagnosed immune deficiency, but I have a weak immune system. It’s a very long story for another day, but I tend to get sick when others don’t and my body reacts differently to things than “normal” people. So when I see people not doing the bare minimum to keep others safe, it’s really really frustrating. We are nearly 2 years into this pandemic and it’s like we’ve started all over again. And yet, there are people who still haven’t learned.

As of yesterday, I’ve been retested and my rapid was negative. I am awaiting the PCR results, but I am assuming that will finally be negative as well. We have a belated Christmas Eve planned for this upcoming weekend and I am hoping against hope that we don’t have to reschedule again. I want to see my family. I want to hug my nephews. I want all the merriment and celebration that we had to miss out on because of this variant that is tearing its way through everyone.

All this to say… please be safe out there. People are still getting sick and yes, people are still dying. Those ending up in ICU beds and dying are unvaccinated. If you haven’t gotten yours yet, it will literally save your life. If I hadn’t been vaccinated and boosted, I’d probably be dead right now. That’s not being melodramatic… it would have killed me because I truly don’t think my body would have been strong enough to fight it off.

Getting sick has been more than just a physical thing. The mental gymnastics you go through are enough to make you never want to leave your home or talk to another person ever again. Those who have had to isolate completely alone (and I don’t mean isolating in a separate room in your home, I mean in a home by yourself) know what I’m talking about. It’s the same things I was feeling in the first few months of the pandemic in 2020. You forget that there actually is a world outside of your little bubble. You forget there are other people. Not in a “I’m the only person” kind of way, but in a “I’ve been by myself for so long I don’t know how to interact with others” kind of way. You end up tapping into the darkest parts of yourself and try to find any way to bring light into your life.

Yes that sounds overly dramatic, but spend 10+ days 100% by yourself while sick and see how you feel at the end. No one coming to your door to see how you’re doing. No one bringing you medicine or food in bed. You’re alone… just you and your thoughts. I think those who don’t live alone don’t fully understand what that means.

I’ve come out the other side and I’m grateful for that, but there has definitely been a trauma response in my body from what I went through. It’s just more trauma to add to the pile, but it’s there and it’s something that I now need to work through. I wish everyone reading this health and safety. Things are really hard right now and I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better again.

Take care of yourself.

Take care of others.

Be safe.

Love you.

- Danielle

It’s hard to even believe that we’re not only at the end of 2021, but that I’ve been in NY for 3 years. Some days it feels like I just got here yesterday and sometimes it’s like I’ve been here my whole life. This city is the most amazing and frustrating place I’ve ever lived and I’m truly never leaving. I notice new things every day. Even in neighborhoods that I’ve walked around a million times, it’s like I’m seeing things for the first time. That brings me to point #1: 2021 taught me to appreciate the little things in life. Yes, this should simply be normal, but when the world is in crisis we tend to only focus on the big shit going down. It can get hard to notice the small gestures people do or the cool architecture on an old building you’ve walked by a thousand times. Whether it’s the look my cat gives me when he wants attention or the happy greeting from the bartender at a restaurant I frequent, I try to relish in those small moments.

Why was this such a big lesson in 2021? Because this has been a hard year. Yes 2020 was a shitshow but, for me at least, 2021 has been a lot harder. I’ve been battling some of the worst depressive episodes of my life while also coming to some serious realizations about myself. That brings us to point #2: 2021 taught me how to appreciate myself and my flaws. I was going to make a completely separate post about this in January, but here we go. In late July I admitted to myself that I had a problem. I’ve had issues with food for a long time, on both sides of the spectrum, but it really came to a head this year. I got to the heaviest I’ve ever been and it wasn’t for any reason other than I was eating everything in front of me. I would eat dinner, not be satisfied, and then order a 2nd dinner. I would then get so angry with myself for doing it, that I would punish myself for it by either self harming or starving myself for the next week. By the time I got to the end of July I was ready to die. I didn’t want to live like that anymore. That’s when I knew I had a food addiction. I started opening up to my therapist and close friends about it and it’s been a struggle every single day. It’s not just about watching what I eat because if I restrict myself too much, the eating disorder side of my brain perks up and I start restricting everything. Finding that balance has been extremely hard and continues to be even as I near 6 months of “recovery”.

Admitting to myself that this was a legitimate problem was more than just saying, “I have an issue with food.” There have been times I’ve talked to people about it and they respond with, “Oh I know. I ate sooo much last night!” Unfortunately, that’s not the same thing. Having a food addiction is the same as any other addiction. It’s something you turn to for comfort but then becomes a crutch. It’s no longer comfort but a vice… something you use when you don’t want to deal with what’s actually wrong in your life. In a way, this brings me to point #3: 2021 taught me how to be myself. I’ve been doing a lot of work on the essence of me for the last 3, almost 4 years, but after the book came out last year I think I lost of bit of myself. I had drained my brain of so many memories but that made me vulnerable to new ones that I’d pushed down. I found myself regressing back to a version of myself I didn’t want to be. I think this ultimately led to the food addiction to begin with. But the beauty of it all is that I’ve found a way to just be… me. Whether it’s the clothes I choose to wear or simply the way I express myself, this is it. This is me. Love me or hate me, I am who I am.

The last thing I learned this year is a difficult one to talk about. Ok, they’ve all been difficult and after not writing for 2.5 months, this is turning into a mini therapy session, but here we go, point #4: 2021 taught me that I am capable of loving again. Yes, friends, you read that correctly. I fell in love this year. It’s unrequited and nothing can ever happen with this person, but no one told my heart that. Despite the heartache, it’s a blessing to know that after everything I’ve been through my heart isn’t completely closed off. If I allow myself to let someone in, then it’s possible for me to actually feel things again. I will forever be grateful to this person for showing me that it’s possible.

There have been many bright spots this year even with the constant overhang of doom in the air. I think I’ve spent about a third of the year in a deep depressive hole, but poked my head out a few times to see if things we’re ok. As I continue on this journey of self-discovery, the days are going to get harder. I have a lot of things I need to face within before I can even think about making outward changes. So one last thing before I bring this post to a close…

Despite all the bad, I am grateful. I am grateful for my friends, my cat, and my life. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to continue living that life. Nothing is ever going to change overnight. It’s not like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden have the perfect life… because such a thing doesn’t exist. You have to take the good with the bad, the ups with the downs. Life isn’t linear. We go back and forth on our own timelines, diving into past experiences to help us with the future while also looking ahead to try and not repeat past mistakes. We learn something new every single day and that carries us through to the next thing. As long as I can sit here and write these recaps each year, then I’ll consider it successful.

I’m not going to make any outlandish promises for 2022. I’m simply happy to put 2021 behind me (because fuck odd numbered years!) and I’m excited to see what 2022 might have in store for me. No matter where you are on your own personal journey, I wish you peace, joy, and love. However you are spending this holiday season, I hope you find time to reflect on what this year has meant to you and be grateful that you have a whole new year ahead of you.

Happy Holidays!

- Danielle

Force is defined as a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another object: F = ma (force = mass *acceleration). The bigger something is and the faster it’s moving, the more power, so to speak, there is behind that object. Picture a hill and at the top there are 2 rocks, one small one large. If they start rolling at the same exact time down the same incline and there are no other variables in the mix, the bigger one will gain more speed as it rolls and hit the bottom of the hill with more force. If you were standing at the bottom of said hill, you’d rather be hit by the smaller rock, right? You already know that the bigger one is going to hurt a lot more.

Now, there are many different types of force, but I’m going to talk about friction. Friction is the force that resists motion when the surface of one object comes in contact with the surface of another. So, let’s go back to that same hill. If the bigger rock say hits a patch of mud, it’s going to slow down the speed at which it rolls. The acceleration is decreased because of the friction.

Think about when you’re driving a car. It’s easier to keep a steady speed when you’re on level, paved ground. But if you then switch to a dirt road or there’s ice/snow or something else is on the road, it changes the speed which changes the force of the car.

“Danielle, why are you talking about physics all of a sudden?”

Well, I’m glad you asked…

I was thinking the other day about force.

No, not that one and not in the physics sense either, but in forcing things to happen in life. There are people who will go out of their way to force a meeting or encounter with someone they want to meet. There are people who will poke and prod at something until things go their way. They force their way through life, pushing against any friction that comes their way by essentially being more forceful.

I stopped to think about this and realized that every time I’ve sat back and just let things happen as they’re going to happen (in other worse, not forcing things), good things happen. When I don’t try to force conversations, they happen naturally. When I’m more laid back instead of up in arms about everything, life just happens. The more resistance you feel when trying to force something, the more that’s the universe telling you that you should really just… relax!

Let’s try another analogy for a minute. Imagine that you have a jar (no, not this one). The jar has something inside it that you really really want, but the lid won’t budge. You try everything you can think of to get it off and after trying and trying, it hasn’t even loosened and you’re left feeling defeated. But what if you let that jar sit for a little while and try again after you’ve allowed yourself to rest? You might have an easier time opening it.

I know I go a little overboard with these analogies sometimes, but what I’ve found over the last few days and especially in the last 3 years is that the best things in my life happen when I stop trying to force them to happen. This is not to say that you should just sit back and let life happen around you, but there are times when forcing it does nothing but leave you feeling defeated in the long run.

So here is my advice to you, dear reader, the next time you encounter resistance… take a step back! Think about the situation and maybe find a different way to solve it or, even better, see how things unfold if you don’t apply force. You might be surprised by the results.

- Danielle