Are you RAD?

Some days you just need to write, and today is one of those days. I have finally cried, tears I have needed for months. Big, gasping, bucketfuls of tears. So many my head and throat and eyes hurt. I imagine I will be quite puffy tomorrow, and yet, I don't think they are done. I sense many more in my near future. Once upon a time I believed that crying was weakness. We are supposed to be happy, always. To be anything else was utter failure. Humans are happy. Elated, even. Except these over simplified emotions never fully explained the complexity of life events for me. Since I couldn't have the emotions I thought I was supposed to be having every second of every day, I used drugs and alcohol to help me. If I was completely numb, then all the emotions blurred. Of course, as you can imagine, that didn't work out so hot. Alcohol did exactly what it is supposed to do and provided very temporary positive effects that spiraled into heavy doses of magnified anxiety and depression

New writing rule, Amy Winehouse for the hard shit. Girl totally got it. RIP. So, I have been struggling connecting with chronic pain, something a lot of our clients (and my partner) live with daily. According to Brene Brown's synopsis on empathy, the path to connection and true empathy is being able to find the similarities in other's experiences. I have been in pain: check. I have been in a lot of physical pain: check. I understand the neuroscience and physiology of the pain response in the body: I mean, holy shit, that takes it all, right? NO. Stuck. I have been so fucking stuck on this. How do I relate? I pushed out two humans unmedicated from my vagina and thought I was going to die both times. I finished a marathon hobbling from a leg injury. I get pain. I just don't get non-musculoskeletal continuous pain. Or so I thought. Y'all, be really careful what you wish for, the Universe doesn't pull its punches. The other day I was telling a client about thi