The Trip of a Lifetime
Today at approximately 6:30 pm I turned 43. I have made a habit of celebrating myself -colorfully- beginning a week (or so) before and ending a week (or so) after “my day”. I even have a “Birthday Suit” that is comprised of a colorful cat-riding-a-unicorn-over-a-rainbow t-shirt, sparkling glitter Doc Marten’s and my handmade birthday tutu, that I wear annually every December 5th. Embracing my silliness in the name of fun. Explaining to others that I celebrated this way because “I did not think I would ever live this long” or “every day that I wake up is one more than I could have had/deserve” or whatever other not-quite-right excuses came to hand. I did not understand or even realize that this needed any further thought. Until last week.
When I came to the door marked “42” I knew that it would be a big year. My 40th year was when I learned that my abandonment issues ran deeper than I thought. It was also when I first experienced a panic attack. 41 showed me the edge of the cliff, when I began writing my story and genuinely seeking answers to what had hurt me. When I was halfway to my 42nd year I began to mourn anew the loss of my father. His suicide was during his 42nd year and my 15th. I began to feel his pain, my pain, any and all types of pain in an incredibly raw way. I thought that year was the most transformative until I hit 42. On that birthday I breathed deeply, feeling like I had made it through the worst of my healing and the rest would be uphill. Sometimes I really admire how naive I can be. The 365 days between December 5, 2020 and today have been some of the hardest days of my life.
Over the last 31 days I have attended a mental health treatment facility where I was given the space, the time and the tools to truly know myself. And let me tell you, there is a LOT stored in this body and mind. As I have begun to discover and see myself in a way I never had before I can acknowledge that I have held, hidden and carried far too many secrets. Finding a voice that I never knew I was not using — because we don’t know what we don’t know, right? There is so much that I have uncovered during this time that I can (and will) talk and write and share about for as long as I am able. But for today, I would like to share with you what I have learned about the celebration of my birthday.
I came here to tell you about why I have celebrated my birthday in such a demonstrative way. Part of my PTSD program employs cognitive processing therapy, or CPT. The crux of that being an ever growing awareness of the untrue but very solid facts I have created, as a survival method, to make sense of the various traumas I have endured. In CPT they are called “stuck points” and I have made a list of the ones I have been able to identify. Many of my stuck points are centered around trust and safety, and the real or perceived lack of both. Some of them are multi layered, pieces of emotional and mental baklava gathering mold in my mind. Last week my therapist helped me identify why I have felt such a compulsion to celebrate my own birthday the way I have in the past. We were talking about my plans for the weekend and I told her, “I will probably wear my birthday suit (ensuring her that I would not be nude) and make a big to-do at the treatment center because I always do it for my birthday”. She simply asked, “why?” That three letter query opening a hatch door that would lead me down a quick but unseen before, rabbit hole. As I began talking about it, explaining how I act so goofy because it helps my students feel like they can and I am just a kid at heart and…. But I haven’t always done that…. I think I make that much noise about it because that way no one will forget…. Because if I don’t celebrate myself, what if no one else will…. I will be forgotten. In essence, I made a scene to celebrate myself because I believed that if I didn’t no one else would; I could/would be forgotten if I did not force others to acknowledge me. The stuck point of that session was — I am forgettable.
What I had believed, for decades, as truth, stung my throat as those words came out. Silencing me as tears gathered in my eyes. Imagining my inner child feeling so very sad because she believed she had been/would be forgotten. Understanding that though my wounds are deep the “facts” I have collected over my 43 years are not facts. Many of them not true. At all. The belief that I am forgettable was nothing more than a dusty and uncomfortable lie. Everyday there are more stuck points that become unstuck, some dislodged as quickly as they are discovered, others will take more work to dissolve. Now that I know how to find and disperse these emotional zits, per se, I will continue to work to remove them.
This birthday is different. This year and the ones that follow, will be better and healthier than every year before. It may not be smooth or struggle free, but it will be better. I am still here and that is what matters most. No matter what.
