So I decided to give up being a writer forever, and then the shit hit the fan.

How do I explain this?

It started with a very intense flashback. It was like a highlight reel of awful moments starring my family. They were all scenes from a long time ago. Twenty years. Around the time I was a teenager and going through all my mental health stuff. To say their abuse was a major factor is clearly an understatement. It was very intense.

So this went on for… awhile. It was incredibly distressing. I felt like I had no control over what was happening inside my mind. It just kept playing the same highlight reel over and over and over again. It was so painful. I couldn’t make it stop. I started babbling out loud, asking, “What happened to me? What happened to me? What happened to me?” I started pacing back and forth. It was like I had to hit rewind and go back to when I was 15. I began walking through the list of inciting incidents slowly, like I was trying to remember them as I went. I had to put everything back in order again.

I walked myself through it. It took about an hour for me to get from age 15 to 21, which is when I moved to South Dakota. That’s where the tape stops and says “Turn to Side 2 Now.” It was so painful to walk through. There are gaps in my memory from that time. There are some very difficult experiences I have to relieve. I don’t like to think about that time frame, which is probably why it’s taken so long for me to process it this way. If I had it my way, I would keep it all buried in a box and never dig it up again.

In the past, I would have just used alcohol to make the highlight reel stop. This time, I realized it was time to face the pain. I had to walk out into the middle of the metaphorical train tracks and stand there waiting for the train to hit and crush me to the death. I screamed so loud when it finally hit me. I finally relaxed as I felt the pain finally dissipate into the air. The worst of it was finally over.

It felt like making a list of events in chronological order so I could see the natural flow of things and trace the course to how I ended up here. It actually really helped me a lot. Once I was done putting the narrative together, I felt calm and relaxed. I felt peaceful. Like I finally understood what happened to me and why I became the way I am. I felt steady and relaxed. Tired. Very tired. Exhausted. Emotionally and physically destroyed. I went to bed to lay down and close my eyes, and that’s when my brain turned back on at full blast.

Suddenly, he was there. Merrick! My ex-boyfriend from my first year of college. I have not seen this character in many moons. Andrew, who has never gone away in spite of my stern insistence, has not allowed him to be around. Andrew does not like it when I write stories about the gentlemen populating The Island of Guys. He especially dislikes Merrick, who he is frequently seen getting into lengthy dick-measuring contests with. As we all know, Andrew only likes it when I write about him, which is why he continues to hold me hostage to this very day. You think I ever stopped writing about Andrew? No! I just don’t post it on the blog. It’s a secret. My secret. It’s a bad secret. I am ashamed. I’ve written multiple volumes about him now. Why? I don’t understand. It literally makes no sense. I’ve talked to him like five times ever, and three of them he was screaming at me. I don’t understand it. That’s why I have to hide it. Anyway, the real one is gone now, so at least I don’t have to get that weird feeling when I see him around. Like, why? Just… whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

See what he did there?

Anyway, Merrick appeared. I clearly tripped up that wire in my brain, as he features prominently in the highlight reel I previously mentioned. To say I have a much different perspective on that situation now would be an understatement. In fact, I actually re-visited his story some months ago and created a completely different story based off of those events. I changed some characters around, altered the setting a bit, sprinkled in some influence from some of my favourite YA TV shows set at university, and voila! A new screenplay treatment appeared. I have done nothing with it ever since. Like everything else, it sits in a large pile on my desk, collecting dust, not doing anything or going anywhere. Kind of like me.

Merrick was demanding to know what the hell was going on. You see, I know for a fact that the real person still checks up on me from time to time. I know for a fact that he is waiting for his story. His story has yet to fully come to fruition, mostly because I’ve had to do insane amounts of intensive therapy to even get to this point. Naturally, his character feels rather like he has unfinished business with me. He told me he planned to haunt me until I write his story, then quickly looked around the room as if he was afraid Andrew would show up and stake him again. He disappeared shortly after that.

I took out the treatment and went over it again. It’s pretty good. I’ve definitely kept the spirit of the story while successfully removing all potential ties to my real life and the people in it. I’m learned how to keep the integrity of the characters while putting them in different shells. It’s hard, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from the Baby Reindeer situation, it’s that it’s not worth it to tie your real life that closely with your art. It’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen, and if you think my father’s spirit would ever allow me to get tied up in that, you are wrong.

What happened next? Well, I went to sleep, woke up in a strange mood, then received a visit from The Crow. “Caw Caw, muthafuckaaaaa. Guess who’s coming around to call? It’s your writing spirit animal. You think you can just give this up? You think you can just throw down the pen and walk away? Wrong. So wrong. You were chosen. You must continue on. You have a gift. You must use it for good.”

Great. Just great. Yes, I was specially chosen just to write a dumb secret book about a married man. That doesn’t sound totally and completely delusional at all. I’m clearly having a mental breakdown right now. Again. Wonderful.

So then I went to teach yoga. I felt like my vibe was a little off, but I didn’t let it shake me. I taught Yoga Nidra first, then Hot Vinyasa. One right after the other. I came home feeling SUPER EFFING WEIRD. Just weird. Strange and uncomfortable. Unsettled. Yoga can have that effect on me sometimes. I am, after all, still using it as part of my therapy for what I now suspect is some form of trauma-induced brain damage. I believe I can be healed. I have been reading lots of peer-reviewed research studies from legitimate medical journals about neuroplasticity in the brain. I have take it upon myself to find ways to reconnect all those wires that have frayed. Yoga, meditation, dance therapy, languages, puzzle games, coloring books, all of it is good for the brain. So, I believe I am healing slowly over time, but it has been so painful to get there.

Right now I am feeling… better, I guess?

Shaken up. It’s been a rough couple of days. Most of the time I am okay now, but my triggers come back big time when I’m PMSing. For instance, all of this started because I sat down in my living room and started wrapping holiday presents. I usually do not wrap gifts, but I am experimenting with new holiday traditions that don’t trigger me, so I thought… why not? Well, it turns out that the reason I don’t do gift-wrapping is because something about it is insanely triggering for me. The situation was not helped by the fact that I purchased what I thought was beautiful glittery wrapping paper that turned out to have a texture like sandpaper. It would not fold well, it was too thick, and none of the different adhesives I tried would make it stick. So even though it was clearly a situation where I could have just gone out and gotten new wrapping paper, I proceeded to have a giant meltdown over it instead. This is when the highlight reel started playing. All I could hear was the voices of my mother and sister mocking my gift-wrapping technique. Suddenly all of it came to the top all at once. All of the deeper memories. All of the flashbacks. I found myself suddenly boiling over, completely helpless to make it stop. OVER SOME STUPID, CHEAP, CRAPPYASS WRAPPING PAPER FROM WALMART! Ugh! Ridiculous.

So maybe gift-wrapping isn’t going to be a holiday tradition after all. I will just do bags with tissue wrap or recycle newspaper, like I always did before. Clearly I discovered why I wrap gifts like that in the first place. Gift-wrapping is triggering AF. Who knew?

Amazing how I can walk into a yoga class and teach it as if none of this is happening to me on a fairly regular basis and I am fine. Totally fine. So zen and peaceful, you guys. Vibes. Hashtag Yogi Life! Welcome one and all to a truly, uniquely, trauma-informed yoga practice that is sure to melt all of your stresses away. If I can use yoga and meditation to overcome everything that I just described, then you can too. And while I’m here, let me just say: Get your vaccinations. Stay away from TikTok. And for the love of god, please don’t drink raw milk.

Okay, okay, I’m not quitting writing. I just need my inspiration back. Clearly.

Who wants to be my next Muse?