On Lessons from Pops

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

For those of you who don’t know, my father passed away on Wednesday. And for those who don’t know, my relationship with him was far from a beautiful “daddy’s little girl” type of scenario. I loved and hated him. I was afraid of him, yet I felt protected from the outside world by him.

My father was an alcoholic, mean, misogynistic, childish, and a bully. But he was also full of life, energy, and joy. He was strong—crazy healthy despite himself—and had the strongest work ethic of anyone I’d ever met. Just as strong was his play ethic: he worked hard and he played hard.

He lived a full life of ups and downs. He made money fast and spent it even faster. He loved drinking, gambling, and chasing women. He didn’t believe women should work or that education mattered. He believed you should take care of yourself and your family with food, shelter, and clothing in a basic sense. There was always enough, but always with the constant worry that maybe there wouldn’t be, the weight of bills looming.

From him, I learned a lot—what to do, what not to do, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to show up in the world. This both served me and hurt me. The two main lessons I took from him were how to be productive and how to live fully at the extremes of emotion.

He hated the word “relaxing,” unless everything else that could possibly be done was already done. Before he came home, my brothers and I would scour the house for anything out of place, dirty, or unfinished. Yes, it was unhealthy—but it taught me to scan my environment, make lists, remember details, prioritize, and execute with whatever time I had.

This shaped me: I don’t know how to rest. I’m constantly doing, doing something, or several things at once. I am incredibly productive, and I think I like it that way. It’s a blessing and a burden, because I often don’t realize when I’ve pushed myself too far or taken on too much. My father, in an unhealthy way, taught me this.

Another word to describe him: loud. When the work was done, it was time to play and let loose. He had no qualms about body image, running around shirtless with his big belly. He sang at the top of his lungs, danced like a giant silly human without a care, and enjoyed food like there was no tomorrow. He loved sports—football mostly, the NY Giants in particular, but also soccer and basketball. Watching games with him was full of antics and superstition. The whole neighborhood knew if the Giants were winning or losing.

But with his intensity—whether excitement or anger—came loss of control. Things broke. People and animals got hurt, physically or emotionally.

Some of you who know me now might not realize that “loud” was once how I lived too. I still like to dance, be silly, and LAUGH—only now without the drinking and the overkill of noise.

Ultimately, I didn’t stick around to live like he lived or under his rule of thumb. I got the #$&* out of dodge and started a path of my own in the world.

I’ve learned over the course of the past 31 years that I struggle with boundaries. I was never taught them. I didn’t even know they existed. Particularly with extremes of work, play, and emotions—at first I had none. Everything was to the extreme. I’m now at a point in my life where I realize I can detach from those automatic reactions I was taught, and instead have healthier boundaries around rest, relaxation, and emotional highs and lows.

I am not perfect (who is?) and often struggle with doing too much without realizing it, or failing to recognize when I’m overwhelmed until it shows up as anxiety or panic. A lot of yogic work, mental health work, and a little medication have helped keep me balanced most of the time.

I sit here on my front porch on an August Sunday morning with my coffee and thinking about my dad.

There isn’t much rhyme or reason to this blog—just a moment to reflect on how my father shaped my life and who I am right now because of it. If I stay healthy, it’s not unreasonable to imagine living another lifetime beyond the years I’ve already lived (49). I can’t change the past, but I can absolutely change the future and how I choose to show up and react in it.

One day, those who are in my life when I pass will likely reflect on how I lived, what I taught them—whether it’s how they want to live, or how they want to avoid living. My hope is that whatever I put into the world, people experience it in a way that makes them pause—whether positively or negatively—and reflect on how their own experiences shape their behaviors and ultimately guide their decisions about who they want to be in the world.

And maybe, just maybe, that is the truest way my father continues to live on—through the ways he shaped me, both in what I carry forward and in what I’ve chosen to do differently. In that way, his life reminds me that even the hardest stories can become soil for growth, and that the future is always wide open for choosing a new way to live.

The rest of my life. Day 1

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Nothing feels different, but everything feels different.

Chapter 2 is what I am calling this.

I sit across the breakfast table from my husband, but my personal laptop is in place of my work one. There still feels like there are a million things to do. But honestly, not a single one of them really needs to be done.

Was it always like this? Meaning, did anything really ever need to get done?

My heart is beating and I’m racing against the clock—stuff to do… I have to remind myself that there is nothing to actually really do. Today, there will be no sound of bings and chimes to notify me of new emails, Teams messages, or upcoming meetings.

Each of those bings is accompanied (was accompanied—gosh, this will take getting used to) by a spike in alertness and heart rate. At this time of the morning (6:15—YES, Six Flipping Fifteen), my heart rate and anxiety were probably elevated a handful of times.

Whoa, writing that out sounds so unhealthy.
It is unhealthy. But I’ve been doing this for years.

Even when I was physically going into the office, I’d wake up around 5 a.m., and just thinking about the day ahead would spike my anxiety. Sometimes in a productive way, but often in a storm of worry about how to plan the day to squeeze the most out of it—for both home and work.

The drive in would be filled with thoughts, worry, plans, more plans. And once I had two kids—then suddenly four—that planning hit a whole new level: kazillion mode.

Things have been quieter in recent years with the kids out of the house and me working remotely. But the anxious habit stuck around. And so did the bings, dings, and mounting pressure of the average workday.

Not that long ago in a land not faraway

I remember back in 2002, my boss gave me access to her email because she found it overwhelming—she got up to 50 emails a day. I was floored. Fifty! I was getting maybe 10, mostly forwarded from her.

Now that number sounds almost quaint. If you get only 50 work emails a day in this era, you’re lucky.
Managing email has become its own professional skill.

Most of it? Nonsense. But stressful nonetheless.

I felt like I had to walk into each day in full armor, machete in hand, clearing the overgrown weeds before they even had a chance to stop growing. 90% of emails went straight to Trash. Of those, maybe 10% were actually important—but wading through the digital clutter? A waste. So I created workarounds, tasks, and filters.

OK—seriously, I’ve digressed. But wow. It’s all so absurd.

Getting Anyone’s Attention

You can’t count on someone seeing your email. Depending on how someone organizes their inbox (and I’ve seen some truly wild systems), they may never even notice your message.

Urgent? Tag it with an @? Add the exclamation point? All overused. All part of the noise.

So we escalate:
Teams. Work phone. Personal phone. Desk phone.
And all of it—every single one of those tools—comes with a sound, a vibration, a ding that makes your chest tighten and your focus scatter.

But Now…

I closed the door. I shut the laptop.
I walked away.

That’s why I’m sitting here this morning, coffee in hand, at a different computer.

And now I ask myself:
How long will this feeling of impending doom last?
(Not actual doom, of course—nothing I ever did was life-or-death. But that tight-chested feeling… it’s real.)

How long until I can simply be present?

I Want to Be Present

I want to be present in my life. I only get one.
And I’ve spent 49 years rushing through it.

I’m safe now. I don’t need to stress myself out daily.
If I live to be 100, I’m only halfway through.
How lucky is that?

I feel so grateful. So blessed.
And I don’t want to recreate the stressful life I just stepped away from.

It’s funny—I only found out a week ago that yesterday would be my last day of work. I didn’t dare dream about what’s next, out of fear I’d jinx it.

And now? The urge to plan the “what’s next” is already kicking in. But…
I don’t have to figure that out right now, do I?

There’s no rush.

I have the rest of my life—whether that’s a few hours or another 50 years.

Peace,
Esterina

On Why I Clean Everyday

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

First – why do you care? Haha, but really… If you care at all, why do you? How does it affect you?

When I was 22 years old I moved to Cape Cod. I was entering the Active USCG Reserves while transitioning from a military member to a military spouse. My new home was located on a military base. It was not my first home as an adult, but it was the first home I set up alone.

This period was a transitional time in my life. Before then I went straight from high school into the military. I was married just over a year later and unexpectedly pregnant 6 months after that. My life was busy and I had not truly actively planned anything in my life until that point. As I looked around at all the boxes and pictures to hang, the disorder around me was affecting my mind. Or was it the disorder in my mind affecting my outer world?

I quickly went to work setting up home. While I opened boxes, and organized the outward disarray, the disorder in my mind started to unravel into digestible thoughts. How do I gather all the college credits I accumulated into applying for a degree? Do I quit smoking? Have another baby? What do I want to be when I grow up?

As I unpacked and moved items, then moved items again into better places I made notes – call the education office, look into the local college, schedule that physical, reach out to neighbors, ask about pediatricians, talk to spouse about a new baby while this little guy was still young so he had a playmate…

The act of outwardly organizing was helpful. I was making progress on something important, but also the monotony combined with the active thinking of where we would most easily grab a plate was just enough active/inactive brain power to keep my mind focused on thinking about the next phase of my life.

When the house was all set up and arranged just so, I missed the act of taking care of it. So I cleaned it really well. Again, the repetition and combination of active/inactive thought was helpful in  organizing my inner thoughts. As they were all I had while doing this type of work.

I learned then I very much enjoyed cleaning. All these years later I would label what I was doing as a sort of meditation. But at the time it only felt like cleaning. I started to clean everyday in various ways. There was everyday picking up (dishes, laundry, diapers, trash, wipe the table…) but also things that needed to happen often but not daily – wash floors, launder sheets, clean bathroom. I put the nondaily essentials into a schedule for myself the way I learned in my years of cooking and ended up doing meal planning and shopping… basically transferring my work skills to my home. Then I moved these things to the outside – fix fence, mow lawn, ask about the grass seeds that are supposedly free…

I met my neighbors. They were all lovely. The one who was the friendliest lived across the street and worked on the base as a cleaner for the military houses in between family transitions. I don’t remember her name but I will call her Melanie. I asked Melanie what she did when she cleaned these empty houses and she told me all about the floors and the blinds and the walls and corners, and all the checkboxes she had to complete. Surprisingly her house was quite a mess and she didn’t really enjoy cleaning. But she did comment that she saw me cleaning often.

What ???

Saw me cleaning? How?

Through your window Melanie replied…

Through my window I thought?

Now I was embarrassed. But intrigued by what she told me. I hadn’t thought about cleaning blinds or paying attention to ceiling or floor corners.

A day or two later I decided to tackle the blinds. As I was doing so Melanie waved to me from insider her home across the street. I was slightly embarrassed yet again but continued to clean the blinds as if it were a normal everyday occurrence.

The next time I saw Melanie she commented on my cleaning again. Melanie commenting on my cleaning became the standard. It embarrassed me so I often would wait until I didn’t see her mini-van in the carport to clean anywhere near my own windows or outside.

None-the-less from there I continued a lifelong habit of cleaning nearly daily and scheduling various cleaning tasks for various days of the week.

Through the years I’ve had to explain and defend my cleaning to my partners, neighbors, kids, step-kids, friends who comment with some kind of annoyance that my house is clean. I was always trying to hide it, clarify where I saw dirt or oils, negotiate with the kids to just vacuum that room – yes on this vacuum setting. It was exhausting. I loved to clean when no one was home so I didn’t have to explain it.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Why did anyone care that I was cleaning in the first place? I didn’t really ask for help. The kids chores of table setting, dish washing, cleaning their own bathrooms on a schedule or scraping the cat litter of the cats they wanted were not chores of some Nazi clean loving freak. The cleanliness of other people’s homes doesn’t affect how much I enjoy visiting their home or their company in any way. I’m not judging those who don’t like to clean. I know I’m unusual in this particular way.

Which brings me to a bigger question. Why does anyone really care what other people do? How they take care of their home, how often they cut their lawn, their hair, their fingernails? How deep into my life do you care about what I do? Why does my lawn count and my fingernails not so much?

At what point does what I do affect truly affect anyone else? Or does what I am doing make others reflect on what they are doing? And is that really my problem? Should I be hiding my true nature in worrying about how others will look at me or themselves?  I did hide my real self for a long time worrying about what other people thought. That was not healthy.

This question grows from me into the larger scale. Why does anyone care who anyone loves or how they use their body to please a lover? How does the spices one uses in their cooking matter to you? Why does it matter how other cultures cook, pray, love, dress, and take care of one another?

Yes – there are things that affect other people in some ways. But not as many as you think. Maybe the one house on the block with the overgrown lawn can bring down the property value of the street. There are things you can have influence over – like talking to that homeowner and maybe even offering to cut their lawn because it’s a single parent short on time. But perhaps do back down and accept how things are if that person doesn’t reply the way you’d like. You cannot control other people and just because you don’t like something they do or don’t do, it doesn’t make them wrong or crazy. Why waste any mental energy on something you cannot control?

I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, I’m just offering the suggestion to ask yourself why you might care and why you are wasting your mental energy on something you can’t control. There is a locus of what you can control, influence and what you have no control over.

I clean all the time. I like it. It clears my mind. For me the house doesn’t need to be very dirty to clean it (most folks shower daily even when they aren’t that dirty). It is something in this crazy world that I feel I have control over. I like the way I feel after moving around and taking care of the animate and inanimate objects that I own like my bed, plants and pets. I like the way those objects like being taken care of by me. I like the way my surroundings look. The question I asked myself when I was 22 about the disorder of my environment affecting my mind or if it was the other way around is irrelevant to me today. Both matter and this is one of my methods to tackle both.

But why do I need to even explain that?

So I ask again and again and again… why does it matter?

You have control over the thoughts about why this or anything matters. Are you wasting your energy on something you want to waste it on? Do you have control over it? Influence? Neither?

I’m going to clean whether anyone likes it or not. I hope you collect your gnomes or pink socks or do whatever it is that you like as well as long as no one is getting hurt. Don’t worry if I like it, I love you for being you and doing what you love.

Make sure you are doing no harm and then do what you love without shame or question or worry.

Be the change you want to see. Be what you wish the world to be.

It’s all you can do.

On the Chakras

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

More often than not we find scientific ‘proof’ that ancient wisdom passed on through generations that was considered ignorant hokey-pokey non-sense turns out to be true. How did they know?

 

This painting I created is my artistic interpretation of the manifest and un-manifest world. The colors symbolize the manifest world; and the shades of tan, white, black and grey are what is on the other side. The colors also are the Chakras.

 

As humans we know very little that can be scientifically proven regarding the spiritual world or how conscious life pops in and out of existence. The energetic body is something that some types of scientists dabble in, but again there is no ‘proof’.

 

Eastern philosophies and their ancient texts explain that as there is a visible physical body, there is also an accompanying invisible energetic body. It’s just as complicated and intricate. It has systems, nodes, and channels as our physical bodies do. Energy can get blocked just as an artery can. Emotions are energetic. They get stuck and if not released can go deeper and deeper into our being and/or eventually manifest through physical pain.

 

Mental health professional do this type of work and explorations. Yoga is all about the energetic body and helping energy flow more easily through the practice of physical postures (asana). Hence, my interest in the topic. Additionally my interest in art and color peaks my curiosity into how color is combined in various ways.

 

The chakras are something that has always fascinated me, long before I understood, practiced or taught yoga. The first time I heard about them, they just made sense to me. Like my cells deep down inside knew it to be true even though my mind was kind of laughing at the idea.

 

For anyone who doesn’t know about the chakras (I was well into the my 30’s believe it or not before I ever heard of them!), they are 7 of the main energetic centers of our bodies that energy flows through. They start at the base of the spine in the tailbone area and work their way up the body through the crown of the head through the center part of the body.

 

Later while completing a 500 hour yoga teacher certification course I would learn about the rest of the energetic system, but the chakras are the most well known and are depicted through so many texts and pictures throughout history.

 

The chakras have colors. There are 7 and they coincide with the colors of the rainbow. Their flow is vertical (unlike my art piece). Like the koshas (yogic) and other more managerial concepts I’ve learned about in my life through my business education, they remind me very much of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It also reminds me of evolution in that it starts out very basic and physical, but then moves toward a path of higher consciousness and enlightenment toward self-actualization and understanding why we are here. We can’t get there until the lower needs are met. In the chakra system, if anything is blocked on the lower end; the energy is unable to flow up higher.

 

These two pictures I swiped from Google Images are a visual depiction of what I’m describing. Maslow’s famous triangle in this photo is actually colored similarly to the chakras.

The chakras are energetic. I later came to the realization that when I’m in emotional pain, the actual physical accompanying pain is located at a chakra point. It often points me in the direction of where I’m being blocked.

 

I’ve studied and read a lot of spiritual and religious texts. I don’t have a strong belief in any one thing, but I have an idea of how my own personal belief system/understanding of the physical and non-physical worlds are: the tangible and intangible. The part where we are alive and moving about this planet, and the part of the cycle that is blocked to us. The part where we wonder what happens to our consciousness or spirit when our physical body dies. What is our spirit before we are born? Is the spirit even real?

 

My artistic expression of the spiritual life cycle is depicted here. Like the Yin-Yang, half of the time our spirit is in the manifest world and the other half in the unmanifest world.

 

The colored lines are the manifest world, the world where white light bends and we can see color.

 

The non-rainbow colors represent the un-manifest world. When all colors are combined and mixed together, they create the ‘color’ (if you can call it that) brown. When you add white to brown it becomes tan. Adding black darkens it up. White is all there is, with everything included in it (white light contains all the colors in the spectrum), and black being the absence of it all – together they create gray. At dusk when we are in between day and night, color is shaded over. It doesn’t exist to the eye. Only form.

 

Our physical life is surrounding by this unknown. Before birth and after death there is the unknown. Lack of light (life) is as far away from us as possible. Or is it? Does it bend and show color in the absence of material things? Possibly it contains all the colors blended together (browns), and on the side closer to death and darkness that brown is darker, while on the side closer to birth and brightness it’s a shade of tan.

 

White and black together make a perfect in between shade of gray. Gray even has shades- darker and depending on the mixture of black and white: still a total absence of color. Science already has determined that in the absence of anything material, refraction of white light is also absent.

 

At least to our senses that is. Perhaps if we had another sense we’d see a whole other world on the other side….

 

The chakras here in this painting are the physical living world we experience. They move from a lower vibration to a higher one. Less conscious to more conscious. More connected to the earth and physical things to less. Much like Maslow’s triangle.

 

 

1stCHAKRA

Color: Red

Sanskrit name: Muladhara

Known as: Root chakra

Location: Base of the spine in the tailbone area

Symbolizes: safety, survival, grounding, nourishment from the Earth energy (food, other humans, clothing, etc)

My interpretation: it is our root. It’s located in a place where we sit and literally connect to the earth beneath us. Also in a place where we connect with other humans through copulation.

To me it symbolizes the earlist part of life when we are completely at the mercy of others. We build a foundation from the original safety and survival as babies. Our perception of the world is shaped from there. We come into life here. We could be stuck here our whole lives. If we are, unless it’s purely lack of money for food/shelter/clothing – it’s an energetic or emotional “stuckness”.

 

2ndCHAKRA

Color: Orange

Sanskrit name: Swadhisthana

Known as: Emotional chakra

Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below naval and 2 inches in

Symbolizes: emotions, creativity, sexuality, and is associated with water, flow

My interpretation: it is what is next. We feel and can interpret that after we are fed. Sexuality helps life to stay on the planet. It’s the next closest thing to survival after we are fed, clothed and have the ability to live. It’s also our ‘gut’ feeling and is at the gut level. It symbolizes the childhood part of life where we are learning and growing, coming into our own and understanding how to respond to the world.

 

3rdCHAKRA

Color: Yellow 

Sanskrit name: Manipura

Known as: Solar chakra

Location: Upper abdomen, between the heart and belly button (solar plexus)

Symbolizes: Mental activities, intellect, personal power, will. It’s where self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem are built and is at the core of our personality and identity.

My interpretation: Once we have that safety and gut feelings, we are able to use our mind and will power to go about in the world. That will power is based on our heat and desire. Heat and power like the sun. It’s the younger adult part of life up until middle age or the part of life where we shift mentally to part II – or something else. Where we are moving & shaking, taking care of the young and old. Working and using our physical identity to move through the world.

 

4thCHAKRA

Color: Green 

Sanskrit name: Anahata 

Known as: Heart chakra

Location: Center of the chest just above the heat  

Symbolizes: The ability to love, relate to others, have compassion and feel our inner selves.

My interpretation: Mentally we can move past all the intellect and listen to our heart. It’s like the highest of the 3 proverbial minds (gut, mind, heart).  It can guide us the right way if the solar plexus chakra is flowing freely and we can distinguish it between the monkey mind and the inner self. It’s the connection of the physical body to the higher body. It’s a place in life that symbolizes a switch to another thought process. If you can get there it’s beautiful. Usually around middle age or when we start to get tired of the grind and ask “What For”?

 

 

5th CHAKRA

Color: Blue  

Sanskrit name: Vishuddha  

Known as: Throat chakra (voice)

Location: Throat  

Symbolizes: Communication, self-expression, speaking our truth, creativity

My interpretation: When the lower chakras are unblocked we find ourselves more closely in the flow of life. We are able to be creative, speak our truth, and communicate in a heart-felt way with the world and people around us. On the proverbial life line, it’s at the later part of life where we understand how we are interpreted, live from a heart level rather than a level of obtaining material wealth, possession or status.

 

6th CHAKRA

Color: Indigo (or Purple in some places)   

Sanskrit name: Ajna  

Known as: Third Eye chakra 

Location: Forehead, between the eye brows   

Symbolizes: Inner wisdom, intuition, imagination. Ability to see the big picture inside and out. 

My interpretation: In other cultures the elderly are praised for the very notion that we get wiser as we grow older. We can be taught certain things, but it’s only through really knowing and figuring out their truth for ourselves that we can become wise enough to understand the wisdom bestowed upon on from sages of the past.

 

7thCHAKRA

Color: Purple (or White in some places)   

Sanskrit name: Sahasrara   

Known as: Crown chakra  

Location: Top of the head    

Symbolizes: Inner and outer beauty, universal connection with spirituality and consciousness. Pure bliss.  

My interpretation: Sounds like heaven on earth! With everything else unblocked and no attachment to any outcome- we can experience total peace, utter bliss. It’s the closest thing in our living world to death and not having an investment so tied and rooted to the material world. It’s the top of Maslow’s pyramid where we self-actualize.

 

The pyramid and the image of a sitting body are both sort of triangular in shape. My interpretation is that the larger base is at the bottom because those descriptions of what these areas symbolize are the most connected to earth. They are more difficult to move through and where the majority of individuals experience life. As we move up toward the more narrow sections, there are less humans around that thrive in those parts regularly, and it gets a bit easier to move because it’s further away from the root or axiomatic apron string. We can move up and down the Chakras at any time. But if the energy system is blocked by emotion it is difficult. Even a person with little to no food if they are emotionally clear can self-actualize.

 

In my artistic expression of this cycle the colors live in the middle of the known and unknown worlds. The small symbols on the painting that go from left to right, bottom to top are my humble explanation of moving upward through the chakras toward the unknown, which ultimately is completely and utterly surrounded by the pure energy of beautiful, boundless, weightless, expansive and all encompassing white light.

If you enjoyed my writing, consider leaving a comment, sharing with others, or following my blog

https://esterinaanderson.com

this and 6 other pieces were inspired by contemporary artist Sean Scully. 2 weeks ago Daren and I went to the Wadsworth in Hartford and it was the last day for his exhibit. He works in stripes mainly.

 

 

 

 

 

The Inevitable Scream

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

2am this morning.

I’m taking deep breaths and have my hand over my mouth. A long established, cataleptic practice. Additionally my eyes, temples and the space in between my eyes really hurt. I subconsciously begin to rub those areas with the hand that comes off my mouth. In just writing this my forehead, temples and eyes hurt.

 

It hasn’t been that long since these small acts were even noticed and now provide the insight as to what is happening to me. Chakra wise it’s the voice and wisdom body inside that are in pain.

 

I thought back to one evening about a year ago on my therapist’s couch. When I described ‘The Scream’, she (with empathy and almost automatically said) – it’s because you had no voice. Instantly tears sprung to my eyes. With that sudden understanding of what was unknown, obvious and finally understood – my throat hurt. It made sense! It was obvious to her, but new to me. I couldn’t wait to tell my husband. But somehow relaying it not long after over the phone while he was waiting for his son to finish hockey practice late at night while sitting at Starbucks and catching up on work himself, it got lost in translation and I couldn’t quite explain it. It lost it’s potency and I lost the motivation to meditate on it and explore it further.

 

The Scream. It was inevitable.

 

The scream I speak of took place in mid-February 1994 just days before my 18thbirthday outside of the Patchogue courthouse on Long Island. The previous summer on July 9th was the first time the police were involved in the Domestic Violence and child abuse that had been taking place at home since I was born, resulting in the February court date. I wanted justice. I wanted to see something happen, but nothing had. Since I was still a minor for a few more days, the law allowed my parents to move the case to Family court – which was at the time slightly more serious than a bad joke, and my father walked away without even as much as an anger management course or proverbial slap on the wrist.

 

I didn’t know what was going on that day. As I was leaving with my parents in what seemed like minutes after we had gotten there, I asked my mother what was going on. She just ushered me outside. Once out in the bright sun on that brisk February day I asked again. No answer. I stopped and got louder- “What is going on?!”

 

A few passerby’s looked our way. My mother must have felt compelled to answer due to the attention we were drawing. She pulled me aside as my father continued to walk to the car.

 

Mom: Nothing is happening.

Me: What do you mean nothing?

Mom: Nothing.

Me: What does that mean?

Mom: It means we are going home.

Me: What about dad? Classes, probation? What happened in court?

Mom: Nothing. We moved the case to family court and he is able to go home.

Me: I thought that classes and probation were the minimum, what about the restraining order?

Mom: That was if we left it in criminal court. We moved it to family court.

Me: I thought that was my decision.

Mom: It’s not, you are a minor.

 

With that she continued to walk to the car. I reluctantly followed.

 

With each step I grew more and more aware of what just happened. More confused. More enraged.

 

When we got to the car I stood there behind it. I didn’t want to get it. It was bright, sunny and cool out. The car seemed like the box I was proverbially stuck in my whole life – hot, stuffy, enclosed. I was mad at them. I didn’t want to get in. I was confused. I was angry. I wanted justice for what has happened to me.

 

I stood there.

 

My parents got out and asked me what I was doing. I didn’t know.

 

They were urging me to get in.

 

I didn’t want to. I couldn’t even speak.

 

The more they urged me; the more trapped, confused and angry I felt. I felt stuck to the ground beneath my feet. Literally and metaphorically.

 

“Esterina – get in the car”

 

No.

 

No? What do you mean no?

 

I don’t want to.

 

Get in the car.

 

No.

 

They both started to approach me when I let out a scream. A scream I didn’t know I had in me.

 

They halted their approach and watched me, panicked.

 

“Esterina – get in the car”.

 

I screamed again. And again. I screamed at the top of my lungs, like I never screamed before. A scream that seemed almost inhuman.

 

They stood frozen and watched me like I was a wild animal. That is what I felt like – a crazed wild animal. I continued to scream, and scream, and scream for what seemed like minutes.

 

They watched in awe and horror.

 

When I stopped, I realized I felt better. I had to go home. I had to find a way out of my life and house. It was a few more months until high school graduation. I had no idea what I was going to do; but I had to get in the car, go home and figure it out.

 

It felt so good to scream. So good, I was able to get in the car I didn’t want to be in. I didn’t want to be in their company, but what choice did I have? I got in the car and we went home. My mother spoke of this scream a few times to others, but never me. It was never mentioned again, but I never forgot it.

 

The July 9, 1993 incident happened when I was 17. Until that day, me and my family pretended that our home was like any other and that violence and abuse wasn’t a part of it. Once the cops were called by my youngest brother that day (it was his 13thbirthday) the cat was out of the bag, and it was a little easier to tell my then friends and boyfriend what happened. I showed them the bruises. I didn’t have the voice to talk about the past, but only to say this has happened before. The first time you talk about it is the hardest. That was the last bite the beaver took of the dam before the leak started. It would be years though before the dam actually flooded.

 

That particular day I had an argument with my father. He was annoyed about how long I was dating my boyfriend and didn’t have a ring. I tried to explain that I didn’t want to get married, that I didn’t even finish high school yet. He got angry and couldn’t fathom that I was dating someone I didn’t want to marry. I said I wanted to finish school and have a career first. Then the hitting started. It’s about as far as I care to explain, but it’s the story of how most of these incidences went.

 

The truth was I didn’t want to marry early. I didn’t want to depend on anyone to support me as my mother felt she needed my father’s support. She hadn’t finished high school and was embarrassed by that her whole life. I didn’t something more for myself. I wanted independence and an education. Through words, deeds and actions; my mother has communicated numerous times that she wouldn’t be with my father if it wasn’t for us 3 kids. I grew up feeling like a burden. Very unwanted. Very unloved. There were no kisses, hugs or I love yous in my home. I didn’t even know that was a thing people did. It was for TV if anything.

 

Not long after “The Scream” I decided to join the Coast Guard and set an enlistment date of August 9th. It was the perfect solution for getting out, supporting myself, learning a trade and obtaining money for college. A true ticket out of my house.

 

Against my own intentions, just 3 years later I was already married and pregnant with my first child. At 23 I had my second child. Scared of turning out like my mother, I made it a point to not settle and was determined to obtain a degree to and have the ability to take care of myself. I did finish my required 4 years of active military time. I put in another 4 years of Reserve time. I did go back to school and had a BS in Business by the time I was 24. At 25 my then husband and I bought our first home. At 29 I had an MBA and a very decent full-time job in the government. At 32 we bought the larger home in the nicer suburbs with the good school system. At 34 I was divorcing. There was no violence in my home, but I realized I married a man that had the same maladaptive habits as my father. I was unable to see how badly he treated our children because it was so much better than the way I grew up. In our home there were kisses, hugs and I love yous. I thought it was how it should be. It was later I would realize that it wasn’t so healthy either.

 

From the time I left home until I divorced I felt very healthy mentally. Once the stability of a home and two biological parents were out of the picture, I felt like I started to unravel. The scream was still in me. Unbeknownst to me.

 

The years from 34 on were kind of a rebirth and kind of a mental hell. I love my now husband, but joining two families that came from two different backgrounds with children that still went to two different homes with other parents and family members who could not possibly be any different from one other was a recipe for turbulence. My now husband and I had different ideas on what our newly formed family would look like, how we’d spend our weekends, evenings and summers, how much time we’d spend as a blended family together and apart. What our holidays would look like. All things that were my little to only down-time, and things I had previously very much looked forward to. His ex was far more mean & manipulative than mine, and had a very strong opinion about how we spend time with his kids; which pretty much dictated how we lived, how we spent our money, and everything we did. He didn’t want to fight with her or disappoint anyone and in turn succumbed to the belief that this is what divorced life looks like.

 

I disagreed. I felt like I had little to no voice on how I wanted to spend my time with my own husband, children and blended family. I started to lose the voice I had gained in controlling my own life as an adult. I felt trapped.

 

After a few years “The Scream” came back.  I can’t even remember the first time I screamed again like I had in the parking lot of the Patchogue courthouse. Probably in my car. It was a place I screamed a lot. I would be driving home from work and singing loudly to music thinking I was happy, when I’d get an overwhelming feeling of being trapped. Usually due to traffic, but it rubbed on the nerves of feeling trapped in my life. Feeling voiceless. Feeling that I had no control and had to live as someone else dictated. I’d think about the evening ahead. Evenings busy with making dinners, kid activities in different towns all over the state. Things that I didn’t plan but we had to do. Things I was too tired to do at the end of a long day. Things that took time away from unwinding and spending quality time with anyone in my life – even my own children.

 

Every new thing that popped up on our calendar and every new expense that arrived without my consent or knowledge would feel like a little dagger. It was small at first, hardly noticeable – but over time it would bother me more and more. I’d express my frustration to my husband in the little time we had together and were able to talk without anyone else hearing. Those rare times were in bed, on vacations or on the days our kids were with their other parent and we didn’t have an event of theirs to go to. So it seemed like I was always frustrated. It seemed like all we talked about was how I was frustrated. We couldn’t even get past this to have a conversation about taking control of our lives because the whole conversation would be focused on how I am and shouldn’t always be upset. It went on like this. And the longer it went on, the longer I felt unheard and the more and more the scream inside tried to break free.

 

It would come out often. I’d scream and just lose my mind. In my car, in my house with no one home, at home with people home, late at night while arguing with my husband. For the life of me I couldn’t relate it to anything in my past. Hindsight is so very 20/20. I can’t believe no one else around me was able to help me relate this. We were all in our own worlds trying to get through every single day and all the things that needed to be done, who had time to think about rest, mental health or self-care?

 

Rest. Self-Care. These are things that are SO necessary; but I was taught, and for certain my husband’s ex felt that downtime is for the lazy. We should be busy at every moment doing something productive. Even though our home was full of non-stop activities, if something was unscheduled for one of my step-kids for a New York minute, she’d step in to make sure they had something to do. Something of course that would require my husband’s time, which meant it was my time because he wasn’t around to help me with the house(s), dinner, shopping, pets, other kids, etc.

 

Downtime is necessary. And I didn’t have it. And it sent me into crisis mode.

 

Something about turning 40 initiated a stream of events. It was like the next piece of the dam that I had built as a child to protect myself snapped. Not broken and flooded yet, but enough to cause some damage.

 

It’s no coincidence that this breakdown took place over just a few months. A period where I began physical therapy for my back, started yoga teacher training, and hit my knee under a table at workat work, which required other physical manipulations. Unless you are immersed in the world of mental health and or energy work, it could be hard to understand why I don’t find this to be a coincidence. The trapped emotions were being knocked on and broken up so to speak through these activities.

 

Suddenly, I almost couldn’t bear being in the car and commuting to work. I couldn’t face days of going to work and killing time there when there was so much to do at home. I couldn’t stand another minute of not having time for myself to meditate or go deeper into the practices I was studying. I couldn’t stand having a life with little to no meaningful human connections and being an un-humanized vessel of money and transportation.

 

The scream would come more often. I’d get hot. I’d lose control of my bladder. One day in the summer the following year right before I checked myself into an IOP, I broke into boils on my chest. Every time after a few minutes I’d think about something related to childhood and it was make the screaming and subsequent crying that would inevitably take place for a long time after feel almost like a release. I was embarrassed to tell anyone this. I thought it was rather melodramatic. I had no idea it was all PTSD.

 

Then one evening last summer on July 11th, 25 years and 2 days after that incident when I was 17, I had a really bad evening. It was following a few days of step-children drama, an accusation about something I didn’t do. It followed a few too many drinks at a charity event, and then an argument with my husband about the kids. The scream came out again. It was a hot summer night. Every window was open, and as usual after a few minutes it had nothing to do with the present. I was screaming and crying for the past. I was unbearably hot and had no bladder control so I stripped down, got in the bathtub and screamed. I was screaming HELP. I was screaming about the help I wanted and needed as a child, the help I wanted then mentally. The help I wanted in needing to feel heard and understood and not like a burden of someone who is just not happy with the wonderful life I was being told I have and should be grateful for.

 

I was an adult feeling like a child. I now know and understand that my husband represented my mother. The gatekeeper between me and my father who didn’t want to shake anything up and upset him – so turned a blind eye and pretended that nothing was wrong. The mother who told me that I have a nice life and home and I should be happy. The mother that made me feel like a burden because I was alive and the reason she had to be in this unhappy marriage with this abusive man.

 

My husband was the gatekeeper between our uncontrolled time and his ex and kids. He couldn’t understand that with a nice life why I wasn’t happy. I felt like a burden that I wasn’t happy and tried to use our free to time to discuss things he didn’t want to address – because it would shake things up and upset someone else.

 

It’s now so obvious.

 

A few days after this incident last summer, where again – exactly 25 years and 2 days later cops were called for the first time, I had the epiphany of my current situation and how the characters in my present life represented my past. Once that happened the dam really broke for good. I had a few really long, hard months of understanding this and learning about PTSD and the brain. How my lower brain – the one that takes over in times of crisis (the instinct to run and not contemplate when being chased by a lion) cannot see the actual people, but responds to the emotions it interprets to be dangerous and floods the body with fight or flight hormones. When I couldn’t physically fight I’d scream. And scream. And scream….

 

It’s why I put my hand on my mouth when I’m anxious.

 

That wasn’t my last scream. I was now aware of how dangerous they were. Neighbors don’t understand. They hear help and screaming and call cops. They should! So my screams became muffled. Or I’d get in the car and drive to a remote place. I’d scream until I felt like I was able to ‘get it out of me’. I can’t explain the release I feel afterward. It’s cathartic. Even in the throws of crying and screaming, it’s better than not, and I feel like I’m purging all that is bad inside of me, despite it looking very differently to an outsider.

 

I had a lot more ‘safe’ screaming last summer. Nights I couldn’t sleep I’d get up and write or read about PTSD and allow myself for the first time in my life to think about what happened, and finally begin to process it.

 

I’m not proud of screaming. I’m not proud of how I’ve acted and argued or fought before I actually got to a place of where the scream came. I’m not proud of the self-destructive and relationship-destructive behaviors that took place. My body was in fight-or-flight mode. I actually did feel a shift of losing control at a certain point. I always knew the moment, but I was truly helpless to stop the flood as my lower brain took over. I can relate to the term “faulty alarm system”. It is really what it is. Not a true emergency, but something internally so close; that it sets off the alarm and subsequent actions. The propensity of the reaction to the situation doesn’t match. That is PTSD.

 

 

I haven’t screamed in many many months now. Once I understood what happens to the body, what my triggers were and how to get somewhere safe it was game changer.

 

This is a blog I’m not even sure I will post. It doesn’t wrap up nicely. It doesn’t tie back to some sort of theme. It just is. I woke up, had my hand on my mouth, my temples and third eye hurt… I remembered that it was because it was tied to feeling voiceless. I remembered the scream that first day when I was 18 and felt it was inevitable. That day and always, until I felt I have a voice.

 

The below is from an email I wrote to my family in the middle of the night last summer. Oddly between the evening of Aug 6thand Aug 7th– the anniversary of my mom’s passing. She died around midnight on 8/6/06 but wasn’t pronounced by Hospice until they got there until after midnight, which is what her death certificate says. Strangely it links to someone else who wrote about “The Scream”. Just learning and knowing I’m not alone has helped me to feel human and not alone.

 

Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope I’m not bugging you all with some of these emails. I just had the strangest, but maybe good night and wanted to share with someone. 

 

I woke up as usual in the middle of the night with a overwhelming sadness. I started to cry about things I was remembering. The more I thought, the more I cried. Gabby wasn’t home (she is a college kid often out in the middle of the night). No one else was up for at least two floors and I really, really cried. 

 

I had a assortment of stronger than usual memories. I remembered different places where I felt the most mix of emotions – like extreme excitement and profound anger at being hit at the same time, such as how happy and angry I was when we went to Disney; or bought a new (used) car. I was seeing details of things like I was still living at home. Dented walls, my mirror in my room with the pictures of my friends tucked around the frame. I even remember the exact pictures of who they were of. I remember my ballet slippers hanging off the brass bed, my curling iron on the dresser… It was like I was there, the level of detail was so great. 

 

It was mostly my room that made me sad. I was thinking about how I would lock the door, but that really didn’t do any good. My father broke the knob and lock many times. I was thinking that if he tried to come in I should have just gone out the window, but at the time that never crossed my mind. I wondered why… Because I wouldn’t know where to go… For years I had no vehicle. The neighbors would have sent me back. I had no money or change to make a phone call at a payphone. Unless I grabbed mommy’s phonebook in the dining room I wouldn’t have even known anyone but my friend’s numbers to call. And what would I have told them? How was I going to get past him to get the phonebook and out the door? I was so brainwashed to believe that I should keep this quiet that it would have been a horror to tell someone far away that I didn’t have their number like grandma or aunt Fran. I felt the repercussions of telling anyone would have been worse than just enduring it. It was to perturbing to even imagine telling any friends. My room that I was remembering was like a jail cell. I felt unbelievably hopeless and trapped.

 

As I cried I had such a mix of emotions. Like why? I must have done something in a previous life and this is karma. That actually made me feel better, as it made sense and I was paying my dues.

 

I also couldn’t help but wonder if I was being dramatic. If it wasn’t as bad as I thought. 

 

Some of these thoughts soothed me as I stopped crying and tried to fall back to sleep.

 

I couldn’t fall back to sleep so I googled “delayed onset PTSD in adults of child abuse”. Many things quickly came up, but my favorite (very long) was the this one – http://www.naasca.org/2011-Articles/081411-PTSDinAdultSurvivors.htm

 

There were two things I like about this article. First it is a complete description of my journey, as it describes completely how I’ve felt from a child up until now, and explains why now; after such a delayed period this would come up. The second thing is the poem at the bottom written by a survivor called “The Scream”. 

 

I’ve screamed “The Scream” the first time days before I was 18 in front of the courthouse with my parents when they dropped the only charges we ever had from that famous 7/9 day without my consent, as I was still a minor for a few more days and the laws were quite different back then. They were scared of my scream. They couldn’t get me in the car. They genuinely looked panicked. They told at least Mario about it. I scared myself. I didn’t know it was in me. It felt freeing to scream. After a few minutes and watching their panic, I fell silent and just got in the stinking car – feeling unbelievably trapped. No one talking about a thing. Like what just happened never happened. I was so numb I was not even thinking about how I was going to get out of this jail I was living in. 

 

Up until a few years ago ‘the scream’ was a distant memory. Now it happens often enough. I get triggered and I cannot stop screaming. I remember telling my therapist about it a few months ago, with slight concern. She just looked sympathetically at me and said you are using your voice to get it out, because you felt voiceless for so long. “The Scream” is what prompted the call to the cops on 7/11. 

 

After I read a few articles I felt more normal again, remembering I am having a human reaction to a human experience. I still couldn’t fall back to sleep, so I tried some yoga nidra which has been helpful as of late. When I got to the part about visioning a safe place, I quickly scanned my memory for one and only could remember theapartment on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. It wasn’t a safe place at all. 

 

Again, I was FLOODED with minute details about the outside & inside. The hallway and two flights up. I was remembering or not remembering that the lock on the front door didn’t work for a while before we moved. I couldn’t remember if that was real or just a dream that I’ve had so many times. If it was a dream, what did it symbolize? Not feeling safe, locks not working? I cried again for a long time. Same mix of emotions like it’s my fault or I’m over exagerating it. But I remembered the article and how the only way to move through it is to experience the thoughts and feelings again. So I let them through to pass. Letting the memories and details just flood me. After reading the article I embraced what was happening, as it’s the only way to let it go. 

 

The article is very long as I said, but here is a clip from the end after explaining how one would have gotten to this point 

 

“Survivors attempt to flee from feelings about having been abused, from normal reactions to an abnormal situation. Because that situation was life-threatening in thepast, some survivors mistakenly believe that to experience those feelings today would also be life-threatening, would bring on an emotional breakdown, a falling apart akin to death. They do not understand that the breakdown has already happened, when their feelings were preempted by shame.

A survivor can afford to look that “death” squarely in the face when he has people who will stand by him, as well as the insight and power he did not have as a child. When it is finally safe enough, the survivor will remember the memories and feel the feelings about the trauma. Such a “thawing out” is a second chance, an emotional reincarnation. Still…the first sensations that have been repressed or avoided all of one’s life can feel like a tidal wave.

When he is ready, the thoughts and feelings return. In response to what has been uncovered, he often feels great anger at the betrayal itself and the injustice and randomness of the violence.

Underneath that anger is a terror and helplessness that is more difficult to experience than the anger. (“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I remember. Maybe I’m just exaggerating.”) This can go on for a long time, but with the help of others, the survivor will eventually accept that the trauma was as bad as he knows it was.

Profound sadness follows. This compassionate acceptance of “poor me” and the mourning of the losses that the trauma created eventually lead to resolution.

When the losses engendered by trauma are fully mourned, the trauma loses its power over the survivor. Instead of the emotional breakdown they feared…survivors experience an emotional breakthrough! Completing the grieving process means divorcing the trauma from one’s sense of identity and self-worth.”

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Living by a Compass, Not a Clock

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Today I woke up feeling good. On 7/11/18, 2 months and 2 days ago, I had just one of the worst evenings of my life. The following few days were even more difficult. These last 2 months have been a journey that I realize is life-long and I’m in no rush to finish. I’m enjoying and embracing every step forward and every obstacle that prohibits steps forward, or that even sets me a few back. Obstacles and setbacks are really necessary learning experiences.

Today I’m in gratitude. I might not be in an hour, but for now I am and I’m incredibly grateful.

I could write for hours about how I got here (I promise I won’t). The biggest contributor was my childhood and the mal-adaptive strategies (albeit very normal) I developed early on to deal with life while my brain was forming. One of my newly favorite psychology writers Van Der Kolk calls it Developmental Traumatic Disorder (DTD). This diagnostic explanation is fairly new in the world of psychology. It didn’t quite make it to the DSM-5, which is the latest edition of the manual by which mental health clinicians diagnose and bill for disorders. For now, the closest diagnosis is PTSD, which DTD is a branch of. Particularly for me, for now it’s Delayed Onset, Complex PTSD. It turns out I’m just another statistic, and if someone were watching closely, everything that happened to me could have been predicted.

I’ve been through a gamut of emotions the past few months. Many before 7/11, but even more, and much more intensely since. Crazily, but also not surprisingly, this episode took place just 2 days and exactly 25 years after what was one of the most transformational days of my life at the time when I was 17. I’d written about it before in My Mom. It’s one of my trigger dates, something I don’t think I fully believed in until this summer. I didn’t consciously recognize the significance of how the date triggered me, but my body did. The Body Keeps the Score. It really does.

What I realized most profoundly this summer is that I have PTSD. I really do. Two and a half years ago I had my first panic attack. I was immediately diagnosed with Anxiety and Panic Disorder. Last summer the PTSD diagnosis was added. While I remember telling people about it, somehow I didn’t realize how important it was to my mental recovery to embrace and work on it. In fact, when the true awareness hit me like a ton of bricks just less than a week after 7/11 this year, I was surprised to realize that I’d been sharing and telling people about it prior to then. A few days ago I re-read something I added to my blog page in May, “About Me,” and it was there too! Why wasn’t I working on it?

I wasn’t working on my trauma and PTSD for many reasons. Because it wasn’t urgent and didn’t seem important. Because no one tells you that it’s important. In fact, no one can; it’s something you have to discover on your own when your body is ready. Also because I didn’t have the time or the lifestyle until now. That is why I’m in gratitude this morning. I’m moving in the slow lane and I love it.

From a young age I moved fast. I always had excessive energy. I never understood how anyone could sit at a meeting or in a class and not fidget. I was just always bursting out of my skin. Driving… I had to be in the fast lane. I was constantly assessing for traffic, changing lanes with the flow. Heart always racing. Breath always erratic. I was always, always, always looking for more efficient ways to do things. From driving to folding laundry to cleaning… to redesigning whole work groups and even departments at my job. I was good at it. It was a great outlet for my energy. I was efficient and I helped others to be as well. A good use of my talents. Or so I thought.

Now I’m living in the slow lane. I still have the habit of moving fast, but I catch myself at least 80% or so of the time when I realize that for no good reason my heart is in a lurch or my breath isn’t steady. I stop it and slow down. I manage my breath. I smell the roses. I ground myself in the present and it’s SO much better. I think about that quote about how nothing or everything is a miracle, and see things as beautiful. Even ugly things. I wish we could teach our children this from a young age. Instead we are programmed to “succeed,” to do more and faster, to have it all, to do it all. We are programmed to think we are a failure if we don’t meet this criteria. On paper, by this methodology, I was a huge success.

Take two driven people like my husband and myself, put them together, and what do you have? It’s debatable. 7 years ago I would have thought a match made in heaven. In fact, at our wedding we incorporated the Japanese term of kaizen (continuous improvement) into our vows. Ugh… how I cringe now.

I do believe in continuous improvement, but not in the way it was taught to me (faster, better, do more, etc.). I believe in the slow movement. That less is more. That slowing down and even stillness is where the magic of life lies. Take a look at the pets in our lives. They are content with doing less, watching the world outside the window for hours just as it is. Accepting us for who we are. Not caring about how we are dressed or what fancy letters come after our name. They are, in a sense, more human from a place of connection than we are. I have four pets. I didn’t even have time to pet them before. I would shoo them away when they came to climb on me when I collapsed on the couch after 16 hours of non-stop movement. We had to have our dog in daycare just to get exercise and go out because no one was home long enough to play with him or take him out. Picking him up and dropping him off was another burdened activity on the checklist. Why have pets, kids, a house (2 in our case), a garden, etc., when there was no time to put any love or life into any of it? It’s been a slow realization for me that none of this makes sense. That I was living by a clock and not a compass. It took even longer to do anything meaningful about it. I’m still on that journey and in no rush to any finish line. The unfolding is a beautiful experience that I’m embracing wildly.

I wrote a few paragraphs back that I could write for hours about how I got here. Everyone has their own journey, their own stories, their own level of awareness, and their own (hopefully) point in their life—more often than not in the second half of it—in which they proverbially “wake up.”

My own story started on March 1, 2012. At work I enrolled in a Franklin Covey industry-based class for The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was a 2-day seminar that set the path of a new life for me. At the time I was recently remarried and my husband and I were just finishing up the renovations we worked on non-stop for 2 months in our new home. I felt SO alive during those renovations. I loved working on the house. We often stayed up until 1 or 2am in the morning on work nights and didn’t feel the least bit exhausted in the morning.

Once the renovations were finishing up, I started to feel trapped, bored, and useless—something I wasn’t accustomed to feeling. Since my husband and I moved in together with our kids the year before, I felt like I was mentally unraveling. The renovations were a pleasant distraction. I began going to a Bible study at the hospital where I work, which one of my vanpool mates hosted. I hung onto many of the teachings and words, learning new language to explain what I was feeling. The Covey class used similar language but explained it in a different way that opened me up in a special fashion. Three things I really connected with were the concept of a paradigm that we see the world through, that I make my own independent choices constantly, and that to feel in line with who you are, we should be living by a compass and not a clock. Wow. This was mind-blowing and life-changing for me.

Shortly after, I explored the Bible much more. Then I ran into a Bishop Spong book quite by accident (I honestly cannot remember which one). I was never religious, but grew up Catholic and felt like it was a sin to question anything that didn’t make sense. As soon as my mind took me to those questioning places, guilt kicked in and I pushed it away. The John Shelby Spong book provided the freedom to question what made no sense and shift the focus to something that did in a more mystical, metaphysical way where it all made sense. From there I found podcasts on the Centers for Spiritual Living to help time pass while having to drive to Bedford, MA quite often for work—2½ hours each direction. Those podcasts prompted me to read the ghastly large book by Ernest Holmes called The Science of Mind. The world was opening and unfolding in ways I could have never dreamed. From there, for some unknown reason, I started taking yoga classes, which spoke the same type of language. Then I would listen to Alan Watts during my lunch walks and long commutes. All different words, but the same beautiful, timeless messages that make sense.

Years later, in January 2016, I loved yoga and this way of thinking so much that I started yoga teacher training. My regular life with work, the kids, pets, blended family, commute, and constant rush was becoming unsustainable. Why was I adding a full weekend a month commitment to this training? I don’t know, but I just felt compelled.

For some reason I thought in yoga teacher training I would learn more about the poses, teaching, and the actual class. Instead, like the Franklin Covey class years before, it became a personal journey. I quickly decided that it was a necessity to meditate regularly. Once I started quieting my mind and relaxing regularly, I realized that is how a body should feel, and how I lived for the previous 40 years was anything but calm. It started to become unbearable to not feel calm. Combine that with what I now realize is a few PTSD triggers from work at the time, it’s absolutely no surprise that I had my first panic attack exactly when I did, and they escalated from there—completely out of control. My body was releasing 40 years’ worth of emotion that was bubbling just under the surface. The same energy that kept me moving, grooving, and successful was the same energy that was keeping me stressed and mentally unaware that I was damaging myself by not dealing with the trauma that has plagued my mind, body, and spirit.

The past two and a half years since have been transformational. A lot of bad and negative things arose, but more positive learning experiences than anything bad. You have to go through it to move through it. It sounds simple, but it’s much harder than it sounds. It wasn’t until now that I’ve given myself the time and opportunity to heal. But you have to make the time. Your life has to allow it. You have to slow down.

This past summer was rough. I spent hours upon hours writing and allowing myself to remember and experience the anguish of old memories. Many were the same memories that came up during what I now know as PTSD episodes, but I’d felt too ashamed, embarrassed, or dramatic to explore. In writing, crying, thinking, gardening, exercising, waking up in the middle of the night, reading, etc., I started to explore my triggers and where they came from. It made sense. I learned more about how the brain is wired and why I seemed to lose control at times. I logged and shared trigger dates with my family. I allowed myself to feel all that I’ve always pushed away and thought I moved past years ago. It was always there waiting for me to deal with it. I just didn’t slow down enough to hear it.

Today I feel good. Over coffee this morning I saw my husband petting one of the cats who was purring where he shouldn’t be (on a counter). When my husband moved his hand away to finish getting ready for work, our cat Gilmore bipped him on the hand—asking for more petting, which Daren provided. We are in a place where we have time to pet our cats. I am thankful I am in a job where if I woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t sleep for hours, the pressure of getting dressed and driving to the office with a smile is not there because I can telework and I’m part-time. I’m thankful for the mental health breakdown this summer. I spent so much time on the days I wasn’t working living like my pets. I napped in the middle of the day if I needed to. I only ate when I was hungry. If I felt like the sun was calling me, I read and wrote outside. If I felt the urge to move, I went for a walk, run, or bike ride. Listening to my body helped me to attune to what it’s telling me in other ways too. Our bodies are a walking, living, physical communication device. It’s a compass of that path we should be on.

This summer I also listened to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People CDs that I was provided with from that class back in March of 2012. Listening to the late Stephen Covey’s voice felt like listening to an old friend with sound, sage, timeless advice. I also spent quite a bit of time doing those old exercises again. I created a mission statement, thought about my values and principles, my “rocks,” how I communicate with people, how I think, and how I live. I thought about the life that I want to program. My own talents. Not the talents the world has barked at me—like designing things bigger, better, and faster—but what I wanted to be when I was a kid with no restrictions and what that meant. The imprint I want to leave on the world.
These aren’t overnight answers. If I thought for a New York second that I know them right now, I’d be fooling myself. I’ll be working on them for the rest of my life. I’m trying diligently to listen to the compass. If we quiet ourselves enough, and ask our inner selves for advice, the most profound wisdom is all there, right within us. Our bodies know what we need. They keep the score.

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My dog Koji who teaches me all sorts of invaluable lessons without saying a word

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Bored at home after carpal tunnel surgery of my right hand this past Monday (9/10), I decided to try to open my right brain by painting with my left hand

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My left handed drawing depicting what is supposed to be a sunset

 

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On Understanding Panic Disorder

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I almost don’t know how to start this. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting millions of adults every year.

I am one of those people who suffer. When I’m in panic, it’s almost as if a doppelgänger took over my body. So many people do not understand what happens and that the person has no control over how they feel. Stress and cortisol flood the body.

Last night I had a panic attack. I actually had several in the past week, and 4 or 5 just yesterday alone. What made my last two particularly long and painful is that other people were home and weren’t reacting compassionately. They live with me and don’t quite understand what I go through, how painful it is, and how little to no control I have over how I feel or can possibly react. I can empathize and understand that it can be scary to someone else—really I can. I don’t want to be in full-blown panic either, believe me—way more so than the people around me don’t want to see it.

A key driver is understanding. Panic disorder with panic attacks is not something that can be helped in the moment or have a lid put on it. What makes it all so much worse is when those around you judge you and believe mental health issues are something that can simply be controlled. I’m writing this because if my own household doesn’t quite understand what this is about, how can anyone else? I need to do my part in spreading awareness.

I didn’t know much about true anxiety either. Why should I? We throw the word around a lot. Many of us live with low-level anxiety constantly. As a society, we are mostly all anxious. Anxiety and panic disorder are a little different. Nervousness and anxiety can both cause similar symptoms, but normal nervousness—like before a big presentation or applying for a job—is tied to a real situation and passes. Panic disorder is not like that.

I’ve read a lot about anxiety in the past two years since I’ve been diagnosed. Stress is prevalent in our culture. A large part is due to technology and the constant bombardment of information. Also, the ability for others to reach into our lives at any moment—through social media, texting, email—creates a constant sense of urgency. When I was younger and we had a house phone attached to a wall, leaving work meant the day was done. No one was creating new demands through texts and emails late into the evening.

Now, something as simple as a phone notification at 9pm can cause our heart rate to increase and create a false sense of urgency. Whether it’s from a loved one or your boss, the body reacts as if something is wrong. For most people, that feeling fades quickly. For those of us with an anxiety disorder, it doesn’t go away—it escalates.

A panic attack can feel like your body suddenly believes it is in danger, even when nothing is actually happening. Your heart races, your breathing changes, your chest feels tight, and your body prepares to fight or run. Rational thinking goes offline. It is not the time to reason through it or try to explain it away.

With panic disorder, the body goes into full fight-or-flight mode without a real, present threat. It differs for everyone, but for me, I am often triggered by something external that was threatening in the past. Many times I cannot initially identify the trigger. It is almost impossible to do so when the brain is flooded and executive functioning shuts down.

I want to feel normal and not panic more than anything. Riding it out, medicine, and therapy are helpful, but it took years for my body to become this dysregulated. It likely will not go away overnight.

I can tell you what makes it worse for me:

Being with someone during a panic attack who doesn’t understand and becomes annoyed or frustrated. I can’t be helped in that moment. Someone in my face trying to rationalize it feels condescending. Being ignored feels humiliating and similar to abandonment. I’m already overwhelmed—those reactions only intensify it.

Another difficult experience is trying to hide it so as not to scare others. That creates another layer of pressure. I’ve had panic attacks on airplanes, in restaurants, at work, while driving, while getting ready for bed, and even when waking up. When people pretend nothing is happening, it makes me feel like something is wrong with me—like I need to be hidden.

And then there is the shame. The feeling that you need to hide such a significant part of your experience from others. Our society does not always respond kindly to mental health struggles. Before experiencing this myself, I also believed it was something that could be controlled. Last summer I spent a full month in an Intensive Outpatient Program, but I was afraid to tell people why I was on leave. If I felt that way, I’m sure others do too.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. If you don’t struggle with mental health (and that’s wonderful), it’s very likely you know someone who does—you just may not realize it. Let’s do our part to bring awareness and approach one another with compassion instead of judgment.

We are all human. Let’s treat one another as such.

Peace.

Anxiety and Depression Association of America https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics#
We Need to Talk. Our Society Has an Issue With Anxiety and Mental Health. https://futurism.com/we-need-to-talk-our-society-has-an-issue-with-anxiety-and-mental-health/amp/
How to Handle Someone Else’s Anxiety or Panic Attacks https://medium.com/@gtinari/how-to-handle-someone-elses-anxiety-or-panic-attacks-51ee63f5c23b
How to Help Someone Having a Panic Attack https://m.wikihow.com/Help-Someone-Having-a-Panic-Attack
Mental Health America http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/doppelganger/

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