It’s been a while since I did a book review, so here’s what I’ve read so far in 2023.
I woke up at 11:30 p.m., panicked and sweating. It’s common occurrence. My right eye hurt – another frequent notation in my sleep log, which is usually connected to the entire right side of my face hurting.
Working with my therapist, I have an inkling of what some of these things are, but it’s going to take time to figure them out. I have to piece together what’s happening and why, while listening to what my body is telling me. Unlike my brain, my body can’t paint pictures or speak.
I don’t sleep well most nights, but I never get any rest on Fridays. It’s been this way most of my life and I never knew why.
Throughout 2023, I’ve been taking steps to spend more time outside and slowly get back into the world. I took a break from the world for a while for two reasons.
The first was that I worked the night shift and worked three 1-hour shifts on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This doesn’t leave a lot of time to do anything else, especially when you stick to that time all week.
The second I haven’t really spoken much about until lately. I don’t know how much I’ll share, but therapy had become a detriment for me and I couldn’t really see it. It’s not that I didn’t want to go out and do things, I literally couldn’t. It wasn’t depression. It was the extreme fatigue that comes with constant flashbacks.
I think that’s all I will say for now as I wanted to share some neat photos I took. There isn’t really a long story for each one, just something cool I wanted to share and put out there.
A few days ago, I read a column, which really hit home. The author, Lucia Osborne-Crowley, is a trauma expert. After reporting on the Ghislaine Maxwell trial devastated her own mental health, she checked herself in to one of the world’s leading residential trauma-treatment centers.
I would encourage everyone to go read the article, but I wanted to share some parts of the article that resonated with me.
As we grow and learn, we are able to decipher when things are good for us and when they are not. Sometimes, we need a push to get there, but, for me, how I got to the next step in my journey in life doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I’m here and continuing on toward a better future.
But you never went to war