Written word

 Since our renter abandoned 2701 in April, leaving us with the task of cleaning out his junk and cleaning up his messes (which included me on my hands and knees wiping up puddles of now-sticky urine from the floors, as well as urine streaks on walls), I have been struggling with my mental health.  Big time.  In a way, it has taken me right back to rock bottom.  I can still function, but in some cases, barely.  In other cases, faking and crying inside with a smile on.

In an effort to understand, learn, and validate, I've been reading many books on mental health, the brain, and PTSD.  One book about PTSD, written for children, states that "the brain plays tricks on them.  They don't want to feel or act that way, but they cannot help it."  My brain keeps playing tricks on me.

My current book, picked up from the library less than an hour ago, has already wracked me with sobs.  Twice.  

Page 1: "One day individuals do not have PTSD, and the next day they suddenly have PTSD.  No other disorder in psychiatry has such a sudden, bewildering, and terrifying onset."  

One of the things that makes this so hard is that I remember who I was before, the idyllic life I was creating with Randy, I remember the exact moment that my brain broke and how SCARED I was, how scared it has made me since, and I remember how it felt to be in control of my mind and body.  I remember, and I miss the before.  It's hard to believe and trust all I've been reading, learning, and trying when things continue to make me feel like I'm drowning.  It's as if I am getting worse, not better.

And then I read page 2: 

"Nearly all of us have had the experience of using a computer or a smartphone and then, after using one of these devices for months, one day the screen suddenly looks different than it looked yesterday.  The typical reaction of users is bitter frustration at the software developers who made these changes without our permission.  The anger is softened considerably, however, because we are also confident that eventually we will get used to the new layout.  

Not so with PTSD.  When one's mind and body have suddenly been changed, as with the onset of PTSD, the anger and bitter frustration start at low levels because those individuals tend to believe the change will fade with time.  As with scratches and bruises on the skin and bad memories that fade with time, they think things will pop back to normal.  But when weeks pass and then months pass and things have not popped back to normal, there is often an indescribable sense of loss of control.  The anger and frustration increases with time rather than fade.  It cannot be overstated how frightening this can feel when you realize you have lost control of your own mind and body."

I am not crazy.  Though it doesn't feel this way, I'm "normal."  I'm not getting worse because things are getting harder, I'm feeling normal frustration in my abnormal reality.  I have been working at calming things down because I did believe that things would pop back to normal.  But they're not yet (7 months and counting), and it just makes me feel bereft.  There is an agony when one considers that PTSD doesn't have an expected recovery time.  I have no idea how long I will feel like this, and have true worries that it will be forever.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I'm also tired because I am sick, and I'm tired of it.  I'm just SO TIRED!

Shaping

 I recently read a post from a girl who aspires to be, and considers herself an influencer.  She told of a story in which a man shapes and sculpts an elephant from a large slab of granite.  Astounded, those that admire his work asked how he had accomplished the magnificent feat.  "I just chipped away at anything that wasn't an elephant," the man had said, matter-of-fact.  She then goes on to mold and shape that story into what she thinks it means, giving examples of how we, ourselves, can chip away at anything that isn't what we want to become, making ourselves into whatever we are meant to be.  I don't agree fully with her.  While I have worked to gain attributes to become what I consider a beautiful soul, worked to make my own dreams come true, I have become so much more than I ever would have had I kept the "tools," or taken them out of the Master's hand to shape what I thought was meant to be.  

A few years ago, after the hardest of the hard was over, when it didn't feel as if I was burned and bashed any longer, I thought back on all that I'd been through and made a list of all that I'd learned through cancer care and Caden's death.  Many times throughout those excruciating years, I'd ask "What am I supposed to learn," instead of "Why?"  Because I knew even then that I was being shaped by the Refiner's Fire.  Even though it was a trial not of my choosing, I could still see His Hand in my life, leading, guiding, shaping, and carrying at times.  I was flourishing with new-found, hard-earned strength, deeper, more understanding love, and eyes to see.  Because the Master chose, not me.

And then PTSD hit me.  In an instant, my life was thrown back into sorrow.  It has been so, so hard, but once again I am looking for what He wants me to learn.  Perhaps I hadn't quite learned back then, or this was always meant to be my trial to learn something new.  Either way, I choose faith in the face of my fear because I trust the Master.

While at The Center, my mind kept going back to D. Todd Christofferson's talk, The Will of God.  I probably listened to that talk three times a week the entire time I was there.  Similarly, this is a trial not of my choosing.  However, because I am the one that is suffering while those that love me watch and support, I felt acutely that I had been cut down.  

Written January 31, 2024-- 10 years since Caden was flown to Seattle Children's.

"Dear September Stephanie,

As I look at my life over the past 10 years, I see wonderful growth in the way I raised my kids.  I became the shade tree that provided them a place to come to, a place to hide at times, a place to rest.  I can say emphatically and without an ounce of regret that I am proud that I was emotionally present for my kids in all the ways I needed and wished for as a child that had lost her little sister and became scared of what might happen.  Despite the struggle, I was accomplishing all that I put my mind to, all that I added to my plate, all that I expected of myself as I survived my grief with an imagined grace.  But that "grace" held non of the proffered grace of a loving Heavenly Father, my Master Gardener.  My life was all growth, but no berries.

When I came to The Center, I was ashamed of my pruning, seeing only stumps through my blinding tears.  But my Heavenly Father knows who I am, and what I am meant to be.  He saw what I was giving up in order to willfully pay attention to my perceived purpose instead of my true potential.  I know that He pruned me not to punish, but to prepare.

As I look forward with hope to be "laden with fruit," I can humbly, gratefully, and mindfully say, as Hugh B. Brown said all those years ago, 'Master Gardener, thank you for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.'"  

I am becoming what I'm meant to be because He knows and loves me.  It is not me that makes it a masterpiece-- it is Him, the Master.  I trust and I choose Him.  Always.