Keilie and Dallin's Live Endowment Session
We went on an RV adventure last year while the kids were at FSY, so when I signed the boys up for FSY, I also looked for an RV vacation Randy and I could take. About 10 years ago, I took the kids to the water park in Moses Lake and ended up talking to a woman that said they were staying at Soap Lake and loved it. She told me that Soap Lake is Washington's Bath of Jane Austen's time, that it is filled with healing minerals. I knew I was going to go there someday as soon as she said Jane Austen! So, without further ado, I give you my 10-year awaited vacation to Soap Lake.
Randy has been hiking Badger every morning for a few weeks now. Today, he decided to take Mira. Girlfriend trailed behind the whole way up, and lead the whole way down. But she made it to the top! Mira's showing her age more and more. I'm glad Randy thought to document her hike!
FSY at Idaho State
We got to have the Wilsterman's come for a few days between their Utah trip and Girls' Camp/FSY. We love having them so close!
Right before they left, I capture this hilarious picture!! Austen is clipping Tyson's "large talons." SO FUNNY!!! Our house is always so loud and full when they come-- I LOVE IT!!! Cousin time is the BEST time!!!
Randy had a few appointments over on the Western side of the State, so I tagged along for a fun night out! Tacoma & Gig Harbor.
A friend posted a picture of her daughter in a cheerleading outfit. Since the colors are those of our high school growing up, where we became friends, I assumed her daughter went to Roy High. Then I saw the name on her megaphone and did a double take. Sure enough, I read it right...
Brennon is going on a Priest High Adventure in a few weeks-- backpacking and many day hikes. Knowing he needed a light tent so he could have a light pack to carry 8 miles in, we pulled out the tent we bought for Caden when he was 2-years old.
Since Brennon is quite a bit taller than 2-year old Caden, we set it up to see if it would work. Caden's Dog got to participate in the fun...
Tyson: "Dad, where are our BB guns?" And thus commenced our day of practice. FUN!!!
We returned last night from a Burrell family reunion in Utah. We had planned for over a year to spend an entire week at Lagoon, once again parking our RV at the campsite for A/C, fridge, and rest. It hit me just as hard this year as it did last that my childhood dreams have been far exceeded. I never imagined that I'd ever use the campground, with an RV, and Season Passes purchased on Black Friday. I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
However, what hit me most at this season of my life was the power of choice. I have felt so broken, so lost, so less-than for 10 months now. My body is still in a near-constant state of fear/panic/anxiety. But... given the CHOICE to feel fear, and I felt strong, powerful, and in control-- all things I haven't felt for so long, I wondered if I'd ever feel them again.
I chose to walk to two rides I swore I could never do (on opposite sides of one another). I chose to stand in line for both rides. I chose to sit down in each seat, despite Ashlee's assurance that she'd walk off the ride with me if I was too nervous. I chose to feel the fear as both rides shot me straight up and then straight down with only a lap secruing apparatus for each. I CHOSE FEAR!
Quoting Caden's words for myself: "I WON!"
There is power in choice.
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!
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.
We got a call on Monday that one of our renters had abandoned the property, leaving us with a ton of work not only getting the rest of his stuff cleared and cleaned out, but also to bring the home back to liveable once again. This isn't the first time that that home, the safe haven Caden and I would come home to after being trapped (and one of us tortured while the other watched) in Seattle all those years ago, has been trashed, but it is the first time it has been smoked in. And my fragile mind was broken once again. Walls beaten with a bat can be patched in a weekend, leaving only slightly noticeable scars. But smoke permeates and lingers for YEARS. It hurts more this time.
I know my love of that home is not rational, and that my tender emotions are far too much for the situation (we haven't removed the air filter that is black from years of smoking without changing, nor have we had the carpets shampooed professionally), but I cannot help how it feels any more than I could stop that man from sneaking around after signing a contract that clearly stated that there was to be no smoking on the property at all, not in the garage, nor the backyard.
I have cried so many tears since walking into the home Monday at Noon. I have worked many hours, loving the home with all of my heart as my Clorox Wipe came away yellow from washing walls and my nose inhaled smoke and weed scents. Feeling hopeless and defeated, I remembered my time at the Center when I changed my hopelessness by changing my perspective. It worked so well then, that I hope it will work this time.
My last post was the perspective change I mean. From the moment I realized I needed to become the safe haven for my fearful self, I started to see myself differently. Not something to feel disgust by, but someone to nurture and bring back to life. There is a ceremony every week for those that are leaving called the Coin Out Ceremony, where you say a few words about what you've learned (if you choose) and they give you a coin to remember your time there. Here is my speech.
"I came to the Center in crisis mode, broken and scared. Because of the somatic reactions raging through this body-- feelings without thought or logic-- I did not feel like myself. I truly felt crazy, and I was so, so scared. I walked in, practically screaming to be taught skills to beat this PTSD down, cruelly referring to myself as Part-Time Stephanie Dirks.
I imagined my capabe self floating away on the wind while the string that held the girl I had always been to the ground slipped through the fingers of the broken body I was trapped in. I was powerless in this mind and body, powerless without her capability in all things, powerless as a wife, as a mother, as a human being.
It took one person here at the Center, compassionately saying as they looked me in the eye, "I understand how scary it must feel. But, know this-- This is you. And you are going to be ok."
Oh, I knew I was going to be ok! After all, I had checked myself into a partial-hosptilization, residential treatment program to fix and cure myself in just four weeks! Because, what not many people here know is that I was a Stephanie that had faced all-consuming fear and overwhelming odds not once, but thrice, and survived! I may not be as young, fresh, and strong as I once was, but once I learned skills, I'd beat this thing back as I'd done before, and prove it to myself and my world, again.
(Left) This Stephanie packed her husband and nearly 13-year-old son into a jet headed for Seattle, and then frantically found sitters to watch her other four kids for an indeterminate amount of time. Then, she faced each of those kids and spoke surreal words that terrified them more than they terrified her. As she drove the four hours to Seattle using printed off driving instructions, scared and alone, that Stephanie wondered how she would ever be enough for the Boy in the Bed affected with cancer, and her other loves affected by cancer.
(Right) After walking back into the house where her Caden had just been taken from for the very last time, this Stephanie wondered how she would ever be enough for her four babes as they navigated their grief when her own was so immense, so all-consuming, so overwhelming. Once again, she forced aside her needs to be fully present and actively engaged in whatever capacity their needs required, just as she had for Caden. She willingly, whole-heartedly gave them everything she had to give.
I thought I had a sort of "road map" that I would tell, a chronological way that would show how I got from the Facebook post to now, but today was particularly hard to get myself to even consider sitting at the computer and a memory came to mind.
One of the things that drew me to The Center was the daily, intense therapy I would get. In four weeks, I got a 9-month course of Gold-Standard DBT therapy, 3 hours of talk therapy with licensed counselors with specialties in PTSD each week, multiple "college" courses on subjects to heal my whole self, not just my mind, as well as twice-weekly appointments with a psychiatrist (which I didn't end up needing, since I didn't take any medications, but that were required by our insurance). When I divided the hours by weeks in a year, allowing for one hour of talk therapy a week, it was more than 3 years of therapy in just four weeks, to say nothing of the classes.
The first few hours and days were intense. It was overwhelming, and my mind and emotions were being pulled in all directions. I just wanted to cry, simply because it was so much change, not because of PTSD. Day after day of intense therapy is not for the faint of heart. At the first appointment I had with my Counselor, Matt, on Day 2, he asked me to tell him why I hated the Stephanie who was sitting there in his seat, why I felt she was so weak, why it bothered me that she couldn't handle even the tiniest amount of stress anymore without feeling like the world was ending, and why I felt that she couldn't be the mother and wife she once was. Comparing who I was in that seat with who I was during cancer care, and who I was pre-2014, I found myself to be loathsome, embarrassing, weak, pathetic, and I was there to beat this girl down and get back to who I'd always been.
Matt then asked me to take a few minutes and write a letter to the Stephanie I was now, full of compassion, love, and acceptance. Grudgingly and trusting he knew what he was doing to guide me back to Capable Stephanie, I got out my notebook and pen, and... went blank. Frustrated and embarrassed of further proof that this Stephanie was a loser, I asked, "So, what sort of things should I even say?"
"Write to her as if she were your sister or best friend."
Immediately, things started flowing into my head. I could do this! I know how to love others!! I LOVE loving others!! And so I began, "Dear Part-Time Stephanie Dirks," (pause) and burst into tears. It was a moment of great clarity and sorrow. I know how to succor everyone else, but me. I know how to build everyone else up, to help them see the best in themselves, but I never do it for myself. I don't tear myself down, per se, but I don't take the time to build myself up either. Everyone else is more important than me. The needs of everyone around me are more important than my own. When Kimberly's son was born still, I literally fell to the ground and just sobbed with her. My heart bleeds for her to this very day. Never once have I ever thought she was weak, pathetic, playing the victim, or needing too much, but I felt that way about the Stephanie sitting there in that seat.
"It's been six years since Caden's death, ten years since diagnosis. You had already healed from that grief, with a dignified grace if I do say so myself. Your life was better than ever, remember? Isn't that what you felt and told others when asked? Get over yourself. You have always been so raw and honest about everything, it's going to look like you were trying to hide this all of these years. Don't make yourself a liar! You are a girl who accomplishes all she puts her mind to, so hurry up and figure this out!! If others see you for what you are now, they'll think you are milking it, think you are nothing but drama, get tired of your needs, and leave. You are too much. I hate you so much."
It was at that moment that the reasons I willingly went to The Center changed. I felt a shift in my very soul. It was a tender mercy that let me know that Heavenly Father knew me, loved me, and was still carrying me. I was led to and meant to enter on December 13, 2023! That's not to say that it became easier, or that I never felt hatred for myself/my situation again, but it did change the way I viewed what needed to happen during my days-- I was not there to beat down, but to build up the amazing part of myself that I HAD BEEN beating down and silencing to stay present for my babes as they navigated their grief. I learned a lot about why I see my emotions as "too much," "too deep," and "something that needs to be kept quiet if it could make others feel uncomfortable."
Today was a day where I planned to push aside what I felt needed to come out so I could tell the story how I felt it should be intellectually told. But I now know that my emotions need time to speak the moment they are felt and that they need acceptance and love. I have learned it's safe to let go of all of the fear, helplessness, and overwhelming grief that has been trapped within myself, buried in the belief that everyone else's needs were more important, that I should be there for them, the moment they need me, no matter what I have to give, and that my grief would work itself out as I gave of myself to help others.
As I write these tender words, tears streaming down my face, I am using the skills I learned that day with Matt. My emotions need to be loved by the same mother I was with my kids- the only job I ever aspired to, the only dream I have ever had. When I am feeling deep emotions, I imagine Capable Stephanie, the girl I became to be everything to my family but who is so, so tired, sitting in a rocking chair, cradling a newborn baby. Capable Stephanie gently, tenderly, lovingly rocks, soothes, sings, and feels soul-deep love for the crying infant in her arms. When the sweet, precious infant begins to cry again, with no logic or reasonable understanding (just as it feels in this body that has broken from my mind), she doesn't get frustrated or annoyed, she doesn't scoff, she doesn't feel ashamed that her efforts aren't working the way she thinks they should, she doesn't stop loving or wish the time away, she doesn't think the baby should feel shame for crying when she is so obviously safe, no, she simply gathers the babe up more tenderly, bringing her closer to her heart, and whispers the words spoken so often to Caden, Keilie, Shelby, Brennon, and Tyson-- I love you, I love you, I love you. And the Stephanie that I am now is soothed again. As many times as it takes. No matter what. Always.