Feed The Good Wolf

Category: TwoWolves

  • The Trauma Virus

    I have frequently wondered if psychological viruses exist. Viruses can be transmitted from person to person. In a sense, so can trauma.

    Generational trauma is the concept of trauma perpetuating from grandparent, to parent to child, propagating the “virus” generationally through families. Viruses don’t just have to be limited to familial associations though – it can spread from person to person

    The familial stories of Trauma I have date back to my great grandparents. A long time ago, a couple fled their home country disrupted by World War I. They managed to escape with their lives and their children to a new country. Immigrants to a new country, speaking a foreign tongue in a foreign land, they had to start their lives over. This came with many challenges, and their daughter – my maternal grandmother – did not escape unscathed. My material grandmother grew to have severe anxiety from the trauma she endured. After newly developed anxiety medications were developed, she began incorporating them into her treatment.

    Her daughter – my biological mother – would go on to describe her mother as “zonked out” on these medications, which would go on to influence her opinion of mental health. Between my biological mother being bullied herself at school and by her own sisters, she almost threw herself out of a window as a child. My biological mother never got over her own trauma, even later in life. Having observed the effects of first-generation mental health medications on her mother, my biological mother had a very low opinion of them. She went on to call them a scam, a hoax utilized by doctors to push pills and receive kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.

    When my biological mother eventually had kids, the trauma virus propagated down my family tree to yet another generation. By the time I was suicidal in fifth grade, I was begging to be seen by a therapist or someone to help me struggling through suicidal ideation. The phrase “over my dead body” was uttered by my mom. Between my mom dealing with her trauma, handling my dad’s trauma the best she could, working part time, and being the caretaker for her children, my emotional needs were not met.

    It took me a long time to observe and reflect upon the trauma that propagated down my family tree, and I question if the roots extend further back in time. I’ll never know. This “trauma virus” I speak of I does not only propagate generationally through families via “generational trauma.” Trauma can be spread between anyone at any time – much like a virus. All it takes is emotional contact between two people. Bullying is one such example. Despite being unrelated to a childhood bully, hearing “No one will ever love you” is a phrase that has been repeated many times in therapy. Looking back, I’ve questioned what would bring someone to say such a thing. Were they suffering through their own trauma? Another example would be a person mistreating their partner. Fueled by trauma, their misdirected hurt might inflict emotional damage to their partner, which in turn can cause further trauma.

    The inoculation for this virus is love. Love allows for communication barriers to be shattered. It has the power to break through emotional walls, bridge emotional divides, unmask issues, and most perhaps importantly, it allows painful matters to have light shed upon them. Without these support systems, trauma is much more likely to occur. Whether it be a supportive family, friend or therapist, don’t let issues fester in the dark – drag them into the light. Help is out there.

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • Wearing a Mask

    Dating all the way back to pre-school, I remember being bullied. It was always about something. They called me fat, they called me stupid, they said “no one will ever love you,” they made fun how how I dressed, who I sat with at lunch, how fast I could run, that I had asthma, what music I said I liked … I mean, you name it, I was made fun of for it.

    From what I was able to piece together from distant memories and old stories from my biological mom (back when I was actually speaking with her), the bullying had started back in pre-school. I only recall fragmented memories of the events, but I recall choosing a parent teacher conference night at pre-school to get back at a bully. I recall feeling as though my biological mother would witness me prevailing over a bully and she would be proud of me. I don’t recall what I did exactly – nor does she – but I was written up and scolded for it. References later appeared in a pre-school report card

    After that, I was habitually taught not to stand up to bullies. I was told that one day these people would be pumping gasoline while I made something of myself. The bullying continued through being made fun of, having my clothes be drawn on with a pen, being kicked, stolen from, and physically abused. I almost died once. I had been taught to never fight back and never stand up for myself. I had been indoctrinated to this mindset further by being told that standing up for myself could lead to further violence. My school district had a policy – even if a fight is completely one-sided, both kids get in trouble. As unfathomable as this policy was at my school, those were the rules. At a certain point, I had become scared of standing up for myself.

    Over time, this suppression of natural instincts, never standing up for myself, and feeling emotionally abandoned at home made me feel like I was constantly wearing a mask. Only I knew it existed, but it numbed my torment as an emotional wall was fortified around me brick by brick. By a certain point, I felt completely numb.

    I begged to see a therapist, and was told no – that mental health was a scam. I was struggling with some very dark feelings being bullied at school and emotionally neglected at home. When I tried to confront my feelings, I was dismissed with “What do you have to be sad about? Don’t you know how many people have it worse than you?” There were no outlets for my big feelings, and I began to self-destruct.

    You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it

    – Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

    By the time I had gotten to fifth grade, I remember sitting alone at recess on a curb one day, kicking stones around on the pavement. I was thinking about killing myself for the first time and was utterly inconsolable. After crying for some time, a school aid charged with supervising recess inquired why I was upset. Unable to get an answer out of me and not knowing what to do with a crying child, she took me to the school counselor’s office. It took a full ten minutes of him talking to me before I could manage to mutter out a few words through tears.

    Terrified of the situation I had gotten myself into, I had mentioned that I was scared for my parents to discover that I had been sent to the counselor’s office. I couldn’t fathom their reaction to knowing that I was receiving counseling when they were so against the concept of mental health. Between the emotional wall that had built up and the thought of my parents overreacting to learning of this incident, I was unable to let the counselor into my emotional fortress. He may have merely caught a breeze of the emotional hurricane that was in my mind. He did manage to learn that I was fond of chess and proceed to coordinate a regular chess game in his office during recess.

    My therapist and I processed these memories today. We discussed how my ideal parents wouldn’t be revolted by the concept of mental health. They would have been receptive to their child asking to see a therapist, and inquired further as to why their child wanted to see a therapist in the first place. They would have seen their child withdrawing instead of emotionally neglecting me. They would have gotten in touch with their emotionally wounded child and worked through my despair with the help of a therapist. My parents did none of these things.

    Even though several decades have passed since I was sitting on the curb at recess, I’ve come to realize that some of the same mindsets have endured. The thought of confrontation makes me uneasy. I’ve done plenty of things against my own interests … all in the name of keeping the peace and being nonconfrontational. In a lot of ways, the story I told myself was that I wasn’t “good enough.” I lost my spirit behind a mask. I hid behind an emotional wall and suppressed who I was down, deep into an emotional abyss where no one could hurt me again. Sufficed to say, that strategy didn’t turn out so well.

    After my suicide attempt a little over a decade ago landing me in a hospital for two weeks, I spent a lot of time figuring out how to heal the festering emotional wounds I had neglected. One of the things that helped me heal was cutting my parents out of my life. I had mixed feelings about doing so. Cutting your parents out of your life comes with a log of heavy feeling all on its own. I had lived with these feelings for a while now, but as a byproduct of therapy today, I think I’ve finally found a sense of peace with that decision. After discussing these events and hearing the following lyrics on the drive home, I felt an emotional release.

    I loved you once, won’t do it twice 
    All of my teardrops, they all crystallized 
    Out of my way, out of my way 
    I loved you once, fire to ice 
    All of my teardrops, they all crystallized 
    Out of my way, out of my way

    John Summit – crystallized (feat. Inéz)

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • Emotional Violence

    I want to start off by I do not believe in violence. Except in the exceptionally rare cases of self defense when someone is imminently about to take a life, violence is never the right, moral, just path.

    Physical violence is condemned and punished far more frequently than emotional violence. There are cases of physical violence that are seen as objectively immoral, such as premeditated murder. Others cases still might involve the death of someone, such as cases of self-defense, but are seen through a different lens. Emotional violence on the other hand is far less cared about, yet it can take lives too, albeit in an indirect way.

    Someone who has encountered emotional violence may lose all will to live, turning to hard drugs, alcohol, and other coping mechanisms. Having been unsuccessful in escaping their emotional harm, they throw away their potential – a life ended. Another may turn the emotional pain inward and end their own life.

    Others may turn the emotional pain outward, and redirect the emotional violence received upon them into physical violence upon others. School shootings stemming from merciless bullying is one such example. Generally speaking, the physical violence is remembered but the emotional violence provoking the behavior is not. People remember the massacre, but not the circumstances that led up to it. Both should be remembered; but, for different reasons.

    Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it

    This saying from George Santayana illustrates why both should be remembered. The narrative of “school shooter massacres students” has a much different context than “school student revenge kills tormentors.” One narrative focuses on the physical violence. The other narrative speaks to the emotional violence escalating to physical violence. This narrative is rarely heard and may be supressed in fear of copy-cat killings, resulting in yet another student suffering from emotional violence turning to physical violence; however, doing so only allows the cycle of violence to continue. The takeaway lesson is never learned and history is repeated time and time again.

    The school district I went to had a zero tolerance policy. If there was ever physical violence, all parties caught fighting would get in trouble, regardless of the circumstances. I was taught to never fight back – that it would go on my school record and I could forget about college. When I was almost killed at school, I didn’t fight back, even though I could have died. Long before this though I was subject to escalating emotional violence at school. This, however, the school did not care about. The rare time teachers heard of bullying, they would simply say “stop it”. While this may have temporarily paused the bullying, it did nothing to remediate the situation. The emotional violence continued.

    Between the emotional violence at school and the emotional neglect at home, I found myself in a very dark place. The first time I remember wanting to kill myself was in fifth grade – emotional violence turning into physical violence upon the self.

    Passive suicidal idealization resurfaced from time to time until it became active suicidal idealization over a decade later. I simply couldn’t see how any path moving forward was going to be better than simply ending my life. It wasn’t to get attention, it wasn’t a cry for help, I was in a very dark place emotionally. I downed a bottle of pills and ended up in the hospital. That was when I started to turn my life around.

    Justified or not, externally visible or not, there’s always a fairly clear indication of physical violence – a physical harm. Such physical harm can be diagnosed by a physician. Emotional harm may be readily apparent to mental health professionals or obscured from view with an uncooperative patient. When physical harm is severe enough, there are hospitals and even emergency rooms for intensive care; however, emotional harm is frequently left untreated.

    My parents demonized mental health as a whole, even when I begged to see a therapist as a child. I was told that mental health was a scam and doctors were just trying to push pills and receive kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies. Other people in my life insinuated there’s a stigma of going to therapy – that it’s looked down upon.

    Imagine for a moment how ridiculous it would sound if physical violence was treated in the same manner. Imagine a child just broke their arm after falling from a tree, the bone protruding from their skin. Now imagine their parents refusing to see a doctor. Sounds absurd doesn’t it? Child protective services would be involved for neglect.

    Emotional harm can be just as destructive, yet far more frequently ignored. Too many people want to be seen as “strong,” dismiss seeing a therapist saying “they’re fine”, or claim they “don’t have time” while their metal health degrades. I have personally witnessed these people go on to hurt others, propagating the cycle of emotional harm. I have observed relationships be ruined, families torn apart, children estranged from their parents … and for what? To seem “strong?”

    It’s time that bullying is stopped. While I understand that is easier said than done, there have been programs developed to assist schools. These have resulted in fewer bullying incidents in school and when bullying occurs, it is addressed instead of being ignored. One such program is “The No Bully System” by “The Power of Zero.” As a society we need to learn there’s a better, healthier path forward, free of emotional violence.

    If you or someone you know has been the victim of bullying, there are resources available such as https://www.stopbullying.gov. If you see something, say something. Silence is violence.

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • Can of Worms

    My therapist claimed they opened a can of worms today. Last week my therapist had asked me to generate a list of characteristics of my ideal partner, and we started our session by talking about them. Where that conversation ended up going left me speechless by the time I left. I drove home in silence, contemplating what was said, even dissociating on the way home. I had to stop my vehicle and recollect myself before I could safely make it home. Before I get into all that, I’ll share some additional backstory.

    I never understood the relationship between my parents. Not once. I’m not sure how my father even got a second date, no less got married and had kids.

    On my parent’s first date, my dad “forgot” about my mom and abandoned her at a mall. Personally, that single action would have disqualified someone from a potential dating pool, and I’d seriously consider ghosting them moving forward. But no, despite this major red flag, they continued dating and eventually got married, rented an apartment together, and eventually bought a house.

    After they moved into their new house, my dad started trying to make as much money as he could, volunteering to travel for work to boost his salary and bring home additional income. Thing was, he was traveling and out of the house for well over 90% of the year. My mom once painfully described this to me as feeling like her heart was being ripped from her chest when he would come home, only to leave once again. Eventually, she broke. She moved back into their old apartment and changed the locks. She couldn’t see this marriage going anywhere. She was done.

    When my dad came home from traveling and found out his wife wasn’t there, he flipped. He pulled every dime out of their bank accounts and went to confront her. She did not want to speak to him, but he was banging on the door so violently, a family member had to come restrain him and hold him back. Eventually, the police were even called. I never really heard the end of this story. My therapist pointed out today that she likely went back to him because of the financial pressures of having all her money taken. Personally, I would have rather had him arrested and imprisoned.

    Things never really improved between them. Further fights included the time my dad canceled our health insurance. The multiple times where my dad spent his vacation days while still at work to unnecessarily draw a double salary instead of spending some time off with his kid’s during summer break. Then there was the time my mom and dad were yelling so loudly I could hear them from a different floor, through a closed door, through headphones at max volume. There have been quite a few times where my therapist has looked at me in stunned disbelief while describing events from my childhood

    My mother was no angel either. She prevented me from seeing a therapist as a kid – even after begging to see one – because of her own views about mental health. She would yell at me to toughen up when I was bullied at school, telling me how good my life was, how so many people have it worse off than I do, and told how I’d never survive in the real world. I’ve written about my mom a fair bit in earlier posts, and now I’ve written some tidbits about my dad.

    Through a lot of therapy spanning over a decade, I’ve come to be able to admit that what I went through wasn’t “normal” and that I wasn’t blessed with good parents. My childhood left me traumatized, and I feel a certain level of revulsion for both of my parents. I have given them many chances to attempt to redeem themselves and they have continually let me down. From my mom threatening to throw my sister’s boyfriend off a roof, to hearing they they prayed for me to not be trans, to my dad using racial slurs, to my mom insinuating my partner was a gold digger, I am just done with both of them. They are toxic people.They wouldn’t know what a healthy relationship looked like if it slapped them in the face.

    Circling back to today’s therapy appointment, my therapist suggested that we discuss an early memory of unhealthy relationships. I told my therapist about the incident where the cops were calls on my dad. This led to some further discussions about relationships in my life and if I even know what a healthy relationship with another even means.

    I know my therapist is religious, but I wasn’t prepared for the hard left turn that came next. They implied that the reason why I identified as trans might be because of the dislike of my father. This left me speechless. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. We ended the session shortly after and it was suggested that I go home and do a lot of journaling after they said they “opened a can of worms.” The truth of the matter is, sure I dislike my father. But I also dislike my mom. I mean what kind of mother threatens to throw their sister’s boyfriend off a roof? They -both- have issues

    Deep down, I’ve always known I was different – before I was aware of a word for it. From not understanding I didn’t belong with the other little girls at a wedding when I was three years old, to sneaking into my mom and sister’s closet to try on clothes, to the fantasy writings of magically stepping from a stereotypically male body into a stereotypically female body. The very first time I was on the internet alone, I added a new word to my lexicon: transexual. Even the first time I had an orgasm was telling – I was trying to tuck to appear more feminine. Something unbeknownst to me at the time happened, and I stopped. It wasn’t until later I had learned what had actually happened.

    In this regard, I know exactly who I am.

    The only “can of worms” my therapist opened is me now questioning if I need to find a new therapist.

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • Emotional Numbing

    Looking back, it’s amazing how much people run away from things. My mom projected her fears and insecurities from childhood having never dealt with them. My dad never escaped his childhood, making everything about money. My sister hasn’t healed from her childhood either. I’ve done it countless times too. Having spent decades emotionally numbing, I know it’s not how you heal.

    I remember having a lava lamp as a kid and being yelled at for leaving it on for hours at a time. My mom would scream at me to turn it off, claiming it would start a fire. My mom’s anxiety did not surround the build quality of the lava lamp, she had severe anxiety. The kind of anxiety that demanded the toaster and the coffee maker always be unplugged unless they were in use. The kind of anxiety that made her question if the front door was actually locked after she already checked it multiple times. One time when using the fireplace, she even stood outside in the cold while it rained to make sure the roof didn’t catch on fire. Sufficed to say, the fireplace didn’t get used much.

    Today, during a call at work, someone brought up they had a kid that was now in intensive care at the hospital after slitting their wrists. It triggered me into thinking about the times where I was depressed enough to do the same. I never slit my wrists, but I had thought about doing so many times in the past. Almost as if on queue, I was mentally picturing myself with a razor blade against my forearm.

    It’s amazing how much time I’ve spent mentally running away from unpleasant times and unpleasant thoughts. I’ve eaten too much, I’ve drank too much, I’ve smoked too much, I’ve cleaned too much, I’ve bought too much, I’ve worked too much, I’ve watched way too much TV … all in the name of running away from emotional distress. The only thing was, I wasn’t solving any of my problems and instead just creating new ones (except maybe the cleaning). I gained weight, I maxed out credit cards, I blacked out. I tried to escape my problems by doing anything but confronting them, attempting to spare myself emotional distress.

    In therapy, my therapist and I discussed the work call and its effect on me. Discussed the first time I thought of suicide in fifth grade. My therapist instructed me to imagine what it would have been like to have had someone in my life back then. After inquiring why and expressing that this wouldn’t change what happened, she expressed that people tend to hold onto emotions, and this allows them to breathe and release. So I spoke about how nice it would have been if I had an emotional outlet back then. Having anyone in my life that I could have emotionally connected with would have made such an impact. Having someone stand up for me to a bully would have made a tremendous difference. Considering my parents didn’t do any of this (and even threatened to shave my head in my sleep), it really would have been nice. Maybe I never would have ended up with CPTSD if someone would have been there for me.

    After some discussion surrounding the negative headspace I was in back when I was contemplating suicide, something interesting happened. When my focus was brought back to the work call, suddenly it wasn’t so triggering and I wasn’t in so much distress. I faced my emotional distress, and it reduced. That was very interesting to my therapist and I.

    On the drive home, I thought of times where I had a strong negative emotional reaction to something and shunned my feelings. Instead of leaning into them, I ran away. Sprinted away from them as fast as possible. I never faced my demons. Instead, I just buried them by shifting my focus elsewhere – anywhere else – and usually utilizing maladaptive coping mechanisms to “feel better”. I was actively avoiding feeling emotional distress through any means necessary. They festered. It was just so easy to just look away, eat that comfort food, have that drink, or turn on the TV to emotionally numb.

    Looking back at my past, I know I’m ready to stare down all my demons, look at myself with grace and compassion and know in the bottom of my heart that I’m ready lose the emotional baggage that’s held me back from living my best life.

    “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything” – Tyler Durden

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • Brush with Death

    My sister and I were not close growing up. While we were both physically living in the same house, mentally speaking, we were living on different planets. It really wasn’t until after she graduated high school and went to college that I started seeing her blossom into her own person. I don’t hold any of this against her – we were both just trying to survive our childhood.

    After cutting my parents out of my life, I worked on connecting with my sister. While my sister is still on speaking terms with them, it has been a strained relationship that’s not built on a healthy foundation. My sister even went no contact with them for a few years after my mom threatened to throw my sister’s college boyfriend off a roof – all because he told my mom my sister’s feelings were valid. To this day she still morns the death of the relationship. He’s married to someone else now, and that remains an emotionally charged topic my sister struggles to discuss.

    I had previously gone no contact with my parents for a few years before coming back to them at the behest of my partner, claiming “You only get one set of parents,” pushing me to attempt to reconnect with them. Knowing this would not end well, I appeased by insisting parter in an attempt to quell any skepticisms surrounding my childhood. It wasn’t long until my parent’s character was revealed after lashing out at my partner that I went back to no contact. My partner no longer pushes for me to have a relationship with my parents, having observed their true nature.

    Cutting my parents out of my life wasn’t the result of a singular incident – it was the climax. I have given them more chances than they deserve, explained how they’ve damaged the relationship and they’ve still expressed they have no interest in changing. The only way I could foster peace in my life was to hold them accountable for the patterns of behavior they’ve habitually refused to recognize, and cut them out of my life.

    I got tired of being yelled at every time my parents saw me crying, being told I needed to “toughen up” and that “I’d never survive in the real world.” I got tired of playing peacemaker trying to end fights between my parents and my sister. I got tired of emotionally picking up my sister and my mom after every fight. Mostly I was tired of being bullied while being emotionally abandoned at home, preventing me from having healthy emotional outlets.

    Between being bullied at school and my life at home, I became sensitized to picking up perceived threats as they seemed all around me during most of my childhood. I was left to continually be the overcomer of obstacles and the peacemaker of arguments. Without a doubt, I was considered to be the peacemaker of the family. I wanted the fights to stop. Sometimes they were so loud, they couldn’t be drowned out with headphones at maximum volume, despite being on the opposite side of the house. Any time I brought up my parent’s behavior, I was mercilessly refuted and challenged as they could not see the forrest through the trees. I was told to reflect on how much better my life was than those starving and living on the street, reminding me that I was living under my parent’s roof and that I should be grateful. While I never feared physical violence at home, this was not the case at school.

    In additional to the emotional violence incurred at school, I was kicked, tripped, pushed, and even encountered a brush with death. One day in the gym locker room, two bullies approached me with a can of aerosolized deodorant and began emptying the can into my face. They raucously laughed while I recoiled, collapsing to the floor while I struggled to breathe. The assault persisted, adjusting the stream to meet my face in my new position on the floor. After some time the aerosol thankfully expired, otherwise my life would have.

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • A Vicious Cycle

    Throughout my life, I’ve been diagnosed by several mental health providers and treated for depression, anxiety, and bipolar II. These diagnoses served as stepping stones to eventually being diagnosed with CPTSD, or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    Diagnosing mental health concerns is not as simple as taking an X-ray, MRI, or blood test to have a definitive diagnosis based on hard science. Mental health is a soft science. The willingness, cooperation, presence, and communication skills of the patient influence the diagnosis and treatment. Emotional damage isn’t always visible.

    Over time, the understanding of my diagnosis has evolved with my understanding of myself, my past, and emotions. The more I learn of CPTSD patterns, the more I see them within myself.

    When I was a kid, I recall asking my mom if I could speak with a therapist. My mom then went off on a tirade about the mental health industry, claiming it was all a scam. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was reacting this way. I later learned it was due to her parent’s struggles with mental health . Stemming from my mom’s unfounded beliefs on mental health, I was unable to go to therapy when I was younger.

    I managed to find myself in a school counselor’s office one day of fifth grade after an emotional breakdown. Suicidal thoughts had come up during recess, and I had become inconsolable. An adult saw the emotional distress I was in and walked me to the school’s counselor office, having been unable to console me, or even get me talking. It took a moment for me to have the capacity to respond to inquiries from the school counselor. It took longer still until I could stop crying. Being frightened of learning my mother’s reaction to these events, I didn’t tell the school counselor much.

    It wasn’t until college I possessed the ability and privacy to be discreetly seen by a therapist. I was quickly asked if I was open to medication as an assistive aid to ongoing therapy. I was not able to articulate myself well, as emotionally opening up to someone was unfamiliar and frightening to me. My introspection abilities were very limited at the time and I struggled to express what I was really going through.

    A tricky thing about the effectiveness of mental health treatment is that it’s influenced by emotion. – After you’ve fortified yourself behind an emotional wall, only the screams of your emotions are ever truly heard. Years after discontinuing use of the antidepressants, I ended up downing a bottle of pills with the intention of ending my life. A friend helped me check myself into a hospital for treatment. After two weeks of intensive emotional treatment and therapy, I was released with a diagnosis of Bipolar II and a commitment to healing myself and regularly seeing a therapist.

    Healing has involved a lot of holding, exploring, and expressing feelings – many of which are still uncomfortable to think about, let alone discuss. My current therapist has caught me unconsciously holding my breath from a sense of danger presented by my sympathetic nervous system. One of the ways I’ve attempted to ameliorate emotional distress over the years has been through the use of various maladaptive coping mechanisms.

    I recognize eating food as for emotional comfort is a maladaptive coping strategy. I’ve done this countless times though, originating in my childhood. My mom said “Eat, you’ll feel better” as a means of regulating my emotions, instead of addressing them. Endocrinologically speaking, while it is possible to trigger a spike of the neurotransmitter Dopamine through eating, this simply isn’t a healthy way of addressing emotions, especially in the longterm. Hearing “Eat, you’ll feel better” influenced me enough to develop characteristics of disordered eating.

    While I’ve accepted that food is fuel for the body and should be nothing more, I’ve also found myself utilizing food to ease emotional distress – when I’ve become distressed, I’ve eased my distress with food, and gained weight. This maladaptive, self-destructive coping mechanism led me to weigh 435 pounds (197kg/31stone) by college graduation.

    Without healthy emotional outlets in my childhood, food was used to ease emotional distress. This coping mechanism only served to fuel the fires of emotional distress stemming from being overweight in the first place through bullying. The cycle continued and I ended up significantly increasing my weight.

    When the college graduation robe I was sized for was found to be undersized for graduation day, it ruined any pleasure I might have felt from graduating. I felt deep shame. Day of graduation, my mom escalated my emotional distress by conversing with my therapist and learning about my treatment plan.

    #FeedTheGoodWolf

  • The One You Feed

    For as long as I can remember, emotional dysregulation has been a part of my life. The volume of my emotions has been so deafeningly loud that I’ve resorted to unhealthy mechanisms to turn down the volume. I have binged, I’ve purged, I’ve drank, I’ve recklessly spent money, I’ve cut myself, and I’ve downed numerous pills with the intention of ending my life. I have been in therapy for well over a decade and have recently started EMDR as a methodology for addressing my CPTSD.

    It started a long time ago when I was ruthlessly bullied at school while being emotionally neglected at home. A coworker I’ve opened up to about my history has said, “anyone [would’ve] been left in bad shape given those circumstances.” Having described enough of my home life, my therapist has described my parents as “toxic.” They have not been part of my life for quite some time now

    I have spent decades deconstructing and demolishing the self-destructive and self-limiting thought patterns laid out in childhood.

    I have heard time and time again that writing about trauma can assist with addressing it. To that end, I will be writing about my experiences and their intersection with an affirmation inspired from a Native American parable involving two wolves: “Feed the Good Wolf”.

    One day an old Cherokee man sits down with his grandson to teach him about life.

    “A fight is going on inside of me,” he says to the boy. “It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is full of rage, jealousy, arrogance, greed, sorrow, regret, lies, laziness, and self-pity.”

    He continues, “The other is good – he is filled with love, joy, peace, generosity, truth, empathy, courage, humility, and faith. This same fight is going on inside the hearts of everyone, including you.”

    The grandson thinks about this for a few minutes, and then asks his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

    The old Cherokee simply replies, “The one you feed.”