This is me

My blog has multiple personality disorder. At times it’s a fun, lighthearted travel romp full of exciting destinations and mouth-watering food. Sometimes it’s replete with photos of cute, zany pets who make me laugh. But at other times, on the darkest of days, it’s a dive into the mind of a woman, the mother of a sexual abuse survivor, working through post-traumatic stress disorder one endless day at a time.

I get that it must be challenging for you to know what you’re getting into with any given post. There’s no way to tell if you’re about to embark on an adventure through a faraway town or delve into a description of the horrors that keep me awake at night.

For almost a year now, I’ve felt like there was no way for me to continue this blog. I felt like it was a disjointed mess that needed to be scrapped and replaced by a new, coherent one. Probably because I, myself, have felt like a desperate and disjointed mess, searching for a new and improved me.

I felt like I either needed to go bright and shiny. Travel. Food. Fun! The best experiences life has to offer. Or I needed to commit myself to writing about trauma recovery and sexual abuse in a frank and informative manner. Some of the roughest experiences life has to offer. One or the other, but not both.

Ummm, no.

I was wrong. All of the things I’ve written on this blog are connected.

Life is the good and the bad. But, I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Each of you is figuring it out in your own way, in your own time. Some of you have yet to experience the soul-crushing side of life, but most of you know exactly what I’m talking about. And some of you have been through it over and over and over again, and yet you keep going. You keep fighting your way through the shit to save the parts of you that you think are worth saving. Like I’m doing now.

This is my blog and I can do whatever the hell I want on these pages. If no one reads my words, that’s ok. As much as I like all of you and would love for you to keep reading, the truth is that I’m not writing any of this for you. I’m writing this, all of this, for me. Writing has always been the best way for me to navigate the world, both internally and externally. It’s how I express my truest feelings. It’s how I find myself. It’s me being me. No walls. No facades. No filters. I know that may sound weird to those of you who don’t write, but this is how I process and reveal the real me.

And right now, this blog is me figuring out how to live after being shattered. This is me surviving one day at a time. This is me working through the overwhelming anger and sadness and fear. This is me kicking, biting, and clawing my way back to just being me.

This is me recovering.

This is me living.

So, I’m just going to keep moving this direction, with one small change. I’m finally ready to help those of you in the middle of your own personal hell. I will begin providing supportive tips and links to organizations that offer assistance to sexual abuse survivors and their families. I’m also going take you by the hand and walk you down the PTSD path with me, hopefully offering some insight and, for those of you struggling along with me, hope. But in the midst of all of this recovering, I’m going to focus on enjoying the finer things in life, travel, food, pets, families, love, and just being me.

The photos in today’s post are from a pre-Christmas weekend spent in Seattle with my son. It didn’t even rain once!

Thanks for reading.