Blog - Page 3 of 13 - COME SO ALIVE

Broken

On 05/12/2023

Today’s previously scheduled post on anxiety has been postponed … due to PTSD.

I really should know better than to plan my posts. But it’s Mental Health Awareness Month and I’ve dealt with depression, anxiety, and PTSD – more importantly, I’ve survived all three. So, I decided that’s what I needed to share, in that order, this May, what someone else may need to hear.

Except I watched a movie yesterday that’s thrown a wrench in that plan. Or, more likely, this is exactly what I need to share today.

See, I saw a seizure last night. Not a real one, not in my son. A fake one, in a movie. I actually critiqued it at first. Until the actor got a little more realistic. Until he came to after the seizure with drool spilling out of his mouth as he dazedly tried to sit up…just like Cody.

Ironically, “Dog” is a movie about two Army Rangers – one human, one dog – who have been medically discharged with traumatic brain injuries…and PTSD.

We’re all broken in so many ways.

Divorce.

Job loss.

Health issues.

A fake seizure in a movie that was supposed to help me escape my life, not mirror it. Not trigger the need to hide in my bedroom for 20 minutes until the tears stopped.

These shattered places can cut us at any time.

Depression. Anxiety. Trauma.

Does it matter what it’s clinically labeled? No, it’s all just brokenness.

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month. And I’m very aware of mine today. And that’s really the most important step. I can’t heal what I can’t see.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
Isaiah 61:1

Through darkness to sunlight

By Carrie

On 05/05/2023

In Lifelines, Light and Dark

I’ve known Holly for…well, since I’m only 28, let’s say three years. We met at one of our first jobs out of college and only worked together for a year before she moved on. Thankfully, we have stayed friends for 25…I mean, three years.

Holly is the friend who offered help and to whom I rather vehemently replied I was tired of asking for help before my recent surgery…the friend who then graciously accepted my pathetic request to drive me home from surgery…and to a doctor appointment a few days later. Whose husband spent his lunch hour shoveling my driveway a few weeks after that. Oy vey.

Thankfully, she’s used to my melodrama and has even seen me at my worst, very literally.

“I think I’m depressed.”

I said that to my therapist (not to Holly), who simply said, “Yes, you are.”

“Do I need medication?”

“I can’t prescribe medication,” replied my therapist. “You’ll have to talk to your doctor about that. But do you think you need it?”

I was sleeping 10-12 hours at night. On the weekends, I was also napping for another 2 hours – neither was my normal. On weekdays, I couldn’t nap because of work. Instead, I cried the whole drive to work…and sometimes at my desk when my coworkers were elsewhere.

None of which I was really aware of until someone said to me, “I’m worried about you. I think you’re depressed.”

So yeah, kinda seemed like I needed medication.

“I think you have situational depression. Once the situation resolves, I think the depression will too,” explained my therapist.

I hadn’t realized I had fallen into a 6-foot-deep pit of depression until someone pointed it out. I knew I was sad but I was in the middle of a really sad situation.

Once I looked around and only saw darkness, I then looked up and saw sunlight and blue sky…and worked really hard to resolve the situation, to get out of the pit. Therapy, almost weekly. For a good 18 months at least. Attending Al Anon. Talking with my pastors. Learning to talk to God.

And sharing with Holly.

Who not only didn’t judge but said, “I have another friend going through the same thing. I need to connect you two.”

Ok, I’ll own how long I’ve known her, because 25 years is an amazing run for a friendship.

And it was part of how I went through the darkness of depression and walked back into sunlight. How I was able to come back to life on the other side.

So if you think you’re depressed – you see darkness but no sunlight – choose someone today and reach out: a family member, friend, coworker, neighbor, your or your child’s teacher, or pastor or priest.

Find a therapist or a treatment facility at Psychology Today’s website.

See your primary care provider or go to a hospital.

Contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The NAMI Helpline is available M-F 10 am – 10 pm, ET. Connect by phone 800-950-6264 or text “Helpline” to 62640. Click HERE to chat or HERE for a support group.

IN A CRISIS, CALL OR TEXT 988 OR CLICK HERE TO CHAT

Depression wins when we aren’t even aware of being in a 6-foot-deep hole. It wins when we hunker down in the hole, too ashamed to let others see where we are. It wins when we believe the lie that we are alone.

You. Aren’t. Alone.

“Girls Night Out. Tennis. ANDRE AGASSI! Ahhhh…”
Facebook post, October 1, 2011

Through

By Carrie

On 05/01/2023

In Lifelines

“The only way out is through.” That’s what my new temporary tattoo says…because it’s hard to read on my atrophied, saggy-skinned forearm. Ten plus weeks post-shoulder surgery and I’m 2-4 weeks slower in recovery than most people. I’m frustrated, angry, and ready to give up on PT – except then I’ll NEVER recover.

So I stocked up on these tatts because someday I WILL be through. Through the pain. Through PT. Through recovery.

May is Mental Health Awareness month. I decided to share a little of how I’ve gotten through situational depression, anxiety, and PTSD in my posts this month.

Today I’m simply reminding myself the only way out is THROUGH.

In the interest of not overwhelming you with emails this month, I will only post to Instagram. You can see these extra posts on ComeSoAlive.com or on Instagram – you don’t need an Instagram account to view it in either place.

Just breathe

By Carrie

On 04/28/2023

In Finding Breath

I realized today that I have been holding my breath for four years. Yes, I’ve obviously taken in oxygen but not with my body really moving, not taking a true deep breath.

I realized this while laying on my side on a massage table as my friend used a type of bodywork called craniosacral therapy on my back and ribs. We thought she was working on tightness from my shoulder surgery and wearing a sling. That is until she moved to one spot in particular on my right (non-surgery) side and, as it softened, I had the thought, “That spot hasn’t breathed in four years!” I was seriously giddy as I left her house.

An hour and a half later, my lungs are still suddenly taking deep breaths, like they just can’t believe they are actually free. To celebrate, I decided to try a little cup of gelato that’s been in my freezer for weeks…and as I ate (the whole thing, sorry family), my right arm would just float up in the air with the spoon. I don’t know ballet, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was doing.

Here’s the thing: I know how to breathe. I can do it in my sleep. I also know how to encourage my body to calm down, breathing into my abdomen and expanding my rib cage. I just taught a breathing exercise to two other women recently, for cripes sake! And yet, I wasn’t really breathing myself.

I’m done listing our traumas. I have written about many of them on ComeSoAlive.com, so if you’re just tuning in, you can find them there. But they need to float away just like my arm was doing. Like balloons, it is time to release them.

Saved you a seat

By Carrie

On 04/21/2023

In Gratitude

I took this photo as a joke two weeks ago today. Spur of the moment, we decided to spend a 4-day weekend on Minnesota’s North Shore again. First thing after unloading, I walked down to the fish shack’s porch on Lake Superior to enjoy the waves and sun (even though it was only 35 degrees).

I thought about sending the photo in a text saying “I saved you a seat” to two friends who would know exactly where I was – because they’d been there too. And yes, maybe to rub it in a little where I was. Not proud but there it is.

But if I texted them, they’d text me back. And then I would have to text THEM back…etc, etc…and I really just wanted to shut off the phone for the weekend.

So, I didn’t send the photo. But I thought about it again last week, after another friend texted me, “Can I come over?” and then “Wanna sit outside?” Now it was a gorgeous 80-degree afternoon so it made sense to sit outside…but I sensed it was more to share some bad news privately.

Feeling winter

By Carrie

On 04/14/2023

In His Vast Strength (stroke), Lifelines

“…there is something sacred in the fall of snow… Blessings from the heavens, they sustain life. And if sometimes they create difficulties for humans, that’s not the fault of nature. The fault is in the nature of man. Humans…are far too focused on doing and not enough on being.”
William Kent Krueger, Fox Creek

I realize that the calendar says spring and most of the country is seeing spring but, until two days ago, I was still seeing winter. Big snow piles everywhere after a very long, very snowy winter.

To be honest, I’m still feeling a little winter too.

While Minnesota’s ridiculously long season of snow started with a bang (well, a blizzard) in December, my winter actually blew in the previous March. It began the morning I walked into my husband’s ICU room and learned he’d suffered a severe stroke after open-heart surgery.

Months later, on a glorious summer day, I ran into friends…and found myself barely able to tolerate talking with them. Anger at our situation overwhelmed me, frustration at them discussing things that seemed so unimportant in comparison. That was the day I realized I needed to pull away from others for a while.

My sister-in-law warned me not to isolate. But I had to isolate. I certainly was in no condition to be a good friend to someone else, and I had no energy at the end of the day to share what I lived through that day.

So, by time covid hit our house in November, I was used to isolating. It felt comfortable. And by the time I emerged from covid in December, true winter had fully covered our house.

Recently, as the calendar began to close in on spring, I found I needed just a little more time to feel winter. Just a little more focusing on “being.”

Even though

By Carrie

On 03/31/2023

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), His Vast Strength (stroke), Lifelines

Wish you could see
Wish you could know
Can you hear My voice
Through the winter cold?
Matt Hammitt, “Even Though”

Almost ten Decembers ago, through the winter cold, I heard a verse I’d never heard before from a book in the Bible I don’t think I’d ever heard of either. Our pastor asked our family to read this verse and light the candle on the Advent wreath at the start of the service one week. My husband read Habakkuk 3:17-19:

¹⁷Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.

The service was about six weeks after Cody’s epilepsy diagnosis, six weeks of walking in a fog from the diagnosis itself as well as lack of sleep from listening for nighttime seizures. (And it just dawned on me that the pastor maybe chose us to read this verse because of our new reality…I’m a little slow sometimes…)

Regardless of the intention behind it, I heard this verse and it grabbed me:

“yet I will rejoice in the Lord…”

We aren’t going under

By Carrie

On 03/24/2023

In Peace

I have so many posts I want to write, have started writing…but my brain just can’t seem to write them. I thought I’d be further along in shoulder surgery recovery by now – further along in lessened pain. I’d be back to me, just in a sling. Back to writing.

But five weeks post-op, I still find myself either lowering the Tylenol when the vertigo it triggers gets too bad and wakes me up throughout the night…or in pain from less Tylenol which then gets too bad and THAT wakes me up.

Full disclosure: lots of tears and lots of swearing at stupid little stuff in the last week from lack of sleep.

A Superior rest

By Carrie

On 03/17/2023

In Lifelines

We had an amazing, restful vacation last week for the first time in four years. Four years where we’ve amassed two open-heart surgeries, a job loss, a stroke, shoulder surgery…oh yes, and a pandemic. We needed to rest.

Interestingly, I didn’t sleep well on vacation (shoulder pain post-op still and pain medication-induced vertigo waking me up).

But I actually felt rested.

That’s because sleep and rest are not the same thing. Sleep meets a physical need, a life or death requirement of the brain and body. You can’t live without sleep. I would have liked more sleep but I’ll live.

Rest, on the other hand, refreshes our souls, something deep inside yet not physically inside. You can be alive without rest but you’ll be dead to really living. To seeing and receiving soul-restoring peace.

Rest is being awake at 6 a.m. (not my normal), seeing a clear sky, and deciding to go take sunrise photos. In 23-degree F temperatures. (Really not my normal!)

Laughter

By Carrie

On 02/24/2023

In Lifelines

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
Proverbs 31:25

I had shoulder surgery last Thursday. On Friday, I sat down at my computer to write a blog post, thinking, “Wow, maybe I can write a post today!”

It didn’t go so well…

So, after deleting the incoherent words from last week, I thought I’d try again today.

I started the day of surgery by having my husband write a note on my right shoulder, the non-surgery arm. Because, one, you can never be too careful. And, two, it was going to be an unpleasant day – why not laugh a little.