Tag: desperation

Hope Strengthens, Fear Kills

A Girl In A Complex World

Those words were shared in an email response that I received from my psychologist last week. It had been a difficult session and afterwards, I spiraled. I emailed her in the midst of my upset and her brief reply ended with those words – Hope strengthens, fear kills.

Yes. I am scared. Terrified – of my own brain. I have no control whatsoever of the way it reacts to things anymore. Its like I’m dealing with a completely separate entity. I’m going about my day as if im babysitting some overly dramatic child that can’t be left alone for 2 minutes or else it’s going to get into something it’s not supposed to.

I got up after a nightmare that night and spiraled into the danger zone. I remembered that Magda (psychologist)  had pointed out a couple of wins from the previous week (which I really appreciated) and she said that what I was doing was helping me grow my window of tolerance. In my frustration that night, I was like,  “F* my window of tolerance. I’m not doing this”. 

I want to be numb. I want to go back to the days when I was void of all emotion. I used to be so frozen inside but it’s like I’m thawing out now. I don’t want my thoughts to be so loud or sounds to be so clear. When my head was heavy and foggy and I barely even remembered conversations I didn’t have to deal with any of this stuff. My brain dissociated for a reason.

I feel like I’m going crazy. The fear is strangling me. Choking me. Killing me …

I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me. So much fear, that I’m going to just snap, go totally crazy, lose my sanity entirely.

Fear. Its trying to kill me. The fear of uncertainty. Not knowing from one minute to the next what I’m going to think or feel. The fear that I’m not strong enough … that I might find myself completely alone and have to navigate it all by myself – again … that I’m going to collapse under all the pressure … fear that I’m going to start but never be able to stop crying …

Fear kills.

*Video clip of me in the midst of a panic attack*

BUT ….

she also said that hope strengthens. Hope. I need strength. I need hope. I’m not going to find either if I just wait around for it to fall into my lap though. So I must make it my daily goal to seek out hope. I know it exists in more than just the ink on my wrist. I see it around me. I see that other ppl have it. Its just that it never feels like there’s any for me.

If you want something in this world you have to go after it right? Well, I want to be strong. I want hope to fill me and strengthen me.

And dammit, I deserve it!

How My Hope Was Restored With A Shooting Star

A Girl In A Complex World


I don’t have the vocabulary to be able to adequately describe what I am feeling right now. There are simply no words that could do justice in explaining what’s in my heart.

Today was a good day. They’ve been few and far between lately but today the positives just seemed to accumulate, and for that, I am ever so grateful.

Now tonight … it’s hard to even breathe because I am just so overwhelmed. I love nature. I love being outdoors. I live with salt water mere feet from my doorstep. And I love summer nights. Lately, though, I have been so full of darkness that there has been little room for much else. My craving for peace and calm has been so intense that it has morphed into a physical ache.

Tonight as the day came to an end, I felt myself being quickly swallowed up by the darkness once again. I went out and sat on the back patio, to take in a few moments of fresh air before calling it a night, and the sky was incredible. I turned off all the outdoor lights on the house and positioned my chair to get the best view. I sat back and was simply in awe.

The stars were brighter than I ever recall seeing them before. Not a cloud in the sky, just hundreds and thousands of tiny sparkling lights. The longer I sat there on my patio in the dark, the more overwhelmed I felt. Sheer gratitude to be able to sit and see such beauty, with the sound of the light waves on the beach in the background. To be living and breathing and seeing and hearing is a blessing I am so often guilty of taking for granted.

I thanked God, for reminding me that no matter how dark things may appear, there’s always something beautiful waiting for me to experience. I am 42 years old and in my entire life, I’ve just seen one single shooting star. But tonight, in 2 hours, I witnessed 11 of them. ELEVEN!!!!  It was like watching a screensaver on a computer screen.

I feel renewed. I feel refreshed. I feel … hopeful. My cries of desperation seemed to fall on deaf ears lately but I’m now reminded that things are not always as they seem. I believe I was given the opportunity to have this experience tonight so I could be reminded that God never turns a deaf ear to me. Not one tear that has fallen from my eyes has gone unnoticed. And that even though my mind has been full of so much darkness lately …

hope still remains

Craving Wellness

A Girl In A Complex World

I am not gonna lie; I am not always okay. I will always tell you I’m okay, but sometimes I’m not being completely honest.

Sometimes, I just want to disappear. I want to stop living. Sometimes, I feel like I am not going to be alright. Like everything feels wrong, and I am so sad. I am really good at pretending that I am okay when I’m not.

At night, the darkness haunts me. The pain is trying to suffocate me when I close my eyes. I am just so lost right now. My smiles are fake and I feel like such a fraud. I’ve been wondering what went wrong. Why is this happening? Why am I so unhappy? Why do I feel so tired whenever I wake up?

I am so sick of this. I keep thinking that maybe someday I am going to heal. Maybe I will eventually feel whole, as opposed to broken. I will experience what its like to be happy and content. I crave wellness …

but I just can’t reach it. I don’t think its ever going to happen for me. I can’t stay like this. I don’t want to be in pain anymore. I don’t want to be sad over and over again.

I’m tired of reaching for something I want so bad but never being able to grab it.

This Is What Happens When I Lose My Balance

A Girl In A Complex World

When you ride a bike, the only way to keep moving is to maintain balance.  Right now, my balance has been lost. (Did I ever even have it to begin with?) I’m tired of running and always searching for an escape from my thoughts. Escaping seems to be the only way I can make things any better …

The familiar cloud of depression has enveloped me once again in recent days. This is how it usually goes. I feel decent, even hopeful, for a while, and something happens to trip me up and I fall flat on my face. I don’t just feel sad. I feel like I am dying inside. It’s like a cancer has begun to consume my brain, each thought bringing more and more destruction with it …

This morning, both mind and body feel pretty close to reaching the limit of what it can tolerate. It feels like my world is running out of oxygen. Desperation is setting in ….

🦋