I haven't written in this space for a very long time. I need to process through some things and since it's helped me in the past, I thought I'd try it again. I'm going to go out of my comfort zone and be vulnerable. Vulnerability is scary, because it can open you up to judgement. My hope is that I can help someone else in the process, in talking about my struggles.
I have suffered from anxiety for most of my life. Some periods of time are better than others. This year has been a very hard one for me. I'm not good with change, let alone BIG change. Moving was a big change for me. We had been in our sweet little starter home for 17 years. We made it our home. We remodeled just about every square inch of that place. We built beautiful gardens in the front and back. Gardens my Grandmother taught me everything about. Gardens to remember our child we lost. We brought our girls home in that house and I did some hard core grieving in that house. It was clear that we were quickly outgrowing our beloved home. The girls were growing and I felt like we were on top of each other all the time.
Turned out, it was a good time to put our house on the market. We found a new neighborhood we loved and envisioned raising our children there, and building new memories. But first, we had to build a new house. Everything moved along at lightning speed. The sale of our old home, moving into an apartment temporarily, and building of our new home. None of this was without a lot of stress. The temporary housing was hard for me, and the building process wasn't a smooth one. I wasn't fully emotionally prepared for all of it. How could I be? We lived in our first home for 17 years! Before we knew it, we were in the new place and working hard to make it feel like a home. But I'm impatient, so freaking impatient, and turning a place into a home takes time. Way more time than I realized. I felt myself slipping down into a depression over the last several months and my anxiety has been ramped up considerably. I tried to find help before things got bad. That was another whole difficult process, and another post for another day. I kept coming back to the question of what was missing? I realized I felt like we left our little boy at the old house. The old house was the only place he lived inside of me. It was where his old room was, that we lovingly decorated in anticipation of him coming home. It was were I spent many, many sleepless nights grieving with empty arms, sitting in his rocking chair, and listening to the music that was played at his funeral. Our backyard is where I felt incredibly connected to him, after he was gone. I could physically feel his presence there. That has all been disrupted. I know in my heart that he is wherever we are. I know in my heart that he's with his crazy sisters. But I still can't shake the feeling that we just left him. And I feel awful. I've had some people tug at my heart strings about us moving, and that hasn't helped the situation. We needed a bigger house, and in that, we ended up changing school districts. We only moved 10 minutes away. Why does it feel like 100 miles?
I'm hoping that by writing again, I can process through some of these feelings and grow to love our new home. I love the neighborhood we are in, and we've made some good friends. Our girls are happier here then they were in the old neighborhood, and I'm thankful for that. I just need to find my happy, and return to some sort of normalcy. It's not there for me yet. But I'm really hoping I can find it soon. We plan to plant a new memory garden at the new house this spring. But first, I have to figure out a way to get through the crappy Indiana winter with my sanity intact.
I've tried to control my feelings for a good part of the year, and hold things in. I've been afraid to talk to people about how I've been feeling, with fear of being judged for my anxiety and depression. I've reached out to professionals, but not so much with my friends. I've have a select few people I talk to, who get it and have walked down similar paths with their mental health. I've had others that haven't walked down this path, but rather are kind and understanding with me, and that has meant the world. I've been surprised by the response I've gotten, as I slowly start to open up. I've recently been diagnosed with PTSD. I've had a lot of traumatic things happen to me in my life. I've seen a lot of traumatic things happen to others. I start a new journey, next week to help settle some of that trauma down. I'm really hoping that it works, and I can start the healing process so I can move on with my life, and find my happy again. Staying stuck at where I've been is not an option.
