28. Life in Free Fall
On learning to take responsibility for my own comfort first and foremost.
Hello Beautiful Human,
I’m writing this note from mid-stride on our morning mosey amidst freshly fallen snow. That image conjures a pastoral charm that is not the actual reality of our walk today. Don’t get me wrong, It’s undoubtedly beautiful out here — the sopping wet snow wearing heavy on the trees and my boots and the girls' paws stamping a muddy print of messy camaraderie across the soggy fields. But it’s not what you think of when you hear of snow in Vermont.
The truth of today in contrast with that image of fluffy drifts pillowing over a barn’s eaves and fluttering gently around picturesque covered bridges speaks perfectly to how I feel about the holidays. Every year, when I think of the holidays, my mind conjures the images society has taught me to think of — a lightness of being, laughter in the kitchen, a house packed full of loving family and delicious food. And oh the traditions — the matching outfits, the pie baking, the cookie swaps, the list goes on. And as that list goes on, a pang of deep sadness takes hold. A quelling of heartbreak and envy rises in my chest and I realize that that image of the holidays — that might be the truth for many and for them, is that I am happy. But for me, that’s not my truth. My truth is that the holidays are deeply hard for me. They honestly are the hardest time of year bar none and even if I feel guilty for that fact, it belongs here too just as you do in your whole truth.
The complicated relationship I have with the holidays and the arrival of both the pain and then the instantaneous guilt I feel for my pain reminds me of one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned in my recovery. So today, before sharing a truly dark chapter, I remind myself of that lesson and offer it to you as you move ahead with this holiday season:
It is not my responsibility to make the world comfortable. It is my responsibility to take care of myself.
It might sound simple but this truth is the cornerstone of my work as a recovering people pleaser. It has also transformed how I have begun to move through the world. I finally uphold the truth that living with illness is hard and that there is actually no denying that. Living with illness is navigating problem after problem as I move through the world. But I do have a choice in that hard reality. I get to choose if my work is that hardship alone or the combination of that hardship AND the additional hardship of shrinking, shaming, and taming myself to make others feel less uncomfortable.
So today, I remind you of the choice that you have. Whether you love the holidays, are ubiquitously ambivalent, or hate them with a fiery resolve, I remind you that it’s already hard. Life is already hard, so as we move through this holiday season, let’s not pile on more hardship — more work for the sake of others’ comfort and not our own — to a life already full of work we do daily. Let’s choose ourselves and remember that even if it is met with discomfort, frustration, or even full-out anger, we deserve to belong in our whole truths.
This week, in true radical transparency form and in complete alignment with the lesson I shared above, I have yet another dark chapter for you. I also have the first podcast episode with my Dad. This will be part one of a two-part episode. In the episode, we talk about his upbringing, the immense shadow he and I grew up behind, and his heartbreaking reality of living with a mother (my grandmother) with bipolar disorder. This episode speaks beautifully to many intricacies of my life that I have yet to explore with you all and I am so grateful my dad was willing to show up as honestly as he did in this conversation.
Now, before I take you back to when I just learned the one therapist who was willing to take me on as an out-patient rescinded her offer, I have some fun and exciting news to share with you…
Probably Anxious Sweatshirts and Definitely Tired Sweatpants are coming in time for the holidays!!!
It took four years of you kindly asking and this is a very limited run but I did pull it off ethically, locally, and oh-so-cozily for you in time for the holidays.
These will go live at 12 pm EST December 4, 2023 for paid subscribers.
These will go live at 12 pm EST on December 5, 2023 for subscribers and be open to the public at 5pm EST December 5, 2023.
If they sell out, I will open up a preorder but PLEASE NOTE: the pre-order will not arrive in time for the holiday. The Preorder will be silk screened in early January and arrive in mid-January so if you want one of these for the holidays, please plan accordingly.
And now, with one heck of a hard pivot, I take you back…
28. Free Fall
I spent the next four days lost to a NyQuil bender and arrived at my appointment with Atlas the following Tuesdayunshowered and in my pajamas. I stunk of fear and had smears of McDonald’s nuggets and powdered donut dust across my sweatshirt. Unaware of the week’s events, Atlas was on high alert as he welcomed me to his office with a hug.
It had only been a week since I’d seen him but he had weathered the time worse than I even had. His face was no longer one of a strong jaw and smooth complexion. Sharp bones protruded around hollow creases and his eyes, sunken fully in their sockets, wore the tell-tale yellow of liver failure. As I leaned into his hug, his rubs jabbed my side and I found myself grasping thick layers of sweater where I expected his back to be. His feeble presence startled me but I didn’t have the chance to ask how he was doing as he skipped pleasantries entirely and jumped right in.
“What *happened* to you? Last I heard, you had secured a therapist so what on Earth happened?”
The steadfast kindness of his language that I had come to count on in every interaction of ours was entirely missing. His tone was not even measured. It held an antagonizing weight and an undeniable layer of judgment.
Not knowing where to begin or how even to convey the thick complexity of the many truths that room held, I stuttered repeatedly, sputtering nonsense about how I was in my own galaxy again — how time kept getting lost —how I didn’t know what was real — how the diagnosis had to be wrong because I was on a drug trip like the patients with addiction the ward. I went on and on — how the doctor brought me back and Maura brought me home. I told him over and over again of this galaxy of one — of my quest to get back to Earth — to the land of the living – to the place where my helmet came off.
In a state of peak duress at the past few days' events and what was clearly his rapidly progressing illness, I struggled to explain myself coherently and made little to no sense. Before I composed myself long enough to share the update about the therapist’s decision to not work with me or my current overwhelm at how selfish I felt moving through the world unable to feel the love and good intention that was there from so many people – my parents, Maura and himself, Atlas interrupted me, something that had never happened before.
In a biting tone that I had never heard, he launched into a tirade against what he assumed was pure self-pity.
“What happened to your spunk? Where did that spunky girl go and when on Earth did she just give up on everything she had to offer the world? Don’t you know how many people love you?! Don’t you ever think — as you used to — about what it’s like for us — for me and your parents to watch you throw away your life – to not even accept your illness any longer? It is breaking us completely.”
For the second time in a month, he took my breath away, and even as he snapped to — out of his own triggered state of dissociation — and proceeded to back-pedal every sentiment he had just hurled upon me, the damage was done and that day, it was irreparable.
I never told Atlas during that session that the therapist who had first agreed to work with me had eventually turned down working with me. I also didn’t tell him how much I was struggling with my family’s pain at my deteriorating health in that session. And lastly, I didn’t speak to how heartbreaking and selfish I felt watching him die as I failed to survive.
No, none of those sentiments were shared in that session. Instead, in that session I word-vomited anger about every single reality that Atlas would no longer have in a few short months. And Atlas, being human, got triggered and went on to validate every fear I had ever had about my presence and illness and how they affected those I loved most.
I left therapy that day in a state of unparalleled calm. Fully present, I finally had clarity — pristine clarity. I was the problem and I held the solution too. As I drove to my apartment to retrieve my medications, I breathed easily – perhaps for the first time in a decade – knowing I could finally repay everyone who loved me for their many acts of kindness, adoration, and support. Yes, that day I breathed easy and found peace knowing I could finally give them the one thing that I clearly was not fated to have — freedom. Freedom in life and above all, freedom from this pain that I was responsible for.
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My deepest gratitude.
That’s it from us this week. If you celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope you are staying kind and gentle with yourselves after all that day held and enjoying leftovers aplenty. And if you didn’t celebrate, I wish you the absolute same (just someone else’s leftovers and not your own :)).
We love you. Wishing you a weekend.
Kindly,
Kate, Dave, Waffy and Tug
Oh Kate. I will read this chapter again in time, to feel it more and to process it again. I am just so happy you are here to write these words for us to read. How incredibly difficult this must be to share. Sending so so so much love to you and your beautiful soul.
It is so hard when someone we trust and admire turns out to be human. I am so very happy you are still here. So happy that you trust us enough to share these deep feelings and memories. So glad that whatever you did next, wasn’t the end.
Kate, you are so eloquent with your words. You are a born writer. And we, but everyone, needs to hear the reality of mental illness. I am sure that someone in this group will have access to getting you published in some way. Because the world needs to hear what it’s like and that through hard work, determination, Waffle, Tug, your family and Dave; you are here. Girl, celebrate with dork dances all frigging day!!