I'm A Matchbook Girl

The past fifteen years have been a long journey. It is a lifetime and a minute. Time moves in a wave when some moments last hours, and other moments speed past me like stock cars on a race track. 

Life and everyday stress, dealing with the fallout of two ruptured brain aneurysms, estrangement of my son, death of my son-in-law, a stress cardiomyopathy, also know as Broken Heart Syndrome, and dealing with the repercussions of a car accident 14 months ago have beaten me down. In the culmination of all these incidents, I've discovered, I am a worn out book of matches.

Having your brain blow up is something I never want to deal with again. It took five years for a semblance of normality to reenter my life. And it left permanent damage. I have always been an optimist and tend to find the positive in most situations. I have to, or my brain would compress into a tiny ball of depression and darkness, put me in a hole so deep, I could never climb out. Just before the brain surgery, the nurse was explaining what the procedure was like, and how the neurosurgeon had to be specific. I'm thinking, huh, I wonder if he downed a red bull or twenty because he was on a thirty-six hour shift, got into a fight with his wife that morning, and lost his wallet. Just how steady were his hands?

When the nurse said they were talking a camera and inserting it into my leg, travelling through my arteries until it hit my brain, I burst out laughing. In my mind's eye I was picturing the surgeon stabbing my leg until he found the right artery. The nurse's jaw dropped. At this point I had come in for a routine appointment for 12:30, and did not leave the hospital for five days. I was exhausted, my husband was a train wreck on the inside. I recognized the signs, but he was calm and asking the right questions. He gave me that look. You know the one. All people with ADHD recognize the LOOK—the glare over the glasses and frowning. I get that look a lot from a lot of different people. Meh. #addisagift. 

I went in for an hour surgery, and came out five hours later. No one had updated my husband in the meantime, and I am sure he was thinking I died and they were trying to resurrect my desiccated corpse on the table. People all atwitter in the OR, machines making sounds, doctors blaring out orders, someone sitting on my chest doing compressions while looking like a succubus. 

I cannot recall why the surgery went over time. I do know they had three surgical teams, two on standby in case I went to visit the spirit in the sky—at least I hope that is the correct direction. If I find out, I will let you know. The best was the aphasia, which I still have to this day. I had a lot of fun with it, because I am the weird kid who writes horror. It was something I took great pleasure in because I never knew what would fall out of my mouth, so it's new to me too.

One day, a new security policy alert went out and I remember talking to my Sgt, explaining the new procedure for security with computers. Everyone had been assigned a profile tied to a specific computer, and he asked me what do we do when a person leaves the unit. I said we would disembowel them, thinking of the word disengaging, for the computer. The look on his face was priceless. But then, he knew I was a horror writer. And I was the weird kid with a dark sense of humour.

A decade later, after the loss of my son and son-in-law, and now having had three incidents of PTSD which occurred in less than a week, my energy levels depleted faster than my bank account when the kids became teens. This is how it works for me. The alarm bellows in my ear. I have not slept well. I wake up and down two cups of coffee so I have the energy to get to work. I've burned out three matches already, and I started with a book of fifteen rather than the full book of twenty-five. 

I enter my office and walk to my desk. People are asking questions or needing something. I haven't even had a chance to put my briefcase down or taken off my coat. A daily occurrence. I start to show up two hours earlier. And then, so did my employees. I thought I caught a win. But no. They defeated me again. Another two matches burn out. I open my e-mail and another match burns out. Twelve matches left. I scan the emails, triage them into order of importance, deal with the urgent ones and shut it down. I won't look at it again at the end of the day. Fridays, I decide, I am not looking at them at all, because, someone will email with a crisis 3:00 PM on a Friday of a long weekend, because they 'forgot'. 

In the hallway someone says they need equipment by tomorrow, even though the policy is clear and states we need two weeks notice because the tech team may be on the road. I smile and it is on the list. I look at the staggering pile of work on my desk. Goodbye, three matches. Nine matches left.

My boss tells me he needs a financial report by this afternoon, and proceeds to stand over me, eating his lunch while I try to focus on the report. I am now down to five matches, and it isn't even lunch yet. 

The afternoon is filled with meetings which should have been emails, employee struggles, checking the status of projects, and going into my overwhelming emails which pile up faster than a snowbank in a snowstorm. Two lonely matches left.

I get in my car and drive to pick up errands or drop something off. Down another two matches. Now, I am at zero. But there are still kids, supper, laundry, you know, the regular life obligations.

I have to eat dinner: down minus 1 match. On super stressed days, I am too tired to chew. I need to change the sheets and I need a shower. That brings me to minus four matches. I am exhausted, and ticked off I only have fifteen matches while others had a full book. I lose matches dealing with people. I am an introvert with ADHD.

Extroverts start with twenty-five matches and gain more when they are surrounded by people. By the end of a good day, they will have fifty matches, while the introverts are so exhausted, they just want to sleep.

The next day, I start with eleven matches and the extroverts start with fifty matches. Let me tell you, working in a cube farm, while interesting and saves costs, impacts people, productivity and accuracy for the negative. Hey, but we can fit y'all in the egg carton. Phones, people chatting, people needing answers of things they could have found themselves had they looked, and the endless traffic is exasperating. By the weekend, I am a worn out like a sack of wet mice. I want to stay up and watch a movie, have a glass of wine, red please, and relax with my husband. 

Everything changed with the car accident. My perfect, sweet baby, a 2019 Camaro, was demolished beyond repair. The airbags exploded into my face and legs. Time stood still and there was no sound at all. Nothing. The black particles of chemicals hung in the air and I felt I was in a gothic version of a snow globe. Seconds, minutes, hours, days went by. Time did not mean anything to me. Nothing hurt. But then, I was in severe shock, had a bad concussion and whiplash, which I would discover three weeks later. 

I opened the car door and looked at the destruction. Pieces of my vehicle were hanging on by a thread and the leaking transmission fluid looked like a blood-bath on the street, after the Sons of Anarchy visited The Mayans MC. 

An ambulance and police arrived, and I told them I was fine because nothing hurt. That was the shock numbing everything until four days later. The paramedics asked if I wanted to go to a hospital. I said no. In hindsight, they should have taken me, without asking. I don't know why they ask. I was in traumatic distress, I did not have the executive function to make decisions. My car littered two lanes. The front end was obliterated. The inside of my car was demolished and the engine pushed against the cockpit into my legs. Parts of my engine was on the road.

I was an emotional wreck. I could not get enough air and I was sobbing and unconsolable. I called my husband and he took me home. I went to bed. 

The pain was intense. The pain scale peaked at nine. I could not sit, lie down, stand or walk without my body screaming at me. I could not speak because of the intensity, and I had to remember to breathe. I held my breath for months. I have nerve damage in my ankles, shins, hips, lower back, spine, neck and shoulders that still linger fourteen months later. I need a cane to walk if it is a very short distance, less than 50 feet, and I need a walker to go any further. I have severe vertigo, and fall a few times a month. Severe headaches, and the pain is constant. I know, this is not sounding good at all. BUT there was an enormous positive that outweighed all the negative. Because I could not work, I immersed myself into writing. This did not occur right away. It wasn't until January 2026, I could concentrate enough to get the work done, shot bursts at a time. I have a three hour window. Anything that needs to get done, is in those three hours, then mentally and physically exhausted I need to sleep.

I now write every single day. I am working on my first novel and have another four lined up. The first draft should be done by September, 2026. And revised by end of October. 

My house is silent. This is such a blessing. So is the writing. Every day is a gift despite the pain, the insomnia, the nightmares and nerve and spinal damage. No more telephones, notifications, alarms, or slamming doors. No more chit chat in front of the water cooler. No more sports talk. No more constant interruptions in a job which held huge responsibilities and accountabilities, and with a team of nine people I was responsible for mentoring, coaching and training, and having to accomplish that surrounded by people.

People are exhausting. Crows are not. So, be a crow. Drop in, say high, go find a shiny thing to bring back. Then you will have my attention. 

©MLRoos2026

Living with Trauma

Another holiday has passed, and I am thankful. This time I did not cry, although I was quieter than usual. But, I did not cry. I did not go to bed to lick my wounds. I got sick, but I pushed through it and stayed. That's huge.

I have never been a fan of holidays as the reminders all around of what a happy family is, spending time with family, hallmark moments and all the hyperbole surrounding what a traditional family is just confirms the terrors and actions of a few can damage other for life, sucking all that is good and leaving a husk of a person behind.

Most days I feel like a fraud, like I am a fake person walking in a shell of a human being, being happy, joking, laughing and joining in. Holidays are the absolute worst. The stress of knowing the depth of my longing for, but never having a complete family where I fit in, is non existent.

Happiness is a choice, but it is also a chemical balance in the gut and brain. I work hard at being happy. I struggle with it every single day, and not for lack of trying. I meditate, do yoga, read voraciously on any medical, psychological and scientific research available, I do not stuff  my feelings anymore, I eat...when my body allows me to, I sleep, when my mind allows me to, I take all my prescribed meds. Like my doctor says, I am doing all the right things. Trouble is, all it takes is one little holiday to make me want to disappear.

I know there are a lot of us that feel this way. I see it in my extended family's posts, I hear it in my groups, and it seems no one gets it unless you have been there.

This year I decided to move on from my life, and reinvent a new one. So far, it's been a good journey, three months into the year. But I know, no matter what happens, that little traumatized, abused kid, the one that almost died, twice, the one that had more betrayal in one lifetime than others see in 10, will never fully trust and will never fully be functional as a normal human being.

I am my trauma. I am my brain damage. I am my CPTSD. I'm reminded of it when I get sick around family events and holidays. I am reminded by it when I look around and know I don't really fit in with anyone. I am reminded of it when I become emotionally paralyzed and don't know how to proceed further. My traumas (yes, multiple) changed me as a person emotionally, mentally and physically. This is the new reality. I accept it. I just wish it didn't hurt.

I will keep fighting. But there are days when I just want it all to go away and have a do over life. Do I wish I had done things differently? You bet. But I cannot keep looking past, and I haven't in a long while. I focus on the now. I don't think about the future. I try to stay in the moment and I carry on.

Let's Talk, Ten Days Later

Stress has kicked up a notch and again, I did not put two and two together. I'm a simple girl sometimes. My left eye has been twitching up a storm for the past week and my right arm and hand are numb. IBS has come back with a vengeance. And all because I forgot about where I was 8 years ago today.

Mind you, the stress of the Year from Hell, 2017, helped as well. We shall never talk of that year again. I want a do-over in many areas of my life. But I did the best I could, considering.

September, nine years ago I started having weird headaches, localized over my left eye, old twitchy I call him now. September 13, 2008, I had this sharp, stabbing pain in that very same spot and the pain got worse with each heartbeat. Actually, it was in time with my heartbeat. And the pain grew worse with each pulse.

Took some Advil, Tylenol, Gravol a couple of muscle relaxants, and went back to bed. Called my doc, and made excuses as to what was happening. She decided I should get an MRI. It would take five months.

October 23, 2008, it happened again, only this time it felt like an icepick was driven into my head right above my left eye, and the left side of my neck was screaming. I remember not being able to shoulder check for almost two years because of the pain. To this day, range of motion has still not returned.

Did the same cocktail of meds, called in sick, called my husband and told him if the headache did not go away in twenty minutes I would get a friend to drive me to the hospital. And went back to bed.

I was drooling (still do actually, but now it's fun....) slurring my words, stumbling. Still did not make the connection. Intense pain will do that. Shortens the ability of the neo cortex to make rational decisions.

A couple more months go by and the pain would happen over my eye when I laughed, coughed, or sneezed. These are called exertion headaches. Only in my case, my brain was bleeding. I did not know this.

Had the MRI and a few days later got called into the Neurologist's office. He says, straight forward, "You have a brain aneurysm, now let's talk about those migraines." The way he said it,I thought, huh, no big deal. We're talking migraines.

He made a referral, to what I found out later, to the BEST Neurosurgeon in North America, who happened to be practising here in Winnipeg. Four days later, Dr. West had a miracle cancellation. I saw him over lunch. Again, I thought 30 minute appointment, discuss options, maybe see him in 6 months, get on with life.

Should have recognized what the word URGENT in big red letters meant across my folder. We talked. He asked questions. I couldn't concentrate on the answer unless my eyes were closed to reduce the stimulus. Apparently I gave all the right, or wrong answers, depending on your point of view and I had an angiogram within a couple of hours.

I still assumed I would be going home. I didn't. Was hospitalized and bumped 19 neurosurgeries, the only exception being a pregnant women.

Even while being in the hospital, it still did not occur to me what was going on. I blame it on the bleeding in my brain and not my lack of medical knowledge or mental capacity. My brain had been bleeding off and on for five months.

The anaesthesiologist came in at 11:00 am. And that's when it hit. I was going in for brain surgery today. Not six months from now. Today. In a matter of hours.

What should have been a two hour surgery took five and a half hours. No one bothered to let my husband know. He was told two hours. I cannot imagine the hell he went through, the questions he had the sheer terror of not knowing what was happening, if I was even alive.

It would be another two months when Dr. West told me I had a 15% survival rate. If this had happened five years earlier, I would have died. Had I not gone to the doctor and her insisting upon an MRI, I would have died.

In 2008, all I knew of brain aneurysms is, if they rupture, that's it. Game over. You lose. I had never heard of anyone surviving a rupture. I survived two. Don't know why. And I still think about that. Why me? It's not survivor's guilt, because I have no guilt, just a curiosity about why I survived. Timing, the right place to be, the best neurosurgeon, a great call by my doctor all came into play.

The next 18 months were bliss. I was at peace. I was calm. I had intense lucid dreams, and intense spiritual experience and I was happy. Then August of 2012, I was diagnosed with a daughter aneurysm, one that shares the same artery and wall as the original. And my world blew apart.

I already had severe PTSD from a soul crippling childhood, now it kicked into overdrive and became C-PTSD, C for complex, compound PTSD. Six years later it still has not diminished.

I have, however, learned to tame it.....to an extent. Old twitchy reminds me, my numbness in my arms reminds me, and now my chronic IBS reminds me. Any kind of stress is bad. Yes, all you fitness and doctors that espouse eustress is good, I'm here to tell you, it's not.

Meditation, yoga, walking, talking, music, being alone, driving fast, and Netflix binging all helps. Some days, however, life is a Bittersweet Symphony. A myriad of thoughts run through my brain on any given day; how long till I die, when should I retire, should I eat today, what's the point, hey, that's a really great car, damn I love Olle, I need a Boston Terrier named MonkeyPooper....did I mention I also have ADD. Or as Olle calls it, Another Damn Day.

So, let's talk. One in 50 will develop a brain aneurysm. Out of the 50, 20 will rupture. Out of the 20, 16 will die.

Hospitals in Winnipeg are terrible for diagnosing brain aneurysms in women. One died on the floor in the ER at the Grace a few years ago. She was screaming, lying on the floor and no one took her seriously.

I was at the ER a few years back, waiting in the hallway, when a doctor in his mid thirties sarcastically announces to the nurse sitting behind the desk, that a woman walked in complaining of a severe headache and he "Kicked her out, like a boss," while fist pumping the air, and I thought you stupid bastard. I wonder what happened to her.....

November 16, 2017, a senior woman almost died in St. Boniface after waiting in the ER, with a severe headache and and eyelid that drooped. They gave her two CT scans, one with dye, and told her she was fine. Four day later, she could not open her eye, went to Misercordia Hospital, and gave her another couple of CT scans and told her she was fine. Thankfully, she called her family doctor who told her to immediately go to the Health Sciences Centre and they found the aneurysm. She had surgery and made it.

So I guess my question is, why are ER's so bad at this? I always assumed to be an ER doctor, you had to know your stuff, you had to be aware of all the terrible things that can happen to a human, and now I am wondering if the reverse is true.

I am also wondering if men are treated differently than women (saying that sarcastically) and why women are still being ignored when coming in with medical issues. Curiously, I haven't heard of anything like this happening to men in Winnipeg. Yup, they did CT scans and the CT scan came out clean. Makes me wonder if maybe CT scans are not all that wonderful for brain aneurysms. Considering 1 in 50, that terrifies me.

I wear a medic alert bracelet that says TAKE ONLY TO HSC because I do not want to become a statistic. 

I also let others know what to look for, where to go, what questions to ask and what resources are out there. When this happened 8 years ago, there were few places in Winnipeg and even less resources for information. I walked out of the hospital with a one page paper telling me to take Aspirin for 8 weeks. Nothing else. Nothing on when I could work again, drive, what to look for, what I should avoid, what was normal, what was critical, nothing. 

Now at least there is information for people that want answers, and research. 

Does life get better? I'm going to say yes. At least I hope so. So today will be meloncholy, and tomorrow I will move on. 

Check out the link below for more info. 

Peace, Love and be good to yourself.


https://www.bafound.org/about-brain-aneurysms/brain-aneurysm-basics/warning-signs-symptoms/

Meteroite Strikes

Wow, another world wind of a week, month, life. I know we all deal with problems and we all feel alone when we are in the midst of anything troubling in our lives. The past couple of weeks has been no exception to this for me and my family.

We struggle with mental illness. At some point you will meet someone, love someone, give birth to someone, parent someone have parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws etc, with a mental illness or a multitude of mental illnesses. Life doesn't stop and you do not get a do over card. The line has been crossed from normal, everyday life to crisis in all of a few moments.

How do you respond? I know as a parent, I did not do well for a multitude of reasons, my own state of mind, my own physical illness and lack of energy, and just having enough to deal with on a day to day basis by having three children within a three year life span. All you moms out there are nodding your heads. You get it. You work full time, have three kids you love beyond reason, you may be struggling with depression and Fibromyalgia as I was, plus you still have a home to run, appointments to get to, school work to monitor and teach (more about that later), family commitments, trying to sell a house and BOOM.....one child struggles and starts acting out, another threatens to run away from home and the third is dealing with his own hell because of Autism.

It was a low, low point in my life. I struggled with anger, frustration, compassion, and right back to anger again. My husband and I both came from abusive backgrounds in our childhoods. Mine more so than his, although abuse is abuse and the effects never go away. Ever.

When we met, we swore if we had kids we would treat them with respect and love and teach them values and have open communication with them. And we did. We had the family suppers (my husband rarely had experience with that growing up), I walked the kids to and from school four times a day, made lunches, and we talked, we had love and hope and things seemed normal. At least to me. We struggled with money (who doesn't) but we never tried to let that affect the kids. We gave them what we could. I took up knitting and sewing to save on clothes. Our house was the house in the neighbourhood that was always filled with kids. We had enormous sleepovers and friends coming through and I thought it was fine. Except it wasn't. I had no idea the the normal teenage hormones and moodiness was not normal, but actually depression. I misread the signs. I thought the acting out, the over sensitiveness, the temper tantrums were a normal reaction to what was going on in the teenage body.

At the same time, the kids grew more distant and relied on their peers for guidance and advice and turned away from us, as parents. Wow, did that hurt. And nope, I did not see that coming. I was under the misguided impression that if you raised your kids right, showed them love and respect, that everything would turn out great. I know from my own childhood of severe, daily chronic abuse, lies, deceit and humiliation, that that was not the way to raise healthy people. So I fought my own demons, while trying to raise our children in a healthy manner. That is where the anger kicked in. Our children had a family that loved and respected them and still it was not enough. Where did I fail? How did I not see the inevitable train wreck that was in the forefront all the time? How did I miss the one moment that could have changed a loving family into one that wasn't speaking to each other? Where was the village to help me raise my child?

The schools offered no help whatsoever. Neither did the psychiatric profession, when we were finally able to access their services. And the police were the catalyst that got my son into a treatment facility. That went okay for about a minute. And then life just spiralled out of control. My depression came back a thousand fold. I could not help myself or my children and I felt like a complete idiot for not knowing what the next step was, or even where to find the damn portal to the next step. I was angry, frustrated, sad, disappointed and deeply hurt.

My husband turned to silence. It was the only way to reign in the anger, because if he spoke, he would lose it. So, instead of causing further damage and for fear of having our children run away from home, we walked on eggshells around each other and them. We hardly spoke, I cried every single night trying to rack my brain on how to fix THIS. But, there was no fix. There was no amount of talking, therapy, medication or intervention that helped. All there was, was time. Awkward, angry, stress filled time that lead to more damage and more ruined moments.

Jump ahead three decades and we are right back to that spot. My granddaughter deals with depression and suicidal ideation, and I feel like I have learned nothing, and I feel like I will never have a normal, happy life. It's all one big train wreck waiting to happen all over again.

The anger came back, the fear, the frustration. I have always said I have wanted to run away more times as an adult than I ever did growing up. And I thought about that daily.

We, as a society have failed miserably over the past four decades at raising strong, healthy people. Our mental health system is a failure. Our Justice system is a failure. And our medical system is a failure, and our education system is a failure. Not to mention our own families.

Growing up in a small town or village, everyone knows everyone else's business. We were like that growing up on military bases living in PMQ's (Personnel Married Quarters). It was our insulation from the world. We had an entire community looking after our kids. And then the PMQ's were sold and became privatized. One connection and link that brought everyone together was now severed.

We moved into civilian life. We went from a social support system to a place where no one knew who we were or cared. The schools placed more work on us by having our already strained times together now a battle field where we, as the parents were expected to teach our children what the schools did not have the time or the resources to teach. Guess what? We didn't either. We neither had the skills or the education to teach what our kids needed to know.

The mental health system could not fix our problems because the acting out and threatening to run away was not a priority for them. And it took months to get any kind of help. By that time the damage had already been done. We did not have grand parents or aunts and uncles to help. We did not have the school support, and now mental health services was no option. What little they did provide did nothing to help the brokenness we had become.

The inevitable happened and things became so much worse. Our children derailed. And I felt like a trauma surgeon in the desert using string and gum to stop the hemmoraging while another patient lay dying on the next table. I felt like the universe was one colossal joke right from the start.

BAM, here have a severley abusive stepfather and helpless, non-existent mother. BAM, get torn from your native land and move to a foreign country, lose your native language, learn English and forget about your culture and lose all your family back home. BAM, deal with severe sexual childhood abuse from the age of three to 18, and have zero support or help, but maintain your grades and keep that smile on your face or the beatings will continue. Run away from home at 17. BAM, here now you are pregnant at 20 (by choice) but now this is going to kick in your fear, flight and fight response into overdrive because of said childhood, but you had no idea this was going to happen. BAM, have a mental illness that you cannot climb out of for any amount of want or wishing. BAM, throw in a military move to the very community where your abusive parents live and they want access to your little girl. BAM, throw in severe post partum depression following the third child.

Life coasted until the kids hit puberty, then the meterites struck once more. BAM, your child is Autistic and will never be a fully functional adult. BAM, your other child has severe ADHD and we cannot help him. BAM, your third child is going through PUBERTY FROM HELL, but carry on. BAM, one of your children is being beat by their partner. BAM, have fibromyalgia, BAM, teenage pregnancy, BAM another teenage pregnancy, BAM, have another child turn to alcohol and become self destructive. BAM, lose your job.......coast....BAM have a brian aneurysm. BAM, son is now in an abusive situation with his partner......BAM, raise two more children after thinking this was your time togeher with your husband......it never ended.

I fought every single day for myself, my children, my marriage and my sanity. I was rushing from one fire to another, one trauma to another, and I felt I was doing it on my own. There was no outside intervention for me. My child who was being abused by their partner was told to have a restraining order. We all know how that works. It doesn't. Every two hours, another women is murdered while having a restraining order in her purse. Every two hours. Around the clock. Thankfully, my child survived that horrendous ordeal. But then my son was in an abusive relationship. He fixed that after years of trying, to no avail, to fix her and himself. Countless hours and time we would have one or both crying on our couch, at the same time they were going through therapy. The marriage ended. He moved on. But he also moveed onto another abusive relationship. I lost him three years ago.

Now, here today we struggle with a 15 year old who wants to die. And it kills me. Every square inch of my body feels like it has been scraped raw with a serrated knife. But something positive has happened. I have learned a lot in the past five decades. I have studied and taken courses and worked with mental health issues to help others. And while I am tentaivley hopeful, I am not 100% safe. I do not think I will ever be safe. Or have a life where I wake up and feel, hey this is okay. It finally took the help of medical science and natural drugs to get to a point where I am no longer depressed on a daily basis, but that was a short lived, three month reprieve. With this new generation of mental illness, I am not depressed, but merely surviving. And waiting.

I talk with my grandchild. Give her coping skills I never had to give to my children, and she is staying with us. We have mental health intervention...in a month. Wow, nothing has changed. And I hang on by my fingernails waiting for the next meteor to strike.

A few things are different. I am much older and much more tired. I am much stronger. I have many more skills. But I wonder if this will ever become the fairy tale life I envisioned. I am beginnig to lose hope. I think my fairy Godmother is drunk, or on Meth. My Guardian Angels are watching movies and binge drinking, and the Universe has told me, quite plainly, that this will be as good as it gets. The good things are my amazing husband, my dogs, I am employed, I have a house, I have food.   And I need to remind myself every single moment to never lose sight of the important things in your life. Your love, your kindness, your compassion.

The other side of this though, is the impact on my work/life balance. Because I need to be so hyper vigilant and sensitive at home, at work, I do not have the pateinve to deal with issues and problems in the workplace. I struggle. I do not suffer fools in the workplace. Or excuses, or laziness. I have zero patience for stupidity or endless reasons about why you cannot finish a project on time, on budget and on scope. My life at home leeches into work and I am all out of spoons. I know I need to get a grip on that, and I fight every single day not to give in the "What the hell is wrong with you" speech that I say it in my head.

Fortunatley I had the amazing opportunity to take a course about difficult conversations. It was an incredible experience and will give me more tools to reign in the monster that demands perfection at work, but more so, it gives me the skills to adress important issues without resorting to violence. No, not the stabby kind of violence, but the violence as in sarcasm, frustration, abrasiveness, and low tolerance for bad behaviour. Instead, it allows me to speak to individuals about issues I see, and about accountability.

This is a real coup. Because of the way I was raised, I can smell BS a mile away. I can see behaviours that others write off as benefit of the doubt. I can read the body language of manipulation and, hopefully now have a way to adress it without the other person resorting to the coping skills of their childhood. The benefit of this course is you are the only one that needs to take this in order for it to work. And I think this will pay off in spades. I used it with my grandchild. I will use it at work, and I use it in my practise with trauma survivors.

All I know is we are all alone. We may think we are together and have support systems in place, but in the grand scheme of things I have learned we are born alone, we live with mental illness alone and we will die alone.

Today, I am okay with that.

Peace

Evolvement and Devolvement

Back to the transition from a hard driven Type A personality into a Hippy (See the very first blog), I started Yoga teacher training a couple of months back. I have learned so much valuable and enjoyable information and I have been transformed, internally and externally. This kind of reminds me of a diamond, putting so much pressure on an item, body, or mind that it changes the molecular structure into something completely different.

I have been forever changed. My body feels different, moves more with grace, and my mind has been expanded into different thought forms, spiritual planes of existence, and is calm.

Things that were opaque have become clear; movements that were impossible have become natural, and I have learned serenity. Yoga changed my mind and my life, I cannot name all the differences. All I can say, there was a life lived differently before and after Yoga.

I am so exited to teach and to open this learning to others, and I can only hope that what I have experienced others can as well.

If you have been following this blog, you know I am a physical and emotional mess because of the Compound Complex PTSD, Anxiety, the brain thing....sigh and ADD. Yoga has helped with most of these issues. Obviously not the brain thing. But the others, definitely.

Yoga is more than a program, a pose, a spiritual journey or exercise. It can be all of these things or a combination of any of them. Yoga connects me to the greater spiritual purpose that includes the inclusivity of humanism.

But the events of last and this week have saddened me to the core of my being. A USA Olympic bound swimmer raped and brutalized an unconscious female. The judge, mom and dad, and the legal team thought he suffered enough from having a lifetime ban from the US swimming team that feeds into the Olympics and the judge did not want undo pressure placed on this predator that this man effectively will serve a three month sentence surrounded by protective guards, lest he receives the same life sentence he forced upon a defenceless woman, or, as dad put it, his "20 minutes of action."

I cannot fathom the thought process that turns the brutalization of an unconscious female, against her will, without consent, as 20 minutes of action.

Then there is the killing of 50 people and the wounding of 53 others due to a belief system that is radically devolved. Someone who thought we should turn the years back to the middle ages. And someone who will probably be labeled as mentally ill rather than a sociopath.

In both these last instances, people thought they were entitled to take what someone else had, against their will, someone who stood in judgement of another human life and decreed they were not worthy.

What a sad state we are in when are controlled by bullies.

The only way to right these wrongs is to be the change you want to see in the world. One person at a time. One small act at a time. Reach out to someone who is hurting and just listen. See the overworked mom and ask her if she wants a coffee. Introduce yourself to your neighbour.

One by one, we can make a difference. Start small. One simple act of kindness. It can make a huge difference.

Chronic Pain, Life, Dying

I saw the article from the neurosurgeon who wrote upon reflecting what it is like to know you have a limited lifespan. He started out a fine young man, went to University, became a doctor, specialized in neurosurgery, saved countless lives and then was diagnosed with cancer and told he had six months to live.

It was a beautiful piece, knowledgeable and intelligent upon which he reflects upon his life and what he has learned. He has a baby daughter and he wonders if she will remember him.

I read that piece with intensity because I wonder how much time I have left. I do not have cancer that a doctor can say 'You have six months, a year, etc.' I have a time bomb in my head that can go at any time. I can drop dead tomorrow or in 45 years. It's a crapshoot. I truly do not know which is worse: Knowing you have six months and needing to fill in the time or take it slow, or knowing today could be your last day.

I grieve the person I lost. I grieve what I have been robbed of and I mourn what is ahead of me. Each day is special, blah, blah, blah. Life is a gift. Be happy you survived this long. Be positive. I can do that up to a point and then I drown in my own pre-ordained death sentence and fall apart, sobbing to the ground and wonder why this is the way it has to be. My husband picks me up, and tells me he loves me, and I sob until I am hoarse and wish I could disappear.

I have PTSD, actually Compound Complex PTSD between my childhood and this thing growing in my head, that sticks by me as my shadow and follows me around, constantly telling me, don't laugh too hard: Pink Mist. Don't cough. Do not stress. And all that does is increase the constant terror that has become my life.

I have become a hermit, locked inside my own diseased mind and all I can do is read and watch horror movies, the bloodier the better, so I can forget, for one hour, one day, that I am dead.

The fear is overwhelming. The anxiety is like having a too big a piece of food lodged in your throat that you cannot get rid of. And what really, truly sucks, is that some people that know me, think I should carry on and continue being the rock and the hand that rocks the cradle, and forget about it, but concentrate on their perception of life.

That has made me re-evaluate everything. I do have severe clinical depression thanks to my step-monster, along with many other invisible scars. And I bet if you sprayed Luminol on my soul, you would see each and every one of them: The childhood torture and rape of my spirit, the mental and physical illness it created, the stress, the brain aneurysm, the pain of having a family, the pain of needing a family with the realization I will never have one that I crave.

No, today is not a good day. Tomorrow, who knows.

What I Learned From Six Feet Under

I finally watched all of Six Feet Under again and I loved it just as much the second time around and eight years later, than I did the first time around. I also made some interesting correlations between the show and life in general, and Nate Fischer's death and my life.

First of all, if you are a parent, children will hide information from you regardless if you can help them or not. Doesn't matter what kind of parent you were or are, it's a fact of life. Children grow in a different trajectory once they hit puberty and they become people all on their own...whether you want them to or not. And that hurts. It hurts the parent and it hurts the kid, however, they will not see this until they have kids of their own. It's like an unwritten rule. Everything in their life becomes much  more meaningful and all consuming other than their parents. And as a parent, you stand back and watch the pieces fall, try to pick them up, try to become involved, try to back off, try to become nonchalant, over-absorbed, over-obsessed or all of the above all at the same time and pray they come back to you on some level. Part of life. Hopefully they come back and we all move on.

We all hide parts of ourselves form ourselves and others. We are all in pain and we all deal with it the best way we know how. Like Brenda with her multiple sex partners, we have multiple frustrations and dance partners we deal with; depression, anxiety, illness, stress, PTSD, OCD, frustration, death of dreams, a life lived we had not planned, and hopes dashed before they had a chance to grasp hold. And we are all alone. No matter what is going on, we are alone. No matter how many siblings we have, how close we are, when the chips are down, we are alone. I know that sounds harsh, but it is a fact.

We all want the same things; people to love us for who we are; a place where we are safe; confidence that what we are doing is the right thing and a life free from as many obstacles as possible.

Nate Fischer died from AVM, Arteriovenous malformation, basically an abnormality present since birth that causes brain bleeds. He died from a brain bleed. And I completely forgot that part. Watching him convulse on the floor, be in the hospital, and die beside his brother brought back all the fear back again. Wondering if this is how it is going to work for me. Granted, I live with that thought every single day. But seeing it on the screen was weird. It was like stepping outside myself and seeing this moment through someone else's eyes.

I write horror. I think I know why. 

Nibbling on a Hoof

Been living in Winnipeg now since August of 1989 I think. Cannot remember. And we have been in this house since 2000. Twenty four years of junk accumulated in one place. So as the old joke goes, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Guess I will have to start nibbling on a hoof, paw, pad or whatever those huge woolly mammoths have on their feeties.

Going to concentrate on upgrading my education this year and finish a certification in Publishing, along with a BA and a potential MA in Writing. I am a firm believer in keeping your mind and skills active. Don't care how old you are, or what you know, keep learning. The only thing that will continue to put food on the table and money in the bank is knowledge. And that is the only thing they cannot take away from you. I always said if I ever won the lottery all I would do is study. Anything. And everything. I live in my head and I might as fill it up with as much as it can stand. I do believe that is the one thing that kept my brain working so well after my ruptures. I know the best way to build new neural pathways and structures is to learn something new. And after the brain surgery I decided I needed to learn something completely new in order to facilitate brain regeneration and healing. Don't know if it worked, but I think it helped keep the brain damage from being much more extensive than it could have been. Every day is still a new day to me, but it could have been much worse.

When I was at home recuperating, I taught myself how to create and design jewelry. It is a great hobby and something I thoroughly enjoy. I work mainly in semi precious and precious gem stones, sterling sliver and gold.

I started out with bracelets and designed the first piece for cancer awareness. It is loaded with over 50 sterling silver beads, opals, rhondinite, and Swarovski crystals. Then I created the Brain Aneurysm awareness bracelets for men and women and also in a medic alert option. Went onto rings and chains and took off from there. 

So education will be the next four years and beyond to quote Buzz Lightyear.

Next will be the most difficult thing; sorting through 25 years of accumulated junk, papers, treasures, memories and stuff. Endless, reams amounts of stuff to decide what to keep (not much), what to sell and what to throw away. We have decided to get rid of as much as possible so this will be the belly, backside and part of the buttocks of our woolly mammoth friend, one I am not going to enjoy munching on.

Pass the hoof and the barbeque sauce.

Full Circle

 Decided this is going to be another year of firsts for me. Most years are...I do not allow the grass to grow under my feet. Never have. I have always lived in my head and always five years into the future. It is great for planning, organizing and seeing the 'big picture', but sucks though for living in the moment. I have also realized that with the decision to pull up stakes and move with the possibility of writing and editing full time, I have come full circle, where I was meant to be. All the running around trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up has finally materialized. Wish I knew then.......but then again I will never be that person sitting on the deck, at 80, wondering what my life could have become. I will have done it.

I remember being a kid, must have been 6 years old I am thinking, just immigrated to Canada from Holland. I spoke English, Dutch, German and French and I was in this brand new country where people dressed funny and it was cold. So I started writing. The very first story I wrote was about Dracula and a duck. They met up somewhere in Saskatchewan and became friends, until Vlad got hungry. The teacher loved it and had me read it at a school assembly.

Twelve years later I am standing in the recruiting office for the Department of National Defense. I was running away from home; needed to get out of a very abusive, soul sucking, child crushing household. I remember going to the office and saying "So what pays the most?" They point to Aircraft Mechanic and I said sign me up.

Fast forward another 6 years and I was plugging away at writing, not really serious about it because by this time I was married with three kids under three and living in Germany. My husband was in the military. I did write a horrific non-fiction novel about my childhood and my life though. Must remember to look for it one day and see if it is any good. Might be something in there to salvage. I do recall it is entitled "The Monster Under the Bed", my biggest fear being of the dark and the thing that lives under the bed to grab you before the lights go out. You must have done that at one point, your hand trembling on the light switch, your arm stretched out as far as humanly possible, your leg stressed to the point of dislocating but getting as close as possible to your bed, and mentally preparing to flick that switch, to hit the bed before the dark hits. Yup that was my childhood. Filled with monsters, torture, pain, abuse and a few other dwarfs that shall remain nameless for now.

Kids are fabulous aren't they? Perfect fodder for psychology experiments (yes I did but that will be another post), perfect little beings that as parents, you stick all your dreams, promises and commitments in, hoping that they have a better life than you did. Both my husband and I swore we would never raise our kids how we were raised. We would love our children unconditionally, we would talk to them as if they were people, we would inquire about their feelings, thoughts and emotions, and above all, we would listen.  And we did. Our children are by no means perfect. And we did struggle. Man did we struggle, with Autism, ADD, Bi-Polar Disorder thrown into the mix with the normal teenage anxiety and hormonal roller coaster ride. But we loved our kids. We listened to them and we treated them like people, not like objects to be owned and cast aside, a huge difference in the way my husband and I were treated. Did it make a difference? I think so. Today they are wonderful adults. My grandchildren, by the way, are perfect. And I like them. But having kids wreaks havoc with having any free time. Especially when you are struggling to make ends meet and trying to do what's best for special needs children in the mix. Writing was dead last. Nothing happened for years.

I cannot remember when it was, but I did start writing short stories. Embarrassing short stories. Bad short stories. I still have them and read them from time to time when I need to cringe......I worked at several careers, aircraft mechanic, psych nurse, hair stylist, procurement specialist. And in the process my work started to become a little better.

November of 2005 I was sitting in my favourite chair in the living room of the house we are still living in and I found a website that was catering to Canadian Horror authors just starting out. My finger hovered over the send key for a few seconds and I instantly felt sick to my stomach when I depressed that little rectangular button. Because, for now, I was a writer. I had never submitted anything and no one could tell me I sucked, therefore I was a writer. Now I was sending my thoughts out to professionals. Crap! What the hell was I thinking? If they told me I did not have any talent I was seriously farked. Anyone who is a writer will understand this line of reasoning. We all have very fragile egos when it comes to what we create with our heads. One month later they told me they loved my story and published it. And it won story of the Winter. I was spinning. And yes, my husband died in this story. Actually, the story was about a pet peeve of mine. My husband had decided to X-10 the house. You know, remote control the lights. The lights would turn on and off at any given moment; in the middle of a TV show, the middle of the night, middle of the day. Drove me batshit. And he would tell me, 'all you have to do is find the remote, press this button, find this button, press that switch, jump up and down on one leg saying I love technology and turn around three times'. I would look at him and think, or I could flick the switch.....He did not see the logic.....so I killed him in the story. It was published on his birthday. And it was this story that got me into the Horror Writers Association. Fitting.....

2010 my brain blew up. Woke up one day with the worst headache of my life. An ice pick had buried itself above my right eye and burrowed into my brain. With every beat of my heart, the pain grew larger and larger, kept pulsating and growing. I downed 200mg of Gravol, 1000 mg of Tylenol, 1000 mg of Advil and 500 mg of Muscle Relaxants and called my husband, slurring and drooling, saying if the pain didn't go away in 20 minutes I was going to the hospital and I went back to bed. Found out later this was bad. Real bad. At this point I had a 15% chance of survival. And I went to sleep. Had a wicked migraine for five days in a row, but the rupture sealed. Still did not know at this point that I had ruptured. A month later it happened again.......another 15% chance of survival. Wouldn't be another four months that I would have surgery to repair this and in the meantime, my brain kept bleeding.

During the recovery phase I found out I have another aneurysm and they cannot clip it. This would be a permanent fix. The upshot of this would be though that I would not be able to write because the neurosurgeon would have to cut through too much brain matter to get to the aneurysm. Where the bubble is located, is one of the rarest spots to have an aneurysm. So I wait to see what happens next.

Kept writing and sobbed when I finished the first story after the brain spatter. Did not know if it was going to work or not, but it did. Submitted a few more stories and they were accepted as well. Kept writing and in 2012 decided Americans should be subjected to my awesomeness so I decided to hit up a few American publishers. If you understand writing, it is difficult. The writing, the planning, the editing, the sweating, the cursing, the crying......and if you understand Horror, it is even more difficult to get noticed. Especially if you are a Canadian. But a few were accepted and it was at this time I decided I needed to get way more serious about my 'hobby'.

Then I found out my friend died. She was 51. And my life changed again. I realized I HATE Winnipeg with a passion. I hate having to be here at all the 'family' functions and sitting there like a piece of decoration while the 'real' family intermingles. Because of  my childhood, all I ever wanted was family. That was it. Just a huge family to love, laugh and cry with and when I found out my husband had six sisters and a brother I thought I hit the jackpot. I was finally going to have a family! But that's not what happened. There were the sisters and then there was everyone else. After 30 years of trying to fit in and not quite making it, not having help or support, I decided I didn't want to play anymore. And my husband supported me knowing everything I had been through and all the pain this had caused. So we both decided to become hippies....run away to a climate where we can have more than three months of summer, where we can walk the beach 12 months of the year and where I can write full time. Full circle. Only took 44 years to get here.........

Hippie, Gypsy, Writer, Artist

I decided I want to be a hippie.  No, wait. A Hippie.....looked up the the synonyms and I guess it kind of fits:

Main Entry:	bohemian
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	nonconformist
Synonyms:	artist, beatnik, dilettante, flower child, freespirit, gypsy, hippie*, iconoclast, writer

I am an artist, a writer, definitely a freespirit, always wanted to be a gypsy so I am guessing Hippie, it is....by the way, when you read this, you have to read it with a Southern accent, because in my head, that is how I sound. Always.

2012 was a wake up call in a series of wake up calls for my husband and myself. A friend, with whom we were both close to, died. She was 51, out walking her dog and collapsed. Olle and I started a family with Donna and Seigi. We raised kids together, had fun together, laughed, loved and shared memories. It was a huge blow. Completely unexpected and out of left field. And it changed the way I thought how life should be. 

I work in the Federal Government as does my husband. We both have stressful, demanding, professional careers. Generally, I love what I do. Generally. It is the attitude of the people I work with that makes me insane. But then I guess being a Hippie, working with IT and the egos they share, I can see where the twain shall never meet. 

Three years ago I survived two ruptured brain aneurysms. Yup I am an over achiever. Could not have one. Nope. Had to go and have two of the damn things. Had a 15% survival rate.....twice......Now I have another one and I am still trying to deal with that one as well as the recovery of the damage done by the first two.

So the juxtaposition of these two events made me realize, I do not like what my life has become. I love my husband to death. Been married 29 years, together 31 and would not change it for the world. Besides he gets to die in most of my stories......Love my kids and grandchildren. They are a wonderful generation of growing minds. New souls to torture and mould. 

What I dislike is the obligations. The 'have-to's', the 'you are part of a family (but not really) so you must do this'. I dislike the stress, the anxiety of layoffs, losing our house. The sickness and health issues that I need to work around on a daily basis. None of these things are working for me. Or for Olle. So we talked about what we wanted. Turns out, it's not this......

We both see ourselves moving a thousand miles west, living in the Okanagan, raising dogs, growing wine and vegetables and herbs and flowers, walking the beach, watching the sunrise from our deck, drinking Absinthe, cycling and living life on our terms. And we decided to go for it. Obviously this will take some planning, learning how to dismantle a life and build a new one, but what the heck. Neither one of us are afraid of challenges. We have seen plenty in our lives from poverty, to mental illness, to child abuse, to near death experiences and back. What the heck. Could be kind of fun.