As a child, I was very much a daddy’s girl. He adored me and I relished the love and attention he gave me. I remember as a toddler running to him when he came home from work squealing, “Daddy! Daddy!” and jumping in his arms.

Fight or Flight Response

This ended abruptly when I was 3 ½. I saw my father lying in bed asleep, his skin ashen. To my little girl self, he looked dead. My mother wouldn’t let me go in the bedroom to see him. She stopped me at the door and I didn’t understand why. I just wanted to curl up against his tummy and take a nap. I missed the warmth and love I got from my daddy.

I didn’t understand why my mom was getting frustrated or why she was short tempered with me and my much older siblings. I didn’t understand why she was behaving this way. But I learned fast that it was better to stay out of the line of fire, so to speak, from her harsh words and impatience so I stayed in my room and read.

When my father began to recover from pericarditis, which mimics a heart attack, my mother kept telling me to be careful around him, as if he was light as a feather. I didn’t want to hurt him and didn’t understand how to act around him anymore.

My brother was about ten and my sister 13 at the time. They both had their own things going on and I felt like I was just in the way. My safe place became my bedroom, my bed in particular. It was nice and warm, which equals love to me, and I could be comfortable there reading my books. It still is. My safe place has always been, and continues to be, my bed.

My mom’s drinking was getting more and more out of control as she turned to alcohol to deal with her feelings. I hid out in my room feeling empty, alone and unwanted.

My happy little girl died that day. I understand now that this situation was my core trauma and has shaped and colored the rest of my life.

There are many years of my childhood I don’t remember. I do remember being sad most of the time and not smiling very much. It hurts to think of my lonely, misunderstood little girl. She didn’t deserve any of this and didn’t understand why it was happening.

I didn’t know how to relate to people and was very shy. I didn’t feel comfortable around people anymore. I didn’t know how to properly interact with them.

My father recovered from his health scare, but our relationship was never the same. I always had a wall up because I’d been deeply hurt.

At 13 years of age, I discovered a solution to my feelings of unworthiness and low self-esteem: drugs and alcohol. I was seeking a solution to my loneliness. You see, feeling lonely hurts inside. I did anything to not feel. Drugs and alcohol helped me survive the insanity of my household growing up. Then it became the problem. Fortunately, I got sober when I was 24 and I’m grateful to say I’ve been clean and sober ever since.

What I know now is that I suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse during my growing up years. Trauma lives in my body. I can feel it. It’s like there’s a low hum of electricity going on.

I went on to graduate from one of the top schools in the country for photography. While there, I was diagnosed with depression. This was the second time I’d gone into a clinical depression. My father battled with depression too, although I didn’t know it at the time.

By 2001, I had gone off on my own as a wedding photojournalist and this was going to be my year! But in May, when I was 36 years old, I hit my ankle bone on the metal seat track of my SUV when I was getting out of it, causing me to develop what was then called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), now known as Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS.)

Instead of getting better, I got worse. I couldn’t even wear a shoe because my foot was so swollen. Years later, my nephew injured his ankle bone on the same seat track of my car just like me. He initially had the same symptoms I had too, but his body fully healed, whereas mine did not.

Why some people get CRPS and some don’t, doctors still don’t understand. But those who have studied it for a long time have an inkling. If you look at all of us, a common denominator is childhood trauma.

My body is very sensitive to trauma. I’ve had repeated traumas of various kinds over the years from different causes. As a result, I developed what is known as Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), although I wasn’t officially diagnosed with that until this past year.

I’ve had CRPS for more than 23 years now. I also have fibromyalgia and adult onset ADHD. I struggled and struggled with ADHD symptoms, assuming it was the side effects of my medications that were making me forgetful, giving me problems focusing and not being able to concentrate.

It’s challenging having an invisible disease.

I was actually treated by a psychiatrist for six years who knew the hardship I was going through, but never once said anything about me having ADHD. Fact: he refused to put me on medication unless I had a psycho-neurological evaluation done. He wouldn’t start me on medication even though my psychologist of nearly a year, diagnosed me with adult onset ADHD and determined I was in crisis. Talk about feeling isolated and alone. Thank God I talked to people about this, but still, it makes me sad to think of all the years I’ve needlessly struggled when there was help available.

Feelings

Although I never developed a plan, I did consider suicide as an option at a very dark time in my life a couple years in to having CRPS. I was in so much emotional pain in addition to the physical pain, plus all the side effects from the medications.

Then there’s the depression that’s typically secondary to anyone battling chronic pain. I had to accept my new normal and surrender. Either I die and they win – they being the car manufacturer and CRPS, or I live and do something with my life. I knew these resentments were going to kill me if I let them. I had to choose. I chose to live, doing the difficult inventorying and work I needed to do to heal.

I learned that feelings aren’t facts.  I can change feelings. They’re not real. Positive affirmations have helped as have reframing thoughts and transforming thought patterns.

I also knew the best way to stop thinking about myself was to be of service to others.  The best way to do that would be to help others who also have CRPS.

Acceptance and surrender go hand-in-hand. I had to accept that my new normal is a salad size plate rather than a dinner size plate. I can’t juggle as many balls in the air as I used to. I had to accept that. I need to write everything down because my meds made me forget things and they messed with my cognitive abilities.

In 2004, I started a support group in Pasadena for those with CRPS and, at the time, it was the only one in all of Los Angeles County. In addition, I volunteered with For Grace for a few years as their National Awareness Campaign Coordinator. We did pain advocacy work together too.

Being of service in these ways gave me a sense of purpose, as my experience, strength and hope could help other people battling this disease in ways no one else could. I knew I needed to forge ahead.

For me, isolating during the pandemic was easy, but I didn’t realize that I had created a self-imposed prison. By staying away from other people, I cut myself off from feeding my soul. I wasn’t even going outside.

Solution

It wasn’t until I started going on walks in nature and on the beach at sunset that I realized that being in nature fed my soul too.

I also realized that it wasn’t enough just being among other people at a distance. I needed to be socializing with them, communicating with them, seeing them in person – that was really important for my emotional and mental well-being which, in turn, plays into my spiritual and physical well-being. They’re all interwoven.

I’ve also come to understand that when my body feels tired and sleepy, it may be that I’m resisting doing something I need to do and this is my body’s way of disassociating. I’ve learned to check in with my body and ask questions. I’ve also learned that prayer and meditation have a lot of power.

I have a Higher Power whom, for simplicity, I choose to call God. When I turn things over and let God run the show, things turn out pretty well. However, if I’m running the show, acting on self-reliance, not so much.

As Anne Lamotte wrote, “My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone.” My committee, as I call them, all have different thoughts going on at the same time. I’m talking about the thoughts that go racing around my brain – the self-limiting beliefs, the negative self- talk… those thoughts. So I reframe them.

I’ve discovered I need to spend time doing things I’m passionate about with people I enjoy – people that lift me up rather than bring me down. People or animals, I should say. Incorporating a walk or hike is even better. In addition to helping my physical health, exercise, or movement, helps my mental health.

I’m a professional pet sitter, so I get to spend a lot of time with mostly dogs, some cats and, on rare occasions, a pet pig named Mushu. Get it. Mushu Pork? I laugh every time I think of her name! Laughter feels so good and is wonderfully healing…

Getting in touch with my inner child, particularly through non-dominant hand writing, and communicating with her has been extremely helpful.

Although it can be emotionally painful at times, by communicating and asking my inner child lots of questions, it has brought tremendous healing.

I’m continually working on myself to continue the healing process – peeling the layer of the onion. I encourage everyone to find what works best for them.