The Lion, The Bear and The Wolf

 It doesn't just stem from 2 years ago but the beginning of the end does. I'm not sure what the end is. Is it suicide? Is it diminished health and wellness? Or will I conquer depression and anxiety and all the matching dysfunctional baggage that comes along with abuse and mental illness? I don't know. I'm still trying and I struggle day to day.

The Bear and The Lion

It's not fair to say that the European UnUnion (henceforth, referred to as the EU) is the end-all-be-all for my current state. I began cultivating my current state of poor being as a kid. By most accounts I had a fairly typical childhood, and I even I think I did. But there was a sleeping bear who was easily provoked and when The Bear was angry my world was chaos. I was young, maybe 4 or 5, when I no longer held or maintained a sense of safety and security. I never learned or understood the vitality of establishing and protecting boundaries until I was an adult and they were well abused and compromised. The person who was responsible for raising me and protecting me was irrational, erratic and burdened by far more demons and wounds than I can imagine now myself. What I'm trying to say is that I understand there was never an intention to raise me this way. This person never had a chance. The Bear was beget by a Lion.

A Girl in Wolf's Clothing

Like most kids, I learned to adapt and develop some fine tuned coping skills and mechanisms to exist in this family dynamic. They served me well in my childhood but have handicapped me as an adult. I recognize as an adult, I'm the only one responsible for me now and how I deal with my soul sores and growing pains. I cannot blame The Bear and it's not my spouse's responsibility. Life is mostly perched in the center of the spectrum well with in the grey area, and The Spouse has his past and his carry-on that sometimes springs open and flings dirt and hurt onto us and our relationship. And sometimes this arouses The Bear in me. The one that raised me and the one I've become. It's heart breaking. I don't want to be a Bear though. So, I dissociate and become a Lone Wolf. A creature that craves a pack but is driven towards solitude to howl at the sky and release all the words that couldn't be said.

The Primitive Response

My health is currently paying the price for my failure to deal with these dysfunctions soon enough. Long term chronic stress wreaks havoc on one's endocrine system, inflammatory system and over all muscle, bone,  and metabolic health. My adrenal glands have been in overdrive for roughly 5 years straight. I'm only now realizing that they were probably my main source of survival as a child. I can't help but wonder if I've spent the majority of my life in a constant state of fight or flight. It's a poetic turn of phrase which is also the medical industry moniker for the hormone, cortisol, the stress hormone that evolved to protect our primitive ancestors from threat and danger. Unlike my ancestors, I never learned to shut down the production of this hormone. Instead, lack of safety, security and feeling like I had rank and value, I learned to be vigilant. I learned to say things just the right way so as not to upset anyone, even if it compromised my internal value system and identity. I learned that having an opinion caused more trouble than it was worth. I learned to give myself away to the point of emptiness. I struggle to trust.

The physical side effects are numerous. Eczema on my hands and wrists, my hair falls out and yet in a great twist of irony I now have hair growing on my chin and upper lip. Cystic acne on my face, boils on my legs, all of these are fairly common. My sex drive is dead. I've gained a substantial amount of weight despite a fairly regimented diet and fitness routine. My heart rate is constantly high. I go to sleep anxious and worried and I wake up that way.

The Point Of It All

There was a brief and shining period where I seem to recall being free of the anxieties of my childhood before the anxieties of my present have triggered the poor manifestations of these dysfunctions. From the time I was 26 to 29, I felt alive. I was thriving, vivacious and happy. I had struggles like everyone does, sure, but I remember the over all sense of feeling happy and ambitious and lucky. I was healthy. My skin glowed, my hair was shiny, my body was athletic and strong. My goal is to try and regain some semblance of that and this blog is an outlet for me to say the things that I feel go unheard or ignored. I hope that by bleeding out these words, I'll begin to heal and return to health and vitality.