Shit -- I'm Miss Trunchbull

TRIGGER WARNING - SA, TRAUMA, EATING DISORDER, ABUSE

When I was a kid - from what I remember - I lived in my own little world. I was called a worry wart, a day dreamer and pretty much always had my nose in a book - I even won being Principal For the Day when I was in 2nd grade for reading the most books in the school. Not to brag.

I knew when I was very young that I wanted to be a mom - my dream job was a teacher and a mom and (spoiler alert) I got to do both! At age 11, I just had this sense of knowing that I was going to be a mom early in life and when I got pregnant at 16, I was STOKED. My only trauma was a self-inflicted eating disorder and that lasted from 11-24.

When I envisioned motherhood, I saw myself being easy, breezy, whimsical, and making things fun and spontaneous. I saw myself as Miss Honey in Matilda - please tell me you've seen Matilda...

Moving the furniture to hula hoop in the living room, picnics and everything practically perfect in every way (Mary Poppins).

Then, from age 18 - now I have had a remarkable about of absolute bullshit. I keep trying to write out all that I have gone through, but somewhere in there I stop and go "I'm going to get in trouble for this" and I stop typing - save draft and think "maybe I'll share someday". Or I stop writing a cohesive story and it just ends up bullet points because the details get to be too much. Hopefully one day.

But for a brief outline of some of the bigger highlights:

TRIGGER WARNING

• I was kidnapped with my two daughters and held in a garage attic for 4 days and assaulted

• I was apart of a raid that had nothing to do with me or the friends I was hanging out with - truly wrong place wrong time.

• I was drugged by my "best friend" and our boss and was brutally r-worded

• I moved to Indiana to start a new life and the coffee shop I worked for had an underground drug ring -unbeknownst to me.

• My daughter fell and was so concussed that she didn't remember who I was

• I married a narcissist for 10 years - didn't know until the last year how bad it was until a therapist told me to leave. For ten years I suffered through agoraphobia, relentless panic attacks, health anxiety, isolation. The day I left it all was silent, no more panic!!. I felt alive for the first time in 15 years.

• My 18 month old fell, they didn't know if she would live. She had a subdermal hematoma and skull fracture. - She lived

• Then I was r-worded by my self defense instructor that resulted in pregnancy.

• Carbon Monoxide poisoning for 10 months

• My house was broken into 12 times by the self defense instructor, I was stalked, harassed and legal harassment for years to which it probably still isn't over. While he's seen his son 7 times in 2 years.

• My diagnosis is C-PTSD.

Through all of that - and that's not even all of it. I have managed to keep my head up, a mostly positive outlook on life but I do not feel like Miss Honey.

Some days when I am having a flare up, or the nightmares persist, or the stress is too much, or I just need to breathe, I feel WAY MORE like Miss Trunchbull. ESPECIALLY when I am hiding in my room eating dark chocolate, or hiding away with my best friend and WE'RE eating chocolate thinking to myself "much too good for children".

I get screamy and sometimes feel short tempered. I don't make the best meals or the healthiest food anymore - still better than "standard". We don't spend every night doing something fun or creative. I don't like going for walks alone or in public alone (trauma!). And the more that I learn about me and this diagnosis the more that I understand and see where the growth can continue on - it's truly never done. I am always on a mission to become the most healed and best version of myself.

I am a far cry from the mom, the woman, the person that I imagined I would be. My LIFE is a far cry from what I imagined it would be. Especially when I am such a rule follower and scared of getting in trouble! Outrageous!

I read something today that said something along the lines of "I hope my children remember the fun whimsical mom I try to be and not the feral, overstimulated racoon that I am".

My past never has and never will define me but I absolutely do feel that it does peek it's head out at the most inopportune times.

Here's to trying to show up as the most healed version of ourselves. Here's to trying to be the mom we dreamed we'd be. And here's to accepting the reality of the moment (and eating chocolate in the closet!!)