It hurts. I can't breathe. Where's the Exit?

A piece on what it's been like living through compounding traumas.

There is the before. And the after.

I think that’s where this has to start.

By the age of 23, I had a list. A list of things that had stopped me in my tracks. Things that had hurt my soul. Things that had changed me. It was about the length of a page in my journal, and it has been written in bullet points, but really, it was seared into my brain. I didn’t need to take it out and show anyone, because at that point if asked, I could just rattle off the trauma’s I’d already endured. There were ones not talked about, there were ones that were too complicated, and then there were ones that inevitably can happen to anyone - just… not all at once…. as a teenager.

That’s when I was “too much” for people. Not the for the first time in my life, but just another moment in which I couldn’t shed the layers of pain and sadness, and I couldn’t hide them well either. As much as I tried to swallow the hurt and look up with a smile, I’m not sure ever really concealed it all as much as I thought I was.

At 14, one of the closest adults in my life had a heart attack and died suddenly in his sleep.

At 15, my parents separated & it became my responsibility to be each of their constants.

At 17 I had to bury a friend and a classmate who died from complications of cancer.

At 18 I had to bury a friend who died in a drunk driving accident.

At 21 I had to bury a friend and sorority sister who died by suicide.

And at 23 I developed an autoimmune disease which wouldn’t be diagnosed correctly until six years later.

I learned that it was a lot easier to be accepted by my peers and engaged in friendship circles when I’d rattle off these facts while completely emotionally detached. Sure, there were scars and scrapes missing from several pieces of my heart, but that’s not what people were asking.

When they asked how I was, the response was conditioned.

“I’m doing okay. Thank you for asking. How are you? Is there anything I can do to support you?”

I didn’t know any better. The adults around me mirrored similar behavior, using the first half of my response as their standard answer, which in many ways pushed me even harder to include the second part myself. I might have been a mess inside, but I believed I was doing a decent job masking that, and even though I had nothing left, no energy or brain capacity or emotional space, if I offered myself up in support of others, I had value, and therefore could “earn my keep” as a friend, an employee, and a daughter.

That was the season when I learned that the hardest moments were “supposed” to stay behind closed doors, and that the things we were to share were without detail or attachment. I tried hard not to stray from that line. Standing still was as close as I got to being present without actually mentally being in the room.

There were some other painful moments, pivotal moments - being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, followed by years of testing only to accumulate several chronic and autoimmune diseases including Crohn’s disease, Adrenal Insufficiency, Endometriosis and Migraines. There was the day my best friend died in a freak accident at the age of 28. And the day my husbands childhood friend died after not getting the care he needed at the age of 35. Loss of grandparents. A lengthy struggle with infertility. Several early miscarriages. But those weren’t all defining moments. Somehow, one at a time, we climbed the hill, built the house, and settled in. We knew how to ache, how to grieve, and how to reassemble.

Although there was a fairly substantial “early” list, I’d consider all of the time leading up to my 35th birthday to be in the “before” chapter. Before the veil had been lifted. Before I realized that I’d seen and felt more trauma than the average person. Than most people. I just genuinely thought life was hard for everyone.

Apparently it’s not THIS hard for everyone.

I know what you’re likely thinking.

OOOFFFF. If that’s the before, what could possibly be included in the after? There was more? It was harder? Are you sure?

Yes, yes, and heartbreakingly yes.

The last three years have run me over and dragged me behind for miles and miles and miles. In the process, they’ve taken away most of the things I held onto for safe keeping - tools and trinkets and letters and lessons. They took away my smile. Much of my joy. My coping mechanisms. My ability to double down and push through. They turned off the light in my eyes.

In retrospect, surviving the last three years on their own was a big enough accomplishment that somewhere in my focus of trying to process and rebuild, I realize I should find a way to express gratitude to myself, or celebrate myself (never going to happen - but interesting to allow the thoughts to stop by). I mean, let’s be honest. I’m just now in the space to recognize that even if I have survived this far, the battle isn’t over yet. The battle might never be over. And yes, that feels like one of the heaviest parts of it all.

Three and a half years ago, at age 35, I delivered twins too early to survive, at home and alone, and I had no choice but to survive the cremation of my babies.

The following year, at 36, I had semi-emergency spinal surgery, followed by RSV and then the development of permanent lung damage resulting in an asthma diagnosis and the potential of lifelong breathing challenges. No big deal, right. It’s just breathing.

A few months after that, ‘my person’ lost her 4 year battle with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, and we had to lay her to rest while trying to figure out how to live without her. Anticipatory grief does not prepare you for that moment. Nothing has made losing her hurt any less.

Across that same year, I spent nearly 3 months of time cumulatively laying in hospital beds, away from my home and my family, being sustained via IV nutrients and treatments. After being unable to eat for nearly a month, I finally underwent surgery which took way too long to recover from and came with two post op infections.

Two months later, last November, I was rushed to the hospital in Adrenal Crisis, and diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and an abscess in my brain. My cognition, cognitive abilities, and short term memory suffered terribly in the early months, and still has not returned to what I’d call “normal.”

2024 was only a blur. January, February and March were days spent in the dark, with 9 weeks of around the clock IV antibiotics for meningitis and 14 weeks of raging migraines. There were also two weeks in the hospital, one when my blood counts fell too low and one to end the worst migraine cycle of my life.

Upon discharge, I tried to exhale, but that was a mistake.

Just two weeks later, I was carried out of my house on a stretcher as I had profuse internal bleeding due to a ruptured fallopian tube caused by an ectopic pregnancy. Another baby lost. Another body part removed. A pivotal connection severed between my body and my mind. One that thoroughly broke me inside.

In May, June and July I fought for my life. Postpartum depression came for me, claws out, and postpartum anxiety crippled me. I was nothing but a shell of a person, a body without much mind, lost inside my head and my heart and unsure of how to even ask for help. I thought I was gone. I thought it was game over. I wasn’t sure I could conjure any more fight from within me.

After extensive research and several other trials, in August I began IV Ketamine Treatments, which were and continue to be the very first thing to bring a little light back into my life.

Annddddd just a few weeks into treatment, in early September I fell, rupturing my ACL, tearing my MCL, my meniscus, and the two muscles behind the knee. After agonizing pre-therapy, I finally had ACL reconstruction surgery in October and have been in the throes of recovery since.

When you read it like that, I think it’s pretty obvious to see how this “after” hasn’t been the smoothest ride.

In fact, I’m hoping what you can see is how every day, multiple times a day, I’ve had to make the choice to stay alive, to choose life, to blindly believe that I can continue carrying this level of pain, this level of grief, living inside this body that cannot seem to carry me easily through the world, all while watching, waiting, knowing the next shoe that’s going to drop is closer than I’ll ever know, but I still won’t see it coming until it kicks me in the face or knocks me flat on my back.

Several months ago two old friends of mine met up at a conference, and my name came up. One asked the other if she’d seen what I’d been navigating. The response?

This wide eyes look, followed by

"No one should experience so much trauma. No one."

End of conversation. 

Hearing this in a way made me feel validated and seen in ways that are few and far between.  

Today, the people in my inner circle have very much adapted the “what now?” response to anything new that becomes an issue, rather than “I can’t believe you continue to have MORE suffering to bear,” and to be honest, for a minute it made me wonder if my resilience has slipped because I’m starting to minimize my own traumas. 

That was part of writing this. The dirty work of going into the hardened parts of my heart and pulling out each broken shard of glass, each fragmented memory, and putting them together, in one place, in one moment in time, with the ability to not just notice but to ingest, to study, to try to understand.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we passed absurd a long time ago.

I don’t think there’s a word for all of this.

Sidenote: I struggle when there isn’t language to describe my experiences - it feels invalidating and infuriating. {This was one of the most immediate challenges for me when the twins died.}

What do you do when there’s not a word? When you can write pages and pages, but you can’t answer a simple question?

You struggle.

You squirm.

You feel the discomfort.

You feel the angst. The anger. The fear. The pressure. The grief.

You try and try and try and finally, you pull all of the puzzle pieces apart again, you swirl them on the table until they make one blurry nonsensical pile of shit, and then you see it.

Complex PTSD.

Compounded Trauma.

An actual stack of pieces, memories that broke you, one single moment at a time.

There is no way to fix that. To make it go away. To make it hurt less.

The only way forward is to understand the mental systems you have put in place to survive, to navigate those systems with medicine and assistance and therapy and support, and to reorganize them one at a time until they weave a better net, hoping that the ropes won’t be thin enough to snap at the first sight of the next trauma coming down the pipeline.

The only thing I’m left to wonder is - will it be enough?

[More to come]