Tag: healing

woman with her head (literally) in the clouds

My Word for 2023: CURIOSITY

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Normally at the beginning of a new year, I come up with a word – a focus for the year ahead. But when January 1 rolled around this year, I was drawing a blank.

I was in a bad place at the beginning of this year. Well, really since earlier than that. But everything sort of culminated in January. I had poured my heart and soul into trying to get pregnant in 2022. I felt like God or the universe (or someone) had given me signs that it was going to happen. And then it didn’t.

When 2023 started, I was so angry. I felt like I was angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. Angry at everyone, I hated everything.

I told my therapist that I was tired of hurting, I wanted to feel better now, but I didn’t know how to make that happen. And she told me that maybe I was doing exactly what my body and mind needed me to do: simply being in a horrible, bad place and just feeling my feelings.

It reminded me of the practice of mindfulness. I needed to be aware, without judgment, of my feelings and just sit with them for a while. If I repressed them or tried to pretend that they weren’t there, I wouldn’t be able to move past them or heal.

Feeling my feelings was not the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted a pill, a drug, a quick fix to my problems. I had felt so many feelings already and it was exhausting! How could I make them go away?

We left that therapy session and I (jokingly) told Dean, “what are we paying her so much for?” She hadn’t solved my problems, she hadn’t fixed my pain. But I found out about 3 weeks later that she was 100% right.

For 3 weeks, I burned with anger at God and the world. I resented hearing about any new pregnancy announcements. I was lethargic and unmotivated about most everything – with the exception that I decided to start training for a half marathon. That was my one goal, my one distraction that kept me grounded. And I had so much anger that running was a good way to get it out, or at least to fuel my runs.

For 3 weeks my body worked through a lot of the hurt. I grieved. I processed. I survived a faith crisis (that’s a whole other story). And then suddenly it started to not hurt as much. I hadn’t “done” anything in particular. I had started exercising (good), I had done a lot of journaling of my feelings (also good), and I had shared and cried with some of my closest friends about my sadness and grief – and because they are wonderful friends, they listened without judgment and offered me grace and compassion.

I’m not going to pretend like it doesn’t still hurt, it does. But the constant feeling like someone has kicked me in the chest has gone away. The clouds have lifted and I’m feeling more like myself, the Erica before joining the infertility club.

Honestly, I had kind of forgotten who I was before becoming so obsessed with trying to get pregnant. It had taken over me. It seemed like all the fun, spontaneous, and happy parts of me had gotten lost, and the only parts left of me were the ugly, angry, and bitter ones.

In that same therapy session where I told my therapist I was tired of hurting, I also told her that I wanted to get another tattoo. “Another tattoo?” she said. She hadn’t even noticed the one I had on my wrist. I then told her that I kind of wanted a sleeve, but that I wasn’t totally sure what I would get – maybe I’d let my tattoo artist help me decide.

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picture of book Acne: A Memoir (by Laura Chinn)

Can Our Emotions Cause or Cure Acne?

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The other day I was walking around in downtown Abilene, and outside of one of the stores was a table of books. As any librarian and/or book lover would do, I paused to glance over the titles. Only one book really caught my eye:

Acne: A Memoir

I loved the simple design of the cover, light pink with varying sizes of red dots sprinkled all over it. It seemed like a no-brainer for me – I love memoirs, I love reading… I don’t love acne, but unfortunately it has had quite an impact on me and my story.

I scanned the book for a price, and suddenly saw a sign that said “Free books: Limit 1 per customer.” Free book??? Even better.

I had no idea what this book was really going to be like, but when I came to this paragraph on the second page, I knew I was going to like it:

“After genocide, nuclear war, famine, slavery, and child abuse, acne is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person. Okay, fine, maybe cancer is worse, and probably a bunch of other stuff, but acne is bad, really bad, and if you haven’t lived though it then… honestly, go f*** yourself.”

— Laura Chinn (p. 2)

I laughed out loud when I read that last part! It was so honest and real. If you’ve never had bad acne, you will think these sentiments are crazy exaggerations. If you have struggled with bad acne, you’ll know that during your lowest points of dealing with red spots all over your face, you literally do feel like this sometimes.

My experience with acne is something that deeply affected me, more than I ever knew until I really started doing some reflecting upon the experience in my 30’s. It affected my body image (I stopped thinking I was pretty, and in fact, was convinced that because of acne scarring I could never be beautiful again), my idea of my own self-worth (I questioned why anyone would want to be friends with someone as ugly as me), and my mental and physical health (I had a few years of extreme dieting when I was trying to find the perfect diet to “cure” my acne, and instead ended up losing so much weight that my period stopped).

Acne is no joke.

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Image of foot with bones

2 Years After Foot Surgery – Slow But Steady Progress!

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Two years ago was Feb 4, 2020. The “before-COVID” times. It was also the day I had foot surgery, specifically an osteotomy, to address my inflamed posterior tibial tendon (aka. my flat arches were causing issues). I had to have three large incisions on my left foot, and one on my calf to “lengthen my calf muscle.”

Afterwards I had to be non-weight bearing on my left foot for four weeks, and I was riding around on a knee scooter like a pro! Then I used crutches for four weeks, and after that did three months of physical therapy. You can read more about the details here, and even see gross post-surgery foot pictures if you want to!

The healing process felt never-ending. Even after I was discharged from physical therapy, I wasn’t back to normal. I still had a bit of a limp sometimes. When I first got up in the morning, my left foot was stiff and I would hobble around for a while until it loosened up. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to go running again, and honestly I was kind of afraid to, since that was the catalyst for my injury.

Even one year later, I was still keenly aware of some of my limitations that I hadn’t had before my foot injury – like experiencing some residual foot pain and always needing to wear supportive/orthotic shoes.

I think it’s valuable to take a moment today to look back and remember where I was two years ago, so that I can fully appreciate just how far I’ve come in terms of recovery. In my post from May of 2020 (four months after the surgery) I had written:

My foot is not perfect, I’m still waiting for that glorious day when I can do a heel raise while standing only on my left foot, but I’m not there yet. I’m longing for when I can go on a walk around the block without limping or feeling sore, and I’m dreaming about a day when I might be able to go for a jog again.

May 2020

Later that year in October, five months after writing those words, I went for my first post-surgery jog. It had been 17 months since I had been able to run. I couldn’t run as far or as fast, and my foot was really sore after, but I did it.

How often do we get to receive the things our hearts are so desperately longing for? Honestly, it may be more often than we think. If you do any sort of journaling – whether it’s personal writing, blogging, or even photo journaling – it makes it easy to see where you were and how far you’ve come.

Many times we get the exact things we’re hoping for, and we’re happy for a little while, but then we move on to hoping for the next thing, and then the thing after that. It’s easy to feel like we haven’t “made it” yet because there’s always something we are looking to accomplish next.

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