Fresh Lips. Big Sigh.

I’ve seen all these images lately of women and what we carry upon our hips. Babies. Groceries. Laundry. We carry these things around, while performing various other tasks. We balance them and use other body parts to offset. Elbow the door open. Pick things up with our feet. Our multitasking knows no bounds.

We carry other things around whilst multitasking. Pain. Trauma. Impaired psyches. For years I lugged this load around while painting the image of perfection. Cute hair, cute clothes. The house was cleaned. The goods were baked. Everything from scratch. I gardened, I yoga’d, I practiced gentle and interactive parenting. All the while, denying the existence of the ever present invisible bulk I carried. More yoga. More green juice. You’re here now, release the past. It’s fine. I’m fine.

But I wasn’t. Did I lay my burden down? Nope, just brought it into the bathroom with me. I’ll just sit down with it for a few minutes. The floor is nice and cool. Cry it out. No! Not so loud. Wipe your face. Fresh lips. Big sigh. Hoist up the burden. Do more. Be more. Keep going or someone might figure it out. Time to make the salmon. You’re fine.

I lived like that for over a year. Crying most days on my bathroom floor before and after racing around my house in a flurry of perfectionism. Hating myself. Convinced everyone else hated me too. Feeling unhinged, terrified that someone would find out. But No one knew. No one even suspected.

When I finally went to see a psychiatrist I was promptly diagnosed; ComplexPTSD with a side of Bipolar II. Ok. So I got my cocktail of prescriptions. Started therapy. I breathed a sigh of relief. Checked off another box on my list of the right things to do. The burden was still there, just now I had a sling to help hold it up. So on I went.

Over time frustration built, and the weight seemed heavier than it should be based off of all the work I had done. This last year I’ve had to set it completely down. The house gets messy. I don’t do most of the cooking any more. Waking in the morning feels like coming back from the dead. I have had to add deep shame into my basket. I am not doing enough to be enough. I realized recently that the reason I can’t set the weight down is because this condition is chronic. Medication and therapy are meant to keep me stable, not cured. The weight will always be there, resting upon my hip. With this new awareness, my grocery bag split at the bottom and everything came spilling out. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’ve been checking off the list!

But the bag got too heavy and I ran out of limbs. When I tried to hoist it up high enough, everything came crashing at my feet, all at once. So here I sit, amongst the rolling produce of insecurities, fears and paranoias. Nursing a bruised toe from the falling canned goods of trauma.

It’s fine though. I’ll clean it up later. Fresh lips. Big Sigh. On I go.