Go Ask Aunt Becky
Hey Becky,
Just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing…you sound down.
Trust me I know how you feel. Seasonal depression much less clinical depression sucks! Add to that the fact I was off my Lexapro for 5 days and I was a step below Charles Manson..LOL! If you need to vent, I’m here! 🙂
Hang in there & take care!
Oh Prankster, my Prankster, you’re making me cry here. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? I get all, “whatever,” whenever someone says something shitballs to me, but the moment someone is kind, I do the Ugly Cry.
The answer is somewhere in the middle – I’m up and down.
It’s January – my daughter’s birthday, which is always a massively triggering event for me. I feel so stupid to admit that, like I don’t have the right to be upset. She’s the girl that lived! I know in my head that she’s fine, but I see her disfigured head and the scar that grows each time she does, and my stomach drops – I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I’m left panting and panicking, my throat tight. The nightmares I can’t quite shake.
On the other hand, I’m beyond happy that I’ve made a teeny step – she’s getting the birthday celebration I’ve always wanted to give her. I’m having more fun putting together a Sweet Shop themed party than any adult should….but that PTSD monster is always lurking close at hand.
I’ve wanted so badly to come here to my own space and tell you all about it (you are, after all, my family, Pranksters) – but it all comes out a random jumble of letters and words that lead to nowhere, and I’m more frustrated that I can’t seem to do what I love most – write. The words don’t come. The sentences make no sense. The paragraphs don’t flow. It’s just gone.
I know the words, the words will be back – but there will still be this gigantic pile of things I can no longer speak of. I hate feeling like this whole host of things I need to share most must go unspoken. Someday it won’t matter. I know this, too. And yet, it’s been all I can do to breathe. And keep breathing.
This too will end. I know.
But tonight, tonight I am decidedly not okay. Thankfully, tomorrow is another day. It will, perhaps, be better.
I have hope. Indeed, it is all I have.
Oh hugs to you!!!! She’s beautiful and you’re beautiful and the party will be a celebration of a fight you survived TOGETHER!!!!! So proud of you Mama!!! Stay strong, keep hoping, that’s all any of us has!!!!! Many many many hugs!!!!!
I am so sorry…please know that you have someone praying for you tonight in California…we will wait here until the words come back….xo
January is a tough time for a birthday (I know) but that and the PTSD around her birth could send you off the ledge. I get the mourning of normal. I do….
Here is to an amazing spring…….
You’ve got it right: just keep breathing.
Until the sunshine at the end of the tunnel shows up… *hugs*.
When I grow up, I will buy you a house on the tropical island of your choice. No seasonS just perfect. Living in Detroit, I can sympathize. 14/10ths of the year is cloudy and nasty. We get maybe MAYBE two real, nice summer days if we’re lucky. Most often, they occur in March.
Every January is another year farther from your terrifying year with Amelia. This thing defines you, it defines her, but it doesn’t have to negitivly effect you. You and her and your family are thriving in spite of the terror you experienced and you should be proud of that. Sending some love and sunshine.
I know it isn’t quite the same since my scar is on my back, but I’ll share my scar story anyway. When I was three, I had surgery to repair a coarctation of the aorta. The incision went all the way around my left shoulder blade with a drain spot under my left armpit. It’s faded a decent bit now, but it’s still there. Sometimes it still even itches like crazy for no apparent reason.
I don’t remember “me” without that scar. I am proud of that scar. It tells me that I survived. It tells me that I have thrived.
There will be a day when your gorgeous girl is 30+ years old where she will say the same thing about her scar. That scar has made it so she too can thrive. She is living and surviving and amazing thanks to that scar.
Hopefully that will help you just a tiny little bit. In the meantime, much love headed your way.
love.
Trust me it will come back. Small steps. Keep reading and laughing. Write small chunks at a time just for you and before you know it you’ll be rolling… I fight this fight too. Punch it in the face.
I don’t know you personally, ( although I feel like I do!) and I don’t know what you’ve been through, (and it seems like it was really bad…) but you have more than just hope! You have hope and support and community and you’ve built it for yourself from the sounds of it! And you have chutzpah- never underestimate the power of all those things combined!
It’s already tomorrow in China. I hope you’re better right away.
Ah, Auntie B…you are so not alone with just your hope to hold on to. So many of your Pranksters – strangers, and yet family too – are here with you. Watching for signs of the bad bits, and ready to hold your hand and give you hugs when you need it. We are also ready to cheer you on when you are having the good days.
Check it out AB….here we all are *waves*. Come sit on the couch and have some cookies (they’re chocolate chip!). *big hug*
Big HUGS! And some chocolate chip cookie dough dip!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip
1/2 cup butter 1/3 cup brown sugar 1 8-ounce block of cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3/4 cups chocolate chips Fruit, cookies, crackers — whatever you want to serve this with
1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and whisk until sugar dissolves and mixture starts to bubble. Set aside to cool, and whisk in vanilla.
2. Cream together cream cheese and powdered sugar for 60 seconds. With mixer on low speed, add in brown sugar and butter mixture. Mix until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Garnish with additional chopped chocolate. Serve with fruit, cookies, crackers, pretzels, or just a spoon.
You are amazing. Stay strong
I got nothing deep for you but that the whole sweet shop theme is well, fucking sweet!
Good job on comming up with that shit. I just think it’s the fucking best damn theme party for kids ever. You will be super mom to yours, and wanted as a mom by all the others.
Well, the diabetic kid might not like you, but I’m sure if they were dumb enough to RSVP to something they can’t enjoy, yet attend and bitch any way then who gives a shit. It’s like a mute being pissed they can’t be a telemarketer!
( And everyone please under stand this is just a for fun statement. I know diabetes is serious, as is being mute, so don’t fucking castrate me. It was a damn joke ok)
Oh, and my life eats a dick, so your doing alright. Hell, by comparison if our lives were to have a foot race yours win by far. Too shitty of an analogy??? But go sweets party!
I do keep thinking sweat shop instead of sweet shop though. Hi so glad you could come, now you little bastards will sit and sew fake Fendi shit for the next 16 hours, and if you complain, or tell any one, then I am going to beat the hell out of Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter bunny every year for the rest of your lives. Have fun now kids, we will have a water/ bathroom break in 5 hours, now get to work!!
Ha!
I’m not here to blow sunshine up your ass, because that would really burn. Can you imagine the heat of a million stars? I guess you wouldn’t have to worry about bikini waxes after that.
I know January is a sucktastical month for you but I am so proud of you for talking about this shit! You know that busting stigmas is a rocking hard thing to do, but you are here sharing with the world and making it easier for the rest of those that don’t have your guts!
I love you1
hugs. many, many hugs.
Tell us what you can tell us when you can tell us. Every admission is a step closer to freedom. You are amazeballs!
We shall be lurking or not lurking while waiting for you to feel better. Because it will get better. It sucks right now, but that’s about it. Love and purple rainbow glittery unicorns…. If I could paint, I’d come paint a glittery purple unicorn wolf howling at a moon for you.
You don’t have to be all eloquent or anything for us to care about how you feel and what you think. Go kick some PTSD ass.
Amelia found her words, and so will you. In the meantime, accept a few (mostly virtual) hugs from your pranksters. I’m personally sending wishes of happiness for tomorrow and the tomorrow after and so forth until the end of January, with an option to renew free of charge if necessary. You rock, Aunt Becky!
Tara, I read that as ‘viral hugs’ at first. You rock too!
Viral hugs actually sounds kind of good… As long as it’s hugs that won’t stop and not viruses giving the hugs.
I know you will beat this aunt becky! One breath at a time……Soon you will find that crack, where the light gets in. You are awesome.
I know EXACTLY how you feel. I’ve had clinical depression for 30 years and recently I have been ‘blessed’ with Seasonal Depression to go along with it. Some days I wish life just wasn’t so damn HARD.
I also freak out PTSD style around my girls’ birthday. It was an emergency birth, I almost died, they almost died, but we all survived. And everyone wants to blow it off and say “Well, everyone is healthy, you should just be happy for that”. Ummmm….just because it turned out OK doesn’t mean that it didn’t HAPPEN! I HAD ALL THOSE FEELINGS and they come back every year!!
OK, off soap box and on to do more mindless pinning on Pinterest, which I think has stolen my soul…
Oh, many many hugs Aunt Becky! You are doing a great job! And all your Pranksters appreciate you!
I’m usually the one lurking as gobbling up archives because I’m like that toddler who fails to realize that sun=awake dark= sleep and you make me giggle at 3am. So, that being said I just wanted to say that I get what you’re going through and while it wont make everything better magically here’s my list of Stupid Shit That Makes Me forget I am in The Sads:
1. Nyan Cat (and all the crazy variations of) seriously, because the Black Blob is no match for a PopTart Cat.
2. Nutella. On English Muffins with some good coffee.
3. Doctor Who marathons. (especially the David Tennant episodes) you’ll laugh, you’ll cry maybe but in a good way. Doctor Who has seriously kept my ass sane since November.
4. Install your disco shower!!! Because I want one, do not have one and it would make me happy.
5. That asshole voice in your head is wrong. We love you, your kids love you, Daver loves you. Nyan Cat loves you. Repeat.
Aww, I hope you start doing better suuuper soon.
You know, Aunt Becky… Maybe you should post the jumbles of words…. I had a very wise English teacher that started every class with writing time. He would make us write continuously for 10 or 15 minutes. He would tell us, “It doesn’t matter if you write this sucks over and over again.. at least you will get it out. The more that you put into the writing time the more you get out.” This first day I thought this guy was a lunatic because we wrote and wrote and he called time. Then he made us crumble the paper and throw it away… He would then tell us, “Now “it” is gone, no more lurking inside, it is gone.” That is it. I could not figure out the end game… But I gave it a try the next class… I started pouring all of my worries and dreams into that writing time… And at the end, I could not believe all that was happening in my head and then I crumbled the paper and throw it away… “It” wasn’t lurking in my head, poisoning me any more… I still do this exercise…
The point of my ramblings is that it seems that this blog is therapeutic for you… So maybe you should write all the sentences that don’t make sense and flesh them out… Maybe the words will come again after you get all the ramblings out…
Of course I am no therapist but I know that the wise old English teacher had something… I have no clue what but I know he reached a couple of us…
As the Girl Who Lived, you know Amelia will grow up to be one wicked wizard.