Finding Calm In The Fire

UNFILTERED MUSING 10

I started therapy. As I sit here and hear the crickets chirp around me, there’s the breeze of autumn in the air. The leaves are turning yellow, and a ton of them have already dropped in our yard.

I’ll have to pick those up later.

Needless to say, the season is changing. When there’s change in the air, it’s an exciting time to go and experience new things. But I’ve lost that excitement.

I experienced a season of depression back in my senior year of college and the year that followed. Depression lingered with me. I think back on the times when I was really depressed and what sparked that.

I think it comes down to not getting something I really wanted and tried hard to get. Back then, it was a relationship. But now, it’s deeper than that. It’s a child.

I’m not saying it will never happen, but my knee jerk reaction is fear before hope now. And I don’t like that.

I wish it were different. Yesterday, we connected with a friend who just had a baby boy, and she walked in with the armor of motherhood. She had a huge smile on her face, but what stood out to me was how calm she was.

My therapist reiterated and put into words my experiences better than I could when she shared that my nerves are on fire right now.

It was amazing to me to see a mother so calm, without an anxious thought in the world, while my nerves are burning to ashes.

I wondered if that could ever be me? Is that why I am not getting pregnant? These thoughts come and go into my brain like balls in my niece’s ball pit. My sister cleans them up, and two minutes later they are back out again. It’s a constant process, and it probably feels like it’s never ending.

I want to think positive. Usually I do. Usually I am the optimistic person believing and seeing the good in the world. While I want to do that for others, right now I am going straight to the pit of fire toward myself.

I am slowly crashing down, or as the young kids say nowadays, crashing out.

Starting therapy feels real. I am able to say things out loud that have only been in my head for the first time, and she replies with something that makes me feel even more seen. Even validated for feeling the fire.

A big topic of my intake therapy session was my history with concussions. As my therapist asked me when I first had a concussion, my memory leapt back to my junior year in high school. I landed on the floor chin first, and my head whipped back as fast as a fan opening. I went to the ER that night, and couldn’t sleep. I had a massive headache. They stitched up my chin and I was good to go play in the game the next day. Only then did I remember feeling like absolute crap.

Thirteen experiences later of feeling the same exact symptoms, I do believe that was my first concussion that was undiagnosed.

Every concussion is brain damage. It’s one of the most frustrating and detrimental injuries you can get in my opinion, because it stays with you forever and you feel crazy for even having the symptoms of it.

My therapist shared her health background, which allowed her to have an expert opinion about my concussions. Any sort of brain damage makes it very difficult for the brain to handle stress, she said.

Both sides of my brain are having a hard time communicating with one another, and my emotional side is taking off, unable to utilize the other side to be rational.

That makes sense, because right now I am just numb from the stress. Like a balloon that doesn’t want to take in any more air, because it knows that with one more thing, it will burst.

There are a lot of different things I am juggling at the moment, and as much as I’ve tried before, I just can’t juggle. I never could get the hang of it.

But sometimes juggling through things is life. And something I am already learning is that I haven’t allowed myself to feel all the emotions. Which is crazy to think, because I am a big advocate for feeling and not running away from things. But the only emotions I am allowing myself to feel or put into words are a deep, deep sadness and happiness.

So instead of juggling balls, maybe I am learning to juggle all the emotions I am experiencing right now. Putting a name to them, especially anger.

I am proud of myself for going to therapy. I am also so grateful to my wife for supporting me to go to therapy.

When I think of her, I am reminded of how lucky I truly am. No matter what season I am going through emotionally, I have a partner who still loves me, and that brings me so much relief. She’s my stone that never burns. How lucky am I?