One day at a time.

It's been a while since I've last written and I thought I should at least post an update...after all, my last post was pretty depressing.

This is a good juncture to also add that most things on social media - blogs included - often don't portray a holistic version of one's life. At least for me, this blog often contains either informative things I thought to share, or emotions too much for me to bear and needed to spill out somewhere. I suppose that last post fell into that "I needed to spill somewhere" category.

The truth is, last year was pretty rough for me... in fact, the past few years have been.
For something like the past 8 years now, every year brought with it something more devastating to me than the last. It's almost as if life was trying to turn me into an armadillo of sorts... except I don't think I have been recovering fast enough to be able to deal with the next blows.

A big break up, an unexpected law suit, a major surgery, having almost lost my father (twice), business troubles, and last year having some psychotic person stalk and harass me (plus later understanding there was barely any legal protection available for harassment cases unless I was willing to fork out so much money to control some mentally unstable human...)... that was pretty much my breaking point. I simply couldn't take it anymore.

(I don't know if you can empathize with my feelings of hopelessness in that case of harassment - when you listen from a third party cautioning you that there is a human alive relishing in their ability to spark fear in you by harassing you. I am probably stronger from that and would tell her to "F-off" if I ever see this human again...but I would wish it on no one. It is not a good experience. It is enough to know there are weird people out there, without having to experience it for yourself.)

I guess that last post came at some point of some night I was just feeling really sorry for myself.

It's kind of like reaching a place of helplessness where you feel abandoned by God, and by humans, and you just seek the last place where you found security... and then realized that that's not there either. It was a hopeless place... I suppose it was worse when throughout all these years, I've found that I've had to hide all this brokenness. I had to keep up with appearances, and try to be strong...and when I faltered, and decided to stay home and just be real with myself, I felt guilty and irresponsible.

Have things gotten better since last year?

Yes and No.

Yes, in the sense that my harasser has stopped (although she is still on the loose somewhere in this country and probably still needs psychiatric help).

But no, in the sense that I've developed sporadic panic attacks..which are probably from the cumulative amount of traumatic experiences I haven't had time to process.

Since last year I made quite a few changes though... I dropped out of a lot of groups. I tried to distance myself away from people who made me uncomfortable in any way (I say this because sometimes, in business/social groups, this is a pain I believed I had to bear...to tolerate people that had very different value systems from mine. But I realized that that just wasn't true.).

I'm still not done yet. There are a lot of things I'm still cutting out of my life... and there are days where I do wish I could just move far away from all my daily sources of stressors, to restart someplace else and try to figure life out in a more peaceful place, at my own pace, before the next crazy thing hits.

And perhaps I will.

But for today, here's an update saying that things are not perfect...nor are they all better, but they just aren't as bad as they used to be. I think I've lost myself somewhere in between, but now, in the small chunks of peace I can find, I'm trying to rebuild.
And for that, I'm thankful.

One day at a time.