Allison Raskin's Blog, page 5

LEARNING TO TAKE BETTER CARE OF MYSELF

Last Thursday I found myself sitting in a new therapist’s office overcome with the thought, “I don’t want to be here.” I was exhausted by the task of having to explain my entire life story and my mother’s recent/traumatic death to a stranger. And I was annoyed that I had driven all this way in the rain to do so with a woman I didn’t immediately click with. I felt the familiar reluctance at being forced into therapy–something that was a much needed aspect of my mentally ill childhood–start to resurface until I realized: I don’t have to come back.

It was objectively funny to have this epiphany about therapy while in therapy, but it was also thrilling. I immediately felt my spirits lift and my sense of control over my own life come back. At 35 years old, I did not have to continue to see this woman who, while well-intentioned, was not what I needed right now. After being so recently burned by a different therapist (who abruptly ended our working relationship over email), attempting to find and nurture a new therapeutic alliance felt like more than I could currently ask of myself. It also felt like a performative step rather than what I actually needed to give myself as I navigate grief and a series of unfortunate circumstances.

On the surface, feeling like I should be in therapy right now makes sense. I have been in and out of a therapist’s care since I was four years old. Whenever there has been a noticeable dip in my mental health or a destabilizing life event, returning to treatment was the first line of defence. But over the years, I have learned that there are so many different ways to care for ourselves than traditional, weekly therapy. So realizing that I don’t have the buy-in* (*motivation and commitment) to start working with a new therapist right now doesn’t absolve me of doing the work to prioritize my mental health. Instead, it is a mandate to figure out other ways to give myself the support I need to make it through this hard time without fully sliding back into a depressive episode and/or disengaging with life.

There are other times in my life where attempting to do this kind of work without the support of a therapist wouldn’t have been possible. But I have been on this mental health journey long enough to have built up a good tool box. I have the awareness that while I am dealing with the biggest loss of my life, I am (thankfully) not in crisis. I also know that just because I don’t feel I need a new therapist right now doesn’t mean I might not need one in a few weeks or a few months. Part of allowing myself this break is understanding that if my mental health does get worse, I have to take more steps to support myself—regardless of any reluctance to do so.

But, for now at least, I will be focusing on other tactics to help myself through this time. These include:

ACCEPTANCE THAT GRIEF IS SUPPOSED TO HURT

While my sadness around my mother’s death contradicts society’s obsession with moving forward and instantly turning trauma into growth, it is perfectly normal that less than five months after my mom died I am still severely impacted by her absence. The idea that my mental health would have stabilized so quickly isn’t based on the reality of the human experience. I can tell that some people are surprised that I still bring up my mom’s death when they ask how I have been, but…of course I do. My life is completely different now and it will take a long time to adjust to that. I am also coming to terms with the fact that my life will never be the same. While it still has the potential to be good, it will never be as good as when she was here. That is a lot to process and a lot to grieve.

BEING GENTLE WITH MYSELF

Two months ago, I began tracking my ovulation with test strips that required me to pee in a cup every morning. It was incredibly annoying and, not to overshare, occasionally messy. While I don’t regret our decision to try to conceive right after losing my mom, I noticed that my relationship toward trying has changed in the last few weeks. I wasn’t disappointed when I got my last period. I was detached and ambivalent about the whole process. So instead of pushing myself forward despite this new attitude, I told John that I needed a month off from trying. I gave myself permission to take a break and I didn’t feel guilty about it. I’ve gotten good at noticing when there is a change in my capacity. There are times when I can push myself and times when I need to take my foot off the gas. And this last month, I needed to take one of those naps on the side of the highway for sleepy drivers.

CHALLENGING MY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

One of the benefits of having a master’s in psychology and working with my own relationship coaching clients is that I absolutely know when my brain is misbehaving. And while it is fun to give into a spiral now and then, at a certain point I have to start to challenge beliefs that might be harming me. This doesn’t mean I have to take a complete CBT approach and reframe my way out of the horrors of modern society. But it does mean I can tap into my strengths, resilience and ability for gratitude like I ask my clients to do.

USE BEHAVIORAL ACTIVATION TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE

Behavioral activation is a treatment for depression that involves forcing yourself to do things even when you don’t want to because it is likely that once you actually do them you will have a better time than you anticipate. Hence me forcing myself to reach out to people and make plans. Any petty desire to wait until my friends reach out to me is not allowed to override my need for social interaction. That is a new rule in my brain and I am in charge of enforcing it.

PAMPERING MY BODY

This is my newest weapon in my arsenal and I am loving it. Rather than feeling silly about spending time and money on skincare, manicures and lash lifts, I have embraced taking care of my physical form. I’ve made sure to take my time in the shower and use a pumice stone to get rid of any dead skin on my feet. While I don’t think I can loophole my way out of grief by looking my best, taking care of my body in these ways creates opportunities for me to slow down and send a message to my brain that I matter. Because when I am fully scrubbed and moisturized, I am also cared for.

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My other strategies include working out 4-5 times a week, going on walks, not consuming weed, taking Zoloft and eating enough so I am not hungry/irritable. I’ve also been finding a lot of comfort doing domestic work and feeling like my home is “in good shape.” (I love to announce to my husband that the home is “in good shape.”) I am still under the care of a psychiatrist and have recently asked if I can add Wellbutrin back to my medication roster until I get pregnant. (Awaiting her response on that one!)

Overall, my decision to not try to find a new therapist doesn’t feel like me abandoning myself or avoiding my issues. It actually feels like I am listening to myself rather than following a rulebook that might not apply to my current context. Therapy is a great resource, but, as I am learning, it is far from your only option.

xoxo,

Allison

P.S. It would mean a lot to me if you hit the like button to increase chances of engagement! Also, if you are able to upgrade to paid subscriber or share my posts with a potential reader, I would be incredibly thankful! Thank you for reading!

EVERYONE WILL DISAPPOINT YOU

I’ve had my feelings hurt a bunch these last few weeks by different people in my life. I won’t get into the sordid details because I believe it’s important to respect people’s privacy (bummer, I know). But this continued blow after blow has forced me to confront my growing urge to cut my ties to society and move to a very clean cave with my husband and two dogs. While I intellectually understand that community and connection are vital for our well-being, so much so that it is the main basis of my work as a relationship coach and mental health advocate, I can’t ignore this urge I have to cut everyone loose while shouting, “I DON’T NEED YOU ANYWAY!”

It makes sense that my instinct right now is to withdraw. I am grieving the loss of my incredible mother and may or may not be in a depressive episode. I am off birth control for the first time in 20 years and battling a range of hormones. And my country is being ripped apart by a hateful man who (somehow!) won the popular vote. All of this makes me even more fragile in the face of small slights and larger betrayals. It feels difficult to “buy-in” to the human race at the moment. So my brain, in a desperate attempt to protect me, thinks the most obvious solution to prevent future pain is to disconnect. To take my metaphorical ball and go home forever.

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I’M TRYING TO QUIT WEED (AGAIN)

The first time I took a substantial break from my daily weed use was in the summer of 2022 and I wasn’t happy about it. I’d recently been diagnosed with SIBO and had gone to see a specialist for additional advice. But the moment I revealed to him that I took a gummy or smoked from a dry herb vape each night to help with my anxiety, it was as if nothing else I said mattered. He became convinced that my acid reflux and stomach issues were a direct result of my long-term cannabis use even though I was pretty freaking sure they were not. (Both issues had started in my early twenties before I discovered how much daily weed helped calm me down and my symptoms didn’t match the syndrome he was, in my opinion, fanatically obsessed with.) I felt unheard and dismissed by his insistence that this thing that helped me so much was what was making me sick, but I also knew I owed it to myself and my husband (then boyfriend) to see if he was onto something. So I quit weed for about five weeks and I hated every minute of it.

Part of what made this time period difficult was that the decision to kick my habit wasn’t self-motivated. It was to test out a pet theory by a doctor I didn’t like (at all). I tried to self-manipulate my way into it by appealing to my vanity–if I didn’t partake I probably wouldn’t eat as much at night and maybe I’d lose weight. (I’m mortified to admit that the desire for thinness remains alluring despite all my best efforts to shed myself of this societal trap.) But after a weigh-in at a different doctor showed no change and my belief that my stomach issues weren’t tied to my daily use felt proven, I returned to the habit that brought me so much comfort and little repercussions outside of some nighttime snacking.

My relationship to weed since that forced break, however, has been a conflicted one. My usage wasn't out of control. I never had any during the day and I remained (extremely) productive. I didn’t have to increase my intake by any significant amount over time. And I often felt that my ability to fully relax at night was what allowed me to keep going at such an intense speed during the day. And yet…

I found myself planning my days around when I could take a gummy. While I knew I wasn’t physically addicted to it, as proven by week long vacations without it, I was certainly psychologically dependent. It had become a coping tool and for a long time that was…perfectly fine. I don’t think that any of us have to grin and bear our way through life just because it is the more “virtuous” approach. Weed helped me through my broken engagement and the death of my mother. I feel thankful that my body has such a soothing reaction to it. But it no longer felt like I was choosing to engage with it. It felt like it had chosen me and I didn’t like that shift in dynamic.

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Other factors also led to my change of heart. While I still don’t think I ever had Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, like that annoying doctor insisted, there has been more research coming out lately about the long-term effects of weed. I didn’t want to be one of those people whose opinion about something ignores new information. When I started using weed more frequently I truly believed there wouldn’t be significant health impacts. I then realized (embarrassingly belatedly) that smoking anything isn’t good for you, which is why I switched to the dry herb vape and gummies. But I still wasn’t convinced that weed itself was dangerous if it wasn’t having a negative impact on your daily life. I desperately wanted to hold on to these (self-serving) beliefs even as more and more upsetting information hit the mainstream media. While many people refuse to change their opinions despite contradictory information because doing so would force them to reexamine their life choices, I didn’t want to fall into that trap. Especially when I judge other people so much for doing just that! (Looking at you, Republicans.)

So all this upsetting research, combined with my desire to get pregnant and weed’s negative impact on conception, meant I finally felt motivated to stop. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to–in fact I’m still not sure–but I was ready and willing to try. Two things that weren’t true last time.

I’m happy to report that it’s officially been four weeks since I’ve had any cannabis. Part of what made this cold turkey approach possible was an unexpected two and a half week stay in NY. While I had decided to stop a few days before I left, not being at home made it easier for me to actually break the habit. By the time I returned I’d learned that I can tolerate evenings without it and, even more importantly, I had evidence that I can sleep well without needing to take something. All of this helped me fight off any inclination to relapse upon returning home (at least so far).

Deciding to give up weed, on my own timeline for my own reasons, has been incredibly empowering. I’ve always been a big proponent of working on yourself when you have the capacity. Over time, my dependence on weed had become a weight on my shoulders. It was this one area of my life where I felt powerless and incongruent with my values. (Aside from only being vegetarian instead of vegan, but that is a mission for another day.) I didn’t change my behavior the moment I wanted to, but I did change it once I felt like I had the ability to. And that feels like an important distinction. For whatever reason, my circumstances and desire finally aligned and all I had to do was take advantage of it.

We often say that we can’t force other people to change until they are ready but I also believe that we can’t force ourselves to change until we are ready. What this experience has shown me is that as long as I am gentle with myself and pay attention to when those moments of willingness do appear, I don’t have to beat myself up for not being “strong” enough to do something the moment I want to do it. Instead, I have to have faith in my future self and plant the seeds for the progress I eventually want to make–even if they take some time to grow.

I’ll admit that I was afraid to write this in case I return to my weed habit, but that fear goes against my desire for leading with self-compassion. I have no idea what my relationship toward weed will be in the future. All I know is that right now I don’t want to use it and I’m proud of myself for keeping that up. If that changes or if I slip up, so be it. I’ll just wait for another opportunity to get closer to who I want to be.

xoxo,

Allison

P.S. It would mean a lot to me if you hit the like button to increase chances of engagement! Also, if you are able to upgrade to paid subscriber or share my posts with a potential reader, I would be incredibly thankful! Thank you for reading!

MY TRAUMA THERAPIST DUMPED ME OVER EMAIL

After my mother died in September, I decided it was probably time for me to try EMDR therapy. As my mother’s primary caregiver during her rapid six week decline, I experienced multiple instances where I thought to myself, well, this is probably going to traumatize me, even as I continued to stay regulated and present in the moment. Despite having a master’s in psychology and interviewing a wonderful EMDR therapist for my podcast, this form of treatment–where the therapist uses bilateral stimulation to help clients move memories into a less charged area of their brains–remained confusing and mysterious to me. But I hoped its approach would become clear if I just took the plunge and gave it a shot. Maybe it would transform my life and help me bypass the worst of my grief! At the very least, I assumed it wouldn’t make things worse.

The thing about EMDR is that it’s a specialty so it requires extra training and certification. This means clinicians are often in demand and likely to charge more. That’s why I felt lucky when one of the therapists I reached out to was able to get me off the waiting list and into her office after only a week. (I’d found her through one of my trusted therapist friends.) I wasn’t sure what to expect when I entered her lovely Beverly Hills office, but I certainly wasn’t expecting this whole experience to end with me being dumped.

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LIVING WHERE MY MOTHER DIED

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned to my parents house earlier this month initially to help my sister and then to flee the LA fires. I hadn’t flown back since August when I ended up staying for nine weeks to first care for my mother as she unexpectedly died and then care for my father as he recalibrated to a life without her. Until this time of horror, their house in Westchester, NY had been a source of comfort to me since they moved in 2017. My parents oversaw the entire build and each room is intricately designed with my mother’s industrial taste and artist’s eye. Its appeal immediately overtook any nostalgia for the house I grew up in and I found solace here during the winter of 2020 after my broken engagement as my parents and sister nursed me back to sanity. I used to love being here. But, like so many parts of my life in the last six months, that’s changed.

My parents’ home or–as I now say with a pinch of pain each time–my father’s home, holds the memory of our loss in a visceral way. While I think of my mom constantly, no matter my location, I am mostly thinking about her as my adoring mother and closest friend. Here, though, I think of her as sick and dying. The fancy sectional is where I had to figure out how to roll the chaise part up to the couch part so she wouldn’t fall off because she’d lost control of her limbs. Her bathroom is where she experienced a horrifying tremor that broke the toilet. Where I sit writing this is the room where she came to do occupational therapy exercises on the piano bench before we knew the exercises weren’t going to help. The kitchen table is where we told her she was going to die and there was nothing we could do about it. I feel like I am in a mausoleum of the worst moments of my life.

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There is another element of staying here that I hadn’t considered when I booked my flight: being around her things. Back when she could still talk some, we were going through her office to pull out year books and look at various mementos. We discovered old letters and musings and I could tell she did not want me to read them. You see, despite her many appearances in my content over the years, my mother was a deeply private person. I realized that day that reading her personal writing after she was gone would be a violation of her boundaries–no matter how much my curiosity and desire for connection will make me want to. So I told her I wouldn’t do it. And (so far) I haven’t. But she never told me I couldn’t go through her stuff. And, wow, did my mom have a lot of stuff.

In the weeks following her death, I went through my mother’s massive closet and her jewelry. I shipped myself boxes filled with her purses. I had rings resized to fit my hand and haven’t spent a day since she was gone without wearing at least something that used to belong to her on my body. But being back here now, I have the time and space to consider the less obvious things. Like why in the world did she have so many of the same face creams? I understand having a bunch of different face creams. We all get lured into the possibility that this slightly altered formula will give us the results we’ve been longing for. But, multiple bottles of the exact same Cerave face cream? To what end?

I had a similar feeling of confusion when I riffled through her sock drawer knowing I had seen travel tissue packs in there the last time I was home. I assumed that was where she kept new packets of much needed on-the-go Kleenex. I was wrong. That is where she stored half-used packets of Kleenex for unclear reasons. I wonder at what point a pack got reassigned to the sock drawer. Was it after a trip where it wasn’t used up? Or simply if she didn’t like the look of it anymore but wasn’t willing to, I don’t know, throw it away?

Why were there so many hotel slippers stashed in a drawer? What was she preparing for that none of us know about?

As close as I was to my mother, it has been lovely to get to know her even more through her seemingly trivial things. Her doubles (and triples) of certain items reinforces that she was always prepared. Her best friend, Robin, who has been a source of comfort to me as both a surrogate mother figure and fellow historian of Ruth Raskin lore, recently remarked that my mother had every kind of sock imaginable. Robin said she often found herself without a certain type of sock and thought, oh well, while my mother would make sure that never happened again by going out and procuring every type of sock that exists. As someone who has inherited a variety of those socks, I am once again thankful for my mother’s vigilance for every shoe situation.

Reaping the benefits of my mother’s things has been a loophole in losing her. While she might not be able to take me on our biyearly shopping trips anymore or order me fleeces because I dramatically complain of the cold in my well-insulated house, she has left behind riches that continue her pattern of care. While it initially felt silly (and potentially of bad taste) to take so many of her things, I now find myself scouring her bathroom cabinets for anything that might make my life a little bit easier. Travel q-tip packs? Fantastic! Four different bottles of the same Cerave mineral sunblock? Sign me up! Toothpicks to put in my purse for when food inevitably gets stuck too far in my teeth for my nails to be of any use? Absolutely I will! Each time I use these objects it will be a comfort knowing my mom’s foresight (and potential shopping addition) provided me with what I need to best take care of myself in the way her mind and well-supplied purse always did.

At least for now, I am going to stick to my promise of not reading things that weren’t meant for me. (Future Allison’s self-control is unknown.) But that won’t stop me from trying to figure out why my mom kept a little baby figurine with a sloth helmet and angel wings in her bedside table. Where did she get this? Did she laugh every time she saw it? Why did she keep it in her bedroom instead of in the office with her other tchotchkes? As someone with a bad memory, her things allow me to continue to flesh out the intricacies of her uniqueness without solely relying on my flawed and limited recollections. It makes the sting of being here more manageable because while she might have died here, I am also reminded of all the ways she lived—surrounded by pouches in every size, an obscene amount of lip balm and stacks of the same few books written by me.

xoxo,

Allison Raskin

P.S. It would mean a lot to me if you hit the like button to increase chances of engagement! Also, if you are able to upgrade to paid subscriber or share my posts with a potential reader, I would be incredibly thankful! Thank you for reading!

WHO WILL WORRY ABOUT ME NOW THAT MY MOTHER IS GONE?

Note: Emotional Support Lady alternates each week between paid and free posts. Since this week is a scheduled paywall post, I will be donating the proceeds of all new paid subscribers generated from this essay to Anti-Recidivism Coalition in support of all the incarcerated firefighters who have bravely been saving my city of Los Angeles (despite our historically horrific treatment of them). If you would like to make an additional donation, you can do so here. Just make sure you put “firefighter fund” in your donation note. Sending so much love to all impacted by this devastation.

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My mother was a worrier. I used to have a standup joke that went something to the effect of:

My Mom: You need to zip your purse closed so you don’t get robbed!

Me: Mom, it is just me and you in the kitchen.

For most of my life, my mother’s worry endlessly alternated from useful to funny to annoying. Like the time she asked if she could bring anything to my house for Thanksgiving but when we asked her to just bring some milk she panicked that nothing would be open and it became easier to just get the milk ourselves than give her a heart attack over procuring it (places were open). I don’t even know how many often I argued with her over some concern that I deemed unnecessary and she considered vital. Some longtime readers of mine might find it hypocritical of me–a person publicly known for her anxiety and OCD–to find any worry unnecessary. But the thing about our brains is that we all have unique specifications of what we care about. My mom thought it was crucial for me to always have a jacket and I think it is crucial for me to cover every possible surface in cleaning agents multiple times a day. Hence, us clashing over what really mattered.

So despite having my own form of clinical-grade anxiety, it took me until I was older and getting a masters’ in psychology to fully understand where her penchant for worry truly came from and how much her hypervigilance was a natural response to a variety of traumatic experiences. For example, her insistence that my purse was always zipped had less to do with her being dramatic and more to do with her having her home robbed two different times. Finally comprehending this cause and effect enabled me to not get so confused when she would worry about losing all her savings despite my parents’ good financial standing. Because growing up poor makes financial anxiety hard to shake even if your circumstances dramatically change.

When my mom first died in September, her worry wasn’t something I immediately missed. I was more focused on the less complicated parts of her personality like her impeccable sense of humor, her unconditional support and our shared love of kitschy stores. (We once spent an afternoon in a Hallmark store giggling over the various clever and ridiculous merchandise). I only fully noticed how much I craved her constant concern when the fires broke out in LA on Tuesday.

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LESSONS FROM GRIEF

Back in May, I interviewed author Cody Delistraty on my podcast Just Between Us. He’d recently written a book all about grief that was inspired by losing his mom years earlier. During our conversation I shared that while I’d been through a lot in my life (mental illness, major surgeries, failure, heartbreaks), the one area I had no experience with was grief. At least grief because the person had died rather than cut me out of their still-happening life. All those other hardships had fundamentally changed me as a person, and I was somewhat morbidly curious how I would respond to the kind of soul-wrenching grief people write entire memoirs about. I suspected I would not handle it well.

Less than five months later, I had my answer. It turns out that I did astonishingly well in the immediate aftermath. I managed to put together my mother’s funeral service and write her obituary in the 48 hours after she died in her home surrounded by loved ones. I remained composed and present and didn’t feel compelled to slit my wrists and join her (a reaction I had anticipated given the closeness of our relationship and my history of suicidal ideation). Those first few weeks without her were spent taking care of my dad and promoting my new book. I only had the time and space to confront my own grief once I returned to Los Angeles and attempted to resume a new, significantly worse, version of my daily life.

Since then, I’ve started to notice changes in how I view the world. It’s the kind of mental shifts that only come after going through something awful. During The Daily’s recent retrospective episode, The Year In Wisdom, one of the journalists interviewed shared a sentiment that stuck out to me. He said something to the effect of, you can focus on the pain or you can focus on the lesson. Seeing as my mother was a life-long learner, I am doing my best to make the most of this grief. To use it as a way to fuel a better understanding of what it means to be mortal and human. This doesn’t erase the pain or even ease it, but it does help make it less senseless.

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So with all that in mind, here’s what I’ve learned so far:

THE GREATEST WAY I CAN HONOR MY MOM IS TO BE HAPPY

The thing my mom wanted most in the world was for her children and grandchildren to be happy. I am the only person who can give her that. (At least regarding myself.) As much as this loss had made me want to disengage from the world and give into negativity, doing that would ruin her legacy. Deciding to live for both of us has helped motivate me to continue to find joy. It also makes me feel less guilty for not being completely consumed by grief all the time. Being able to enjoy my life without her isn’t a betrayal of my love, it is a testament to how she raised me.

YOU HAVE TO CHANGE TO SURVIVE

A few weeks ago my dad told me he drank his first glass of wine. He was out to eat with the woman he was dating and another couple and decided to try it. My initial reaction was one of annoyance. Why was my picky father willing to push his taste buds for some woman he barely knew after decades of not drinking with my mom–who would occasionally enjoy a glass by herself or with my husband? I quickly realized that deciding to finally have that glass of wine likely had little to do with his date. Rather, it can be comforting to transform in the wake of grief because this new version of you is learning how to live without them. If we don’t try new things and forge new relationships, the life we lead will simply be less full than before, and it will be harder to engage in the present. Changing, even in superficial ways, helps us stay attached to our new reality instead of being completely stuck in the past.

THERE WILL BE FORTUNE IN YOUR MISFORTUNE IF YOU LOOK HARD ENOUGH

It would be easy for me to solely focus on all the things that went wrong. My mother died extremely quickly from an incredibly rare disease. I didn’t get to ask her all the questions I wanted to because she lost her ability to speak. She will never get the chance to meet my future child if I am lucky enough to have one. And plenty of other ridiculous (horrible) things happened during the course of her rapid decline including the elevator breaking (leaving her trapped on the second floor of my parent’s house) and the air conditioning malfunctioning during a very hot shiva.

But despite the various mishaps that ranged from annoying to truly traumatic, I find myself returning more to the solace that came from her disease being completely untreatable. Once we got the CJD diagnosis, there was nothing to do. There was no medicine or cutting edge technologies to try out. We didn’t waste time taking her to various doctors and we don’t waste mental energy now wondering if only we had done something different. There was a definiteness to her condition that allowed us to be present with her rather than racing against the clock to find a cure. If I was going to have to lose her, I’m glad I got to spend the last weeks we had together accepting that rather than fighting it.

I never thought there would be comfort in a terminal disease. But I also never experienced anything like this before.

DEATH WON’T ENLIGHTEN YOU

For all that I’ve learned since September 23rd, perhaps the hardest to swallow is that I am still a petty, jealous, imperfect person. You think that losing someone so important will completely transform the way you see and interact with the world. I assumed I would stop caring about the success of my books or my engagement on Instagram. I thought that in exchange for my mother I’d get to reach some higher level of understanding about life that would elevate me beyond my worst instincts. Nope. While I am certainly changed–and in many ways for the better–I am nowhere within reaching distance of Nirvana. Instead, I find myself having to figure out how to go on living as a regular, flawed person with a mom-shaped hole in my heart.

JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS GONE DOESN’T MEAN THEY WON’T CONTINUE TO SHAPE YOU

My mom keeps teaching me things even though I can’t talk to her anymore. I often wonder how my mom would want me to handle something, and I’ve looked for guidance in her own experiences with grief and losing so many members of her family as I navigate my own. I’m relieved to realize that my relationship with my mother will be ongoing. My mother might not be alive, but I am not and never will be motherless.

I CAN HANDLE MORE THAN I THINK I CAN AND SO CAN OTHER PEOPLE

Most of us are walking around with major wounds of some sort. If we told our worst stories to others they would say, I can’t imagine or I don’t know how you deal with that. And yet…here we are. Grief and trauma might weigh us down. But we can often carry more than we think. Especially when we let others bear some of the load.

After years of wondering, I now know how I handle grief. And while it is extremely painful, it makes the rest of the unknowns in my life less scary. Because I have already lived through my worst fear coming true.

xoxo,

Allison

P.S. It would mean a lot to me if you hit the like button to increase chances of engagement! Also, if you are able to upgrade to paid subscriber or share my posts with a potential reader, I would be incredibly thankful! Thank you for reading!

MY MOM IS DEAD AND MY DAD IS DATING

So much of my life is unrecognizable from six months ago. And that’s not even including the fact that I now have short hair and a new tattoo. (Although both are rather tell-tale signs of grief.) When I started consistently swimming laps over the summer, I remember repeatedly thinking, Nothing traumatic has happened to me in a while. I was finally in a stable marriage even if my husband was struggling with his career. My knee was getting better after a horrendous recovery from major surgery. And I hadn’t suffered a painful friendship breakup or significant career mishap in recent memory. I felt lucky and grateful. And then everything changed.

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MAKING SENSE OF THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES (ABOUT OURSELVES)

The other night I went to dinner with my husband and the one good friend I still have from my boarding school days. Calling her a friend from high school is a bit misleading though since we were never that close as teenagers and we only formed a stronger friendship after bumping into each other on the streets of Los Angeles a few years ago. But--unconventional journey aside—she knew me when I was 16 and she knows me now.

Over vegan food, we started reminiscing about those years and it came out that I had (briefly) been in a cool girl clique called the Fab Five made up of four other new juniors who had also arrived at Choate Rosemary Hall after two years of high school elsewhere. My husband, upon learning this fact I thought he already knew, grew (jokingly) irate. “You were in a cool girl clique?! You said you were a total weirdo with no friends!” he declared, thinking he had caught me in a lie. It was a similar sentiment to something my best friend had said a few days earlier while on a trip to Mexico with family and family friends. We were talking about my childhood issues, and she’d shared something along the lines of, “It’s always been hard for me to imagine you having bad social skills.”

Without further context, it probably appears that I have been holding onto a false narrative about my past. I paint myself as someone who had a hard time making and keeping friends despite my history as a “cool girl” (according to at least one person’s version of me) and my current ability to connect easily with people. Could it be that I simply had no sense of how people perceived me when I was growing up and I failed to see how much I was thriving?

I’m sure to some degree, this was true. It’s probably difficult to find a teenager or young adult who isn’t overly critical of themselves at times. But what my friends and husband were missing about my story is the pattern of finding community and then losing community. My issue was never getting friends. It was keeping them.

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It’s taken me a long time to make sense of why this was my pattern until I hit my mid/late 20’s. The evidence of bad relationship skills was vast. I went from being a part of the Fab Five to having to go home every weekend to hang out with my parents. I happily joined a sorority in college only to drop out three years later because I’d fallen out with my original group and had no one to go to events with. One of my best friends in my 20’s told me he wasn’t coming to my 30th birthday party and then never contacted me again. Since I was the common denominator in all this, it was easy to assume that I was unlikable and bad at friendship.

These painful experiences are partially why I have been so curious about getting an autism diagnosis. As I’ve written about before, people online love to tell me that in addition to having OCD, I appear to be autistic. And I’ll admit, it’s been somewhat comforting to lean into this potential diagnosis because it would allow me to rewrite the story of my childhood. Rather than being weird and off-putting with poor social skills, I could reinvent myself as someone who was simply misunderstood due to being on the spectrum. I could have a nice and tidy narrative about why I was the way I was. And as a writer and mental health advocate with a master’s in psychology, I know how appealing it is to have clear-cut stories about ourselves. It helps us make sense of am otherwise confusing and painful world and makes it easier to extend ourselves much needed kindness.

I shared this sentiment with my best friend during our conversation in Mexico and turned to ask my mom’s best friend what she thought about the possibility of me being autistic. Robin was a useful person to ask because in addition to having known me since I was five, she is also an accomplished trauma therapist. And in one of those rare, life-changing moments, her response completely transformed the narrative I now hold about my childhood and social struggles.

Robin told me that she didn’t think my social struggles were due to me being undiagnosed autistic. Instead, she said that my OCD and related mental health struggles (anxiety and bouts of depression) kept me so in my head that I likely missed developmental milestones. I wasn’t learning how to appropriately relate to people at the same pace as my peers because I was consumed with my own (mentally ill) thoughts.

This take, which I had never thought of before, made total sense to me. It also fit nicely with my somewhat recent understanding of how much my OCD had impacted my childhood friendships without me noticing it. (For example, my black and white thinking combined with my overly rigid sense of morality often led me to cut people off if they didn’t behave exactly how I thought they should.) It also aligned with how my inability to properly emotionally regulate created friction and difficulties with the people I cared about.

It turns out that I didn’t need an autism diagnosis to not blame myself for my social struggles. I simply needed a better understanding of my own mental health history to make sense of how I went from someone who couldn’t keep friends to the person I am today—a social butterfly who never has any issues whatsoever! Or, more accurately, a person who presents as someone who doesn’t seem like she was kicked out of every community she was a part of until she hit 27ish. My mental issues delayed my social skills but once I got a better handle on emotional regulation, the ability to live in nuance and not blurting out every offensive thought that comes into my head, I was able to become the type of friend that people want to keep around.

Reading this, you might be thinking, what is the big difference? Couldn’t I have offered myself the same self-compassion for my past without learning I was likely developmentally delayed? Yes and no. I haven’t judged myself for my issues growing up in a long time. But I have struggled to understand my own trajectory. I didn’t totally comprehend how I could have gone from being so bad at something to having a—dare I say—affinity for it. I couldn’t totally reconcile the person I was for so long with the person I am today. And that made me wonder if maybe, deep down, I was still the unlikable weirdo from childhood.

Now, however, I have a clearer sense of why my life has played out the way it has and it’s easier to finally shed this old image of myself as someone who will eventually and inevitably be rejected. It also helps me own my newfound social skills as an actual part of myself rather than some mask I am putting on to fool people. Most skills have to be learned and while I took a bit longer than others to pick them up, they are now firmly mine.

I’m sure this new narrative I have about myself oversimplifies things to some extent, but that’s what all narratives do. They force a jumble of factors and experiences into one coherent line. I’ll admit this can sometimes be to one’s own detriment because they allow you to ignore the things you don’t want to see. But for now, at least, I find comfort in making sense of this part of myself that has long craved a clear story.

xoxo,

Allison

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A NEW TYPE OF DISAPPOINTMENT

It took 38 days to get my period this month. My last cycle was 29. This meant there were nine days where I thought, Maybe I will finally get some life-changing good news. Sure, I took two pregnancy tests and neither showed even the faintest indication of the needed hormones. And everyone I told assumed I was simply late due to stress and the irregularities that come after a decade on birth control. I also didn’t notice any of the tell-tale changes to a body that would signal an embryo had actually stuck. But I couldn’t stop my mind from hoping that I was pregnant.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning to my period, a part of me felt relief because along with the hope was the fear that my late period meant my body wasn’t working correctly or I had an unviable ectopic pregnancy that wouldn’t register on a test. I tried to lean away from the disappointment with a positive reframe that at least now I was out of limbo and we could try again this month. But an undercurrent of sadness and frustration remained.

I know that I am far from the first person who has gone from being ambivalent about parenthood to hyperfixated on conception. It’s normal that once you finally make the decision to do something, you want that thing to happen right away. But I’m realizing that there is more at play here than my classic, level-ten impatience. I don’t know what to do with all the energy and love that used to be reserved for my recently deceased mom, and a baby seems like the perfect new outlet.

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