Life in Trauma

I have been living my life as a traumatized person.

I have been feeling so out of control that I never took control.

This meant that when someone annoyed me or challenged me I felt threaten.

I have shut down my own ideas, plans, and goals to keep safe just as is.

As a traumatized person over having sudden deaths, strokes, heart attacked follow upon those I have loved I have been comforting my self by focusing on the past and not the future. I have been thinking living for the greater good or the grace in being there for others instead of being there for me. I have not been there for me in my own life. This is why when people ask "What do you want for your life?" I stare at them not understanding, feeling threaten that I can't focus on myself right, the world is falling down around me, I need to fix it! Then in focusing on all the wrong things like a spotless home, a kitchen full or food and lately I've been working on my kitten utopia. Growing a huge garden instead of socializing, watching the pets every second so no one dies, trying to keep the day from never ending is what a traumatized person does.

My hours of writing in the last 2 years of are all connection to pain in some way.

And I have allowed my whole body to be in pain.

This pain kept me from doing things like riding bikes, or going out into the world to just be. Anything that was fun has been lost to me. Yet I know this from the desperate feeling I have been having this summer that I am loosing control over my life, that I need to get back to fun maybe finding my sharp wit and humor again. Yet again focusing on all the wrongs not the most important things for me that would fix my whole world. I didn't know what was important to me or those around me because when you are a traumatized person your brain is stuck in child safety mode. I was not living in my womanhood, my empowered motivation to take control over my life.

I love the song "If time is all I had then I would spent it all with you." the message of devoted love and realizing everything else we fill our lives with doesn't matter, only the one the we love till the day we die matters. Yet then the thought death of or being abandon crushes me in a way that before it happen to me this week, I lived watching and knowing and feeling yet not able handle or process or understand better what has happen me.

I felt like I had failed at every move I have ever made in my life because I was not in order, in control of how my life SHOULD go.

This crazy panic has sent me on the most profound journey of my life time!

I was freaking over what should be instead of what simply just is.

Who I am came back alive, who I use to be when I was deeply happy and contented came back to me as well when I face my fearful self this week.

I thought I had to fight to keep the love of my life by my side but then I realized I don't know my own sides. I don't even know where I have been for my home was a place full of the past and guarded  gates to keep safety first. So I got my house in order and not its the most amazing place! I dealt with all my fears, the battles of everything in my self made me feel like a lunatic hoping someone else will take control over what is going on right now.

I embody Wonder woman as how I wanted to be, yet instead I was screaming on the floor feeling like the love of my life die because I had lost all sense of my control and my whole world felt gone forever to me. I was bursting out all my fears and judgments on others and most miserable upon my self. Then when I felt like I had been asleep in my life, my routines and my marriage were my only identification because I didn't know who I was anymore, I broke free!

I am aware now.

I am on a new path for my life.

I am not living in fear anymore if I can help it or stay aware of it at least.

Fear has wasted my time for so long this summer, I have never been this quite and guarded about what I was going through and then I thought it was because I am old now and wise I can't fix anything by talking.

I am Debby Shively, I am 40 years old, I am not traumatized anymore.

Because EVERYTHING is as it SHOULD BE.

Life as a Warrior

I have just been through hell and back, The battles I have just had within me and on me in order to get my house in order. In order to conquer fear, grief, pain and suffering each battle is a miraculous story for me!
I am a real warrior now, and I have never know this kind of freedom before to be happy in being me!

So now I turn to face the sun for this dark tunnel really took me by surprise.

40 years of Life

I climbed the mountain, the cliffs of struggle and self doubt. I wondered when I was 10 years old if my life was going to get any better or not because I didn't know how to fix my family.

 

I climbed the mountains thinking about my words, my knowledge of being and enjoying my journey. I felt like the answers were always just a prayer away.

 

I climbed the mountain thinking of the greater good for what can I do in my time on this earth to help it or fix it. What can I learn to be the best person I can be?

I turned 10 years old thinking it's such a grown up age. That now I will be smarter and wiser for it.

I climbed the mountain thinking of all the is right and all that is wrong, and I found love not just in me for what I am but how amazing sharing my life with someone also made me strong.

I turned 20 years old thinking how wonderful all of life is in the good and the bad and I will always choose good.

I climbed a mountain in finding my own brave voice and pure freedom.

I turned 30 years old feeling like I had arrived, I had discovered the pure beauty in being alive.

I climbed a mountain in facing my past traumas, in being brave and taking ownership of my life.

I turned 40 years old knowing I am so ever grateful for the very breath I take.

I climbed a mountain and I thought it was the very top with my cane of wisdom for all I had lived through to this moment when the mountain broke away under my feet  and my cane was lost into the sea as I plunged into the very deep dark salty ocean that burns my lungs and drowns me.

I just keep swimming of course, I believe in the great good and the calling of making the earth a better place. I just keep swimming.

Life in Trouble

There are moments in your life, in your understanding that change the very breath you take.

There are troubling situations you find yourself in  that takes bravery and kindness, not just for those around you but for your own self.

Life in trouble makes Life in love and Life in peace even more important.

Life is real, we often forget this when trying to write the story of our lives and we forget the very next chapter and a new day can and will hold some trouble in it.

The whole truth of a life is that it's on a journey sometimes shared and sometimes completely all alone.

Life in my 40th year has proven that I have not arrived to any great wisdom of perfection or of deep understanding instead I have arrived to a troubling tunnel I must now walk through and I am going to use all my words, the one word I have chose for each year of my life to face this tunneling craziness right now.

Didn't I use to have a better understanding about life when I was younger?

I am now going to have a better understanding about trouble I think so I will stay the course and put a lamp hat on my head because it's about to get very dark walking through a tunnel of trouble......

Life in Dancing

      

              I was just a little girl in 1984, the movie came to theaters and all my young aunts and young uncles were talking about it. I was being babysat by one of our mother's friends who ran a daycare from her home in Meridian Idaho. She put this movie on the TV for her older daughter and then they danced as I watched on in awe and in happiness I will always remember the movie, Kevin Bacon was dancing his way through "Footloose." against all the strict religious parents who had band dancing and didn't like new music. I was instantly intrigued that being babysat felt strange and scary, yet this movie came on and we were all dancing with it.

I began dancing with all my music cassette tapes, I taught my sister and my brother to jump off the living room couch when the music got loud or had the sound of a big bang in learning the timing I felt like I was apart of the music and in all things we danced all over the living room of the single wide trailer home. That home felt so big when you are 5 years old dancing all over the place and giggling then when I was 10 we spent a summer away from it and I came back feeling like it's so tiny and tight in moving around...by then I had been dancing out in the country side!

I am not a very good dancer, I have never been coordinated or taught properly yet all of my life I have tried to capture the beat in the happiness I feel when dancing sets us free!

Dancing is the joy that the human body can move and be alive fully in sweat and high heart beating as your spirit knows that music is calling us to escape this life time into the endless possibilities!

I have used dancing in many ways, to let go of all the drama and stress of my teen years by dancing in worship songs, in simply having fun or practicing balance. In anger, in sadness and in fear I have danced through all of those emotions to be made stronger after the song and after my body aches. 

The only way I realize that I struggling with something is often while I am dancing.....it's in the song or the release of energy that gets me sudden aware of what I am hanging in by a thread and need to cry out or run in place until I break down into a deep sob or scream. I have noticed in my great days my dancing is beautiful, it's light and flowing as I embrace my joy for life and love!

I remember attending a wedding when I was 22 years old wishing I knew how to dance like my friend so I asked where did she learn those popular moves and she laughed saying it was all made up to go long with whatever song. She told me "Dancing is easy if you have confidence, people get hung up on others judging them so once you don't care how you look or what others say about you then you are free to move with any beat!" I sat in awe of her and nodding my head in thought thinking to myself that the power of charming confidence goes a long ways into action for all things.

I was at a friends wedding where only the old people were dancing and I saw so clearly that the young people were holding back and laughing at the old people so I went out for the first time ever to dance along side the clearly happy old people, the most amazing happen in how I was free! 
I was more then just dancing I was being brave so I felt empowered beyond anything I had ever experienced before!

My life in dancing has helped me through the hardest times in my life, yet in the deepest painful grief days I didn't dance, I couldn't dance even though I tried it took me 2 years in trying baby steps to dance again. 
My legs hurt beyond anything I had known, my chest was burning for months and my hands were weak, I began to fight back pretending to be boxing instead of dancing or attending my Pound Class in order to beat those drum sticks to the music in my angry days of grief. 

I have only recently been dancing like I use to again and I can felt it coming back to me again, freedom in loving life and dancing until I am pouring sweat!

Life in dancing is life in living!

Celebrating all things good or bad can be found in dancing!

Dance now for you will not be alive forever, Dance more for those people judging you shouldn't win in keeping you from the deepest joy in the whole world!

I was at reception recently that had a great dance floor with great songs and all the generations were dancing together, it brought everyone together to celebrate such love! It was so wonderful! It was a great time!

In music and in moving about we forget our worries, our responsibilities, and all the things that makes us different don't matter when we love the same song!

I am aware of course that my dancing may look like Lucille Ball and I can make many faces in shared emotion of the song yet I will always celebrate love and togetherness that dancing brings us all!

Life in the park

               

I have always been one to seek nature, the outside world holds such hope and beauty for me that when I seek it I know I am dealing with very stressful emotions in a hard time of my life.

I spent my late 20's walking the park every single day with Saturdays mostly home and then I would try to get my husband out in the park with me on Sundays.

Back then my husband was very skeptical of nature, he hated the unpredictability of wild life and of course the huge amount of bugs.

Where as I love it all fully and completely never thinking the bugs were out to get me, nor that I couldn't handle a wild creature if taken by surprise.

I grew up watching hundreds of Nature episodes, I lived on a farm from when I was 10 years old and my early memories of being a toddler were in the country side during August's peach harvest that my little hand would hold a huge juicy peach dripping from my mouth while bees and bugs landed on me. I think about having been startled by nature that young in life makes me not notice the dangers of the wild now. I am glad that I am aware and have learned so much from documentaries and wonderful shows like "Outdoor Idaho." that gives us so much information about the world around us!

Life in the park is the best place to be!

I trained my puppy Oscar there everyday from when he came into my life, I had just turned 27 years old. He and I went to the parks every morning and every evening, with the occasional stop at the dog park by noon. After he had walked with me, trained with me and just sat by the ponds with me then if I had more time in our day we would play with other dogs at the fenced in dog park. It was by the afternoon getting home that Oscar was ready for a deep long nap, then as evening arrived I would leash him up to go back out into the world to pick up my husband from work and to play at the park right next to his office. Oscar had such a very activity youthful life with me always by his side. I created such a great home, a great environment for our rescued kitty and hardworking hubby.

I found my peace of mind, my therapy in being at the park.

When Minnie our cockier spaniel came into our family walking the park every morning was much harder as she wasn't leashed trained at all. Oscar and Sidda walked side by side and they stopped when I stopped, they sat when I sat and I could always drink my morning coffee while they enjoyed the trees and bushes along the pathway every day. Then in pure chaos, in crazy hard to handle ways Minnie would trip me as we walked, she would circle us all and she would pull, jerking and trying to chase the ducks in the once peaceful pond we loved to relax. Oscar was beside himself with trying to control her and slowly I began to change our routine. The days of learning how to run through the park with 3 dogs became more like a job not a leisure thinking time.

I sat on the bench this week of that beloved park remembering all of my adventures there.

Life in the park was good for the dogs, getting the 3 of them to run all together with me every morning for the first year they all lived together was important to wearing them down and accepting each other safely. After they grew older I began to give them their own walk, their own day. I did Mondays with Minnie, This meant I worked on the leash with her, walked that same park over and over again until she refused to walk anymore and then I always had to carry her back to the car. I got good at being closer to the car by the time she was done walking with me. When she laid down and refused to move I would know her 40 pounds was given me strong muscles after all as I would carry her and snuggle her face saying she is my most stubborn child ever! 

Then Tuesdays were Oscar's day, he needed lots of attention for his own peace of mind. He loved the park, the all afternoon time we spent throwing his frizbee and watching the world move by the pond. He loved the shade, the fresh air and all the attention he got in doing his training skills with no Minnie to act up, no Sidda to protect, I think Oscar loved his all day Tuesdays with me!

I had a bible study on Wednesday with my elderly neighbor Bernice who loved Sidda so we would have Sidda's personal time on that day among us. I look back at how it all worked my Thursdays or Tuesdays were rotated around for when I went out to care for my mother too. Every Friday was of me cleaning the house deeply and cooking up meals, while all 3 dogs were napping after tier own personal attention from me.

Taking time through out each day to get to the park was how I stayed grounded and calm even when I felt like my life becoming way to busy for my liking.

Without nature, without that time in walking through such beautiful surroundings as I lived through my 30's I would of felt like I was going crazy!

Instead each time I sat breathing in the smell of the ever green trees, or the wild daisies as the ducks and geese communicated across the wide open cat tail ponds with turtles and fish I watched on in awe that my life, my responsibilities, and my concerns in my daily schedule were rather silly when the sun shine makes everything grow so magnificently!  

When I was working all the time in my late 20's I would use my only day off to walk the park. To think deeply about my childhood traumas and monumental events. I would find a new way to handle them, to feel the same emotional reactions while realizing as I look back that I have more information to draw from and figure them out better so that they don't haunt me or taunt me into feeling the wave of negativity that I try so hard to conquer.

The park saved me from so much more then feeling like my life was passing me by way to fast!

The park gave me love and laughter with my dogs and my husband.

The park gave me closure and results in dealing with my childhood memories and my past.

The park saved me from being stuck in a moment that I couldn't get out of!

My life in the park was the very best place for me to ever be!

I cried a bit, sitting now at the age of 40 on the same bench watching the same water fountain moving down on to the ducks (I doubt the ducks are the same ha!) this same ol' park is here even though I have moved away.....

These same delighted memories makes me see how my hair has gray stripes along my ears and I smile, I wipe my tears and say "Thank you Dear Park for being my best friend through some of the hardest days of my life."

.........and yet they were some of the easiest days too!

After Life – An Answer to Nihilism

I adore Like stories of Old, it's one of my most favorite YOUTUBE channels, because of the profound topics it captures.

I watched "After Life." and I cried,I also laughed some,yet I paused quite a bit through out the show too...
I had to wonder, to ask myself if I could relate in some way?
I am not a negative person, I will never be so down that I can't get back up.
If I die sooner then my elderly time it will be by complete accident and never on purpose. 
I know and I understand this about myself....

Yet while watching this show I wondered why is this so deeply dark, down and hard to watch for me?
Am I being triggered back into my own painful loss again or is it always with me as this show reminds me of my last 2 years struggling to find my way in my new home, I don't want a life without my brother Derek and yet that is exactly what I have......
I am waking up from the fog of grief and I am changed, never ever the same person. I don't get to come back from this.

No matter what the future holds I will know my own great loss has made me real, has made me stronger for what I wish that I had never lived through.....

I have learned that by doing good for others I escape from the not so good done unto me, ....and in the end the not good is not really important. 
I see the greater good is a much bigger picture so I hope to hold my own and do my part.
I love that good memories, good stories and good times are what fills my mind when I am grieving, when I am so sad.

I like seeing shows reveal this truth, this desire we all have in the end to find peace without belittling or judging our journey along the way....

The life of the stage

Over these years I have deeply loved Idaho Shakespeare Festival! 

(It was hard to not be able to attend the plays while my husband was in law school)

The stage is outside under the wide open sky! 

When I am there I enter a whole new world of wonder!

When I clap or laugh I feel so alive in being apart of something deeply profound and truly spectacular! 

This past Sunday I was happy to join my step-mother-in-law Teresa and my sister-in-law Stephanie for the amazing play called

 "The Music Man."

We shared our treats and drinks, snuggled in closely directly in front of the stage as the whole night was completely magical!

The story of the music man was inspiring and uplifting, the night had such perfect weather surrounding us too!

While I watched the play unfold and the sets move along the summer sky I felt so at ease, simply grateful to sit there taking it all in!

I have 2 very amazing women in my family, They are encouraging, supportive and fun to be with!

The life of the stage is a great way to be together as summer comes to a close way to soon!

Life in songs

I love singing, I love music as I have mentioned before....
Yet it's the singing that helps me focus my feelings, my emotions and my story in living.

I love the radio playing while I am driving yet lately I have had it turned off because it was playing a sad song when I had my panic attack recently....

I thought I had the psychological steps down in handling my panic attacks for they had lessen and I felt more in control then as the music played, as a few days after my big family BBQ I was hit by such powerful painful grief and fear.

I had never experienced anything like this before......

In this anxiety attack, emotional outburst and panicking I had no warning it was coming upon me until I slid through a red light intersection with cars slamming on their brakes and swinging around me as I realized I had been somewhere else completely.

Shaking, sobbing and surrendering to the fact that the older I get the less I understand about the emotional world.

Connecting to the world around me as it is not as it once was helps me stay steady.
Seeing my counselors, doing evaluation tests and practicing coping skills has been filling my days right now in trying to live a safer life.

I love singing out loud in the safe place of my home, if I cry or if I write I feel like it all makes sense somehow.....yet when I go out into society I realize it's not always easy.

That's why I sing while I shop too, self soothing is just as important as connecting.

Life of the home

    

   Today is the first of September which means it has been 2 years since we woke up in this home, I am in awe of how good it all looks, of how I am fixing things and changing things while simply enjoying this quiet neighborhood.

My husband loves having company over because he is very proud of our place.

He likes the garage protection when it's raining and we still have groceries to carry inside.

He loves the AC and the office window looking out into a lovely front yard.

He says it all the time that this is his most favorite home we have ever lived in.

He is right, it is the best place we have ever been.

I spend a lot of time in the home stores, reading about lawn care, ceiling fans, garage storage and finding the tools I need to fix up the place. I like taking such good care of this place, after 2 years it looks so lovely!

I am proud of my guest room and of having the kittens enjoy the bonus room.

It's important to me in keeping this home looking great and so I loose myself for hours in hardware stores, garden centers and I am often left chatting away to the memory of my brother Derek as I ask him "What color do you like or is this a good brand to buy?" 

2 years ago on this morning I woke up to see such bright sunshine coming into the kitchen, where he once stood cooking away for our family.

So in living here among his stuff, his home and his mail. I never get tired of seeing his things mixed in with mine. I am using my time in this home to help it shine!

It doesn't feel like 2 years.....