All Too Unwell (10 Year Version)

"Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it

I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it…"

The crowds begged for the 10 minute version of All Too Well, and now they're getting the 10 year version of All Too Unwell!!! 

About 10 years ago I went to my first Taylor Swift concert. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.

About 10 years ago was when my eating disorder really began to manifest itself. 

About 10 years ago, Taylor Swift released All Too Well 5 minute version. She spoke her heart. She sang what she was allowed to sing. She sang of heartbreak. She didn't sing what really happened. She barely scratched the surface of what happened. 

Her soul wasn't presentable to the public. 

But it was her truth.

My soul wasn't presentable to the public. 

There was always something different about me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It came to a point where I wasn't fit to function around human beings that weren't like me. 

From eating disorder wards to psych wards, there had to be a better place for me than the world. 

I'm not sure what came first, the knowing of my soul, or the trauma. What made me so different? 

Was I different first, or did the trauma completely rewire me? 

I was a 

Soldier who's returning, half her weight

After all of it. 

From when the world broke my skin and bones

No, it wasn't me. 

The world, the church. 

The way all of it is built and designed. 

It's not built for people built differently. 

I was built differently, and when I got caught, when I got found out, the places I once was a part of couldn't take it. I was All Too Unwell for them. 

The church called it sin, the world called it sickness. The men called it "emotional and dramatic."

Trying to communicate, and share your desperate soul that just is screaming to be understood and seen and heard to someone who is determined to misunderstand you, or even someone who longs to understand you, can feel hopeless. It ends up feeling worse than if you didn't share in the first place. But you can't keep it in. I'm not someone who can keep it in. 

I think I'm still too young to know it gets better.

But like Glennon Doyle's daughter sings,

To be loved we need to be known.

 How can we be known if the very structure of our being is completely different than another, who may never be able to understand how you work? 

We give too much advice. We don't listen enough.

My psychiatrist has taught me something that was in that same song Glennon's daughter wrote: 

I'm not the problem, sometimes things fall apart. 

We put blame, shame and judgment on others' reactions to life. We don't always realize that some people have no other ways to react.

Then we don't allow ourselves to react in the ways we need to because of how much shame and judgment we attach to it. We fail ourselves and our loved ones by keeping this cycle strong.

Everyone's tools and needs are different from the person to the right of them. Most people who know me don't know the trauma I'm responding to when I react. Most people don't know the way my brain works, the voices in it, the different way my brain functions that can be the most beautiful and the most terrifying to have. All of it comes down to not ever responding the same way another human might. It can make me the most understanding and empathetic person, along with the most terrified and desperate. 

Taylor belts out extremely emotional songs. I think "emotional" is one of the most beautiful personifications someone can have. She also had to hide out for a year. She also cried a lot, has thrown a chair on a stage, and has talked things out. I don't know her whole life, I only know what she's shared and shown us. In her documentary she says 

"I hope I always have thin skin."

Glennon always says, what's the opposite of sensitive? Being insensitive? That's no badge of honor to wear.

Some people have tools where their hobbies are their outlets and sometimes they get mad but it doesn't tend to overly impact relationships. 

For me, I have trauma reactions. They burn down relationships. I can't explain them exactly here because it wouldn't make sense in this setting, you would have to talk to me about it to understand, so I won't go there. 

They aren't wrong, though. They don't make me bad, and they aren't wrong. They don't make me feel good, but there's no moral attachment to them. They make me less fit to function in the world as it's built, that's the main setback with it. If there aren't understanding, and fairly unconditional people in your life, you might not be able to keep people around who can't make sense of it. 

Before being the recipient of my most recent trauma reaction, I met with my doctor. I was sitting there and asking her if she thought I was crazy. I have a history of getting overcome by the voices in my head.

She said, 

"What do you mean by crazy? That you have emotional issues? Everyone has those. I have them. I don't think labels are helpful. If that's what you meant, everyone is crazy. There's no sense in judging yourself by adding a label."

I asked,

"Do you judge me?"

She responded, 

"No, I don't judge you. I think you have trust issues and psychological issues, but that's why we're here for you."

I should tell everyone that this doctor is no psychiatrist. She is a sports doctor, who does often treat patients who have eating disorders with their sports injuries. She doesn't understand almost a single thing about me. 

But she understands more than almost anyone I've met. 

Imagination is the bridge to empathy, Glennon says. You need to see yourself as the other person.

She doesn't make me my illness. She separates me from what happens when I get overcome. 

The church taught me about God and grace, and what love is supposed to mean. 

I talk about all of my doctors and my mom more than anyone else. They got me to understand the things the church tried to teach me, but couldn’t demonstrate. 

I have trauma related to sexual assault that I've been through, (although a large part of it was from the response I received to that having happened).

I have trauma related to experiences I had as a child I can’t talk about.

However, I personally believe that my most impactful trauma comes from the response/reaction to my sickness and its manifestations, and I won’t share what actually happened because I still can’t.

I will say though, my brain started getting worse from the reaction to me straight up screaming in a hospital (not the hospitals reaction, though, they were used to this manifestation), or not being able to come to church multiple times a week because I was sick and dying going in and out of inpatient centers for the state of my anorexia. Part of the reason I couldn't even go to church was being afraid of people rebuking me for not being there, and calling me sinful because of how sick I actually was at the time. 

People questioned whether or not I could go to heaven because I couldn't seem to recover from my eating disorder. I was rebuked for it. 

It also got worse from not being able to grow as a person the way other people were able to. Or, just having different underlying beliefs about how Jesus was as a person or fundamental values and women's rights and how maybe leadership maybe shouldn't be the people we turn to to decide somebody's whole fate. 

When you believe about yourself that the way you are is inherently wrong, untrustworthy, lesser than a man, etc., etc.  It messes with you.

Why is the world so casually cruel in the name of being honest

Why does the world think honesty needs to be cruel? Why do people assume that because they think something it is honest and true? 

Come on, like half the time we're wrong, and half the time there are 100 different things that are "right" for a hundred different people. 

That wasn't nearly what destroyed me. The trauma I believe impacted me the most isn’t something I should share in this setting.

I remember spending a couple years in my twenties knowing that if I wanted to invite someone over to even watch a movie I didn't have anyone to call, after what happened. 

I remember spending so much time on my bed, on the couch, just sitting there, willing things to change. Willing life to change. Willing my "mistakes" to not make me so worthless that I deserved to lose everything. I would remember family members and my doctors thinking and telling me things like,

It's supposed to be fun, turning 21.

The world was in my way. I was sick, or maybe I was just myself and the world thought it made me sick because myself isn't fit for the way this world is built, and I couldn't relate myself to my surroundings any longer. Or my surroundings failed to relate themselves to me.

I couldn't force things to be the way they once were. Before I became unwell.

Before the world found out I was "unwell." 

I remember all of it, All Too Well. 

I remember every casually cruel word said. I remember every moment I thought was a turning point that turned out to be a lie.

I remember every denial from a man that said it never happened.

I remember every piece of blame put on me for something I could've never possibly done on my own. 

I remember it all too well.

And no one else seems to. 

That's the funny thing about your life. You can feel all the biggest things, experience all the worst, and sometimes, you carry it alone. It's a heavy load to carry. 

You would do anything to change one thing, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, going over and over and over and over what the breaking point might have been, what could have been different. 

Maybe it all was destined to happen because of the 3 different structures at play:

The world's structure, your structure, the other players' structures. If the structures don't fit together, the more acceptable ones overpower and win.

Or sometimes, you mutually lose the love of your life, because no one can seem to figure out how to allow two different structures to exist together. Different wirings of the brain. Different fundamental values. 

Time won't fly it's like I'm, paralyzed by it. I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it… 

All's well that ends well but I'm in a new hell every time, you double cross my mind, you said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine, and that makes me want to die… " 

"Maybe if you were more fit for me, you would've been acceptable to us."

Yes, that makes a young girl/woman, still developing her brain, thinking she is the filthiest sinner on the planet, want to die. If that's the worst thing you can be, unfit to be around even other sinners because of how sinful you are, death might not just be what you think you deserve, what others deserve so they don't need to be around you, but the only thing you can think would bring you relief, because of the hell that happens every moment you think of what this means about you again. 

*doo, DOO doo, DOO DOo, doo doo DOO DOO DOo*

I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here, because

I remember it All Too Well

Thank you Taylor Swift

(does anyone else want to say crumpled up piece of paper lion?)

(sorry if you thought this post was going to be funny I can see how I may have disappointed you)

Songs referenced: All Too Well (Taylor’s Version) 10 minute version (Taylor Swift), Forever Winter (Taylor Swift), We Can do Hard Things (Tish Melton Doyle)