Ten years of TERROR.......

I have done a lot of driving the last few days on our adventure......15 hours give or take total.....and in between the banter with my kids, there was a good bit of it that allowed for listening to music, and reflection......and we all have chapters that molded us.....and perhaps due to Mercury Retrograde those past things decide to come up and take a front row seat.....a funny aside the music that was finding its way through my speakers, also had a "kicking it back" kinda vibe the last few days:).....so many I haven't heard in years, but total bangers;-).....but it occurred to me as the miles were stretching in front of me to write about this span of time soon in my blog.....and I would argue that each decade I have lived in for my whole life has been arduous.....having a mountain or two to climb.....and some having many mountains.....and this particular span of time held the latter.....many mountains on repeat, and I lived most of it in terror.....like full blown terror......in my earlier 20s I had developed a pretty significant panic and anxiety disorder......my thyroid was also troubling me, and so I had undiagnosed hyperthyroidism alongside my propensity at that time to be a "what if" thinker, and inclined to worry on repeat......and due to the thyroid problems, I developed terrible palpitations and vertigo......so I began to stop sleeping because the room would spin......and my heart was racing all of the time indicating I was in danger and well....it became the perfect storm.....a storm that was very challenging to live in.....it was pretty crippling at one point.....I was having daily panic and anxiety attacks and struggling to function at certain points, but true to the same spirit I hold today, my only mission was to get to the bottom of it, and stop it.....at all costs.....so I did therapy, cognitive behavioral, which was hugely helpful, and read tons of books, and took some medicine for a brief time and got over it.....pulling myself truly from the depths......it was a dark and difficult time......living pretty consistently in fight or flight......and just as I got my feet under me, as my 20s were nearing their end, I reconnected with my ex husband after us not seeing each other till we were 19, and we were falling hard and fast and then my younger sister passed suddenly in a car accident.......and I was devastated......she was 19.....and I found myself in the throes of an emotional tsunami again.....terrified that the anxiety would return......and going right back to therapy to try and head it off.....but swimming in such heaviness....and as I think of it this morning......having relatively new love in my life helped for sure....and he was SO good during that time......supporting me so much, and helping me stand back up after such a heart wrenching blow......makes me sad to think of actually.....a different time and place indeed....then we got married a week before I turned 30......and I anticipated my 30s with such optimism and hope.....I was exercising and feeling great inside of love.....feeling healthy and strong, and looking forward to starting a family......and shortly after we got married, we found out we were pregnant with our boy....we were over the moon.....but soon I started having some complications, ones that they could not pinpoint.....but ones that would later be determined to be a result of his Williams Syndrome.....something we did not even know was ahead......his birth story landing me in the NICU with him at 2lbs 10 ounces, and landing me back into full blown terror daily as he fought for his life, and I cried endless tears......living there for 5 weeks in the hospital with him.....a huge blessing......a free service they extended to NICU moms as long as there were rooms available ....and then I came home to learn to be a mother to a medically complicated infant....on a heart monitor, needing to go to endless specialist appointments with him on my own, and feeling terrified during every bit of it......and later learning how to be a special needs mom as his diagnosis came into focus.....and then I got my feet under me again, and when he was 2 we decided to have another baby, only to learn my ex had cancer.....and I was thrown back into terror....what if I lost him?? Our son needed him, I needed him......I used to cry to and from work every day, just living in gripping fear.....and wanting to remain strong for him, so shielding him from my fear and just doing what was needed to get through it.......and then I had my own scare with early melanoma removed from my shoulder......terrifying me alongside the rest, as my mom fought breast cancer, she had been diagnosed after I found out I was pregnant.....and then my favorite aunt lost her battle to her breast cancer......my heart and soul, one of my deepest people in this life......however we got pregnant, which seemed like a miracle.....divinely placed before he began treatment......and then I had a miscarriage......and no time to grieve it because my ex husband was fighting cancer, and I was mothering a very special little boy.......and my nervous system was shot.......no question......I was living on my adrenal glands and adrenaline just pumping through me endlessly, and I am sure a ton of Cortisol.....and at the time I was sure the powers that be came to break me.....it was ten years of feeling like I was being water boarded.....I would just catch my breath, and life would come and push me back under......but I suppose from where I sit today it was part of my forging.....preparing me for the blow of my divorce and his infidelity amid the pandemic.....and the wreckening and emotional devastation that found me then, in my 40s, like the Super Bowl of pain if you will.....and being used to strengthen me.....to be the woman that walks in this story.....but at the time I wrestled with fear, it was a formidable opponent......and part of me feels that my fear has been eliminated by having some of my fears visit me, and showing me that I could stand on the other side, and leaving me with no respite but my faith.....using that as an anchor each time the weather kicked up.....and as I drove the last few days I first of all felt grateful for a regulated nervous system lol:) One where terror doesn't grip my belly.....no heart pumping fear......just deep faith in it all.....that each experience no matter what is FOR US not against us......and that THIS life was waiting for me on the other side of all of it......and living through that time challenged me in some enormous ways, leaving scars that I live with today.....but the human spirit is remarkable......and if we can be brave enough to weather the storms that come we can find safe harbor on the other side......safe harbor of our own creation sometimes....that is what I have learned.....we can become our safe place.....I think as I type that that is what strikes me, during that time I was looking outside of all of it to feel safe.....like where could I find safety, who could offer that......but really it was my faith and my own sense of safety and self that ultimately saved me in the ways I needed to be......I have never had another anxiety attack since my early 20s, despite it all.....and that seems remarkable considering how gripping it had been......and at each challenge I was asked to learn valuable things....ones needed for the next challenge and repeat......So I am now sitting on the entrance of my 50s....a new decade.....and I have deep hope that this decade will be quieter.....filled with the integration and the gifts of the ones I walked through before.......having a different flavor if you will......:) But I know better than to attach to the outcome or what will come.....knowing so fully that everything is indeed always working out for me, Amen:) xoxo