Resiliency

Having worked in the mental health field and volunteering in the community, I've noticed a trait that some people have and some people lack. It's a trait that I feel is mandatory to survive the hardships, move on from our past, and to flourish as a human being.

Resiliency is the ability to hold or recover our shape. It is a type of strength that can't be broken by events or people.

I've watched my daughter struggle through some very difficult things in her teen years. Things that could render a person unable to function. Events that could have made her bitter and angry and unwilling to move forward... but she chooses to keep fighting. On the other hand, I've seen people crumble from past issues. They are unwilling to let go and they live in a constant state of being a victim.

I worry about our youth. I worry that we, as a society, are not fostering resiliency. It has become acceptable to wear our emotional scars like a thick coat...keeping out the possibilities that life holds. It is becoming normal to talk more about our hurts than our triumphs. Worse yet, there is an attentiveness offered to those who choose to stay in their painful past, and those who are living and trying get ignored.

It is now considered harsh to tell a child to 'get back up and keep going'. We allow them to stay in their pain, be it physical or emotional, without any encouragement to find the positive in the situation or moving on from their pain. I do believe that all negative situations have a positive side to them. Call me Pollyanna, but it has kept me alive and thriving.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that we ignore mental health issues, abuse issues, or any other issue that is damaging. I am suggesting that we also focus on teaching each other that we do not have to let our pain define who we are. We can choose to see that it is the surviving and growing that defines us.

I have interacted with people who live in the past. They are very hard to maintain relationships with because they leave no room in their hearts for the positive that could occur. Their dialogue becomes a revolving door of pain and suffering, spinning so fast that I can't stop it. These people often spend their lives feeling very alone, not understanding that their refusal to get out of that cycle is what's keeping others away. They are quick to blame others for being mean and uncaring..but it's really hard to get your arms around someone who is thick in the layers of their own pain.

I rarely talk about the abuse I suffered as a child. Not because I am ashamed, but because I am not defined by it. I am often asked how I have been able to move on from the situations I lived through..my answer is always, "why would I want to stay there in that ugliness when there is so much more that is beautiful to experience?"

These are things we need to remind each other and our children of. Life is full of wonderful, beautiful, breath taking moments..but we have to be willing to let go of the blinding pain to experience them.

What It's Like In Dental Hell

I've been MIA for a long time. A month and a half to be exact. Please forgive me, I've been in dental hell. You can't convince me it's not a place..cause I've been there.

In the last month, I've had five procedures done. Before you give me grief about flossing and taking care of my teeth, let me assure you that I do. Obsessively. Apparently growing up poor meant that the dental care I did get was shoddy..at best. It was like Satan himself went to drill a little bit and unearthed a tidal wave of decay and pain under those flimsy fillings.

I wont bore you with the details of what I had done to my teeth. I will instead, bore you with the details of what I did to pass the time while I was out of commission. Besides cry....a lot.

1. I ate an abundance of mushy food. Got any good variations on the old mashed potato recipes? I do. About five hundred of them. If you ever have a mashed potato party, I'm the girl to call.

2. I read at least ten books, which would have been OK..except that one of them was The Fault in Our Stars. I cried so hard that I nearly hyperventilated. I know, I sure know how to have a good time! Kendrick found me in the bathtub in the fetal position with snot running down my face. I assured him I was just having an emotional meltdown and to leave me in my misery.

3. Laid awake in bed wondering if I would ever sleep for more than three hours at a clip. My life turned into a series of naps. I literally lost a month of my life..gone..poof.. sayonara.

4. I took enough ibuprofen to make my liver start to pack it's bloody belongings and threaten to leave my body. If you know me, you know that I NEVER take that stuff. This past month I was taking enough to become a spokeswoman for Motrin. We will just skim over the details of what it did to my digestive system. Let's just say that I could have also been a spokeswoman for Charmin.

5. I contemplated sneaking into the garage and finding pliers to yank my teeth out. I wish I was kidding. Some insane part of my brain was reasoning that it would be a split second of pain and then it would be over. Thankfully, logic reigned and my teeth are still intact.

6. I stayed in pajamas and only got dressed to go to the dentist. More people saw me without a bra than I'd like to admit. If you made the mistake of coming to my house in the last month, I'm sorry for the emotional trauma I've caused you. I owe you. My boobs owe you.

7. I decided to try a heftier pain killer. Aka, I got ridiculously stoned. It didn't help with the pain but it made me itch like I was a crackhead on a binge. That's a joy. Note to self, don't take those pills again unless I'm sitting in an oatmeal bath and loaded up on benadryl.

8. I tried every type of topical oral pain reliever that was ever made. Why? Because my husband was so worried about me that he made it a priority to go to every single drug store in a hundred mile radius to find something 'better'. It usually just resulted in me slurring my words and drooling..which then made him worry I was having a stroke.

9. I ignored a lot of phone calls. People began to worry that I had died and no one had told them. I got text messages asking where I was, was I OK, did I fall off the face of the earth? Most of the time I didn't respond. I felt like I was playing a role in a mystery. It was kind of a precursor to seeing who would show up at my funeral...without the actual dying part.

10. I allowed my family to eat fast food. It was like a dream come true for them. To be fair, I sat glowering at them like I was a jealous girlfriend. The thought of standing at the stove to cook was enough to make me weak in the knees..so they got lots of crap food, and I got to lay in bed without worrying that they were starving to death.

Fingers crossed, today was hopefully the last of the big procedures. Now I just need to heal and the nerves in my teeth (and my head) need to calm the hell down so I can drink a glass of cold water without feeling like lightening is coming out of nowhere and striking me in the face, like God himself has a personal vendetta against me and is smoting me with pain that made me wish I was just gonna give birth again.