miss being able to log onto tumblr at 2am when I’m feeling sad, lonely, etc. and find a community of people to talk to

also y’all. I’ve started a process of validating all the things that happened to me as trauma. this is a journey, and it is hard. any of you feel me on that? compare the things you’ve been through to things other ppl have been through? spend years questioning whether it was legit and worth calling the big-T Trauma? even though that’s not a great thing to do?

but yes, finding power and validation in naming my trauma. it’s tough but necessary work

hi tumblr, I started writing two really long posts before I outright deleted them to just say this:

I think that I am finally at the point where I am no longer daunted by the idea of seeing a new therapist because there is so much history to tell that I can’t even imagine how to begin. this process has terrified me for years and kept me from talking to someone. and as a result it has made me feel kind of terrible in a way I didn’t notice until lately, maybe even tonight. I think I am finally at the point where I am not only willing, but needing, to see a new therapist because I have started a new chapter of sorts. I want to talk to someone new because I am someone new, someone different and detached from who I was. this doesn’t mean things are easier, and it doesn’t mean things are better, but it does mean there is progress. and progress is different from easy and better. but this is change, and that is all. I miss you all and hope your journeys are going well

I want to try express a shift that transpired within the last few days, something within me that is wholly intangible and yet so noticeable that I think about it every hour

first I want to unpack the relationship between trauma and memory as it manifests in my own life, and it manifests more often these days than it used to. I never like thinking about this, let alone writing about it, because it sounds so symptomatic and silly. and yet

there is a year of my life that is a gray fog, it is very heavy, and it sits over everything that happened to me for twelve whole months. I remember bits and pieces. I remember still images, but I can’t piece the images together into a cohesive narrative that explains how it all happened. I remember: sitting on the cool floor of a hospital emergency room (no, this wasn’t the psychiatric hospital - that was something else entirely and the floors were carpeted), my mother is lying on a bed beside me and my arm is on her leg and I am probably crying, or was moments before. I think we are here because I called an ambulance on my mother when she threatened to kill herself for the second or third time that summer, but I don’t remember riding in an ambulance so I don’t know how I got to the hospital. I don’t remember a voice at the other end of the phone line, and I don’t remember what any of the words that were exchanged

there are so many memories like this. less like memories, more like pictures. less like pictures, more like dreams

and then there is the rift between the person I was before everything happened, and the person I am now. my experiences between ages 17-18 altered me so deeply that I look at my old self as a stranger, I recognize her like an old friend or a person I knew, but not a person I was. nostalgia for my own former life is like reliving a vacation that someone else took, that I only heard about, or saw a photo album. this is how it feels when I look back at my old pictures that predate 2011-2012

the shift that is happening now is a remembering. I am suddenly, without warning, and for no explainable reason, flooded with memories/pictures/dreams from before everything happened. usually the pictures are from the trauma, or of the trauma, but I don’t remember the last time that I remember something from prior – not really. in the last few days, I remember:

JP’s house in Rye, the softness of the mattress in his bedroom and the always-white sheets, falling asleep for an impromptu nap after school, and waking up to a door knock by his mother, who came bearing snacks. his shelf of records, especially the Velvet Underground and Is This It by the Strokes (how did he get his hands on the alternative cover?), watching him cook entire boxes of Kraft mac and cheese but I forget whether I helped him eat some

the interior of bunk ten at camp, where the showers were so narrow and we were generally only permitted to spend two minutes at a time, that was when I learned how to shower quickly and also how to truly consider the time and space of everyone around me. my quilt was pink with different patches, and I was still in the habit of collecting too many stuffed animals at the foot of my bed. my clothes were meticulously folded in a cube-shaped structure. more places and faces from camp: canteen, the outdoor services, the rec hall, our unit heads, my friends

the synagogue that saw me grow up, I guess, the once-purple carpet that was later renovated to a deep forrest green. I stood at the top of the steps once a week and practiced my torah portion, age 12, feeble voice, learning to be strong but without a single clue what strong meant yet, wouldn’t know for a long time. didn’t know to hold onto that ignorance, but grasped it loosely for years regardless. the weight of the torah in my arms when we practiced handing it down from father, to mother, to me

I am remembering so much, so quickly, and so deeply and it is unnerving me but I think it is good. I will try to keep writing it down as it floods back, and I wonder if an answer to “why now” will reveal itself

it has been several weeks since Scott Hutchinson took his life and I still can’t shake this tragedy and tonight I am thinking that I might, out of necessity, need to get a tattoo to mark the impression that Frightened Rabbit’s music had on me. I am realizing, in the absence of Scott, how deep that impression was. I have cried so many more times about this than any other similar “celebrity” loss. this feels like legitimate loss. I listened to his music when I was at my own lowest point in life and he helped me get through it. it hurts a lot, and I guess a tattoo feels like the appropriate vehicle to commemorate that loss (as did my first one)

dear tumblr,

exciting news - dave and I booked a trip to Spain next month! we will be in Barcelona and Valencia for 8 days

please share any and all recommendations - art to see, parks to visit, best beaches, what to drink, and um mostly food is what I’m after really (to no one’s surprise)

thx in advance! I can’t wait

I might be back on tumblr, who knows in what capacity, but in figuring that out, here is one thing that I think will help:

tell me who to follow?

art, film, writing, photography, quotes, personal accounts, what have you

sprucing up my dashboard should help

<3

something I’d really like to unpack (through writing on tumblr, or perhaps in therapy) is the relationship between my trauma and my memory. so many “things that happened to me” are incredibly fuzzy. most of them are from before my life quote-unquote turned upside down. but some of them are from after. I wonder if this is an experience with which most people are familiar? I am hesitant to call myself damaged or traumatized, even though I lived through damaging and traumatizing things. even though I am in close contact with damaging and traumatizing people. I don’t know. does anyone else have trouble remembering most of the things that happened to them? I feel like I play through the same select memories on a reel, ad nauseam. people tell me about these “things that happened to me” and I nod politely, as if to signal that it’s probable, but who is to say? I know this is a tried and true psychological phenomenon, by the way, so I am not seeking confirmation in the clinical sense. I don’t know if I am seeking anything. I think there is a piece of me that desperately longs to return to every day blogging, so I can slowly and perhaps constructively pick apart some of these thoughts that plague me on a daily basis. and I think there is a piece of me that quietly hopes some of you are still around to listen. if you are, say hi. I miss you.