#Late Post: Part Two: "1,193 Miles"...

[9/15/18]

Author's Note: I have written this blog. Erased it. Rewritten it again. Edited it down to politeness. Blew it up with TMI. Deleted words. Added words. Decided not to post it. And rewrote it once again... What I know as a multiple trauma survivor is that I, and only I, will ever live with the details of my trauma. But the mechanism of healing, the salve to the poison, is to speak. And this, this speaking, it comes with a price. And perhaps for this moment, I am to some small degree willing to pay the price... ***Fair warning LONG POST***
 .....

[5/10/18]

It's ten minutes 'til four in the morning and I am stumbling through the dark reaching for the bathroom light. My heart is skipping beats, slamming tracks like a DJ at a rave. And I promptly throw up in the toilet. My hands are shaking, my whole body really. And I wash my face and brush my hair and grip the counter for fear of passing out. Inhale. Count to ten. Exhale. Count to ten. Those wide grey-blue eyes stare back at me filled with a fragile determination that whispers, "You can do this, you can do this."

You. Can. Do. This.

So what exactly am I doing at ten minutes 'til four in the morning when presumably the whole wide world is asleep and I ought to be as well?

I am re-framing the day. Or something like that...

A little while back as I was processing some rabbit holes that related to Arizona, I had this epiphany of sorts. There was a part of me that used to think that forgiving David was the hardest part. But truth be told, when I returned to Arizona in December of 2017, I made my peace with the man, not the acts necessarily, but the man, yes- I can't really explain that part but with David, I called a sort of truce. I think there is inevitably a little more ground work that I will need to do in order to feel a full level of forgiveness but the initial part, I think I'm already there.

That came as a surprise to me.

It made me uncomfortable. Because at the end of that rope, there was another loose end.

A big one. One that I had not counted on. One that rocked me. One that nearly undid me completely.

The big revelation to me was that forgiving David was always going to be the easy part. Forgiving what he did to me during those 13 hours was always going to be the simple task. Well, less complicated anyway...It was me that was going to be hard. Forgiving myself. Forgiving my silence. Forgiving my surrender to the acts that David committed against me. Forgiving the choices that I made both on that night and in the years that followed. Because the jury returned the verdict, and I was found guilty on all counts.

And I don't know if it is possible for me to forgive that woman. Or the woman that came back from Arizona. Or the woman that I am now. It's a loaded question, in a loaded gun, in the hands of a woman who at best on most days is a little unsteady...

"Hold, hold on to me because I'm a little unsteady..."

****

I want to invite you into a certain set of details about those 13 hours that I do not generally disclose. I fully expect and anticipate you to cast judgment as you may...because after all what kind of woman would... (And I am sure that after you read this you will fill in the blanks quite nicely...)

Arizona v. Jillian Nichole:

Case for the prosecution:

1. I did not scream. I was at various points during those 13 hours surrounded by people, and even at one point in arms length of 3 sheriffs deputies. But I never screamed. Not. One. Single. Time. I DID NOT SCREAM.

2. I did not fight back. Not when he did what he did, as many times as he did what he did to my body- I did not struggle. I did not try to run. I did not exhibit any sign of "normal" instinctual self-defense. I DID NOT FIGHT BACK. Not even a little bit.

3. There was an aspect to that 13 hours that is unsettling at best- it was the almost normal camaraderie of two people getting to know one and other. Because I'm good at that, at the talking, at listening, at connecting, I'm good at that. And on that night, It was my only form of defense. We talked for long stretches of dark, desert highway, surrounded by an eerie quiet of a bus full of people, peacefully asleep, oblivious to the girl at the front of the bus who was desperately trying to save her life. We talked. What I know now is that even that was a game. And in those words that volleyed between us, in the seemingly innocent answers that I offered him, in my feeble attempts to merely buy myself some more time, all the while I was handing David the deadliest weapon of all, my family. I told him about my family. I told him about the people that I love the most on this earth. And with each word, I forged his greatest weapon against me. The safety of my family. Because I told him- I. Told. Him.

4. And maybe the most damning of all, the one detail that eats at my sanity, the one detail that will always render me guilty when all else can be explained, discussed, rationalized and accepted- the one detail that I could not bare to own- that even now causes my body to shake, bile to rise, and shame to burn, this little detail that exactly 6 people know- but that I retracted over the years- this detail will always render me guilty. In the final moments of those 13 hours. David, took my identification and wrote down my address from my driver's license and even my social security number. And in return on a sheet paper, he wrote down a note for me, it was his address or the address to his daughter's house, or an address that never even existed- I don't actually know. He tucked that paper into my hand. And when he looked me in the eyes, I stared into the depths of hell as he whispered, "I own you now," and I merely nodded my head in some silent, binding agreement as I made a deal with the devil. Because if that was a test, I vowed that I would pass it. I would pass it to protect my family. I would pass it even if it meant my silence would condemn other women. I would pass it until my dying day.
****

So there you have it, the case for the prosecution. I would levy a defense but really would you want to hear it? No one is interested in the why's of that night. Because I have sat in trauma groups and I have observed the red furry of women that fought for their lives- in a way that on that night I could not. I have been decaying wallpaper in their midst, only ever causing them to notice me when I have asked the same question over and over and over again to different women, in different groups, in different places- and all of their answers have been the same.

My question is simple enough, "What if you didn't fight back?" It has been phrased and rephrased in accordance to context- the hypothetical devil's advocate, what if-  because what if you didn't fight back?

WHAT IF.

The furry is singularly impressive. How dare you even suggest it, this blasphemy.

Because the concrete truth is that you fight back. You fight back. It is primal instinct. Of course you fight back, there is no what if Jillian, you fight back.

And after I have put my heresy on display, I let them throw their stones and I suffocate under the weight of their judgement until my voice ceases to echo.
....

All these years. All these years of silence. All these years of waiting.

Trauma survivors will almost all universally acknowledge that weird shit happens leading up to our respective trauma anniversaries. There is this unspoken understanding that for us, there is a specific date and/or dates within the calendar year where our lives will be upended in this shit because someone, or something, or the combination thereof happened to us at some point in the course our ordinary "normal" lives; And in return this thing/ or those things- whatever it was/ they were, it changed us. Irrevocably. And in the aftermath of it all, whatever the picture was, however it was framed- all of that is gone. Broken. Left in scattered pieces of the wreckage that we come to know intimately in the identities' that we take on after the fact, in the moving forward. And each survivor is a different brand of survival, there is no one size fits all.

For me in the wake of Arizona, what I could not initially see but what it so very clear to me now is that in my own trauma survivor narrative, my PTSD brain somehow decided that every May 10th, I was mandated to open the prison cell of those 13 hours and willingly cross over the threshold and slam the door shut, remanding myself to solitary confinement, doing my time so to speak. And truth be told over the years, it hasn't been all that hard you know because by this part in the calendar year, my PTSD will have been stacking up the accusations. And as I sit barricaded inside myself, in the details of that night, every slight nuance, every tick, every tale, every what if will be one more jury vote of guilty. Because I deserve this, this hell. That has been my stance for the last seven years. Because how dare I get to live my life free of those 13 hours. How dare I have the audacity to feel anything but the sting of guilt and shame and regret when my silence held in the balance some other woman's fate- I did that to her- my silence did that. And I cannot be awarded the freedom of a pardon- the only just sentence for my crimes on that night is clear- life without the possibility of parole.

Can you feel it, the weight of that? Seven years, this weight pressing down onto my small, fractured, frame- I knew walking into this year that I had to make an appeal- I had to reconvene the jury and assess the facts and render myself a new verdict. I had to. Because the weight of it was killing me- and so I began to look at the case. I flipped it over and over and over again in my head. I looked at the angles. I reviewed the evidence. I read between the lines. I separated out the black and white and I dove into the grey abyss.

There is nothing more terrifying than the grey. The grey is where the mercy is, where the grace is, where the forgiveness is, where the peace is, where healing is, where the work is- where the heart is- and there is nothing quite as terrifying as looking into the mirror and seeing the fear starring back at you- echoing every possible condemnation and yet- even still, looking past it all and allowing yourself to be re-framed. Because the grey is where we are allowed to re-frame. It is pliable, this grey, and perhaps that is why it is so very terrifying because it is vulnerable. And we are not creatures who take our comforts in vulnerable- no, we are creatures who prefer our punishments. Indeed, the grey is a terrifying journey.

Well if we're going on a journey, we're going to need some music. And coffee, dear god, so much coffee....

[5/10/2018- 4:55a]

I'm walking out the door into the still dark morning and I resolutely throw my suitcase in the truck, turn the engine and press the pedal down and we have lift-off, the journey begins...

I chose to re-frame my trauma anniversary by taking a road trip to Seattle. It is the one day on the calendar year where I do not travel. Especially by myself. Especially in anything that can recreate in my head the motion of being trapped in a moving vehicle on long stretches of road- that kind of physical sense-memory is lethal to my PTSD. But I knew that this was the only way I could take this journey of re-framing- so when one of my favorite pod shows, my beloved Terrible Thanks For Asking, announced a live show in Seattle, I knew that was going to be my journey- the timing was perfect.

I discussed it in posts on our TTFA Facebook group and I got the most amazing support- and my TTFA friends even helped me create a playlist- I knew that they would be there in the background cheering me on- letting me check in and that I would even get to meet up with a few of them prior to the live show- this was a huge part of my courage- it was leaning into their courage. And I knew that being able to take part of this journey alone was essential but so too was it essential to have someone with me because weird shit, you know, that complicated shit that circles the drain of your trauma anniversary- it was sort of a preemptive safety measure to have a travel mate and so I roped in my "little sister" Jessie.

There are things that I will carry with me from this trip that years from now I will still know as the core memories:

I will remember watching the sun come up over the Grapevine, listening to Tom Petty's 'Wildflower's." singing softly with an aching heart, "You belong among the wildflowers...you belong somewhere you feel free." Because damn it all after seven years, my god, I want to be free, I want it to be affirmed in my bones that truly after all this time, maybe just maybe, it would be okay to belong somewhere where I feel free...

I will remember sitting locked in my car at the rest stop in Fort Tejon- I will never forget the violence with which my body shook- I will remember that I cried so hard it induced a panic attack which triggered an asthma attack and that once I was calm enough to breathe I made a decision and I even shouted it out loud, "Not today Satan, not today because I put on make-up for this shit." And then I laughed because I have a bent sense of humor and there was a spark in that moment- a push back inside of me- I will remember feeling that faint prickle of yielding my own brave.

I will remember the long stretch of desolate highway nearing Sacramento when Nichole Nordeman's 'Sound of Surviving' came on and I played it over and over again and over again, singing it out in heavy, broken sobs, "This is the sound of surviving, this is my farewell to fear, this is my whole heart deciding, I'm still here. I'm still here." I'M. STILL. HERE. I'm still here.

I will remember pulling up to Jessie's house in Chico and collapsing into myself- so utterly exhausted by anxiety that I could barely stand up, how my body did not stop shaking for nearly hour after I turned the keys over to Jessie.

I will remember the beautiful, abundant laughter as Jessie and I took a nonsensical detour through Weed, CA- because it was road trip gold, that time we discovered weed. I will remember the way that the weight of the morning fell off of me in waves- and for the first time in a long time, how I felt more hope than fear on this May the 10th.

I will remember the dead weight of my body hitting the hotel bed in the Travelodge in Roseberg, Oregon- and falling asleep silently crying because I was alive- it beat through my veins like a drum circle chant, "I'm still here. I'm still here. I'm still here."

I will remember the sunrise on May 11th- and how I sat quietly in my bed drinking in the newness of this day- and the newness of this memory.

I will remember the stops along the way- rivers and roads and coffee shops, thank you Dutch Bros, and music, thank you TTFA fam, and how at times there seemed to be moments where it was all so overwhelming but in a good way.

I will remember Seattle and meeting up with my beautiful group of TTFA friends. I will remember walking around Pike Place Public Market, hearing snippets of their stories. Living in those moments- really living- and feeling so held up by their courage and their warmth and their own moments of vulnerability.

And perhaps most poignantly, I will remember my sweet TTFA Canadian soul sister- who faced her own journey that day as she drove into Seattle from Vancouver. I will remember her sending me a picture of her socks- Rosie the Riveter, championess of strong women everywhere.

I will remember sitting in that little pub near the Neptune Theater, waiting for our meet and greet with Hans and Nora from the TTFA pod- how all of us TTFA fam were just doing life together in that moment. And then that moment when my Canadian soul sister asked me if she could give me one of her socks- I know it must seem silly to some of you reading this but I took my sock and put it on and it hit me in this exchange, a funny kind of 'aha God moment,' inspired ala Harry Potter-***Everyone of my HP fans should know where I'm going with this***

With tears in my eyes and laughter bubbling up  from my mouth, I excitedly proclaimed, "Dobby is a free elf!" And then I had to promptly explain myself- Canadian soul sister and I embraced and laughed and cried and we took a photo to capture this monumental moment of Dobby is a free elf- we're free- we're free- free at last, free at last.

I will remember all of this and more-

And so too will I also remember the drive back- and Medford- On our return trip, Jessie and I stopped in Medford, Oregon for the night and all day there was a growing, gnawing anxiety in my body centered around the eight hour solo trip home that I would have once I dropped Jessie back in Chico, this building inferno of panic. I fell into a fitful sleep and the inferno erupted- it woke me from a dead sleep, the scream ripped from my mouth as I flung my flailing limbs up into the air- it was to date one of the most horrific dissociative nightmares that I have ever experienced in the last seven years. I could not find the line between what was imagined and what was real- and most of the nearly 2 hours that it took Jessie to calm me down remains a blur- with the exception of the pulsing terror that I felt and the memory of that unhinged woman rocking herself back and forth on that hotel bed, with a wild, broken chant falling from her lips, "I'm in Medford, I'm in Medford, I'm in Medford, I'm in Medford, I'm in Medford..."
****

[9/15/18]

Life has been a hurricane since that trip- PTSD/ Depression and walking through really severe chronic illness. And so it has been hard for me to really process that journey of re-framing. I remember initially trying to write about the trip but in all honesty what I so desperately wanted to resemble an Intsagram worthy, hard fought polished victory was drenched in failure every time I thought about that night in Medford and the subsequent drive home from there because my god that was brutal-

I wanted a clean victory. But that wasn't what I got. I got the grey. And these days,  I'm learning to be okay with that. Maybe in this story there is no clean cut line between heroes and villains- I made choices on that night that perhaps you would not have made, choices that perhaps you would fault me for. You know it's a lot like watching a horror film where the stereotypical blonde runs up the stairs when she should be running out the front door- and we're all yelling at the television from the safety of our own couches- because don't you know if that were me, I would-  but what if, what if she knows something that we, the audience don't, what if?

Every choice that I made during those 13 hours was that which would keep me alive, I know that know. We all think that we know, that we know, that we know what we would do if it were us. And most women will firmly, with vigor and conviction in their voices affirm that "If it were me, I would fight back." I hope that if you are reading this and that is you, that you never have to test the resolve of that statement. Because knowing changes everything. Because on that night, when that moment came for me- what I thought I would do to survive and what I actually had to do to survive were worlds apart- because I fought back by not fighting. I will tell you that at every point in that 13 hours, I was in direct contact with a deadly weapon that were it used on me- I would have been dead before the cavalry could arrive to save the day-  I can tell you that after 13 hours of this cat and mouse game- I believed to the core of my soul that my silence was yet another choice to stay alive- and not just to save my own life but the lives of my family. I believed that with my whole heart.

One of the concrete truths in a trauma narrative is that you cannot go back. I cannot go back. There is no undoing of those 13 hours. There is no undoing of the choices that I made on that night or on all the nights that followed up to this point. And while I can't go back, maybe what I know now is that I can go forward. In small steps and with each year that passes from this point on, I can wake up every 10th of May and get out bed and wash my face and put on my clothes and straighten my spine and take a deep breath and I can step into the grey. Because that is the re-framing, the willingness to say that I don't know who I am after this but I am willing to find out. I am willing to dive into the grey. And keep diving, deeper, and deeper still.

"This is the sound of surviving. This is my farewell to fear. This is my whole heart deciding that I'm still here... I'm still here and I'm not done fighting. I'm still here...This is the sound of surviving." -Nichole Nordeman

And 1,193 miles- four months and five days later, I think that I am on my way...


Jillian Nichole, free elf, embracing the grey. Surviving.

#Late Post: Part One "Arizona Is Coming"...

"You tell me it gets better, it gets better in time. You say I'll pull myself together. Pull it together you'll be fine. Tell me what the hell do you know, what do you know; Tell me how the hell could you know, what could you know; 'Til it happens to you, you don't know. 'Til it happens to you, you don't know how it feels, you don't know how it feels." [-Lady Gaga]

#Late Post... Part one of two...

[4/7/2018]

I speak a lot about PTSD and depression and topics that people often avoid. Within this blog, I use my own experiences as a canvass of exploration for these topics . One of my first blog posts tackled the story of Arizona; A story that up until about a year and a half ago I never spoke of publicly or otherwise. It was a defining moment in my life- it changed me. It changed me in ways that I have still yet to fully come to terms with. It is a story that I still do not speak much of- But it is a story that nonetheless plays inside of me 24/7 like a broken record- always inside of me- that is the very essence of PTSD.

In general I find that people do not understand PTSD. I often see people interpret it is as one succumbing to a victim mentality. And in this sort of ernestly trying to be helpful kind of way, solutions are handed out like candy on Halloween- be positive, go serve others, stop living in the past, at least you-... etc., etc., etc ... 

As I have been dealing with a little (or A LOT) of PTSD centered around Arizona, I decided to chronicle a snapshot of what it looks like for me- So, this is a snapshot of my PTSD brain...

[Note: If you have not read my initial Arizona post, you may wish to revisit it. It is the 8/15/2017 post.]


[4/20/18- 1:43a]

It's getting harder to breathe...

Dear Game of Thrones, #arizonaiscoming - I think that trumps your little winter issue.

May 10th, 2011, 13 hours, across 2 states....6 years. 10 months. And 20 days. And counting.

My body of it's own accord begins to remember what my mind does not readily access. This is the part in the calendar year where time ushers in the inevitable awakening of the sleeping giant that is Arizona. Physical pain in the exact parts of my body that were in pain- resurfacing on my being as if I were some kind of voodoo doll being stabbed at with push-pins- visceral, searing, pain- real, not imagined- Shivering cold. My god, I was so fucking cold. Tears that will catch you off guard as they fall down your pretty little face and tsk, tsk, pretty girls like you ought to know better than to cry isn't that what he said.

It will wake you from a dead sleep, creep up on you while you're entering data into your routine, mundane spreadsheets at work, steal your breath in the middle of dinner with your family until you have trouble following the normal flow of conversation- And all the while, you will tell yourself that you are not going crazy. And just the same, you will desperately grasp at straws of sanity while sucking down oxygen because there will never seem to be enough air in your lungs.

#Arizonaiscoming
....

[4/27/18- 3:47a]

I didn't want to sleep anyway...

He's still out there in the dark. Still alive, still breathing- I can feel it in my bones. The reckoning is near. His voice is getting louder in my ears, "Don't forget, you're mine now. I own you." There is a scar you know on my skin in plain sight where he pressed a blade just enough to make his point. And his point was made. For the last nearly seven years of my life, I have waited for him to come for me. I have waited for this to be over. I have waited for his game to end. I have waited for the come what may- the end scene, fade to black, six feet under, pushing up daisies, Dateline special. I have waited. And I am still waiting. Because he is coming for me, if even only in my dreams, the reckoning is near. It was the final play in his game, this.

#Arizonaiscoming.

It's getting harder to breathe...
.....

[4/29/18- 2:54a]]

I need to understand my thoughts but this is a rabbit trail and I am Alice chasing after smoke and mirrors and a white rabbit that will always outrun me at every turn as I tumble in that infinite landscape of rabbit holes...

PTSD Brain=Rabbit Holes:

He didn't have to take my life, to take my life.

Am I a real, live girl?? Because I still feel it, the steel in the cut on my skin.

And his low, gravel coated laughter, I still hear his voice laughing as he pressed the blade in. And it's getting louder in my head.

Cat and mouse; I was easy prey. How did he know?? How did he know that he could do those things to me and that I wouldn't even try to stop him- how, how did he know??

"It had to be you. with that pretty Marilyn smile, it had to be you"- that was what he said. And I still feel sick when I think about it.

And how many showers have I taken since that night? More than 3,000, that much I know- but it's never enough. How many more will it take to wash you off of me David?? How many more until those 13 hours run down the drain, clean and free, never to stain my skin again??? I scrub at my skin until it's as red and raw and angry as I feel- But it's never enough...How will anyone ever touch me again if I can't wash him off?????????

No one will ever love me. Not like this. Not like this. NOT LIKE THIS.

I thought if I went back to Arizona that I could somehow bury his ghost in that godforsaken sand but the red earth keeps bleeding out from underneath my nails as I try to keep him down- it's never enough fight to keep it wholly contained. I AM SO FUCKING TIRED. He should have killed me. He should have killed me. Why didn't he kill me. Why????

I can still smell the nicotine on his breath and the gasoline on his clothes. It burns inside my nose and I taste it in my mouth. And I still wake up with vomit on myself from a memory that I cannot silence.

I am burning alive- Isn't that my penance after all for all these years of silence? I have blood on my hands, the blood of all of the women that I did not save because of my silence. 

And I can't take it back, the way I sealed my mouth shut like a mausoleum. I. Cant. Take. It. Back. I'm so sorry. No one will ever know what that moment cost me. And I'm so sorry. My god, I am so sorry. I AM SO SORRY.

He didn't have to take my life, to take my life. Because sometimes I think that I merely a dead girl walking. Because he's out there in the darkness and he knows exactly who I am. And he has a map of his own making anytime he wants to make the trip. And I'm still here. And he's still there, in the shadows, some kind of ghost haunting me.

He didn't have to take my life, to take my life. Sometimes, all I feel like is a dead girl walking...

#Arizonaiscoming
....

[5/9/18]

I am still here. I am still here. I AM STILL HERE. It runs on a loop inside my veins, this broken anthem inside of this half-resuscitated girl- I am still here.

Nearly two years ago, I returned to Arizona in the dead of winter with ice in my veins and frost on the ground, hoping that if I forced myself into a reconciliation of those 13 hours that I could leave David behind, buried deep into the red clay earth, never to rise again. But it did not work like that. It just wasn't that simple.  Looking back now,  I took myself apart in stages and dissected every part of the story that I had swallowed down- all of the little details that were carved into the core of my being, always there underneath the surface- I took myself apart and went back to Arizona thinking that I could somehow glue the broken pieces back together again; But in the end standing on the edge of the 7 year anniversary of those 13 hours what I know now is that I went back to Arizona only to discover that I could not go back to Arizona, not that Arizona. So where do I go from here? What part of Arizona am I surviving? What part of those 13 hours am I taking back? What part of this story will find me brave? Who am I now? Victim? Survivor? Both? Does it even matter?

I don't know.

But I'm willing to find out.

Because this year and next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and even still, the year after that- as long as I am breathing, it will be the active silent terrorist cell inside of my DNA, always waiting for it's moment to strike- that is PTSD. 

I think for now it is enough to know that I am willing to find out who I am in light of this.

And maybe for me it starts tomorrow. 7 years to the day. #arizonaiscoming.

Indeed, it is.


Jillian Nichole, uncertain...

Terrible, Thanks For Asking...

"...All of these people I meet, it seems like they're fine; Yeah in some ways, I hope that they're not and their hearts are like mine. Yeah it's wrong when it seems like work, to belong all I feel is hurt; Oh if God is on my side, yeah if God is on my side. oh I God is on my side, who can be against me; Yeah in this wasteland where I'm livin' there is a crack in the door filled with light and it's all I need to get by; Yeah in this wasteland where I'm livin' there is a crack in the door filled with light and it's all I need to shine..." [-NeedToBreathe]

#shitsabouttogetreal

[3/4/2018]

I am not well.

I have not been well.

I cannot tell you when it took root or how, but it did.

And it has been pulling me under for weeks.

There are dark shadows underneath my eyes and for a moment my gaze is glued to those dark smudges etched into those wide grey-blue eyes of this unkempt woman in her week old pajamas and unwashed hair and I think to myself, my god, you are a monster. And no one can love a monster. And I turn the bathroom light off and crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

Rinse and repeat.

Rinse and repeat.

Days falling off the calendar into the abyss...

....

This is my wasteland.

This is the reality of depression and shitty PTSD.

I am sinking without a sound, without a fight, without a ....

I am sinking.
....

[4/15/2018]

I remember that moment of standing in front of my bathroom mirror, I remember thinking that I just so desperately wanted someone to hold me and let me fall spectacularly apart with another living soul- to let someone into this darkness so that they might in turn carry some light into it- and yet there I stood, this profoundly empty, aching, creature, alone in her bathroom, and all I saw was this version of myself that resembled a monster and it was so utterly crushing, this perception that I have about myself when I am in the throes of depression and PTSD- I had never realized my own sheer hatred of Depressed/PTSD saturated Jillian.

I abhor her, that woman.

Because living in her skin, in that wasteland, it is never more clear just how lonely her life is for the simple fact that she still doesn't let people in. Not really. And all my smiles that hide a thousand little deaths, when all of my please and thank you's, when all of my color inside the lines, when all of my crossed 't's' and dotted 'i's are cast off into the wasteland, so too is the illusion that I so carefully operate under.

This illusion that I do life with people.

I do illusion.

Not life.

I wonder if you are like me in that regard?

I wonder if there are parts of you that you hide away behind closed doors- where you take your smile off and you stare at yourself in your bathroom mirror and look on in unfiltered sorrow and think to yourself that you are a monster- and that no one can love a monster.

I wonder.

I wonder if you feel as alone as I do in your own stuff. Because who the hell could possibly understand you when there are times when you don't even understand yourself?

I wonder.

I wonder if you wish that when someone asked you, "Hey you, how are you?" that you could just this once, just this one time, give an honest answer. Because after all "fine" is just another was of saying, fucked-up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional, thank you very much.

I wonder.

But mostly I wonder if maybe like me, there is a part of you that just wants to know that you know that you know, that you're not alone in it, in the wasteland.

I needed to know that and so I did what I do - I got my nerd on. I went about searching for something- I didn't know what to label it, this thing that I was searching for but I knew it when I found it. I knew it. And it knew me. It was a meeting of minds, stories, and hearts like mine- it was a beautiful, messy, terrible wasteland.

So here's the thing, I'm a bit of a pod junkie- because listening to other people talk for whatever reason helps me think that I am somehow less alone- yep, my morning coffee is paired with Small Town Murder. I eat my pb&j with Sword & Scale. Last Podcast on the Left rides shotgun with me in afternoon traffic. S-Town, Serial, and Up & Vanished- among my favorite Saturday nights. Clearly you should be seeing a theme here- I am mostly drawn to the seemingly more somber, dark, melancholy, or bent side of the pod universe ...And in the last couple of weeks, every time I was listening to a pod on Stitcher, I kept seeing this pod pop-up in my recommended for you section...it was called 'Terrible, Thanks for Asking'- I was sitting at my desk on a Monday morning just staring at that neon yellow one-eyed tear drop logo thinking that that is me. That is me. That is me. And I opened up the podcast and went back to the first episode, "Sad Nora and The Secret Baby."

Meet Sad Nora.

Sad Nora, meet sad Jillian.

How are you? Terrible, thanks for asking.

Grief and mourning. And pain. And life and death. And living. And happy. And sad. And while it was different circumstance, it resonated within my own being on my own journey, in my own grief and mourning, in my own pain, in my own lens of life and death- in my own living, in my own happy, and my own sad and it somehow fit. I somehow fit.

There were things that Nora articulated so beautifully about her story that it was as if she translated this foreign language that I have been trying to speak for years in my own story...

“Happiness to me was only acceptable in small increments, I could have a little at a time just not too much. I never knew really what grief looked like; We’re very, very good at hiding it, compartmentalizing it, experiencing it in private mostly…”

“People were always telling me they appreciate my honesty and transparency and I was like whyyyy- not because I was lying about anything but because even if I was made of saran-wrap and glass, there’s no way you could see this part..."

"I want to give this [...] my best but sometimes I think my best is gone and what's left is whoever I am now..."

I listened to every episode in the course of 3 days until I was all caught up and what I walked away with was this: Nora's terrible and the terrible's of her guests may look vastly different from my own, although sometimes not, I digress, but while each story is to unique to the individual, the crux of the narrative feels like home. 

A wasteland. And the stories, raw, and sad, and sometimes laced with humor, they are the crack in the door filled with light. 

I started to understand something in the wake of this last depression/ PTSD detour, that my overall life experience, my terribles if you will, oftentimes leaves me feeling like an outsider. I walk through this life of mine stranded on this island wasteland, allowing people to row to shore for a visit but inevitably always standing at the shoreline waving goodbye as they row away. Because I can smile and laugh and hold out my cup and show you that it really is half-full damn it but there comes a moment when you'll ask me, "Jillian, how are you?" And in this moment I will be dying inside while I smile and tell you, "I'm Fine." 

And I don't know why that is or how to change it. I just know that that I know that I don't belong. My pieces somehow don't fit because all of these people I meet, it seems like they're fine...

Did you see what I just did there....And maybe we are all fine. Maybe we all smile on cue while we post that last pic to Insta, and make sure to insert that glowing status update on Facebook, and send a well framed snap to our Snapchat story- maybe we all let the world see the highlight reel as if that is all that exists. 

But the cup isn't half-full. Nor is it half-empty. It is both.

We are both. Some of us have more stuff. Some of us have less stuff. But we are both.

Maybe we just don't know how to embrace it. 

The further along that I have come in my recovery journey, the more that I know that honesty makes people uncomfortable. Pain makes people uncomfortable. Not having the right words or the latest, greatest antidotes or enough band-aides to go around leaves us uncomfortable because in these places, vulnerability is a candle that burns on both ends.

I think this is why so often we get to this place- to the, "Hey you, how are you?"/ "I'm fine" place- because it's so much easier, so much safer, so much nicer there.

And so we all walk around, carrying our own terribles, constantly pulling ourselves up by the boot-straps, forging ahead, and getting by and getting through and it's exhausting.

When depression comes to town and PTSD throws a block party, I cave in. I white-knuckle my way through the muck and the mire in my week old pajamas and my unwashed hair and I loathe the terrible monster. Alone. Because I am fine, thank you very much.

My god, how exhausting it all is.

I wonder if it would be less so if I let a little light in? What do you think?

Light. You. Your terribles. Me. My terribles. Together. Nora might call it an emotional stew- and I have it on good authority that stew is disgusting, pretty tasty though. Messy and yet so wonderfully filling.

So where I am today, let's check in, "Jillian, how are you?"

Terrible, thanks for asking.

Although to be fair, I finally washed my hair.

End Note: I joined Nora's Terrble Club- it has been a crack in a door filled with light. I share my stuff. My fellow terribles share theirs. They are teaching me to embrace the stew. I think that's a good thing.


-Jillian Nichole, terrible, thanks for asking...

p.s. You should give Nora's pod a listen... www.ttfa.org...

Part Two: Welcome to Midnight [I Bought a Dress...]

I bought a dress.

It took nine stores, seven hours and thirty-eight minutes and a near nervous breakdown, but I bought a dress. And by god, it was gorgeous, that dress.

And hey, I felt pretty. The kind of glitter-in-the-air, ball drop, toasting champagne, butterflies in stomach, all things are possible kind of pretty.

Because I bought a dress.


Exhibit A: The Dress...

...

Full disclosure: I am not a particularly big fan of NYE. It plays symphonies out of my insecurities. My brain seems to pack it's bags and take a one way trip to the Twilight Zone whereupon we visit the years of Jillian past. It's not the prettiest of views, that landscape. It's lonely in my head, in that place. And I wrestle with the idea of belonging and feeling like I am still sitting at the lunch table in outcast territory, eating a stale pb&j, hoping that the lunch bell would just ring already. Because I am alone and exposed. But the bell doesn't ring and I sit there suspended in time, filling myself up with that sad, stale, longing.

That's it you know, that's why I hate the pomp and circumstance and revelry of NYE- the way the Times Square cameras pan the crowd showcasing the togetherness of it all. It tears at the deepest root of my fear and insecurity, that I am mistake. That even now, I do not belong. 

It's been a solitary kind of year. Maybe one where I have been on this journey of trying to figure out where I belong in my own life. But if I'm honest, what I know on this side of the calendar is that, I am no closer to feeling more connected than I was when the ball dropped last year. I am still in this place of disconnect. And try as I might, I don't know how to cross the divide...

But back to the dress...

I was invited out to a NYE party this year. I played it cool, didn't get all overly dramatic about just how excited I was. But it felt to me a lot like being the kid at that lunch table- and here comes the most popular person in the school and suddenly you're being invited to a party on a school night with all of the coolest kids in the school- and maybe for a moment, you're not invisible, maybe for just a moment, someone see's you and in that moment, you belong to something more than just your loneliness and longing.

And it fills you up with this hope. And you need that hope. You need it more now than ever. Because after 364 days of trying to fit-in, you're exhausted and you need a spark. You need to know that maybe this year will be better than the last. That this year might just be a little more light and a little less heavy.

And so you buy a dress. Because you need that hope.

***Spolier Alert***

This is not the Rom Com where the girl wears the dress and we all get a happy ending in two hours or less.

Nope. Not this time.

On NYE, I woke up at 4am with a blinding migraine. Head in trash can, room spinning, vertigo, double vision, ringing in my ears, migraine. I was a wreck. But I told myself it might pass. It HAD to pass. So I took my Imitrex, got a cold compress, laid as still as possible and tried to will it all away.

By noon I could stand up and walk a semi-straight line. And so as planned, I drove to the airport to pick up one of my best friends. By the time he arrived. He ended up having to drive us both back home. Not only did he have to drive, he went above and beyond in friend duties and took me to 3 different urgent cares until we found one that both took my insurance and had the least amount of wait time. And with a hug and a sad wave goodbye, I watched as he walked away, off to that NYE party and I hung my head down in my hands and tried not to cry. I sat in that cold waiting room for nearly four hours, every minute sinking me down further than the last. Two rounds of injections later, I drove myself home, crying the whole way. I was a hot mess. Way less hot. Emphasis on mess.

Because I bought a dress.

And there was a version of myself that was supposed to be wearing that dress at that party, sitting at the cool kids table, feeling infinite. But that was not how it played out. Maybe that's another film, for another girl, wearing another dress, on another night...

I fell asleep crying.

In the days that followed, I felt myself on the verge of some inner collapse. Because maybe I was still fumbling for the reset button. But the reset button seemed to be wrapped up in that dress that was still hanging in my closet. It was as if I was suspended in gravity, just orbiting Saturn once again. Round and round and round. Again.

I was wrestles. I needed to untangle my thoughts. And so I wrote. I wrote until it made sense. I wrote until the ink grounded my body.


Exhibit B: Gravity

Gravity, oh gravity
All their eyes are watching for a sign
And careful not to blink
Because she’s light on her feet
And the net beneath her will not hold
And maybe she wasn’t built to carry it alone
The words she spoke out loud
And all the still frames on repeat
And a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
Gravity, oh gravity
Could you kiss her when the clock strikes twelve?
And tell her that she’s beautiful
And not a beautiful mistake
For another selfish man to make
And maybe all she needs is to know that at the end
She can still begin again
Can we all begin again, oh gravity
And she’d like to pack up this tent
And tear down this show
But there’s no slowing down
And no stopping now
No stopping now, oh gravity-
And she’s been a high wire girl
In a circus built by lies
With a heart forged just like a tilt-a-whirl
Gravity, oh gravity
All their eyes are watching for a sign
Careful not blink
Because she’s light on her feet
And maybe it’ll be more than another string of
Three hundred and sixty-five regrets
A little less fear
A little more hope
And a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
A little less bitter
A little more sweet
Because she needs to know that
Someone still sees her
Gravity, oh gravity
Could you hold her in your arms when the second-hand stops?
While the revelry is roaring
Could you whisper in her ears that it’s okay for her to rest
And maybe tell her that’s she brave
And not just for how far she’s come
But maybe for the fact that she still got up today
And can’t you see her there
Standing in her party dress
Hands grasping for some kind of new
Oh gravity, gravity
And she’s light on her feet
And now, they’re all toasting their champagne
While Auld Lang Syne begins to play
And she’s still clinging to her glass
And waiting for someone around her to ask
If she’ll take a cup of kindness yet
Because maybe now she would
And she’s searching for a sign
Because she’s light on her feet
And maybe a chance that she might meet
Another searching soul
Gravity, oh gravity
She’s waiting for to see what your diamond drop will bring
So let the countdown commence
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
Gravity, oh gravity
Welcome to midnight
Welcome to midnight~
...

I stare at that dress hanging in my closet. I keep telling myself that I need to return it. I wondered if in the returning, that I could somehow buy back the five, four, three, two, one of NYE. But even still, that dress remained a shadow over me.

I think about the Auld Lang Syne, that hope for newness, you know that 'should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind..,'- I think about the reset. Because maybe for me, the welcome to midnight is an invitation to believe that better days are coming. Maybe for me, when the clock strikes midnight and the ball drops and the fireworks light up the sky, perhaps it is our cue that we can all begin again.

That I can begin again.

I carry that burden with me over the next few days. My body weighted down with this anti-climactic ending, with this interrupted beginning. With a dress hanging in my closet, holding the fabric of my unspoken hope for a version of myself that is... possible, that is possible.

Six days post NYE, I am sitting on a couch next to my favorite person watching the Falcons/ Rams game with some of my most favorite people. And something starts to settle. And I don't fully realize it at that moment. But I sense it. And so I sit there on that couch in that room absorbing some kind of delayed drop. Some kind of delayed rightness.

And as I walk to my car under the pale of the moon, after the last hug goodnight, after the turning of my engine, after the first red light, and somewhere halfway down an empty freeway- ironically at 11:59pm, it hits me, this delayed moment- where maybe for the first time in a long time, all is calm, and all is bright. Because I belonged on that couch. And maybe I couldn't articulate it past that point but my head and my heart met at that place and I knew it to be true, that I belonged there.

A stone throw past midnight, I am taking my make-up off, staring at the woman in the mirror. Thinking about that dress. Aching for the hope of "possible-" I close my eyes and think of the next 358 days. I think of all of the endings and all of the beginnings that I have ever known- I think of all of the endings and all of the beginning's that I have yet to know- I think to myself that it was, and it will be- And as I turn the lights out, I call a truce with the kid at the lunch table. And I send my regards to Saturn.

Because I bought a dress.

And maybe it was just a dress, and that was just a party, and just a night that passed, one to mark off the calendar. And maybe there will be a hundred more dresses, and a hundred more parties, on a hundred different nights- each one of them breaking at the seams with "possible." Each one of them wearing the fabric of a new story, not yet written, bearing it's own five, four, three, two, one-

I think about that dress hanging up in my closet and I think to myself that maybe I'm going to keep it after all.

Because I bought a dress. And I'm going to wear that dress.

And maybe that will be a story that I will tell you one day.

Anything's possible.

Welcome to midnight.

Welcome to the begin again.

Here I go...


-Jillian Nichole, content owner of a brand new party dress, and an unwritten story...

Part One: The Kids Aren't Alright...But...[A New Year's Prequel...]

I've been holding my breath since November. Historically, I don't do the holidays well. It's almost as if November through January 1st is my own personal tornado alley...

I have half-written blog posts sitting in limbo. But mostly they are words stuck in my throat, dying on the vine with every sad, half-hearted smile. Because tornadoes.

Little snapshots of wreckage has been strewn all around me...

And quite honestly I am still trying to understand the mess of it all- and the still frames play in my head, spinning 'round like the rings of Saturn, or better still a 1980's 3D View Master- click, focus, click, focus, click, focus, on and on and on.

Click. Focus. Click. Focus. Click. Focus. Click. Focus. ...

November fell into December and it played on repeat...

"...Sometimes I just want to sit around and gaze at my shoes, yeah and let your dirty sadness fill me up just like a balloon; And in the end, I'd do it all again, I think you're my best friend. Don't you know that the kids aren't all right. The kids aren't all alright..." [The Kids Aren't Alright, Fall Out Boy]

Sick. And tired. My faulty heart. Pericarditis. Again. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

We're driving to my favorite LA diner, talking about this and that, and then she asks if I really signed up for Christian Mingle. "I want to hear more about your dating life." ... It was an innocent enough conversation that women tend to have with each other. But mine isn't the kind easily traded over that 90's playlist in LA traffic. And so I dodge the question, while a grenade hits me dead center in my heart. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I stand there in the porch light, frozen for a moment in this play, in the walk on part that I have just been handed. She's tipsy on her feet. A light-bright pop 80's icon of color. Bursts of words too fast, collapsing into one and other, letters blurred at the ends with a cherry on top. I take her hand and ask the question, "How much doll? How much?" And she smiles, and shakes her head and says to me, "Just enough to take the edge off." I close my eyes. Just enough to take the edge off. Indeed. I invented taking the edge off- it was my signature move. She's sitting there in her yoga pants and her over sized Notre Dame sweatshirt and my god she looks just like me, that girl I was. And for a moment, I feel lost in this reverie- the snapshots of my lonely nights that no one knew of, that sad and small creature, sitting in her pajama's, a bottle in her hand, tears rolling down her face, '1, 2, 3 drink- 1, 2, 3, drink; Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight, help me, I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down, won't open my eyes, keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight...' I come back into focus and I take her hand in mine and say, "Coffee, love, we need some coffee. - It's going to be okay. I'm not going to leave you." [...] She's been in the bathroom too long. Too long. Much too long. I feel sick. Because I know. I know what you know when you know this. And I know this. I know this. And I push the bathroom door open and the needle hits the ground and it's so loud. And I hit the floor beside her. And scream. And in the end, I leave. I leave her there. Her sponsor comes but still, I leave her. And it breaks me in two, the leaving. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

It's 11:49 pm on a school night and I should most certainly be asleep, counting sheep in some obscure pattern that is neither here nor there- but I haven't slept in days. I am haunted by the past. By the death in her eyes. The death that was mine. And it tears at me. That cold, black, lifeless stare. Breathe. Just. Breathe. My head circles back to a recent text message whereupon the word strong was draped over me like a superhero's' cape. I smiled, you know, when I read those words, a sad kind of knowing smile that tears little shards of glass into my soul- because truth be told, I am not strong. And in this bed time story, I am no one's heroine- no one's superwoman, blazing forth in glorious wonder while the lesser mortals look on in awe at her feats of strength...No, not that, not that at all-maybe I am just an ordinary girl, small and scared and polished enough to smile when she's told well done, look at you being oh so strong. Good for you. He meant it though, those words, he meant them- that I was strong. I know that and I am trying to measure up to what he sees in me, to what so many people seem to see in me, truly I am- I wonder if that counts for something? [...] But still, my skin itches with the burden of the girl that used to be mine and suddenly it all just feels like failure. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I am standing in the middle of the Wayfaer and I am asked for the umpteenth time to snap a group photo as I am pointedly alone. It wasn't suppose to be this way. But the 'it's definitely in my calendar', the 'I am pretty sure I'll make it', and the 'I think I should be there'- they all ended with me, party of one, looking around a crowded room, feeling horribly out of place. Wishing that I'd never even bothered to come. The crowd is halfway through "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and I feel the sting of tears on my face, bleeding out streams of sorrow laced saline. And I walk back to my car and cry the whole way home, feeling like a mistake. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I walk through the door and she starts screaming at me. I know these words by heart. They are nothing new, just variations of the tired one liners in her narcissistic, borderline, narrative. Mental checklist from my mother's loving words: You're so fucking ungrateful. I mean how selfish can you be. You are a mistake {never actually stated but heavily implied.} All you are is nothing but drama, drama, drama. {Drama is code for the fact that my adult life has been spent in a consummate struggle for recovery.} Why can't you be normal. I am so tired of you. Why don't you just die. Really, why don't you just die. Because I am sick of this. You broke my heart. I can never forgive you. Get the hell out of my house. I love you, you're my daughter. Why can't we have a normal relationship. You're just too much. You ruined Christmas. I am done with you. Sometimes I think you're trying to ruin my life. Various other antidotes sprinkled in-between. But for some reason, out of all of it, all I hear is, "You ruined Christmas." And it seems to sink me. More than anything. Those 3 words seem to cut me deeper. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...

I am leaving a Christmas party. There is wrapping paper and tinsel strewn across the floor, underneath the restaurant table. It bothers me. It feels wrong to leave it there. And so I begin to try and pick it up. I am met with off-handed criticism. The waitress was tipped very nicely don't you know. I am dismissed. Just leave her to it, it's Jillian's deal. And I am glued to the hardwood floor, grasping the wreckage in my hands and I can't clean it up. I need someone to help me. But all there is, is retreat. And silence. And I sit there on the floor with aching hands, unable to articulate it. I need to be able to clean it up. I need to be able to clean the mess up. Why can't you see that. I need to clean it up. But there are no words. And I swallow back my tears and stand up and my hands let go of the mess and it hits the floor in a soft woosh and I walk out of the restaurant and sit in my car and cry. Because I couldn't clean it up. I can't seem to clean it up, this mess. And as I drive myself home, I seem to give up the ghost. No, the kids aren't alright.

Smile. It's going to be okay. Really, I promise.
...


Christmas comes. And goes. I kept myself held together with nothing more than a worn out smile and a faulty heart, and a body filled with the collected debris of little tornadoes.

In the days that followed, I packed a suitcase and drove myself away from this place. I watched as it all grew smaller and smaller still in my rear view mirror. I drove for 244 miles. I slept in a borrowed bed. And let the heaviness of the days past finally settle into my body. And maybe it was just enough to breathe again. Just enough to pick up my camera and see beauty through the dusty lens.

I was still. Just enough to remember how to keep my head up. I was quiet. Just enough to hear myself. Oh my darling, it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Really, I promise.

And when I packed my suitcase and drove home, I took a pause. And I stood on my own two feet. As tall as my 5 feet, 3 inches could stand. And I closed my eyes as the sun hit my face. And I felt the wind through my hair and I said it out loud. You. Are. Going. To. Be. Okay. I promise. And maybe because I needed to hold onto those words, I snapped a photo. And as I drove home, I felt the spark, that small little spark of something other than disaster. And while it was perhaps nothing more than a poor-man's hope, whatever it was, it was there, rising up inside of me. And it was mine.

It was mine.

And it seemed to speak the words, no, the kids aren't alright. But they will be.

You will be.

You. Will. Be.

And so, I will be. In time. I will be.


-Jillian Nichole, it's going to be alright...

Black & Blue, And A Canvass of White Noise...

[Author's Note: Due to the sensitive nature of this subject matter and being mindful of potential safety concerns for both the people and places represented in this post, I have made an intentional decision to protect all parties and entities with anonymity. -j.n.]

"Now there's gravel in our voices and glasses shattered from the fight; In this tug of war you always win even when I'm right. Cause you feed me fables from your head with violent words and empty threats and it's sick that all these battles are what keeps me satisfied; Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, well that's alright because I like the way it hurts; Just gonna stand there and hear me cry, well that's alright because I love the way you lie; I love the way you lie..." 
[-Skylar Grey]

October marked my skin with the reminders of the past. In ways that I didn't want nor in ways that I did not need. It was everywhere, at least in my world. Buzzwords and articles and even billboards announcing, 'Domestic Violence Awareness Month.'

An endless field of landmines.

It was a lifetime ago when I met her. She was a patient, as was I. We shared a room. We didn't sleep, she or I. It was the monsters underneath the bed, you know, the things that go bump in the night. And so we talked those hours away, chasing our demons away with words and lessons learned and sorrow upon sorrow, and the resolute promise of never again. Never again.

I admired her. She was a strong woman. Hers was a story that would break you. But as she would tell it, it broke her, yes, but it also built her.

Even in writing this, it seems strange to me that we have been friends for years but it is a quiet friendship, void of social media, no Snapchats, no Facebook banter, no Instagram pictures. They are her rules, not mine. And while she knows that I am writing this, she has imposed the rule of anonymity- one of which I would have followed just the same.

I remember in the early days of my sobriety journey last year, those horrific moments, face in the mirror, the bruises, my hands frantically trying to assure the woman staring back at me that it was all finished now, those were merely the phantom ghosts of Jillian Past.

I called her on the phone, "What did you do?" "How did you get through it?" "Am I going crazy, I swear I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind."

And she was calm. And steady. "I talked about it. I talked and I talked and I talked until my voice was louder than his hands. And I did not stop talking. And no love, you are not going crazy, you are getting well, one fractured memory at a time."

But I do not talk about certain chapters of my life, that is my rule.

****

A few months passed. I was a little stronger, not as easily broken by the memories. But I was not her. And I did not have her courage. Nor did I want her courage. No thank you, I do not want what you are selling. My account is overdrawn. End of story.

Only it's never really the end. Not for her. And certainly not for me. And not for the women like us.

Years earlier, after the hospital, she started her own version of a women's shelter and support group. She asked me to come. I politely told her that I didn't do groups. She said that she understood. But then she asked one thing of me, there is a girl, a little slip of a thing, she doesn't talk much, she reminds me of you, if not for your own healing, would you come for hers.

It would be a sentence, one of many, that would haunt me for years.

"If not for your own healing, would you come for hers."

****

Present: January 2017

It was in the cold of January this year present that she called me and asked me to come again. She has a fierce heart for her girls as it were and as we've maintained our connection, there was a part of me that always knew that one day she would call and she would ask of me the one thing that I could not give. Not ever again anyway. I told her that it was not a good time, that I was not as grounded as I would need to be, that my sobriety was fragile. And after the long line of other things that I listed out for why I could not come- I steeled myself against the memories and I said there was no way in hell that I would come. And furthermore hell would freeze over before I willingly step foot in that place again.

As it turned out, hell froze over like an artic tundra. And we all felt the ripple of the ice on our bodies...

"J, she came in last night. She's so much like her. I need you to come. We all have that one person that pulls us off this ledge, I know you know that- she needs you. Please"

She needs you. Just like the she that came before her.

I read those words and threw up on the sidewalk outside of the local Sprouts with a small trickle of curios stares passing by.

And I got into my car and drove. I drove for two hours and forty-seven minutes until I was sitting in a cemetery a few cities away. Thinking about a girl who is now six feet under. And a time that was a lifetime ago.

When they laid her in the ground on that October day a few years back, I swallowed down the dirt of guilt and buried the words in my mouth and sealed my lips shut like a mausoleum...

****

Past: August 2007

It was a warm August day. The sun hung high in the sky against a backdrop of marbled blue. The smell of fresh cut grass. Bright, cheerful flowers. An ordinary house, in an ordinary neighborhood, on an ordinary street. It was all so normal. A Norman Rockwell slice of suburbia. A clever facade to evade detection. It was just like long sleeves on arms that had been gripped to the point of breaking. It was a mirage. Because that is the trick of it all, smoke and mirrors and bright smiles. It is all so normal...

Crossing the threshold, it was filled with thrift store couches and tables and lamps and this and that; and thrift store hope that lingered over strong black coffee.

She really was a little slip of a thing. Nervous. Quiet as a church mouse. Her ivory cream skin still bearing the tint of yellows, blues, purples- the fading relics of the life she was running from.

I sat across from her, holding a Garfield mug that said "I hate Mondays."

To this day, I feel sick if I see that caricature.

Her hair was dark and long and a tangled mess of curls; Her eyes set wide, a brilliant green.  I always marveled that she was like a living doll. If I'm honest, I will tell you that there are times that I swear I still see her in the faces of other girls.

I talked. She listened. We cried. It was a strange dance.

I would spend countless hours with her over the next few weeks. Drinking coffee and courage.

In the years that have followed, what I came to understand is that you do not get to control the outcome.

It was a little over two months when I would get the call that came in the dead of the night.

I did not go to the funeral. There would have been too many questions and not enough answers.

****

I did not want anything more to do with that place and I said as much.

I know she understood. She wasn't immune to the pain. But as I said on my way out the door for the last time, it was her mission, not mine. It was never mine.

We didn't speak for awhile. I was a merry-go-round of disaster. And she remained this clam, solid, determined force to pull her girls from the burning fire as it were.

Have you ever lived in hell, I wonder? It is no easy feat to reach into that pit and pull body after body after body out. It will at some point burn you. Or incinerate you.

Looking back, I could see the singes on her tired fingers, the smoke in her lungs, the soot in the dark circles of her eyes. I could see the burn.

And I thought of the woman that I was then. And there she stood, ash to ash and dust to dust, a cremated surrender.

****

Present: January 2017

It was surreal driving up that street. Walking up that driveway. Knocking on that door. Sitting at that table. Drinking coffee in those thrift store mugs.

She really was so much like her. It hurt to look at her. I told her that I could not save her. I told her that only she could save herself. I told her that silence was her enemy and words were her strength.

She asked me questions. And I answered in no particular order. It was a painful stream of consciousness:

Document everything.
If you go back, please understand that it could be the last time.
I told her about the other her. It was her last time.
Love does not hurt, and fear is not love.
It's all so fucking cliché.
He will first break your sense of self and when he does that, he will move on to wage a war of isolation and image.
He will take everything away from you and you will drown in aloneness while from the outside looking in, you will be the perfect couple.
And you will tell yourself time and time again that he really loves you, he does. And it's your fault, you should know better than to say that or wear those clothes, or not do that, etc.
The first time his hands strike you, you will blame yourself because the shock of it will be too much- and by this time he will have broken you to the point of doubt, confusion, and fear.
He will almost never hit you in the face and when he does, the bruises that confront him will only make him angrier and more sorry just the same.
He will apologize, he might even go as far as putting his hand on a bible or a gun to his head while he apologizes and begs you to forgive him.
He will always find a way to blame you even when he is apologizing.
It will only ever get worse.
One day he might even try to kill you.
Because it will go too far.
Because history and experience will tell you this- once this starts, if you do not get out at the first signs of danger, it will go too far.
IT WILL GO TOO FAR.

I looked her in the eyes and I knew that she knew; she knew what I knew and I in turn knew what she knew. And we sat in that space together, both of us on fire.

We talked a few more times after that day.

She asked me if I would make her a promise so that she would always know that someone was fighting for her; she asked me to promise to not stay silent. She said that she heard how I was asked to come before, you know not for your own healing, but for hers, and she said to me it was because you came back that I am listening- please, she said, please promise me that you won't stop speaking.

I promised with certain stipulations. It was the best I could offer.

And she accepted.

It was in February that I would find out that she moved to a town in the mid-west, close to her extended family. I smiled. And I cried. She got out.

She got out.

It was a bittersweet circle.

****

Present: November 2017

These days that ordinary house, on that ordinary street, in that ordinary neighborhood is quiet. She made arrangements for the girls that she was looking after to be referred out to different shelters and such. Her past came calling. And she has had to move out of state. Mostly she has made herself into an ghost these days and I don't hear from her at all save for the exception of a random unmarked postcard. I think of her and I imagine that in her own way she is still full of moxie. Still searching out the burning houses, still waiting to be a rescue when called upon. She has taught me a lot in that respect. But again I am not her. Mine is still a house yet burning, at least in memories.

****

I am disinclined to discuss the details of my experiences with domestic violence. Because while the memories will always live inside of me, I do not want to live in the memories.

Once in awhile if I step on a landmine, I will talk. Mostly to my journal, at times to my therapist. I try to conjure up a wisp of her fierceness and in my own way talk about it, talk until my voice, my words, is/are louder than his/their hands.

So, what can I tell you of domestic violence?

It is emotional abuse in the highest form. It is a complex game of psychological warfare. It is a dirty little secret and an elephant in the room. And it can happen to anyone.

It can happen to ANYONE.

You will never forget that first moment when that one person that you trusted, that one person that you thought you knew, that one person that you felt safe with, that one person that you thought you loved- you will never forget the impact nor the imprint of his hands when all of those things lay shattered at your feet on the floor in a sea of broken glass. And you never saw it coming.

YOU NEVER SAW IT COMING.

Some women leave, never again to return. But most stay. And the world will always ask why, why did you stay?

Because domestic violence at it's core is a systematic indoctrination of guilt and shame: I did something wrong, I deserve this, This is all my fault.

And it works.

And it takes extraordinary outside and inside influences to break free.

And when you break free, there will almost always be apart of you that is one foot in and one foot out.

I can tell you about this, this strange and terrible duality-

There will be triggers. And you don't get to control the triggers.

One day you could be standing on aisle 3 in the supermarket and the couple at the end of the aisle are having an argument and the man raises his voice- and it's just the right tone and pitch- and suddenly you're a millions miles away in another place, on another day, wearing different clothes, and you hit the floor and your groceries fall and you're waiting for it, for that sting of his hands, and you lose time waiting- until suddenly you're back in your own body and you feel the hand of the store manager on your shoulder as he's asking you if you're okay and do you need him to phone 911. And you'll shake your head and run as fast as you can out of the store and get to the car and throw up on yourself while you cry.

I did not return to that supermarket for a good three months.

And then there is the loophole of all of your future relationships with men, be they friends, or significant others.

You will learn to trust these men. And you will tell yourself that you do trust them. Because you will have observed them carefully and engaged with them cautiously.

But the catch, the loophole is that when you are alone with them, you will always look for the signs. You will look for anger, you will measure it, you will watch closely the body language, you will listen intently for the tone, you will wonder to yourself, what will I do that will make this man hit me.

What will I do. WHAT WILL IT TAKE.

And it will break your heart. Because these men are not those men.

But you will wonder just the same.

It won't always be as pronounced and there might even be times when you can feel 99.9% safe with these men. Because you do know them and they are good men- but you don't get to control the trigger.

One foot in and one foot out...

****

We do not fight this war with our hands. We fight this war with our words.

We fight in little rebellions everyday.

We speak. Louder. And louder. And louder still, until our voices are stronger than their hands.

This is how we survive.

This is how we heal.

And this is my voice, small though it may be, standing with my sisters, fighting on.

And as I promised her, I will keep speaking in time.

-Jillian Nichole, speaking...

#MeToo; When Good Men Do Nothing...

Part One: #MeToo

I want to say something.

I want to say something out loud.

I want to scream it.

I want to open my mouth and let it all fall out.

And never stop speaking it.

But hey, I'm just a nice girl who doesn't make waves don't you know.

And let's not forget what you told me, what all the people that came before you have told me- "Maybe you shouldn't dwell on it. It's in the past, move on. Stop being a victim..."

Well hey there sexual abuse and rape culture- you're pretty clever because the quickest way to silence a woman is to shame her. And it sure does the trick nicely, wouldn't you agree?

So here we are...

#MeToo

I waited for awhile to publicly stand with a sisterhood of women that were brave enough to say it out loud. I thought that because I have generally been pretty open that maybe it was better to refrain for once. After all, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings- and by and in large, I would and have protected other people's feelings before my own.

And yet the fact remained that I kept seeing the hashtags- the stories- the pain- the deep ache of wounds that have been stitched up only to be ripped wide open again, and again, and again- so many times that that you loose count. And I kept seeing the invitation- that if EVERY woman would post their #MeToo story than collectively our voices might be heard and the men in our lives would be able to see and understand the sheer magnitude of this issue.

I thought about what I would say if I said anything at all. I wrestled with it. I lost sleep. I didn't eat. I relived my own #MeToo montage and I could not find the pause button. The weight of it intertwined itself into the depression that I've been fighting against. And it was relentless. And I started to think about all of the people in my life who have called me brave and surely this was a moment that demanded I be brave and so I closed my eyes and took a breath and wrote some words down.

I read my own words and wept bitterly for that woman as if she were not me and I was not her. And when the weeping gave way to that old familiar dry and thirsty longing, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that I did not find any value in myself, that I was as used up as a rusted car in an abandoned boneyard. And it hurt. It still does. Beyond any words that I have in my lexicon. And it made me sick, and I fell to my knees on my bathroom floor and vomited out the poison of my truth. And when I was done, I stood up and washed my face and I owned those words and I told myself to be brave for that woman, the woman that I was robbed of.

And in the wake of my words came the apologies. The "I never knew that x, y, z, about you. And if I..."

If I. ... If I. ... If I. ... If I. ... If I. ...

Not I am or When I or For the....

Do you see where I'm going with this?

There was a sentiment of hesitation as if to say I do not think that I have done anything wrong but I feel bad about what you said because hey I didn't know-

It was a curious thing to ponder, that had they never known, would they have ever felt the need to even bother with their half-hearted, semi-apologies, I wonder?

The transference of guilt was inevitable. Victimology 101- when a woman has been a recipient of trauma, she will at some point succumb to 'it was all my fault'.

And the apologies marched into the tangled web of my daily psychological warfare and suddenly I was responding with vigor- no, I know you didn't mean to, you're not that bad, it's okay...etc.

And then came the bounce back, you know that sudden burst of anger, the one that you suffocate because it burns so deep in your bones that it scares the hell out of you because you just know that you are ANGRY. SO FUCKING ANGRY. But hey, you're still a nice girl, so here's some polite anger.

And so it was that I found myself writing out more words for public consumption. I didn't want another apology. I couldn't stand another "If I"- What I needed as a survivor of this wreckage was for one man to own his actions, even just one. Because quite frankly the parade of "If I's" was only furthering the damage.

The backlash came. Little boys pretending to be men threw rocks and called names and took their toys and went home.

And I collected myself and curled up in the pain of it all. And tried to cry out the guilt that wasn't mine to own, but mostly, it remained. And that worthlessness filled me up and sunk me like the Titanic.

Wednesday found me wide awake and having a 3am party with PTSD. And so I did the only thing that I know how to do when I need to let it out, I wrote. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote until it flowed like a river, my broken heart.

And this was where I stood at 4am:

"Waiting"

Close your eyes
Take a breath
Tell me now how you’re sorry for
The words you said
Those things you did
The way you never saw me as anything more
Than
A good time
A little fun
No big deal
An easy one
And oh so convenient-
Now here we are
We’ve turned the page
And did the writing on the wall make you think of me
And did you try to justify your way around it
And tell me this,
Does it hurt you at all to think about it
Because here we are
I’ve never the turned the page
And it went round and round and round inside my head
How I was nothing more than a Barbie doll
That little boys could break or bend
But hey, it was just a good time
And wasn’t it fun
No big deal
Cleary a girl like me is just an easy one
And oh so convenient-
Because life taught me well to shut my mouth and play along
And I close my eyes
And take a breath
Because darling it hurts me to think about it
And once upon a time I dreamed of white dresses
But after all these years
And these hands
And these words
And these things that I don’t speak
Maybe now all I know is how to clean up messes
That were never of my own making
Now here we are
Looking at these pages
And I wonder if you had never read my confessions
If I were still just a girl that was in your once upon a time memories
Would you have still thought that maybe what you did wasn’t right-
And even still
The words are weak
Because if you, and if you, and if you, and if you, and if you-
And somehow it still falls back on me
And once upon a time, it was a long time ago
When I was just a little girl
There was a darkness whispered into me
And year after year, it would not give way to another ending
And so I am who I am
And I stand where I stand
And don’t you know, I’m still waiting for
A good man to be a good man
Because don’t you know
For me it’s not over
After all the apologies
Because I still let you make me guilty
Isn’t that funny, how it works
But darling, I don’t expect you to understand
Because hey, you didn’t know
And maybe even so, it doesn’t really matter what you know about me-
And darling, don’t you know it hurts to think about it
The truth between the lines
And close your eyes
And take a breath
It’s just the way the story goes
Now here we are
And I meant it when I said
What needs to be forgiven, I forgive
But tell me this,
And please look me in the eyes when you say it
So I can see your truth-
After all the writing on the wall
Does it hurt you at all to think about it
Because it hurts me to think about it
And we’ll turn the page
And you’ll walk away
But darling, please know for me
It still hurts to think about it
And if you are who you said you are
Who you want to be
Than please know
I’ll be here still waiting
For a good man
To be a good man
And I’ll keep writing on this wall
Until it crumbles and it falls
And maybe then we can all begin again
Because here we are
And maybe now, I think I’d like to begin again
And don’t you know, I'm still waiting for a good man

To be a good man.

Part Two: When Good Men Do Nothing

By Thursday, the emotional toll of the last few days fell down on me like bricks. And I was at the end of myself. Like the END. Like I tap out. Like I'm going to go close my eyes and not wake up. How's that for real talk?

When you live with the weight of the kind of trauma that I have walked through, there is not a day that passes where you are not having to deal with it on some level. What no one tells you about sexual abuse or rape is that it is a life sentence. PTSD will be your new bff- and you'll never be able to break up because whereas you want nothing more than to walk away from it all, it will never walk away from you. Some days will be easier than others. In my case, I medicated 30 plus years worth of trauma, after trauma, after trauma, after trauma- and I never faced it until last year. I have been a woman set on fire and it is still burning, that fire, with no end in sight. Because it will take time to settle. So much time. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day.

But sometimes there is a weight that is so heavy, you want to call a cease fire. Because you cannot take one more day of this.

I didn't want to fight back against it anymore.

I sat in my room on the floor curled into myself. Nothing was safe. I was afraid of myself. I was afraid of that ringing in my head. I was afraid of the calmness. I was afraid that it didn't matter anymore. I was afraid that I didn't matter anymore. I was afraid to move. I was afraid to breathe. I held my phone in my hands. I didn't want to exist. I didn't want to...

But a wise friend once told me when you are ready for the jump, always take a pause.

And so I found myself reaching out to one of the only people that speaks truth to me in a way that I can hear it. And I drove down to Dana Point and met Rick, one of my former Solmar Recovery treatment counselors at Harbor House.

And we talked, and talked, and talked.

And he listened intently and intentionally.

And he spoke some truth into me. And he told me of former patients, their stories similar to mine and of their healing.

And he spoke words that I have heard several times before- Jillian, it was not your fault. It was not your fault. Jillian, you need to forgive yourself. Jillian, you will get to the other side.

And I heard it, those words. I heard it.

After our goodbyes, I drove to Dana Point Harbor and watched the ocean. And those words remained. And they seemed to echo in the crashing tides. It was not my fault. It was not my fault. It was NOT my fault. And I allowed myself to let those words be. I let them sit with me in that quiet space, on that solitary rock and that ocean filled with the voices of broken & brave women, myself included.

I stayed until I could taste the salt on my skin and the torrent of grief on my lips. And then I drove home in the company of a quiet fragile hope.

Friday found me sitting on the brown couch across from my therapist, Heather, and as we talked about the events of the week from the #MeToo post and subsequent fallout and my time with Rick and my ability to finally begin to hear the message of "It was not your fault," there were a few things that rose up...

As I have watched my social media accounts fill up and overflow with these #MeToo stories, I was waiting for something to happen, I was waiting for the good men in the room to stand up, to speak up.

And yet it has been a silent, barren landscape.

And that silence is loud.

And that silence is disturbing.

And that silence conveys a message.

And whether it is acknowledged or not, that silence is damning and damaging to each and every one of the women who have said #MeToo.

I spoke of this silence with Heather. I told her that for me, it was sad and painful that the men in my life, men that I know to be generally good guys have stayed silent. Because their silence has caused me to question if they are in fact good men? Because their own silence on this matter, says that it's no big deal, that it doesn't matter, that it's not valid, that it's not their problem.

As women we were asked to be brave and stand up and up and speak out against the violations that we have endured in our lives. And we did. And the echo rippled across the ethos, long and loud. And we waited for the echo to circle back.

I wonder how it is that a good man could read these confessions and not be bothered by them?

I wonder if they were even paying attention?

I wonder if they read these posts and told themselves, I'm a good guy, this doesn't apply to me.

I wonder...

Because the truth of the matter is that age old adage:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 
[-Edmund Burke]

For. Good. Men. To. Do. Nothing.

I wonder if the men in my life know how much I desperately need them to do SOMETHING.

Because I am waiting for them, for those good men to be good men.

You know, I spent some time thinking about this earlier and what I have been longing for in this whole #MeToo conversation is that men would engage in this- Because ultimately they are the ones that have the power to make or break this- And here's the thing, it doesn't even have to be an apology- sure maybe you haven't been one of those men- but you could be the man that stands up and says publically- "I have read your words. I am grieving for you. I am grieving with you. It was not your fault. I hear you. I am listening. I will strive to be a better man..."

It's a simple enough script. One that would take less than five minutes of your time. But one that would potentially leave an lasting impact on that one woman who needs to know that her story matters and that you are standing up for her.

While in session, my therapist Heather pointed out something significant to me- that during my conversation with Rick- he was sitting in the mess with me-

And doesn't that make all the difference- to be in it with someone. I think so.

The reality of this beautiful and messy #MeToo movement is that as with all hashtag movements, it will eventually fade away and be replaced with the next latest and greatest cause.

But for all of us, for all of the #MeToo's, it will not be over.

I want to say something.

I want to say it out loud.

I want to scream it.

I want to open my mouth and let it all fall out.

And never stop speaking it.

Because I need you to hear me.

I need to know that you are listening.

We are your mothers. We are your daughters. We are your sisters. We are your girlfriends. We are your wives. We are your colleagues. We are your friends.

Do you see us? Do you hear us? Do you believe that our stories matter?

Because we are waiting for you. And we need you. We need you to sit in this mess with us.

How much healing could begin if good men would but stand up and speak into this abyss of evil.

So here's my question, will the good men in the room please stand up?

Because we are waiting.

I am waiting...

-Jillian Nichole, waiting.