Lets Try this Again

For a couple of weeks now—maybe a month—I knew that I was going to start writing this blog again. Part of me has been afraid. I’ve been gone for so long… what will people think? And then there was the thought: I don’t even have a backlog of blogs in case something happens one week. Along with that came the question of how I even begin to explain what happened last year when I don’t even know. Will I even be able to keep the blog going and consistent this year??

And the answer is: I still don’t know. I still do not know what middle finger got shoved in my face in 2025.

Just recently I was looking at where my planets were in my astrological chart with a friend. She had just taken a class and was eager to apply some of the things she had learned. We were looking at the years 2025, 2026, and for fun—the year we met in 2023. Even looking back at some of the lessons I learned in 2025, there’s still no obvious answer to me. It should’ve been an outgoing year, an external year. Maybe that’s why it felt so wrong, I had all this energy stuck inside with nowhere to go. Heck I even had a shaman tell me that after my solar return in 2025 I was in a “22 year” a “master year.” I feel like I failed and the only real answer I have is Fear, I let the Fear win.

At some point something happened—or maybe a multitude of things happened—and I caved in on myself. The anxiety was definitely not turned into excitement inside my body.

I’ll be honest: I haven’t wanted to write about this. I didn’t want to go back over it. I didn’t want to bring it back into my energy field. But here we go, because I’m reading a book for a retreat and they keep talking about creativity, creativity, writing, writing. Two people I follow on Instagram right now are like get creative put yourself out into the world—and I’m like, fine.

I was just trying to get through this book before I go to this retreat, which I may or may not finish in time… whoops. But I will stop my reading, and I will start writing my blog and be creative. Maybe something I write about will help others I feel I have written about this before, but relearning lessons until they are solid is how life works right? The author writing about his experiences has helped me, so yes, I will write with the intent of focusing my thoughts (for once, so they are not scattered everywhere) and maybe if I can help one person it will be worth it.

At one point in my mother’s life, she had agoraphobia—she couldn’t leave the house. I never really talked to her about it, and at this point I kind of wish I had. Because during the summer of 2025, after some triggers, failed expectations, self-critical thinking, and basically not feeling safe… I pretty much shut down.

I made it to work. I made it to my twice-a-week workouts—shout out to Corey and Jamie—and I went home. Door dash was my friend as well as the very impersonal Wal-Mart pick up.

I worked pharmacy almost every weekend in 2025, which could also be a contributing factor, and I’ll probably do another blog on isolation later. I read books for fun—romance, because why not—which sounds great, and it is great… except for the constant critical judgment voice that I had saying, Why are you doing this? Shouldn’t you be doing something else? And this is really extreme because it is all you are doing….blah blah blah. But then I would get lost in the feelings of reading. The irony of what I was reading was not lost on me, PTSD built into the stories, men coming to save the day and make the female lead FEEL SAFE, being loved, cherished, seen, and SAFE.

But I was sad. I was depressed. I was anxious. I was not helping myself either I had all these tricks and tools and I was not using them.

The anxiety was the worst thing I think I’ve ever experienced. But I’m a stubborn motherfcker, and I refused to get back on any of my meds—probably to the frustration of my therapist. I did have a therapist while going through all of this (and she is truly awesome).

So, in the grand scheme of things, the latter half of 2025 was a great teacher. Because it’s probably the lowest low I’ve ever had and the least spiritually aligned I’ve ever felt after having been so in sync with the universe.

I thought I’d had lows before—but no. The difference I think was the disparity between the life highs I had felt with the new low I was experiencing.

But now I can help guide others from that point.

Even though I was making it to my workouts I still thought that wasn’t enough because I wasn’t getting any steps in. I mean, that’s more workouts than I probably got in some years in college—but I wasn’t getting steps. Judge Judge Judge Criticize Criticize Criticize

That was the other thing: I had done something to my left shoulder and something to my right toe, and walking was difficult. Walking, running, any sort of half-marathon training that I had been doing—and doing very well—just got squashed. Everything stopped.

Failed expectations and pressure around a business launch, realizing that trying to have a social life out of town on a Friday and working on Saturday was not going to work because it led to me cause errors at work… it all isolated me more and more until I couldn’t leave the house.

I started reaching back out to some of the spiritual people I’ve gone to in the past, but none of them were available. So I found someone new, and I feel like she was probably one of my next guides or teachers. I never went back, but I feel like I want to reach out to her again now that I’m back in a learning mode. The one thing that came through strongly in my session with her was grief. I was processing a lot of grief.

This is not medical advice, but I feel like (and I read somewhere at some point—real or not, I don’t know) that when you get off SSRI’s, you start feeling everything that had been dampened by them. And I’m wondering if maybe that contributed to my eight months of rest, relaxation or rather complete hell (depending on the lense, you view it in).—All the anxiety, depression, and grief that I had never processed from over 25 years on an SSRI…was all coming thru. It all felt like too much.

But the grief that came through in that session… I could barely get my words out between sobs and this wonderful human held space.

I kept doing the bare minmum and was still waking up at 3 or 4 AM when my cortisol would spike. I always felt like I was on edge. Even something as simple as getting a new couch was a huge deal “choosing the right one” was paralyzing for a while. It took me months before I decided to order one. And then letting these people into my apartment… and oh shit, was the couch going to fit through my door? Its comical looking back at it now and thank you so much to the helpers who talked me down when I started to freak out (it’s also a beautiful couch ;)

The decision of whether to renew my lease—after only having lived here for six months—felt monumentally overwhelming.

I am so grateful for the friends and family who stuck by me and just held space. Because yes, someone can hold their hand out to help you, but the person still must climb out of the hole.

And I kept trying. Trying to get out of the hole. Trying—or sometimes not trying.

Finally, my therapist was just throwing random things at me: We could try this. We could try that. We could try this if you don’t want to be on meds.

And I’ll do a whole other blog on it, but I went and got a Stellate Ganglion Block, SGB—a treatment for trauma survivors and people with PTSD to reset my nervous system. Life started to turn around and my year of “weekends only” at work started to come to an end.

But what keeps coming back now, something I can’t let gain traction, is the thought: Wow, what a wasted year 2025 was. I could have accomplished so much this last year.

No. No. No.

2025 was a lesson. A learning year.

What can I learn from it and move on from here? I can use it as a teaching tool.

Because when you hit a breaking point—rock bottom—when you think you’ve hit rock bottom… boy, that rock bottom can rock bottom even further. I mean, I had my hard hat on with the flashlight. You couldn’t see me from the top of the hole. I was that far out of alignment.

I’ll probably do blogs on this retreat and the book that prompted this creativity into the world. Yet again, 2025 comes up—because guess what? I was supposed to go to this retreat October 2025, I signed up in April 2025 at a point in life where I felt aligned, and everything was going great but WOMP WOMP that didn’t happen.

2025 was a flaming pile of dog shit for me. Yet I can see the gems hidden in it also.

And I’m realizing now that I did not start these books—plural—early enough, considering I’ve known for over a year that I’m going to this retreat. But you know what? All I can do is all I can do. Plus if you know me, you know I never feel ready for anything I am going to do(because of course to feel ready I would have read them three times, taken notes and been able to regurgitate it and then still felt not ready) ….lets see if I can’t change that mentality.

And the book says to get creative, because what you put out there may help someone. So I’m putting it out there.

Emotionally, I didn’t get emotional until just now writing this. When you have hit rock bottom, there is a way out. There are lessons that you may not realize are happening, but in reflection you will learn so much about yourself.

There are always helpers. You may have to ask, or they may just show up and hold out their hand. But they are always there, and you will make it through it.

You may not know how. You may not understand why what is happening is happening to you. But you can make it one step. One five-minute block after another five-minute block of life. And then it will get easier minute by minute.

And I hope that my hitting rock bottom for months, being in utter despair and isolation, and crawling out the other side— I hope it can give someone else hope. I was crawling for a while… but thankfully we’re back to baby steps now—…

There is hope.

You may have to do some uncomfortable things. But there is always hope—and gratitude—on the other side.