Obscure Traumatic Boxes

Last entry I talked about eating popcorn for dinner. Please note that this was an anomaly. I am seeing an RD (registered dietician) because I am tired of looking in the mirror and seeing the Titanic staring back at me. Obviously I’m not 400 pounds, but I hate the weight I’ve gained since 2013 thanks to the momentum of the freakshow areas of my life drastically increasing.

Let me show you the obscure traumatic boxes I can check off (from 2013 and beyond):

Parents divorce due to dads secret gambling addiction which you have to go on a deep dive to uncover because you slowly realize people have been lying to you for years? Check. Move back in with your dad due to being sexually assaulted and dropping out of college but telling no one in your family to spare them the heartbreak (they could choose their own adventure) and then they just categorize you as a failure? Check. Live with your dad and nonverbal autistic brother for years while having to pretend you know nothing about your dad’s addiction and also pretending that you believe his lies about where he is going? Check. Your dad eventually deteriorates horrifically (including from a mental perspective) and dies? CHECK. Man who sexually assaults confesses in writing and you send the confession to his mother and basically your entire mutual circle à la Promising Young Woman? Check. (This was a controversial move.) Non verbal autistic brother with epilepsy has no idea where dad went and roams the house looking for him? Check. (I put that in a funky order, too lazy to edit)

Of note - my dad was my best friend and I hold zero resentment or anger towards him. I am sad for him and wish he would have gotten better. This part of his life is a cautionary tale.

This is a sample and I ended it in 2021 but these are such specifically weird scenarios that… I have almost no one in my life who can relate to me.

….. Which is good as I wouldn’t wish my life on ANYONE. Yet I know, still, that I am blessed in a tremendous amount of ways.

But you know why I wouldn’t wish it on anyone? I know, at the end of the day, somehow, I can fucking HANDLE it.

I am not sure that everyone could. I am too hard on myself at times. I have smiled and fake giggled at middle-aged men’s jokes at work while simultaneously praying for my own death.

Yeah I know. I hate that I sound “self-pitying.” I don’t mean to. I fully recognize that everyone ends up traumatized in one way or another. No one is God’s little princess and he only had one son (who suffered a horrific death). Sorry for the honesty bomb.

I am grateful for my spirit. I am grateful for my writing talent. I would never want to be anyone else. I would take all of it again if it meant I will always be Caitlin Cassidy, kind, brilliant (according to some, but I’ll accept the compliment), and WHOLE. I am this whole soul that has always been finished yet is somehow still evolving. And I love that about myself.

I have never felt broken. Ever. Because I have never BEEN broken.

Here‘s to earth and heaven.