Danielle Larsen's Blog

The medical journey never ends, but along the way you can learn a lot about yourself. I started this year worried that I might have cancer, barely able to get out of bed in the morning because of the amount of pain I was in, and just struggling to do simple tasks. After what felt like endless doctor’s appointments and trial & error, I’m finally at a point where I no longer feel like my body is a cage. Sure, there are still days where I struggle - and there always will be - but I know how to bett...

*cover photo by Spoonie Village

Anyone who knows me personally has probably heard me say the words, “I’ve been sick for 20 years.” That, in a way, is accurate, but there’s much more to it than that. For the last year I’ve been actively working with doctors and specialist to try and figure out what’s actually wrong - but how did i even get here? Let’s take a little journey back in time.

It’s not secret that I have very little memories from my childhood and those that exist are fairly disjointed. In...

Over the last 2 years, I have worked extremely hard on my healing journey. Sure I tackled a lot of the big traumas while writing the book, but it was the little ones that have had a larger impact. The ones that seemed insignificant in the moment or, maybe were significant, but became deeply buried through the years that I had nearly forgotten about them. When I wrote this post back in July I didn’t think that 4 months later I would still be affected by the episode that occurred - but here we are...

Tonight I was meditating with a specific purpose in mind - letting go. As I sat down and began breathing, a visualization started playing out and I found myself narrating it. Instead of continuing, I decided to stop and write it out instead. Here goes nothing…

It’s been so long since I’ve stepped foot out of the warehouse that I didn’t even realize how comfortable I’d become. I know it’s time to step away, but leaving is never easy. With one last look around the office, I stand up from my desk, g...

Recently I wrote about my healing journey and the steps I’ve taken to overcome all of my trauma. While I know there are certain things that will never leave me, the more I process, the easier it gets. But what happens to those things that stay buried? And I’m not even talking about the vault memories that I have no access to. I mean those deep-rooted traumas that wouldn’t come up in a normal every day situation. When those get triggered, it’s a whole different ballgame.

Recently, I was hanging ou...

Recently, my boss tasked me with something that, I’ll be honest, threw me for a loop when she first said it. You see, every week we have a check-in where we talk about work, sure, but also just check in on life. Because I have so many medical things going on at the moment, most of our check-ins are about that. The last few weeks at work, however, have been pretty hectic so when we sat down this past week and she said, “How are you feeling?” my response was, “Physically or mentally?”

Of course she...

“Healing is not linear…”

I’ve repeated this to myself so often over the last 5 years that it’s starting to lose it’s meaning a little bit. While I’ve always known that healing is, in fact, not linear, I never truly let myself live in that headspace. I would tell myself that every bad day was a setback and fall into an immediate downward spiral. Never good!

A little over a year ago, in early November 2022, I made a promise to myself: I was going to start actually processing my trauma. I was depress...

Oh, hi! I know it’s been a while and some people may be wondering if I was ever going to write again. Me… I’m some people. If I’m being fully honest, I didn’t think I would. Activating that side of my brain has been very difficult over the last year. Even my photography has suffered (but that’s a conversation for another day). I could blame it on depression, but I truly think that I actually write better when I’m going through something. I think, more than anything, it’s been a combination of 1)...

I’ve been trying to find the words for this post for literally the last month. Lots of things are still up in the air, but maybe writing this out will help me cope.

A little over a month ago I lost my job. There are so many things that went wrong from very early on after accepting that position and it really never got better. First of all, I took a significant pay cut and even though I was told during my interview that there would be opportunities for overtime, I was denied it when I asked. For 7...

Sometimes everything falls into place in such a serendipitous way that it feels like a dream. The stars align, everything feels right, and you can truly just live in the moment.

As followers of this blog will know, this past Saturday was the 5 year anniversary of when I lost my baby. Saturday was also the day that I got to see my favorite band for the first time in 4 years. When they announced their summer tour dates and I saw they were playing relatively close by on August 27th, I knew there was...