Smashed Potatoes 2016 07 09
07/09/2016
Smashed Potatoes… That’s me. Not quite one thing or another.
Right now, I am 42. You could call me female. You could call me a tom-boy. You could call me a lot of things.
Not quite young. Not quite old. Not quite in the “change of life.” Steady. Transient. Not quite divorced, as we were never officially married, but two years after a long-term, over-fifteen-year relationship is over and still trying to find my way. I am a loud-mouthed, snarky, incredibly shy introvert.
I have severe PTSD. Maybe a TBI. For those of us that don’t know what that means:
PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
TBI: Traumatic Brain Injury.
I love mashed potatoes. I don’t know about you, but they are one of my top five go-to comfort foods.
Most days, it can be a struggle to get out of bed. And that is not quite as “depressing” as it sounds. I LOVE my bed. It is a place of joy and comfort for me. I have, without knowing it, put a lot of care into the space. The sheets are cool and comforting or an awesome place to snuggle. Tons of pillows of different shapes and thicknesses and sizes. Several sets of change out blankets and comforters, each for a different mood and yet, somehow, the same.
This was a happy, inadvertent shock to me, realizing that I wound up making this space without even knowing that was what I was doing.
It is, some days, one of the three things that gets me through- my pets, my bed, and mashed potatoes.
PTSD is not well understood by the masses. Neither is TBI. And, so you know, I also have two genetic birth defects, have had eight surgeries, hypoglycemia, and a slew of other documented “minor” health problems. I don’t quite wear the label of hypochondriac. Nor do I fit Munchhausen. I am not bragging here. I am stating facts.
I’ve said this because even though all of those things take up a lot of my life, they AREN’T me. They are part of me taking care of me. A big difference.
I don’t “fit” in, in most places- work or social. I am the odd-duck, for one reason or another. It hurts. It’s addictive. It’s isolation. It’s something I hate being, but wind up doing over and over and over. Mostly out of either compassion or being pissed off.
The thing is, I am just like a lot of slices of other people. These past five years, I have discovered that what I am, how I got here, who I am, actually does connect with what someone else has gone through. There’s just a lot of it.
So. Smashed potatoes. Me picking out what are the extremes in my life, good and bad, figuring out what is normal or finding a way to pick the extremes apart and make them “normal.” Because I am certainly not normal. I don’t want to be.
Sounded like a dichotomous, wheels-on-the-bus-go-round-and-round, double-sided thought process, right?
What I want is to be happy. To find a way to be happy. Without pills. Without cutting myself to pieces- literally or figuratively. To accept myself while accepting myself.
It’s one of the hardest things anyone who has PTSD can do- find balance and how to be happy. How to let go of what freaks me out without becoming numb. And, what I need to do is re-map my brain to accept being happy as “normal.”
Smashed Potatoes… That’s me. Not quite one thing or another.
Right now, I am 42. You could call me female. You could call me a tom-boy. You could call me a lot of things.
Not quite young. Not quite old. Not quite in the “change of life.” Steady. Transient. Not quite divorced, as we were never officially married, but two years after a long-term, over-fifteen-year relationship is over and still trying to find my way. I am a loud-mouthed, snarky, incredibly shy introvert.
I have severe PTSD. Maybe a TBI. For those of us that don’t know what that means:
PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
TBI: Traumatic Brain Injury.
I love mashed potatoes. I don’t know about you, but they are one of my top five go-to comfort foods.
Most days, it can be a struggle to get out of bed. And that is not quite as “depressing” as it sounds. I LOVE my bed. It is a place of joy and comfort for me. I have, without knowing it, put a lot of care into the space. The sheets are cool and comforting or an awesome place to snuggle. Tons of pillows of different shapes and thicknesses and sizes. Several sets of change out blankets and comforters, each for a different mood and yet, somehow, the same.
This was a happy, inadvertent shock to me, realizing that I wound up making this space without even knowing that was what I was doing.
It is, some days, one of the three things that gets me through- my pets, my bed, and mashed potatoes.
PTSD is not well understood by the masses. Neither is TBI. And, so you know, I also have two genetic birth defects, have had eight surgeries, hypoglycemia, and a slew of other documented “minor” health problems. I don’t quite wear the label of hypochondriac. Nor do I fit Munchhausen. I am not bragging here. I am stating facts.
I’ve said this because even though all of those things take up a lot of my life, they AREN’T me. They are part of me taking care of me. A big difference.
I don’t “fit” in, in most places- work or social. I am the odd-duck, for one reason or another. It hurts. It’s addictive. It’s isolation. It’s something I hate being, but wind up doing over and over and over. Mostly out of either compassion or being pissed off.
The thing is, I am just like a lot of slices of other people. These past five years, I have discovered that what I am, how I got here, who I am, actually does connect with what someone else has gone through. There’s just a lot of it.
So. Smashed potatoes. Me picking out what are the extremes in my life, good and bad, figuring out what is normal or finding a way to pick the extremes apart and make them “normal.” Because I am certainly not normal. I don’t want to be.
Sounded like a dichotomous, wheels-on-the-bus-go-round-and-round, double-sided thought process, right?
What I want is to be happy. To find a way to be happy. Without pills. Without cutting myself to pieces- literally or figuratively. To accept myself while accepting myself.
It’s one of the hardest things anyone who has PTSD can do- find balance and how to be happy. How to let go of what freaks me out without becoming numb. And, what I need to do is re-map my brain to accept being happy as “normal.”
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