Trauma

I have always hated the word trauma. Full stop. To my ears it sounds weak. Whiney, buzzy, indulgent. And I talk such a good game with others, telling people that nobody has the market cornered on suffering, and that there is no one measurement for what feels impactful and hard – it’s a sliding scale and it’s ok to truly feel the depth of your sadness regardless of the perceived size of the problem. But if you slap the word trauma on it, well we’re in a different conversation. And if you try to turn it back on me, again, full stop.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately. It’s been a really hard year for so many reasons and that coupled with my age and the stage of life that we’re at, I’m not able to outrun my demons as I’ve done so well in the past. More accurately, I’m not willing to numb and dull them as I once did. And as I face everything more head on, without some of my familiar crutches, I’m realizing how much of my life was a coping mechanism. And when I scratch deeper as to why I might have needed so many of these coping mechanisms throughout my entire adult life, there it is. Right in my face. Trauma.

It feels scary to explore for a lot of reasons. The first and most simple – who wants to revisit that which was so hard to begin with? So we’ll get back to that. The second, and slightly more complicated is the implication and consequences of what I find. The one I keep grappling with right now is this idea that the person I’ve always shown to the world might not actually be who I am. Kylie is the extrovert. Kylie is capable. Kylie has fun and makes the most of wherever she’s at. Kylie is the life of the party. Kylie is unflappable. Kylie doesn’t let life get her down. Kylie is full of shit.

I’ve started to eliminate one of my primary and favorite crutches I’ve been using for the last 20+ years – alcohol as a form of escapism. What a lovely and easy numbing agent – it’s fun, nothing is too serious, it builds community, it shows everyone that no matter what lemons life has given me, I’m able to slap on some lipstick, be utterly charming winning hearts and minds while dancing the night away without a care in the world. I am strong. I can handle life. I realize now that what felt so empowering to me for so many years was just deferring the damage.

That avoidance always catches up with you, and I’m ok with facing it now. I think I feel mentally ready and strong enough to face it all without a crutch, but what has me scratching my head is how much of this person that people see me as is really a result of the crutches I’ve used all these years? For example, I think I’m an introvert. 40 years of being called the highest form of extroversion, being able to talk to everyone, being energized by social engagements… and they exhaust me now. I just want to stick to my people. Being social sounds tiring – good book sounds so much better.

In all of the difficult life events I’ve faced, I’ve fallen back on a two specific mantras: it could always be worse & keep marching forward. It could always be worse was always my way of keeping in perspective the trauma I was facing, finding the good in what was otherwise a terrible situation, remembering that I’ve got it good compared to most. But what this mantra did was install a very deep view that my trauma isn’t worthy of the sadness my heart and soul is trying to feel, and by saying this, I pep talked myself into not indulging in sadness and moving on. In fairness, it was a form of self preservation – truly letting myself feel the depth of my emotions, particularly at younger ages, didn’t feel like an option – I had to be strong for others, pull my weight. I was also terrified – what if I fell so low, I couldn’t get myself out. And honestly, a big fan of things that feel good, who in the world wants to wallow in something so painful or scary? And when you’re younger, you don’t realize the importance of getting to that depth so you can touch the bottom, and then push off back towards the surface. You don’t realize that one day it all catches up with you.

Keep marching forward is one I’ve used a lot in my adult life and specifically the last few years of dealing with my mom’s illness and subsequent death, my husbands illness and injuries and my aunt’s illness and subsequent death. These are all things that I have zero control over, and as a self-made control freak, that feels terrifying. But if I stay in motion, and keep moving forward, keep taking the next step, I’m dealing with it and doing what I can do. I’m showing how strong I am. I’m taking the bad news on the chin, processing it, and moving forward with whatever is the best option that’s in front of me. Inherent to this motto is a not having to deal with the present or reflect on the past. Moving so fast that I don’t have time to stand still and sit in the shit. It’s not really “dealing” with anything. It’s just staying in motion in hopes that the emotions don’t catch up with me. And when they do, plan a trip, drink some wine, be social, be happy, be the best hostess, show everyone you are FINE and just moving along through life.

But if I change that approach, am I still me? Am I still who everyone sees me as…why everyone likes me? If I change how I spend my time, if I focus on what I want to do to feel healthy and less anxious, will I still have enough in common and shared activities with my favorite people? Will I be as interesting? Do people only like me because I’m highly capable and fun? I used to say all the time “I should be on that list because I’m a gooooooood time”. But what if I’m no longer the light, happy, fun person. That stays too late and drinks too much and is up for anything. Am I still worthy of the love I’ve been given for so many years.

I met with my favorite intuitive Paula a year or so ago and expressed this anxiety I’ve been feeling about dying early, getting sick, leaving my kids. And she said.. it’s not in your genes. There is nothing that says it has to happen to you. You can change the cycle of your parents. And I’ve thought about that for two years now.. what does that mean? What cycle? What can I change so that I can go on to live a long and healthy life and not leave my kids with the same sadness, disappointment and baggage I feel? And all I can think is to stop the cycle of avoidance. To focus on health and wellness, both body and spirit. To stop trying to be everything to everyone else and actually focus on what I need to properly deal, heal and progress. But it’s hard isn’t it?

So let me be indulgent for a minute, and capture the trauma that I now find myself trying to unwind and acknowledge. I won’t caveat it with any qualifiers, which feels hardest of all – I’ve already deleted multiple sentences that I’m just dying to put in here. But I’ll resist. Because I deserve to acknowledge to myself that it has not be easy and I have in fact suffered great trauma. I had a dad who was sick the majority of my life, and though my parents tried their best and our life was very full, it also revolved around his health and general state. When there was something wrong, it was catastrophic. It was never best case scenario, quite the opposite. It was the worst case of x they’d ever seen, another condition, another something. My first day of kindergarten, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma. We dealt with that and all that it meant for the next 12 years. When I was 8, he went to the ER with an irregular heartbeat. Before they diagnosed him with arrhythmia, they had the paddles out worried he was going to flatline. For some awful reason, they let me, an 8 year old, in to see him – it’s the first time I ever passed out. At 15 we had to come home from an Italy trip early because he had the worst case of gallstones Stanford had ever seen and they had to remove his gallbladder. He almost died when I was 16. He was inpatient at Stanford for the better part of my sophomore year of high school and I made daily trips to visit him, going through the full protocol of 3 minute hand washing in iodine, full scrubs/mask/gloves etc. When the BMT that was said to be his last chance didn’t work, he sat me down on my bed after school one day and said his goodbyes, assuring me that my mom and I would be fine. That conversation still haunts me. By the miracle of modern medicine, he was cured of his lymphoma shortly thereafter but the remaining decade of his life was spent waiting for the other shoe to drop and dealing with life altering consequences of the crude treatment they used to give in the 80s. He got addicted to pain killers. And Ativan. I hated the Ativan..it made his eyes whirl and I would beg my mom to ask him not to take one when I was around. He ODed once at our house – my mom had to call 911 and they administered narcan in the emergency room. I watched them do it. It was terrifying seeing him jolt back to life like that. He died when I was 28 after a particularly awful year of dealing with lung infections – byproducts from all the radiation and chemo. He basically gave up and starved himself to death. It was awful watching him die. I was among the first of my friends to lose a parent. I still remember my best friend Jessica driving me to the funeral and feeling like it was an out of body experience. I thought I’d checked my box – that was my penance to the universe, time served, life would be good from there on out. But then I lost a dear friend at 40 – another person I had to watch slowly die before my eyes. And then my mom got terminally sick and my entire world was rocked. It had been me and my mom, always together through it all and then she left me. My mom died when I was 41. In covid, which made an impossible situation fucking terrible. I became an orphan at 41 years old. And had to add to my list of awful conversations, holding my son through his unending grief that he couldn’t understand, all while trying to survive my own. And then the one person that made the loss of my mom remotely survivable, my Aunt Jen, got diagnosed with the same awful disease that took my mom. And a month later my husband got diagnosed with testicular cancer. And we had to sit the kids down again, this time a double whammy. Cooper said “why does this keep happening to our family?” – I actually heard the crack of my heart breaking in that moment. And I literally looked around as the two people I rely on most in the world fought for their health and thought.. I’m going to be alone. Nobody will be left that I love. My husband, by the grace of the universe and his strong mind/body/spirit, beat the cancer, only to suffer his 6th blown knee 6 months later. And then my aunt died. And left us all in a puddle of despair and never ending grief. I worry our family won’t survive this. I think about this a lot. In my 44 years, I’ve watched 4 people die – literally been in the house or the room when it happened. That feels excessive.

And I worry about my own health – how could I not. It’s debilitating. And ironic – I’m busy worrying about myself while all the people I love are crumbling around me. I’m sure there is something to that that I’ll unpack eventually. I’m trying everything I can to get a handle on this ever-present anxiety. This post feels like another step in the right direction.

There is so much I have to be grateful for. And despite all of the above, I have an absolutely beautiful and charmed life. But I can’t keep pretending that that all didn’t happen to me. And I can’t keep minimizing it, knowing everyone else carries their own bag of trauma, feeling indulgent for calling attention to mine. I deserve to say it out loud too. I am worthy of acknowledging how much I’ve suffered.