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There She Is

We all tend to wear masks in our everyday living. We usually don’t expose our real true self to anyone unless we trust them enough and even then it takes years to really show yourself. At least that is my case. I don’t purposely wear masks but I think over the years as I have experienced all kinds of trauma in my life they just naturally appeared and it takes time to peel those onion layers away.  I am even shocked when I see a glimpse of my real true self.

You know, that self that shines! Eyes bright, the guard let down.  When all the pretenses drop. I didn’t even know that I did that until I met the “man”, the man that I was going to marry.

The first time he said it, shocked me. We were lying in bed, cuddling and talking and then I got real, and I guess that was what was happening, vulnerable in a way that only comes with someone that I have known for years. But this man, for all intense purposes I didn’t even “really” know. It was at the beginning of our relationship. It was so full of passion and electricity it took us both by storm. Really knocked us both out. How could we feel this way about each other after a short time period? But there was no denying it and other people, strangers would pick up on our electricity and it would make them smile.

He said 3 simple words that impacted me in a way I never would have thought. He looked at me and said, “There she is”, and it stopped me in my tracks. I immediately started to cry. He saw me. I mean really saw me. The whole enchilada the beautiful mess that was me.  No one and I mean no one has ever said that to me and I knew by looking into his baby blues that he really meant it.  He was so taken back when I started to cry and he didn’t know why.  I then explained to him the meaning of that powerful statement to me.  He shed a tear too.

After that, when I had my guard up and when I put on that tough face (which is how I protect myself), he would say to me “ Where’s my girl?” and instantly I would become real and soft and we could work out whatever disagreement we had been going through.

I couldn’t wait to marry this man, he really knew me. Unfortunately, we never got a chance, he died this year. Which is a whole other story I might write about someday.

I wish is that everyone can find someone that truly sees who you are and if you do snatch that person up!

It took a long time to find him so I am hoping that I am blessed again someday to meet someone else that can really see me.

Light Uncategorized | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   i see you intimacy

Learning to let go and surrender

We all struggle with something about ourselves that we dislike and would like to change, mine has always been a little thing called   Surrender. I will fight to the death on any given point. Controlling, trying to control, until it makes me crazy. A small whisper in my ear “surrender Roxanne, let go, and you will feel better”. Yet I hold on until I do something incredibly stupid and or push people away by holding on to hard -with claw marks on the object. The cloak of isolation envelopes me, I feel alone and unloved. This is where my head takes me – feelings of rejection, abandonment, all because of something that happened 50 yrs ago at the start of my journey.

In reality, I am loved. I am valued and I am special to some. I have worth to many. The enemy of my mind wants me to isolate and feel depressed and alone.

When I feel like this, I might wallow for a while and lick my wounds and play the why game but eventually that gets old and I want to get into the solution. I listened to a podcast recently on how to overcome rejection by Dr. Aziz and he put it so simply. There are two types of rejection; internal and external.  Most of the time we perceive it as internal. We take a simple no and turn it into “I am not good enough” I am too short, too fat, not worthy whatever your mantra happens to be.  When this happens we need to stop and take a real look at what is ACTUALLY happening. The person that you think is rejecting you probably has stuff going on in their life that has NOTHING to do with you. We tend to think that we have so much control. That if I only said this or said that, the person wouldn’t have rejected me.  When the reality of it is that it has NOTHING to do with you. Dr. Aziz puts this as a great analogy. If someone offers you a cookie and you say meh I don’t want the cookie, I know if I eat this cookie I will feel like crap later or you decide to eat the cookie. when you reject the cookie you don’t think it’s a bad cookie. It’s just not for you.

I have found that when my head starts reeling and twisting and turning onto something I can’t seem to let go of – I simply need to tell myself to STOP in my outside voice. That gives me a few seconds to then proceed to change that thought into something positive. Out loud I start a mantra that is positive: I am worthy, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am exceptional, I am perfect – you get the picture – whatever means the most to you. I take the negative and turn that into a positive. For example, I am not worthy to I am worthy.

This is something we need to work at and it’s not a quick fix solution. We didn’t get this way overnight and we won’t fix it overnight either. There is beauty in surrendering I just wish I would do it sooner.

 

Light Uncategorized | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment

Day 3 After Odile

2014-09-14 18.25.34

Sept 17

Didn’t sleep again the place is so unsecure, it’s hard to rest. Woke up and began cleaning again. I think what’s the point another storm is coming and my home will be flooded again.

No communication is the worst, we don’t know if anyone is okay, the only way is through word of mouth and it’s all really bleak with not much hope given. No food, water is limited and if help does come we need to get to the drop places for food and water but with no gasoline how do I get there?

I am sick of trying to clean, with no water. Haven’t showered in a few days, but we are trying to remain hopeful that we will see the military soon. Why hasn’t help come yet?

My old roommate came over; she lives over in the next community. We talked about going to her friend’s house and siphoning gas from her bike that we could use.

I packed a bug out bag with a few pictures, money, and papers and decided I would carry it everywhere. We locked our water in the only locking door and we ventured out. I had over 1/4 tank of gas in my 4 wheel….not much…I had to conserve.

We left the safety of the community and it shocked me every time we left…. the decimation of my beautiful Cabo in ruins. Cabo; in the last 3 years have become my home and I have such a connection to the people that live here. Gringo and Mexican alike.

We drive 10 minutes away from town towards San Jose and the downed cell towers, palms and power lines are everywhere too. We are carrying weapons. I have a screw driver, knives……..wow is all I have to say…..

Now I have tell you we had some  good laughs along the way….siphoning gas is a real treat and I remember from my farm days how gross it is………we were all gagging and laughing and finally my friend got it to drain……..great we have 2 gallons, not much but not nothing either. We couldn’t get gas from the other 3 cars we hit someone already got to them and they were parked in my drive way. This place had a relatively clean pool, I got in and washed my hair….still gross but better than before.

We just happened to try the phone and we got a dial tone! yippee I wonder if we can call international?

Baja Junkie Uncategorized | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment

Day 1 & 2 After the Hurricane

2014-09-15 07.55.18

 

My friend who lives in the complex over came to see me. She didn’t have it as bad as me. We walked over for a moment and used her landline phone. Little did I know that it would be the last message left for my family for a long time. I got there answering machine. I so wished I could of talked to them.

We decided after a bit of clean up to go for a drive. Unbelievable destruction! Power lines, palm trees, signs all over the place. The destruction was so bad that we came home immediately.

We went to bed early with a plan for the next day to try and clean up some more and then go into town. Oh I forgot to mention there were buildings down everywhere and people were starting to loot the corner store!

Sept 16 day 2 after the storm

We woke up and decided to go to town to see if there was anything left. I am so grateful I have a 4 wheel drive because a regular car would not get through. Mudslides from flash floods were 2 ft. deep full of mud across the hwy, power lines down, buildings just gone!

I stopped to see if my coworker was ok, as she lived alone with her fur babies. She was not home or at least she didn’t answer, her dogs were outside. I will check again tomorrow I think.

We stopped at my work and a window and water was blown all over. No one was there. Met my friend Tony and started to talk to people about the power. They tell us that it could be up to a month to get power back! Plus we have no cell service. Without power we can’t turn on the tap and get washing water, cooking water…..it doesn’t run without power! Things just got a lot grimmer. We talked about the food we have on hand and we realize we don’t have a lot of canned goods……I never expected this!

People are gathering a small army and I see they are going to start to loot Walmart, SAMs club and maybe Costco and this is only day 2 . I’m so scared. The army is there. Later I hear they just opened up the doors and let people take any food items etc. that they needed……

I have 1/2 a tank of gasoline…..why oh why didn’t I get a full tank? I feel so stupid! I was so unprepared! Oh but we have 12 gallons of clean drinking water….that should last a little while if we are careful.

I have a Costco size baby wipes. Thank you Kyrstin for getting me hooked on them. This is how I will wash for the next several weeks because of no power. We do have a cistern with water that we decided we can use to boil and cook with….thank goodness we have a gas stove!

All the freezer stuff is starting to melt, the fridge is warm…..everything is going to go bad. We will have eggs and bacon tomorrow and lots of it!

 

We heard there is only one working cell tower in La Paz 2 hours away. We won’t be getting power back on for at least 2 weeks and all the stores are getting looted! We are worried we might have to bug out, oh ya we just heard the airport is destroyed and won’t be having any flight in or out for a week or more. What are we going to do? And to top it all off with all the rain, our doors won’t shut as they are swollen, bugs and mosquitoes with the threat of dengue. Plus we heard through the grapevine there is another storm headed our way!

My place looks like a bomb hit it, it’s super-hot and humid out and we don’t have a safe place to ride out this next storm. We are afraid that people will start looting houses and we have nothing to protect us…. I can’t go to work and that means no money for me……I really feel …….tired….

Tomorrow is another day to fight the battle.

Baja Junkie Uncategorized | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment

Part 1 – Diagnosed with Depression

How I recovered from depression a debilitating, life destroying, life controlling issue.

I was “diagnosed” by a medi-center doctor (walk in clinic) who had no history on me for depression or anything else for that matter back in 1994. As I look back, I know now that depression is widely misdiagnosed. Life got you down? Oh you must be depressed, lets load you up on mood altering drugs. Instead of finding the cause of the unhappiness, sadness, hopeless, despair of life; lets give you medication. I had a severe drug problem for 28 years! Of course I am going to be unhappy, sad, and have Dis-Ease of life! OH now I have a crutch, thank you very much. I was good at the blame game and now here is one more thing I can add to my back pocket of shame.  I am such a loser drug addict; crappy mom, bad sister and daughter, unemployable adnauseam and now I have a mental illness! Great! When I was getting dealt the hand of life, I defiantly got the losing hand, or so I thought!

Over the years I continued to abuse drugs and alcohol with the doctors trying to find that magic combinations of pills that would help with stopping my suicide by installment plan. Funny how a doctor thinks “prescribed” drug will help with a street drug problem.  Nothing helped.  At the end of 2003 I entered my final treatment facility.  I had been off my medication for a few weeks because I could not afford to buy them.

The facility suggested that I wait and see if I really need them. My best friend turned on me, my lover of 28 years cheated on me, lied to me, shamed me and made me feel like I couldn’t live with or without Mr. Cocaine. I was coming off a collage of drugs and of course I would be depressed.

I lived in the treatment facility for women for 6 months and I stayed off of the medication. I think at that point in my life I was kept so busy with making changes and working on myself that I didn’t have time to think.

I had been clean for about a year and I started to feel sad, lonely, tired, bored…I thought ….maybe I was depressed. Back to the doctors I went seeking something to take me out of myself. I didn’t want to feel.  Over the next 5 years I stayed clean from street drugs but I ended up being on 3 different kinds of anti-depressants! Nothing was working! I still felt dis-eased in life.

What in the world did I have to be depressed about? After years of disappointing my family I had them back in my life, they finally trusted me again. I was a productive member of society working a full time job for the last 5 years, I was scuba diving, and I was no longer destroying my life and everyone that was close to me.  Why would I be depressed?

Oh here comes the lie…. wait for it, wait for it… the doctors told me that with the years of drug use to cocaine and my favorite drug “what do ya got?” and the amount that I had been doing, has forever altered my brain chemistry and I would always have to take medication. The brain does not reproduce, the serotonin and dopamine that my body over produced when I was using. cocaine works the neurotransmitters of the brain. It makes the brain release the euphoria chemicals in large quantities to give you that rush of pleasure.

Great I was screwed! I finally had my answer. The doctors told me, so it must be true. Society is plagued with mental illness and now I was just one of the statistics!

I became my own doctor, playing with the doses to try find just the right one. Really no different then being a drug addict; finding that perfect combination of drugs and alcohol. Enough of one or the other to get me to that sweet spot of obviation – a little more and I would get paranoid or a little less and I would chase the dragon even harder.  It was the same for the prescribed medication. Too much of one and I wouldn’t sleep, not enough of the other one and I would sleep too much. I constantly felt like I had a mouth full of cotton.

I would try time and time again to get off the prescription drugs all together and I would end up in bed not caring if the place burned to the ground. Eventually, I believed the lie.

This song on YouTube was my mantra – Please enjoy

 

 

UP NEXT….. HOW I WAS CURED!!……..that’s right……you read right……CURED

 

 

 

Darkness Uncategorized | Scuba Girl 65 | | Leave a comment |   cured debilitating depression diagnosed dis-ease disease drug addict hopeless junkie lies life controlling lost negative sad sick suffering from depression suicide