The Strength of the Phoenix

I heard the term "Post Traumatic Growth" for the first-time last week. I was listening to a podcast and it stopped me in my tracks.  At the next stop light, I wrote the term down, knowing that I had to unpack what this meant to me in my next blog.  "Post Traumatic Growth" is, in part, what has made me the strong resilient woman I am today.  Instead of being left victimized at times in my life my phoenix has risen out of the ashes of the scorched earth beneath my feet.  I know that in sharing my growth process, that you'll feel free to share yours and together we will rise.

If I reached deeper into the baggage of my past, I know I'd find other pivotal moments, but four come to my mind immediately.  Each of these moments are deeply etched into my psyche.  The first of these was when I was 15.  I was left in a home by a "friend" with a boy I didn't really know.  She said she'd be right back.  I left 2 hours later with blood dripping down my legs.  He had raped me.  It was my first time.  I knew I had been set up by the "friend" that had left me there.  I shut down emotionally and hooked up with another boy whose uncle was a drug dealer.  I spent the next six months in a hazy 420 daze, until one morning I looked at myself in the mirror, pale and ghostly and thought "Do you want to die?  If you continue on this path, you will."  The answer was no.  I walked away from the supplier, started running track and cross country, and made a pact with myself to never go into that dark place again.   I decided then and there that when bad things happened, I'd allow myself 24 hours to fall apart and then move on.  

I held strong to that pact until after I was diagnosed with cancer at 32.  Cancer really makes you take a long hard look at yourself, your life... where you are and where you feel you need to be.  I had two children under the age of 4 and fought that cancer over a period of 3 years before I became "cancer free".  As much as I love my kids' father to death (he's a good man) we had already been struggling and the cancer diagnosis was a death knell to our marriage.  He didn't really know how to handle my health issues or maybe just never grasped that I was as frail as I was and just wasn't capable of dealing with the 'for worse'.  Other things happened during that time that don't need to be aired on the internet, but I knew I needed out.  I had been a stay-at-home mom for 6 years and didn't know how to find a job in the new state we were living in.  The thought of my kids going to day care threw me into a dark place.  I broke my promise to my 15-year-old self and went back into a depression.  I would get the kids to school, sit down in a chair in my living room and look out over the trees... next thing I knew my kids would be coming home... the cup of coffee that I'd poured in the morning, cold in my hand.  One day my mother called, I was at my breaking point.  She heard it in my voice and told me to "fucking file for divorce", that a check to retain an attorney was being Fed Ex'd that day.  I did.  I also applied to multiple airlines as a flight attendant and had multiple offers.  My kid's dad and I had a few arguments over that decision.  He wanted me to make more money.  I pointed out the money he would save in childcare, and he finally agreed it would work.  We argued over who was staying in the house.  I left the house one day and saw a sign for a new subdivision in a price point that was affordable.  Looked at the models and lots, called him up and told him to leave work and come join me.  I'd found the solution.  He grumbled but came.  We both liked the lower end model the best.  I showed him the lots that I wanted.  He saw the vision.  I went in and negotiated the hell out of TWO properties, and then listed our home.  We spent the next 12 years living back-to-back.  The kids being able to run from one parent to another anytime I was home.  I worked weekends so he could have the kids and was home to be the stay-at-home mom during the weekdays.  It worked.  Our family survived the trauma of divorce.  To this day we are a united front.  We're both happier.  We did the best for our kids.

A traumatic time can take you down a road you didn't expect.  I always wanted to be a flight attendant.  I took a Jr flight attendant training when I was 12 at United in San Francisco.  Life happened and I never thought I would be one.  Flash forward to 40 and I'm doing what I had dreamed of.  That led me to the career I am in today.  I became involved in the union immediately upon finishing training.  During my years of flying, I worked with the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for AFA, was a District Representative for the IAM, did the Critical Incident Program (CIRP) with SIA and ended my career flying on the Board of Directors for SIA over Professional Standards.  Along the way I obtained my Masters in Union Leadership and Administration from UMass Amherst.  When it was time to retire, the obvious post flying career was to continue as a labor leader.  

In the meantime, I had remarried at 50.  I have blogged upon that era ad nauseum.  The long and short of it is the marriage ended 4 years later after a night of terror.  At 54 I found myself unexpectedly a victim of domestic violence.  I did not need 24 hours to act upon that trauma.  Before the next day was done, I had gone to urgent care, received a restraining order, started the divorce process, purchased boxes, and started packing his belongings.  Everything was removed from the house and put in the shed until he could come for his one visit with a police officer to obtain his stuff.  While I didn't fall into depression, I did find myself having panic attacks when I left the house.  It took a few months for me to be able to leave for anything other than work or shopping.  Home was safe.  Where I could breathe.  The extrovert became an introvert as I licked my wounds, analyzed my navel, and decided what I wanted in life.  It was during this time that I started comparing myself to a phoenix... (if not that, I must be pretty fit cuz  Darwin I keep surviving).

At 56 I decided it was time to put myself back out on the market.  2023 was to be my year.  Ironically the first two months of 2023 were probably the hardest months of my life.  With mom's illness and subsequent death.  January and February are lost to me.  After her death I found the panic attacks returning.  Every time I left their home a well-meaning stranger would come crying to me and my road to hell was paved with their good intentions... breathe in.... breathe out...  The time off I spent afterwards was good though.  I analyzed my life again.  Where I was and where I wanted to be.  How I wanted to spend my last 20-30 years.  I know what direction I am going now.

The one thing I am grateful for to the first person I dated when I came home, was the hook up to the tattoo artist that helped me design my phoenix.  After mom's death, I knew it was time to find one.  I am the phoenix.  Not only do I survive, I grow and thrive (sometimes in spite of myself).  I've learned with each of these incidents to transform my pain into power.  I have had a lot of tough shit happen to me over the years.  I am not a victim.  I will not be defined by these moments, but these moments have added another branch to the tree of my life that holds strong in the wind.  I will bend and sway and never break.

I'd like to end this post with a mention to those who know people who suffer from post traumatic stress.  In blogging about post traumatic growth, I do not want to negate those that do.  It is just my personality, strength, resilience and fortitude that make me look to the positive side of negative moments.  The takeaways as you will.  The Libra in me that will always find a way to see balance and harmony.