The Life of Glory

There is little I like less  than intermittently being unable to walk. I just spent two days painfully using a cane to walk. I wish I had a wheelchair to get around in for these moments but neither my house or work has wheelchair access. Using a cane when your legs don't want to hold you up is so painful. The palms of my hands, my fingers, my wrists, my arms all hurt from holding me up for two days. Yesterday morning I pretty much slid down the ladder from our loft bed to go to the bathroom, which is currently in a different house because ours is out of order. When I reached the steps to my tiny house on the way back I literally sat down and dragged myself up them. I was so exhausted when I made it inside I just sat on the floor with my head on the couch crying. This is life. This, apparently, is Porphyria.  It hurts to be this physically weak and I hate  feeling useless . When you suddenly can't walk and you don't know how many days the muscle weakness will claim, i

To the friends and family of those with PTSD, Anything that reminds us of our trauma, be it a gesture or a phrase, makes it hard for us to open up to you. Trust is now defined by our baggage. If you do not understand our baggage, you will  hurt our feelings and we will  have a hard time trusting you. Even if we grow to trust you in everything, it takes just one phrase for us to guard certain parts of ourselves from you, almost indefinitely. It is our only defense after the hurt and damage that has already been caused.  PTSD teaches us that we can only trust others so far . That there is no one to count on but ourselves. This is probably the biggest tragedy of PTSD in today's culture. Trust is damaged and no one is acknowledging this fact to repair it.  This is not to say that you can never say anything that reminds someone with PTSD of their traumatic experiences. That would be impossible. We, as the victim of PTSD need to have the freedom to express the pain trigge

I was an unofficial foster parent when I was 23 to my oldest niece. Unofficial because I received no financial aid and bore the full brunt of having a 13 year old dependent. It was not  the hardest thing I have ever done. Everyone thought I was in over my head and made sure to tell me frequently. That  was the hardest part. The judgment people around us projected onto us. I didn't mind our tempers rising, her fits when I told her no, or the sessions we had after every outburst to talk it out when we both calmed down. I didn't mind the 11-16 hours work days I had to do to put a roof over our heads or spending the summer homeschooling her so she could pass the seventh grade. I didn't even mind that I had to wash our clothes in the bathtub with a washboard because I couldn't afford the laundromat every week  and  put food in the kitchen. I didn't mind because of the movie nights, conversations, hikes, and adventures that we shared. All the sweet moments, true frie