Find Love Together – Logan Briana

Every post of mine is usually written when something is heavy on my heart. Most of them involve a specific topic or two that I somewhat know how I am going to write it. I have an idea of what this post will be about, but then at the same time, I don’t know how it is going to turn out. It may make sense, or it may be jumbled. I am just going to write what’s going on in my head, and hope for the best.

First off, I just spent the last hour or so sobbing in my van. While crying, some things clicked. Before I get to that, let me tell you a little bit about my history. When I was ten, my mom was diagnosed with Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease. It is a rare and fatal brain disorder that progresses rapidly. She was diagnosed in August and died that following October. This was when my aunt and I moved to Indiana from Maryland. Before I left Maryland I had to say goodbye to my father, which I happened to watch my aunt pay him to leave so he would not move with us to Indiana. When I was thirteen I found my dog dead in the yard, which that death was harder on me than my mother’s (at least at first). My aunt also had some information that she had been trying to tell me for months, but couldn’t find the right time to tell me. She happened to tell me this information a week after my dog died. Apparently, my dad had died. When she told me this, there were mixed emotions. It didn’t affect me as much as it could have because I had already told myself that I was never going to see my father again. While both of these deaths happened, I was just starting to mourn my mom. The first few years after my mom died, I barely talked and shut down completely. I was just starting to get back to normal life and normal things when I had these two deaths happen. That entire year after, I was at the heart of my depression. I also had another dog who I was told to prepare to lose, as he was fifteen and slowly struggling to do normal activities. Every day I pictured different scenarios of how I was going to be told he was dead, or how I was going to find him dead. This was also happening during my freshman year of high school, a time that is already difficult. During this time I did not have a relationship with God. I was the closest I have ever been to blaming God or stop believing He was real, because why would a God who loved me do this. Bobby, my dog, ended up surviving through my freshman year of high school until the following July. By this time I had no feelings. I was sick of crying and feeling any sort of emotion. Bobby happened to die right next to me overnight. When it happened, my aunt instantly started crying, where I went straight to my room to get rid of all of his things as if he never existed. My aunt had to tell me to feel during this moment. That was when I fell to my knees crying, which was one of the first times  I had cried in months. After I finished crying, a feeling of relief came over me. That entire year all I thought about was death, and how I was just going to lose another living thing that meant everything to me. Besides my aunt, there wasn’t anyone else I was going to have to say goodbye to. Though my aunt wasn’t in the best shape, I told myself I wasn’t going to focus on when she was going to die. My sophomore year, I started to improve. I still was far from any sort of healing. I actually started talking to some people at school, which surprised them because they thought I hated them. I was still struggling and missing a lot of school. I had somewhat began going to a youth group for the first time. This was where I began to make some friends, and learn what it meant to have a relationship with God. I still had a hard time finding a reason to live. I had even attempted suicide a few times. My junior year of high school I was able to transfer to a private Christian school. I had gone to this school the second half of my fifth-grade year when I moved to Indiana but then went back to public school the following year. This school changed my life. First, it is a very small school. My class was fifteen people which that included the foreign exchange students. This was one of the first times in seven years that I had felt love. I was purposely included and somewhat forced to do things that I didn’t want to do but were good for me. I was around God all of the time at the school, while also learning more about Him at youth group. I don’t know what part of my life I would say I was saved, I just know that this was the time that I truly knew what it meant to accept Him as my Lord and Savior. I began to be happier and move on from all of the death (which I technically didn’t but believed I did). There was a time or two where there was some health scares with my aunt and I thought I was going to lose her. This fear of losing the last person that meant everything to me kept me from doing things as I didn’t want to leave her side. I graduated high school and decided to go to college, which was already more than my mom, dad, and aunt had done. I decided to go to a private Christian university. Originally because it was safe and close to home. Which throughout my years at this school, I have been all over the place by switching my major every semester, and dropping out at one point. If I had realized how expensive it is to attend, I probably would have chosen a different school. I am going into my fourth year and I am incredibly thankful to be in the environment that I am. I was especially grateful when I had to go through losing my aunt during the last semester of my sophomore year.

Though I miss my aunt more this second year that she is gone, and it is one of the reasons why I started to cry this evening (even though I do blame my hormones just a bit). I am glad she is gone and not in pain any longer. None of the people who took care of me at one point or another were truly capable of taking care of a child. They all came from their own trauma and issues. All three of my guardians were drug addicts, which made for an unpredictable life. To be honest the only consistent thing in my life was the death. There was a lot of fighting between them all. My dad was in and out of the house, as my mom would kick him out when he would fall back and start doing pills again. Though my brain has blocked most of my memories of my entire life, I do have random memories that come back. A lot of the time it happens during times that I am hardcore crying.

Most people who see me don’t ever expect that I come from what I come from because I don’t act like it. Most of my life I have acted as if nothing has happened and that it doesn’t affect me at all. First of all that isn’t healthy. It has been eleven years since my mom died, and I would say that I still haven’t fully mourned her. Just recently have I really started to feel. All of the time I work so hard to be okay with feeling, and not just flipping a switch again so I can stop feeling what I am feeling. It is hard to feel sadness, and get through it in a healthy way. I have already been told that to get past it, I will feel a huge wave a sadness that I am going to have to get through.

My entire life I have isolated myself when I get scared or overwhelmed. When I was a child and my mom would yell, whether it be to me or someone else, I would hide. There were so many times that I hid under a table or in a corner because it was the only way I would be able to somewhat function. They would sometimes have to physically drag me to get me out of those places. Then the same with my aunt, but instead of hiding under something, I would shut down and go inside myself. Which I still tend to hide inside myself and will shut down. Though I work really hard not to do that, especially when I am around people.

Tonight while I was at work, and afterwards when I was crying in my van I realized something that I have been doing for the last month or so. I work at my school’s tv station and I am at the point where I know how to do a good chunk of things but still struggle with jumping in and doing it without direction. I get overwhelmed and stop being helpful. While in my van crying, I realized the reason why I go into the tv truck while everyone else is tearing down equipment after productions. It’s my safe place. It is the place I have been subconsciously going to hide because I am overwhelmed and also sometimes trying to stop myself from shutting down. I think also with more people working, it has caused me to be even more overwhelmed compared to the summer where there are fewer people. This entire time I didn’t fully realize that I had been doing it.

When I connected this, it made me cry even more because it shows that parts of my life that I barely remember affect big parts of my life. I have tried so hard to pretend that nothing has happened to me and that it has in no way affected me and how I do things. Unfortunately, it does, and sometimes I don’t even know it until it’s pointed out.

I guess I am going to have to work on accepting that I have issues that have come from my life and the trauma that has come from it. I also have to learn how to overcome it in a healthy way. There will be many times that I will be able to see it myself, but then there are going to be times like tonight that it’ll have to get bad enough that it is pointed out.