Category Archives: mental health

Jul11

the world is made of spider webs

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“When I’m an old lady I want to be one of those women that has a house full of plants, weird rocks and crystals. That just looks after her animals, paints and minds her own business with her crazy hair.” – unk

Well I don’t know who said that, but I am that woman now! It’s the second week of July already. I’m getting around to spring cleaning. Better late than never I suppose. For starters, it’s been a little-shop-of-horrors-like around here for a couple of years now. I seem to have a green thumb (I am an old witch, after all.)
I take home little forlorn plants from the grocery store clearance for $3. and two years later there is nowhere to sit in the same room. One small monstera I brought home (it had tipped over and lost half it’s dirt) is now eight feet wide and ten feet high. Seven years ago I bought a foot-high Norfolk Island Pine (indoor only in my climate) to use as a tiny Christmas tree and it’s almost hitting the ceiling now. My son helped me move the plants out to the back deck the other day. They aren’t coming back in. I need to find homes for them. Removing them has opened up every room and it feels so spacious in here I could dance. No really – I could actually dance in here.

This is a small house. Originally built as a summer cottage by a University of Michigan professor, the idiot I bought it from tore out most of it’s original features and knocked out walls to create an open floor plan. If you don’t know how I feel about that you might read some of my older posts. Suffice it to say that open floor plans are an abomination of the human spirit. They suck the dignity out of relationships by unnaturally forcing everyone in the household to share the same noises and smells. It feels like living inside a shoe box. Open floors plans are for worms…just sayin’…

But I live in an open floor plan, because, well, it was the right house in the right place. The plants apparently like this arrangement. They have taken over, spreading from the studio to the kitchen and the living area to the dining area. And down the stairs and across the ceiling. This ends now. I’m taking back my home! I love nature, and I will always have a few plants. But this has become ridiculous. I’m ducking and penguin-ing myself around them.

For my next trick, I’m deep cleaning all those creepy corners I haven’t been able to reach or crawl into. Getting all the spider webs and tumbleweeds of cat hair out. Eeeeewwwwww…and I have taken down the curtains and washed them. Everything has sticky dust. And I wonder why I’m so sick all the time?! Twelve loads of laundry later and the place is looking like new.

So here’s the thing. I’ve read a bazillion books on decluttering and feng shui-ing your space back into order. Psychology journals about how decluttering helps your mental health. And I’ve always done it throughout the years…in little increments. It has never felt like this. Maybe because I’ve been ill? It’s true that I’ve never let my home get this dirty and cluttered before. But something about this is coinciding with a huge shift in awareness.

A few months ago I participated in a Beta test group for a program designed to help older women traversing life changes. I’ve mentioned it here briefly, and I will provide a link for you at the bottom of this post. It’s called the Wayfinding Road. I don’t know what any of us were expecting, but this process with this group of remarkable women has been beyond helpful. The small group I was working with included a recent widow, a woman retiring and moving across the country, a woman whose husband was ill, one who had left the country and relocated to Europe, one who is a political refugee in exile. All manner of circumstances – one uncompromising commitment: a life of continued growth. We quickly realized we had much in common despite a wide variety of life experiences. Soon after the 6 week program began I started having dreams with these women in them. And my dreams were fantastic, adventurous and profoundly healing. I was wealthy beyond measure. Something supernatural was happening. We discovered we were all having experiences we could not explain. We started calling it “magic” for lack of a better explanation.

I have never met any one of these women in person. I have interacted with them only online and via email. If one of them called tomorrow and said “I need your help,” I’d be on a plane. They taught me how to love myself. I’m done with depression and shame and guilt. They taught me how to stop performing my life and begin to live it, deeply. They are well educated, articulate. Some of them speak more than one or two languages. They are all extraordinary. The 2nd time we met I confessed to feeling unworthy of their friendship – but I knew I had 2 choices: drop out or show up. I showed up and they lifted me higher.

I hear them talking to me in meditation, telling me precisely what action to take to heal myself. This morning’s meditation told me that my chronic pain and illness serves only to remind me that I took on the responsibility for my family, and that it is long past time to let them go. Not only can I not be responsible for them, but this addiction to saving them is not helping anyone. I gave it up today and got out of bed pain free.

My life has begun to change now in the last few months. Not in any way I had planned. It’s still going on; it’s a process. I don’t know what this means or where it will lead me. Watch this space. But wow…change is afoot.

Lynnelle Wilson is the creator of Wayfinding Road. Contact her through YouTube or Substack:

Jul1

NO is a complete sentence.

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“I am not knowing,” my southern grandmother Mimi used to respond when she didn’t know the answer to our constant inquiries. You or I would say, “I don’t know.” Or more likely, “dunno.” Mimi was effortlessly – even accidentally, elegant. So she was not knowing.

Needing to know is a scam. Needing to know what’s next, what to be when we grow up, what to do with our life…our “purpose”……ONE BIG SCAM. It’s the invisible CULT mentality of BELONGING scam. It is the insidious, evil programming of the hustle culture; meant to keep us enslaved. It’s grooming us to identify ourselves with a job, a career, a political party, or even a marriage. To whittle ourselves down to fit. To value ourselves for what we do. If, in your infinite failure to be enough, you become an alcoholic or an addict, well…bonus for the cult.

Drop your beliefs. They’re chains. Find your true value within yourself. Value yourself as a verb, and trust your becoming. YOUR true value is in being you, right here, right now. You LITERALLY ARE a work in progress. That is your purpose, P E R I O D. Breathe. God does not make mistakes. You were born. You have every right to be you. End of story. Figure yourself out, don’t figure yourself out…all within your right. I’ve been saying this all my adult life – but not living the truth of it. Still trying to fit in. Still trying to figure out what to do with myself. Still trying.

And until I feel like I want to whisper “YES!” to something, I will practice saying NO to what I don’t want. “No” is a complete sentence. I am so over explaining myself. Find your own why; I am not knowing. I am, however, infinitely curious. Aren’t you? I’ve gone from the immaturity of wondering why I am here to asking better questions, like, what do I really want? I’m trusting God knows why I’m here and therefore I don’t need to know. I don’t owe anyone a version of myself that makes them comfortable. The only person I owe anything is myself. All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.

My darling, sweet Mother used to say to me, “Do something, Susan, even if it’s wrong.” She meant help with the housework, of course! That was her conditioning speaking. In truth, she would never feel like she was enough. She would busy herself to death. What I wouldn’t give for one more conversation, but how would I ever manage to convince her that she was so much more than enough?

Also when I was a bratty teenager, same said darling Mother used to say, “Learn how to spell GURU and you’ll never need one.” G-U-R-U.

May10

and I just ain’t got the time

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“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.” – Maya Angelou

Recently I wrote that my mojo was missing like Car 54…and then I wrote nothing for weeks. I had nothing. Crickets. Where does it go, the muse, the inspiration, the energy…life? In the barometer of my body it feels to have dropped…way down deep inside. And it feels like death. Well, not that I know what death feels like, although I’ve been close a few times. But it feels something has stopped breathing. It’s hibernating. It can’t be prodded or cajoled to surface; I have to wait until it – she – crawls out from under the covers. It’s always tentative at first. Shy. Vulnerable. Immature.

Music is often the ladder I climb out of that dark womb back to the misty surface of the early morning light. Many years ago a friend told me I have a musical heart, and I think I always have. I come from a family of musicians. I don’t seem to have any talent there, but I often dream in song.

The first time I heard Stevie Winwood’s haunting voice my soul recognized a fellow spirit. That’s what good art does. It wakes something hiding deep inside. How many times did I experience Stevie Winwood in concert? Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith (at the Grande Ballroom?) Traffic at Joe Louis Arena – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys tour in 1972 (the year I graduated high school.) I went to hear him. Not Eric Clapton, or Ginger Baker.

Sing to me, Stevie. I’m all alone in this cage, and somebody holds the key…

Feb25

from survival to mastery

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Thank you, Dear Reader, for being here. I’ve gone AWOL again. But I’m back with renewed determination and fortitude. When I go offline here it means I’ve gone offline in my life. I’m in survival mode. It never ceases to surprise me, because, well, I’m far too self aware for that to happen again…right?! (Insert laughing emoji face here.)

We all have a default. It’s the trigger that catches you by surprise every damn time. It’s a sneaky demon. It’s a jealous, vengeful little tick. It doesn’t want your life. Oh wait – yes it does. It just wants what you have. You know what that is, right? Right?!

It’s wants FREEDOM. It wants all the freedom, as if it were a limited resource. It wants a life of it’s own. Let’s not give it ours, whaddayasay?

I have a favorite scene in a favorite old movie, Witches of Eastwick. Brilliant movie, way before it’s time. The women have discovered that they can fly. The dog is barking at them. And Daryl Van Horne kneels next to the dog to calm him, and whispers, “Look what they can do. These are human beings.” And he isn’t – but he sure is in awe of them.

Are you in awe? Are you in awe of you, of your life? Are we? Are we thriving? Thriving requires we free ourselves from survival mode. Apparently I’m accruing more clueage about how to do that, and I humbly come here to share my floundering. Just FYI, I will continue to seek freedom until my dying breath. Some days I’m kicking and screaming (which looks like ranting and raving.) More often than not I’m under the covers, breathing shallowly, wondering how I came to be so small again.

Now about that “clueage” – which we will explore here this week: I have a niggling feeling deep inside that it’s the same issue for us all. I’m certainly not special or unique in this intrinsically human pursuit. There is a common denominator in all our woes. You won’t like it. It’s ugly and you might not believe we are still dealing with this all these years of therapy later. It’s codependence.

Cringe. Yep. You think you healed it or outgrew it, and it finds a way to sneak back in through your pores and infiltrate your bloodstream. You felt safe, and you let down a boundary.

So that’s about the gist of this – boundaries are never going to be negotiable. You are going to have to spend the rest of your spectacular human life patrolling the fence line of your own being. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT YOURSELF FIRST.

That’s all there is to it…

Feb8

there but for the grace of God

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Okay. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? We are less than a month into this new political administration. Regime, more accurately. I see it. I see the evil. Listen, I’ve lived with evil. Come face to face with it in my own home. You know that scene in Constantine where he puts his feet in a tub of water and travels into hell? Done it. (Don’t tell anybody I know how to do that.) That movie’s depiction of hell looked like a Disney ride compared to my experience. But I was successful in my mission. And I learned a few things. I’ll keep them to myself for now.

I was born into an upper middle class family in the suburbs of Detroit during the automobile boom. Both my grandfathers were in business together. They owned a company that built and maintained railroad tracks. That’s how the cars were moved. I was also a direct descendent of more than one founding father, cousin to several Presidents. I was destined to live a privileged life.

It will never cease to shock me how white Americans are so drastically unaware of their privilege. I’m still regularly shocked when I see it in myself, deeply ingrained as it is. But somehow I began to see this as a young girl. Somehow my parents and grandparents and teachers taught me some true values. I know right from wrong. And true from evil. You see, good is not the opposite of evil: truth is. Do not be fooled – we are not in any sort of political dilemma; the political era we see playing out is a symptom of a much deeper struggle over values. We are in a spiritual battle for the soul of humanity. Out there is a hologram we are projecting. We humans WILL come out the other side of this healed, whether it takes a decade, a century, a millennium – or ten minutes*. Our choice.

Perhaps this is the reason I don’t fear the future. Maybe it’s just my old age. Are we looking at some horrifically hard times here in the U.S? Probably. If we survive, will we lose loved ones? Very likely. I am looking as purposefully and accurately as I can, in order not to be naive or shy away from painful awareness. And, I am doing my homework.

News flash: the sky is not falling. It already fell. You are standing on it. Now, pull your head out of your past and get busy. Take the absolute best care of yourself possible. Love the people in your life. Love your pets, the animals around you in nature, all life. Love them all fiercely. Live with intention. Sage your house like a mutha, especially after you feel anger, fear, or sadness. Detox your body. Vote with your money. Practice your rituals. Keep calm and stay inside the salt circle. KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, your values – and never, ever – EVER – compromise them. Not for any person, not for any amount of money, not even if your life seems to depend on it. Don’t be the Judas. Stand true to yourself at all costs. And to the best of your ability, give nothing to fear. Contribute nothing to defensiveness.

Would I stand up to a bully? Absolutely. And I’ve had a lifetime of practice. Would I defend my loved ones – or anyone less fortunate, for that matter – against a bully? With my life. But make sure you aren’t one. Don’t go looking for the others. There are no others. And the best way I know how to do that is to extricate the unhealed trauma from my own body; to face my own demons. Believe me, we all have them. As long as you are still sitting there in your lovely home, sipping your tea or coffee, only think about Heaven. Imagine it. Open your heart and radiate warmth. Read uplifting stories. Learn who to trust. Turn off the news. Most importantly, expound endless mantras of gratitude.

* (what A Course in Miracles calls the Holy Instant)

Feb7

…the same thing we do every night, Pinky…

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“The way you alchemize a soulless world into a sacred world is by treating everyone as if they are sacred until the sacred in them remembers.” – unknown

That’s a great meme, and I don’t doubt the truth of that statement, but I’ve never practiced treating everyone as if they are sacred. Far from it. I’ve been ornery and downright cruel at times. I’d like to think I’ve matured, but who knows. It is easier said than done, and as we know, patience is not one of my virtues.

But if I know anything, I know this: our unhealed trauma is causing all the problems. All. The. Problems. Including our current political chaos. Unhealed personal trauma directly results in chaos, both personal and collective. That said, chaos isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s uncomfortable, perhaps even painful, but inevitably it leads to change. “The universe is a process and it’s method is change.” – Germaine Greer

If I am a miraculous and unique composition of the same particles shared with all (seemingly disparate) parts of the earth, how can I not be in a constant state of change? Back in my twenties and early 30’s I went through a couple years of bodywork sessions with a Buddhist monk from Seattle. He was recommended by fellow roller skaters who appeared to be growing younger before my eyes. He flew into Detroit bimonthly to offer this particular healing modality. I would pay him a lot of my hard-earned money, and he would chant and dance around the table, sometimes yell, and reach in through my belly button to adjust my spine. Some form of exorcism was taking place. The hour session was usually painful and sometimes frightening because I didn’t understand what he was doing. Now I know it would be classified as “psychic surgery.” But I had profound healing experiences, physically and spiritually. I was accidentally learning that all my pain was a form of emotional resistance stored in my connective tissue – ie., unhealed trauma.

And I remember thinking at one point, “the more I allow my mind to flow with the abstract, the more I stand to gain here.” Or as my young son would have said at the time, “you’re just gonna have to let your imagination go with this, Mom…” It was a valuable lesson. That said, healing trauma is a lifelong commitment, no doubt about it. I’m convinced it is stored in every cell. So start paddling, Pinky…

Jan25

can you hear me now?…

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Well. Where to start…again. It has been a loooong January and dark night. But I am not finished here. I am she who shall not be defeated. Any one who has known me for any time has heard or read me say again and again: “Remember, it will be the artists who save us.” My soul knows it is true.

And so I shall return to my youth for inspiration. I was raised in a musical family, beginning with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. My father and sister played piano, my mother the guitar. My southern Mimi could shake the tambourine so fast you only saw a blur at her hip. They all sang and danced. I was the least talented musically, but I could draw and paint anything before I could write. I won a dictionary for my copy of Rembrandt’s Young Woman at an Open Half-Door in the Detroit News Scholastic Art Awards when I was in the fifth grade. This is not to brag, but to inform you that art and music run in my blood. And so when I am struggling in any way, it is art and music that inevitably pulls me out of the abyss. I believe that is a universal truth for us all.

I entered high school in 1968. By this time I was already sick with ulcers, depressed and fed up with the dysfunction of my family. I had no idea. No idea what I was dealing with; that would take a lifetime of undoing. It was the height of the British invasion in the music scene and Detroit was the center of it. Hollowed out historic old theaters soon became the Grande Ballroom and the Eastown, offering stage side seats for $5. every Friday and Saturday night. It was my salvation.

Unbeknownst to me I was so old so young. Retrospect being what it is, I now understand that I assumed the role of parent in my family somewhere around the age of 10. I was already functioning as caretaker of my four younger siblings. I was tucking my parents in when they got home from the bar in the early morning hours and making breakfast and doing the laundry and getting the kids off to school. I had no choice. Were you to look at any of my yearly school pictures from junior high on, they would scare you shitless. You would think you were looking at a woman in her 30’s. Perhaps like Benjamin Button I have aged backwards.

The Vietnam war was being televised nightly. I watched my beloved Detroit burn in the riots of 1967, school having been cancelled because of it. College students were being shot down by police. I remember well the day Kennedy was shot (I was in the 3rd grade). And then his brother. And Martin Luther King. My father kept loaded guns at the doors and we all had a bug out bag on the boat, ready to flee to Canada if the war outside came to our front door. The world was on fire.

There was no peace, no solace, no safety – at home, or in the world. I remember being eleven or twelve and thinking, “what is wrong with this planet?! Are these people insane?!” I am a product of chaos. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was made for a time such as this. Day of judgement, God is calling…

Jan12

elephants on parade

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Okay. Let’s address the elephant in the room. Actually, there is an entire herd gathering. It’s getting crowded in here…the most recent elephant is my ADHD diagnosis. I’ve been gonna talk about it, but I’m still figuring it out. When the doctor and I talked I had just started back on an antidepressant and was in for a three week consult. I was not feeling a whole lot better, which is to say that I was still having trouble functioning. Just that morning I had made a pot of coffee and forgot to put the carafe under the spout; coffee poured out everywhere before I noticed. My doctor was adamant that I give the ADHD medication a try, but suggested we postpone the start of that another three weeks. That way I was not introducing two new medications in less than a six week span. Sounded wise to me.

So I had my first dose of generic Adderall yesterday. I didn’t feel any different. Perhaps a tiny bit more able to focus – I am writing here, after all. That hasn’t been happening easily for weeks now. I will have to keep you posted on progress. I will say that the ADHD diagnosis has been a huge thing to come to terms with. I don’t want it. It feels like something that I would associate with children or young adults, and it’s embarrassing. But man oh man…it rather explains a lot. Like, my whole life. I think the hardest part to accept is how profoundly different my life might have been if this had come to light sooner.

I am seventy years old. Relationships have been hard all of my life. I am a classic under-achiever, often procrastinating important deadlines until the last minute and then exhausting myself to meet them. Anxiety has been a lifelong companion. It was my Mother’s lifelong companion, and all four of my siblings. Out of seven people in my biological family I am the only one without substance addictions, and the only one who never smoked cigarettes. I have a son, a niece and two nephews. They all have it, I’m sure; the younger two were treated with Ritalin in grade school, which was a new treatment 20 years ago.

All of us, all four generations if I include my grandparents, exhibit the symptoms. And it is debilitating. I have seen counselors all of my adult life, so for the better part of fifty years. I have gone on and off antidepressants with mediocre results. It is entirely possible that all of this dysfunction and struggle could have been alleviated to some degree with the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. But it’s relatively new for doctors and therapists, especially to address in older women.

There will be follow up with a specialist I must wait to see, and I will explore all the options for treatment and hopefully find something natural that will help. But I will seek help. I will always seek to be ever-increasingly healthier mentally and physically. Regardless of age, I will always seek to improve myself, my life skills, and my quality of life. That’s a given. I hope the same is true for you. Let’s get well and then let’s get better!

Jan6

a gathering of lost parts

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For decades I’ve been told that I am hard on myself. I’m not convinced. I am unequivocally uninterested in lowering my standards. For anyone. Including myself. If anything, I think that I let myself off the hook too easily.

But perhaps they are referring to my self talk. It isn’t nice. I once had a telephone conversation with my sister about my other sister. She said, “I’d much rather talk to you. At least you don’t start your sentences with ‘you know what your problem is?” I replied, “No. But I do often end them with, ‘what were you thinking, you stupid idiot??!!!!!” We laughed.

How do you talk to yourself? Do you know? Do you catch yourself saying things you wouldn’t say to anyone else? I often start my self talk with, “well, if you’re so smart…” followed by whatever the current mess happens to be.

I will say this changed a great deal when I was so sick a few years ago. I was hospitalized with Lyme disease, and I was in the worst pain I had ever experienced. Intravenous Dilaudid (morphine) was not helping and I could do nothing but lay as still as possible, tears flowing down my cheeks, barely breathing. I remember thinking that I had never been in that much pain. Now mind you, I gave birth to a 9.6 pound baby completely naturally. I’ve had laparoscopic surgery with no anesthesia, and extensive dental work without novocaine. None of those things touched the pain from the Lyme infection.

The nurses who were caring for me that week were so enormously kind. It was dramatic and astonishing to me how different it felt. I felt like a little child being nurtured by a kind and loving caretaker – and I had to admit to myself that I had no conscious memory of ever feeling that way before. I left the hospital days later just wanting to learn how to live more softly. Wanting a softer life. Not an easier life, but softer in all the ways possible. I wanted to eat softer – more fresh fruits and green veggies. And lay in softer, warmer, sheets and blankets. I wanted to move slowly through the world; quietly. I wanted to speak in whispers. Kindnesses…just kindnesses…

I was changed. Sickness does that. Grief does that. I lost a lot of weight that summer; I shed a lot of grief. I have to admit today that I have fallen back into a lifelong habit of being rather unforgiving with myself, let alone others. And I am not happy about that. But today I am reminded that I want to live softly. I need to learn to live softly. I want to find my magic again. Magic is soft. Magic is kind. Magic is a sweet child skipping through the world in awe of life.

I love my life. What do you need to love your life today? Do you have any idea how magical you are?! You are. And I appreciate you.

Dec14

Gloria!

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“If we are lucky not to be displaced by war or poverty, the places we live are like bird’s nests.” – Gloria Steinem

I have long since lost count of how many times I have moved. Here’s a confession few know about me: I have been married four times. Three husbands, four marriages. All four ended in divorce. My first husband was a high school boyfriend. My parents had agreed to send me to boarding school after I threatened to run away – and I did so one summer. I managed to hide out for a couple of weeks in friend’s basements before a friend’s mother agreed to intervene on my behalf. By the age of 15 I couldn’t live at home any longer. I instinctively knew the situation was abusive, although it would be decades before I even began to unravel that situation.

I was 18 the first time I got married, and it only took a few months to figure out that my husband had a drug problem, and a few more months to realize there was nothing I could do about it. So I went “back home” to my parents, but only for a few awful days before finding a girlfriend I could rent a room from. And I never looked back, although I did go back again and again to pack up my younger siblings one by one and move them out. Not soon enough, of course, as the damage was done. Scrambling for survival myself, a safe place to sleep was all I had to offer.

By the third time I got married in my forties, I was no longer enduring physical or sexual abuse. That marriage would also prove intolerable, and not once, but twice. To this day we are still friends, and to this day he yet fails to comprehend any responsibility in it’s failing. As he so often said, we didn’t have a problem. I had a problem. As it happened, he was right, and my problem had a name.

The first fifty years of childhood are the hardest. I survived them by being scrappy. For the first 3 decades of living on my own I was able to find decent work, and when an emergency or large expense threatened my housing and independence, I would supplement my meager income by selling off family heirlooms, primarily beautiful antique furniture. I wish I could have kept it. Only a few small momentos still exist.

But this way of life (which I am only grateful for) leaves it’s scars. One of mine seems to be a deep, simmering grief for the home – THE home – that I have never known. It is truly all I’ve ever wanted for. A home of my own. Safe. Clean. Beautiful. A nest. Perhaps that is why I have always been fascinated by bird nests?!

In October of 1990, House and Garden magazine published an article by Gloria Steinem about her newly decorated NYC apartment, ‘Ms. Steinem on the Home Front.’ I still have that magazine. Somehow weird items have survived all the relocations…but in truth, this article made my heart sing. It has continued to inspire me all these years.

This morning, the 12th of December, 2024, I opened my YouTube feed and found this story. Gloria Steinem talking about her home of 58 years. I am watching through tears. If I had no other inspiration at all, Gloria would be enough.