For their last "paper", I asked students to reflect on things they've learned about themselves over the last year. They were so thoughtful and personal, I cried a lot reading them. So, I figured it is only fair that I write one, too. I've discussed some of this here...

and it's very personal, but as a privileged person just promoted to Full Professor, why not?

If it helps just one person to feel better about... anything... then that's a good thing.

"Since you all took the time to reflect on what you have learned about yourselves and your world, and to share such personal experiences of growth and renewal, I am realizing it would likely benefit me to do the same.

Like many of you, this year has been challenging, but has also led to some major revelations.

During the early days of the pandemic, I was so grateful to have my husband & kids home with me. The world outside felt chaotic & scary, but in my house, I felt like my family was cocooned & safe.

I started growing plants from seeds, did yoga every morning, and baked until chocolate cookies came out my eyes.

And yet, while I felt like my family was cocooned and safe, I personally felt cluttered, chaotic, distracted, and disconnected.

Before the pandemic hit the US, in February 2020, I was about to embark on a spring book tour for my book, Irony and Outrage. I had appearances planned all over the country and was simultaneously teaching two classes.

But COVID put all of that on hold. In retrospect, the fact that these trips were cancelled was an exceptionally good thing, and not just because of COVID. While I had not wanted to admit it – to myself or even to my closest friends or even my husband – I needed a major reset.

You see, on 2 recent trips to present research, I had woken up in the middle of the night in a full-blown panic attack. Cold sweat, sick to my stomach, running to the bathroom of my hotel room. In both instances, when I ran to the bathroom to get sick, I passed out on the floor.

It was scary AF.
Scarier still was that these events simply did not make sense to me. I did not get stage fright. I love being in front of the audience. I love talking about my research. What was my body doing?

As life moved on to zoom, as I began delivering talks & doing media appearances from home, the panic started to transform. When I was in the middle of an interview or talk, I would start feeling like I was outside of myself looking in, or what psychologists call dissociating.

By the winter, I realized I was not going to be able to deal with this on my own.

Some back story… [yes, ya'll know this, but my students do not] ...I am a widow. My husband Mike died in 2006 after nine months with a brain tumor. I had cared for him for months as he fell apart. Our baby (my now 16 year old son) was 18 months when Mike died.

A wonderful therapist had helped me work through my grief & trauma and helped me find ways to move forward, empowered me to remarry, & find a healthy path towards professional & personal success. But that wonderful therapist had retired just a few months before the pandemic.

So, I was on my own.

And to make it worse, I had endured another trauma that I had not fully processed. My best friend who lived across the street, the pillar in my life who had helped me raise my baby after Mike passed away, had died unexpectedly in July 2018. And I was the one to find her.

That story is here: https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2018/12/cowboy-the-fuck-up/

So when all this awful panic stuff started happening (in Fall 2019) I was only a year out from my best friend’s death.

But you know, when you have your shit together – or at least when you look like someone who has their shit together – you don’t want to think that you need help or that you can’t handle it on your own. After dealing with Mike’s death, I figured I was invincible.

I was wrong.

So, on the urging of my loving older sister, in the winter, I found a new therapist and started discussing (on zoom) some of the panic attacks I had been having. Here is what I have learned.

That disconnect between my brain and body?
Apparently that is a very common symptom of trauma. Trauma is carried in the body, and can cause panic, distraction, and an inability to focus. And the dissociating? Feeling outside myself looking in?

That, too, is a common symptom of trauma.

The vast disconnect between my public self (who seemed to have her shit together and was an “expert”) and my private self (who still was seeing horrible visions of a traumatic and soul crushing event) was manifesting itself as a psychological disconnect in real time.

To help work through this, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my therapist talking through my friend’s death, walking back through the events of that day, just to try to dilute its emotional hold on my brain, body, and spirit.

I’ve created more opportunities for quiet – walks, yoga, and meditation. And I feel like a totally different person than I did just a few months back. Earlier this spring, the panics stopped. The dissociating stopped.

I have delivered a bunch of lectures and interviews during which I have stayed fully present in my own body. I stopped seeing visions of my trauma when I lie down in bed.

Turns out that I had to take the time to deal with the trauma to make room for anything else.

COVID forced me to stop running.

It forced me to sit with myself, in the quiet…

And my goodness, I’m so glad I finally listened.

x0x0x0