After a short time in NJ, my father came home from a business trip with a 22-year-old Brazilian woman who couldn’t speak English and consequently married her. Maybe this was always his plan…who knows…but it’s not surprising to me now, that shortly thereafter I was exiled back to England to live with my 80-year-old grandfather and my siblings. According to my father, this was done so we could get a proper English education. Somehow, marrying a 22-year half is age with this wife still fresh in her grave, didn’t strike me as “proper,’ but I digress.
So, after several years of living with a wicked stepmother in New Jersey (how many traumas are we up to now), I can honestly say that those early years back in England with my siblings were the best time of my life. Did I mention, that it was England in the early 80s, where I soon discovered pubs and alcohol at the age of 12, dance clubs, fashion, hair, and music, all with no parental guidance whatsoever while being a little catholic school girl—can you say double life? I still listen to 80s music every day but often end up in tears as I constantly mourn my loss of self mentally and physically and cannot shake the past. But now I’ve gotten side-tracked…mental illness strikes again…back to this story.
You see, from 1970 something to 1985 I maybe caught a glimpse of my father once a year when he came over to England on business trips and was forced by my sister to buy me underwear on his expense account. We never spoke on the phone, and it took months for letters to arrive, that’s if he even bothered to write. Although he did write a few letters to “the boys” at boarding school encouraging them to look after each other and would enclose the odd Pound Note (dollar). And you can forget about Birthdays and Christmas, we were lucky to have food and used school uniforms. Can you say Flowers in the Attic children? How all this went unchecked and was allowed to even happen especially with other family members were close by, is beyond me. Instead, we were labeled by family and most as ‘hellions’ and they wanted nothing to do with us.
So in 1985, I finished school in England, at the ridiculously young age of 16, and I was consequently summoned against my will back to the US. Because you guessed it, after 0 years of marriage, presumably so she’d get half, and now an American citizen, the Brazilian (no offense) left my father and took him for all he was worth, which unbeknownst to us (the flowers in the attic across the Atlantic children) was quite a lot. By then, my siblings had slowly made their back over the pond this time to Charleston SC where my father at some point had moved and where I now reluctantly found myself in a pseudo-wife role taking care of him!! Because his life was always all about him—a complete and utter Narcist. Sidebar: They say you marry your father, and boy did I ever—not sure how many traumas we’re up to here, but my marriages are yet other stories-Can you say future Podcast?
So fast forward to 2019 after the worst and extremely dark time of my life (2014-2019,) thanks to my ex-husband, where every single minute, not hour, was a battle to survive, I was still stuck in a 9-5 job on the daily grind hamster wheel from hell, in a cell—I mean cubical. I hated my life and just about everyone on the planet for that matter. After 33 years of slogging my guts out and having to “roll with the punches” something my bosses would always say–something I didn’t know was seemingly my job description and title, I was constantly reprimanded for having a voice, a brain, an opinion, I was deemed argumentative verses assertive, and summoned to HR. Thus, passed over time and time again for promotions.
Future podcast episode “Mental Health in the Workplace”
Now let’s pile on even more…
There was divorce, bankruptcy and foreclosure (6/6/06 (notice those numbers?),another divorce in 2014, followed by a dangerously near-fatal car crash (2016), So, at that point, I was pretty much done and extremely mentally, and physically sick. And then my father died and a month later I was fired! I was utterly shattered, and wanted my world to just stop! I desperately wanted out of life but knew I could not do this to my child (who I managed to hide everything), and consequently had a major monumental mental breakdown (2019) and ended up in hospital! And as my luck would have it (my mother’s family name is Murphy) I got COVID at the same time I was in the hospital
and was also sick with that for 3 months.
It was during that time, I was forced to focus on myself or end up six feet under. I had to, if not for me, for my son, regroup, try to heal, and stop the madness! But be careful what you wish for because you just might get it in ways you could not possibly imagine. When COVID hit the world, and everyone’s world stopped, not just mine, like most of us during the peaks and valleys of the pandemic, and being very sick, spent a great deal of that time (thankfully reunited with my son) thinking about my life, and my future (The Great Enlightenment) and was forced to focus on my non-existent mental health and rapidly deteriorating physical health now staring me in the face. Unfortunately, as COVID persisted, it brought even more mental and financial challenges. In isolation since 2014, I had to force myself to help myself in whatever small ways I could and stay on the planet. Getting out of bed to perform simple tasks was virtually impossible. I made myself muster the strength to get up and do “one” thing a day, whether it was decluttering or rearranging parts of my home (sometimes just a drawer), lighting a candle, meditating, going for a walk, going on $10 stress-free chips, candy, and candle shopping sprees at the Dollar store, reading and listing to everything I could about mental health, finding free resources and support groups, and listening to almost all of the free mediation and relaxation apps available. I had to keep a routine, so as not to disassociate from life (something I did, and am still prone to) and end up down the rabbit hole of depression and anxiety again! And so I also got a dog to get me out of bed!
Who saved who?
With the new regiment of taking care of my dog, and with small daily repeated affirmations, as well as being with my another human, since 2014 my son, and the things I had found and learned to do for myself, I was finally able to keep going and start to heal. At some point during all this, I realized if I could help myself (which by some miracle I was seemingly doing,) that perhaps I could help others too, and just maybe that is what I should do, or perhaps I am meant to do with the remainder of my life. So, I slowly started on that journey with a newfound sense of purpose, and have spent the past two years (2020-2022) formulating how to make this happen all by myself and on a dime.
Having lived on the coast where sand, sun, and water are sources of strength for me—the name CoastSoul soon arrived in my brain. It’s a play on the word coastal, combined with my deceased loved ones (Souls), with a mission to help others find some peace in their homes and self. Now armed with a passion and path, I was suddenly inundated with nature, being stalked by Cardinals, Doves, Dragon Files, Ladybirds, and Feathers falling from the sky-I still am, as well as seeing the numbers 11 or 11:11, 22, or 22:22 everywhere
WATCH DISNEY’S MOVIE ‘SOUL’
It’s no coincidence that we watched this on 2//22/22 .
More on the symbolism and numerology behind all this later. All these small daily compounded affirmations helped, and I began to feel an unbelievable sense of calm, that I was on the right path.
And so, this Coast Soul’s new journey began.
Last but not least, I am no longer ashamed or embarrassed about my Mental Illnesses anymore! Instead, I strive to “own them”’ and hope to increase awareness and help shift the Mental Health Stigma from ‘What’s Wrong With You?” to “What Happened To You.? Since mental illnesses are for the most part invisible and incurable, they are what makes me ME and are my REALITY!
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WATCH DISNEY’S “INSIDE OUT’
And despite what others may say or think about me, I’ve realized that I like ME just the way I am. So instead of trying to constantly “fix” me, I am now content (with meds and therapy) being ME and that’s enough. Maybe I am not the one on a different planet, maybe everyone else is? And it’s the rest of the world that’s the so-called “crazy” one, just one of the many labels frequently bestowed on myself and others fighting mental health issues.
Or, perhaps it’s really is like my son says “we live outside the Matrix Mom, and I wouldn’t have it, or you, any other way.” In our small Universe, I am Mother Earth, orbiting my Son the Sun, Archie the pup is our Moon, and the Stars in the heavens above are the Souls we’ve lost along the way miraculously guiding us through the unchartered cosmos we call life.
So there you have it. Of course, there are more stories which I will attempt to share and listen to yours to keep self-healing and hopefully in turn helping others and spread awareness.
They say “true happiness comes from helping others,” so maybe if we all give this a try, our overall state of mind and well-being may improve. And perhaps we just might get the intrinsic happiness we all deserve.
Disclaimer:
None of the services, products, or resources on the website are substitutes for professional medical or mental help. Instead, I seek to only aid and empower you with some of the resources I’ve found strength in along my never-ending mental health journey.
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COASTSOUL LIVING, LLC DISCLAIMER: THE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES ON THIS SITE ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENT OR MEDICATION. BY-DEZIGN.COM
