Trigger warning: Suicidal ideation, eating disorder, alcoholism, depression, night terrors, physical abuse, sexual abuse, rape -this is a story of survival, take care of yourself please–

As I was auditing my summer season, taking stock of all the adventures, all the paintings, all the swim dates and tea sits, I couldn’t help but feel such gratitude for the systems, the rituals, that make this life possible. These systems have been built through trial and error and through patience and perseverance. AsI reviewed how they’ve grown and changed I realized something so potent I just had to share with you: my systems were born of crisis. I did not have everything together when I began to create the rituals that sustain my lifestyle. Quite the contrary, they were born in the darkest of times. I rarely speak of the past that forged the woman I am today, but to share the systems, the rituals, that sustain me I must share the circumstances that called them forth.

Many years ago, I experienced the epitome of rock bottom. Some major traumatic experiences had left me deeply intertwined with a violently abusive man, living in survival mode and hopelessly lost to the whims of my damaged nervous system. In a moment of clarity, I sought time with a dear friend who reminded me who I was. I (barely) escaped the relationship with a restraining order, signed my first lease alone and prepared to rebuild my life. But right as I leapt to place my face above the waves an even larger one struck: I was drugged, abducted and assaulted. 

The days after are a haze, the ER visit, the police report. I returned to work, desperate for the environment that had held my demons at bay for so long, but was sent home. For the first time, my mask had slipped and the world knew how I suffered.  I remember my first day alone in my new apartment. I looked around at the life I was supposed to begin and felt only fear. Choked by my sense of safety being torn away, the loss of the trauma bonded career that had given me purpose, plagued by night terrors beyond what I knew were possible, I was stripped raw and welcomed into the depths I had feared for so long.

Truthfully, so much of what happened during this time was a reflection of dangerous dynamics I had experienced in childhood. In many ways the lack of distraction gave the child in me a vacuum to fill with her voice, and goddamn was she furious. I began to feel like I was in a storm. The world swirled around me and I tumbled and spun, like cows in a tornado. A team of physicians placed me on disability, citing the debilitating panic attacks that plagued me throughout the day and night. I became increasingly agoraphobic, refusing to leave my tiny apartment. I drank heavily for slivers of what seemed like peace and gratefully received, though never finished, the meals my brother would bring me. Trapped in alcoholism, controlled by an eating disorder, devoted to dangerous sexual experiences, stripped away was the mask I had hidden behind for so long. I had only the demons for company and together we raged. Sometimes I wonder what my brother saw during those visits. When I recently asked him, he replied, “I was afraid. I had never seen you crumble and you burned everything with you.” Indeed, I was burning and I saw no path forward.

Unable to drive, my brother would take me to my doctor’s appointments. The sedatives they prescribed were absolutely necessary. During one visit, I asked the doctor when I would return to my job on the ambulance. The only dim light I could see among the darkness of the storm was a return to the uniform, to my mask. I would work towards getting off these sedatives if it meant the opportunity to focus on the trauma of others and leave myself aside. Her eyes grew wide at my question. “Lauren” she said, so very slowly, “The damage your system has sustained is not conducive to stressful work like that. You must begin to imagine a different future for yourself. Your goal should be to work as a barista, and even that will take time.” I sat in disbelief. I nodded slowly. I sunk deeper. The storm raged greater. I stopped sleeping altogether, barely ate and succumbed to the terrors eating me alive. 

At my next appointment the nurse uttered the words, “failure to thrive”. I had been suicidal before (another harrowing tale) but had made peace with my decision not to take my own life. Instead, I was avoiding doing the necessary acts to keep myself alive – a completely different endeavor. My family was in chaos as my mother was forced to sell our childhood home, and a large mirror that had once filled the wall in our family room above the couch was delivered to my tiny apartment. It was massive, filling an entire wall, and with it there, I could no longer hide. Every time I walked past to get to the couch I saw my body wasting, my waxy swollen face frozen in sorrow. 

In that mirror, I began to face myself. I watched myself cry, watched myself wail. I raged and screamed, embodying the storm around me. It became like a sick pleasure, watching myself unravel. I burned and burned and burned until I realized the storm no longer raged, instead it was I who raged.

I had become the storm. 

Something about claiming the storm as myself was empowering. I no longer felt empty, I was filled with rage. A deep fury I craved to express but had no outlet. My brother brought over an electric keyboard, which I refused to touch. The next week he brought over watercolor paints, countless shades of red. He understood. I began to paint harrowing scenes of my own state. Self portraits where I burned, where my body was torn and disfigured. I covered an entire wall with grotesque images. And seeing the fire burn allowed a small stream of peace to flow through my body. One day as I lay in bed, where I spent most of my days, a silly video flashed across my phone screen. A woman doing yoga, with a baby goat climbing over her body, absolutely ridiculous. Her laughter was infectious, her apparent glee wildly foreign, and I felt a tiny voice offer: “what if?”

My cats created my first system (no surprise there). Regardless of how little I had cared for my own well being, their health was my priority. They were patient with me in the morning, staying in bed as I gathered the strength to begin, but as soon as my feet touched the floor they excitedly took off towards their food bowls, meowing loudly. No matter my state, I made it to their food bowls. It was simple then, to travel from the tiny kitchen to my mirror, take a deep breath and begin to paint. Some days I would stay there for hours, sometimes minutes, it was the beginning of a ritual that continues to guide my mornings. Still, with the cats first. That week I made it out of my door and down the hall to the elevator. I didn’t go down, but that was progress and I had my first taste of pride.

One particularly dark day, I raged and pounded the couch cushions. Furious, I ran to the mirror and making eye contact with myself screamed, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” The questions shocked me, I hadn’t thought of anything beyond survival in months. I watched my face soften and in my eyes I saw the truth: I wanted to go back to my career, to my world. I realized that I had completely accepted the doctor’s decision, and that was ridiculous. I would decide my fate. I would write my own story. I frantically grabbed a journal someone had given me, a kind gesture suggesting I should write my feelings down, to which I had thrown it aside. I opened to the first page. Too much pressure. The second. Much too important. Skip the third. And on the fourth page I wrote, “This will not be my end.”

So began the messiest journal of all time. I wrote what I felt, aggressively, and as I saw the words I felt them to be true. Some pages so dark I taped them together and have not read them again to this day. Some so devastating I pulled them out and burned them immediately. On some I wrote quotes that made me feel something, anything. If you’ve seen my journal recently, you know it is a work of art romanticizing the beautiful life I now live. These early pages were my reality, my careful mapping of where in the dark I truly was, until I began to feel less lost.

I soon began creating graphs to track, well, everything. They began so small, my first tracker read: FEED THE CATS. I knew I would never miss this one and so everyday I gifted myself the dopamine hit of placing a bold check mark in the row. Over time it grew to tracking coffee in the morning and hours spent painting. Little by little I began to watch my world change.

I want to be transparent here: I was not on my own in this. In addition to my physician team I saw an incredible trauma therapist and then, quite reluctantly, started group therapy for survivors of childhood sexual abuse (the journey I took with those women is a whole other story in itself). I relied on family, who brought me meals and drove me to appointments. And dear friends, who loved me through my messiness. One who was brave enough to call me out on my alcohol consumption. One who spent hours helping me make the trek from my apartment to the lobby, to the sidewalk, to the park and then to the beautiful river only steps from my building. I met a man who refused my advances and instead insisted we watch movies because I “just needed a safe place”. The more I was open to support, miraculously, the more support showed up. I added the word COMMUNITY to my tracker, and the magic began.

The rebuilding, the reclaiming, that came next took the deepest reserve of my strength. I ritualized everything from chores to creativity, learned about my nervous system and started Grounding. I ritualized growth, progress, healing and transformed an ambiguous task into a mapped journey I could clearly see. I built systems: protocols for depression days, strategies to invite joy. I relied on ritual when my body grew weary and my journal became a companion, a route of communication with myself and eventually, a map of where I had been. As the map grew, I finally saw more clearly where I planned to go.

I did return to the ambulance. I did reclaim my career. I did rejoin my world. I have not failed to thrive. And these hard won systems were the framework for creating a life far beyond what I ever thought possible. Not only did I return to the field, I excelled in obtaining an advanced level of care license and built a consulting company that creates educational programs that support first responders in career sustainability and mental health. I am the nation’s expert in a new and exciting education style that is changing departments across the country. I have a thriving private practice where I guide others in creating their own systems, gathering their own tools, for the journey that is this life. It is the greatest honor to see these hard won lessons become supportive in another’s growth.

These times were dark. It has taken me many years to even be able to revisit them. As I’ve reflected on this time the past few weeks one concept has stood out to me: commitment. That first (fourth) journal page was the beginning of a commitment to myself. A commitment to try, a commitment to heal, a commitment to seek the glee I chose to believe was possible. 

When I say I see you in your darkness, it’s said in truth because I’ve experienced a darkness far beyond what I’ll ever share here.

When I offer to remind you of your light, I mean it because I know what it’s like to consistently commit to seeking it.