Tales of a Traumasita

 My apologies to everyone for the delay of the next story. I have a family emergency. Thank you for your patience. I appreciate you all ❤️ Janine

 Hello! I'm really glad you found your way here.  I've been writing since I was a kid- long before I had the language to name what I was feeling.  Writing has always been how I express myself, especially when trauma makes it hard to speak. And a good portion of the time, it does. But the page listens when nothing else can.  On July 7, 2024, my world shattered. I lost my spouse to addiction. The grief that followed was unlike anything I've ever known. It was raw, paralyzing and so loud I didn't know how to exist inside it. I knew I had two choices: let it consume me,  or write my way through it.    This blog is me choosing to survive.    I live in Sechelt, B.C, Canada, cradled by the Salish Sea. My love for this place runs deep. The water, the tree's, the wind through the cedar's;  they have held my sorrow in ways people can't always manage. When I'm too broken to function, Mother Earth reminds me I'm still here. That healing isn't pretty...

        "You don't look sick"       Its a phrase I have heard more times than I can count in the twenty-six years since I first began navigating this invisible battlefield. At first, it makes you pause, wondering if the person speaking genuinely means well, or if they are being cruelly oblivious. After a while, you stop asking yourself anything at all and just smile, or grimace, or sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly sharp, I respond with "Well, you don't look ignorant, yet here we are."       Lupus is a disease of a thousand faces, each as unpredictable as it is cruel. One day, I might be walking along the beach, my hair perfectly coiffed, my makeup flawless, my energy deceptively calm. The next, a flare-up can strike with the subtlety of a hurricane, and I am reduced to counting hours on the couch, too exhausted to lift my head. It's invisible, insidious, and fatigue in a way that most people will never understand. And yet, because ...