Candice Peetz

Healing is not a linear process. Healing is like a zig-zagging maze. Sometimes when you think you have reached the end, you are just in place where you turn left or right.

I am listening to Ella Fitzgerald as I type this and the song playing made me laugh; it’s resonating so deeply right now. I woke up this morning thinking about how my mind is all over the place. It is what made me want to write this because as I am healing from past trauma, so much is being unpacked and its all entwined and my words don’t come out as I want them to… Here are the lyrics;

“The Dipsy Doodle’s the thing to beware
The Dipsy Doodle will get in your hair
And if it gets you, it couldn’t be worse
The things you say will come out in reverse
Like, “You love I and me love you”
That’s the way the Dipsy Doodle works

The Dipsy Doodle’s easy to find
It’s almost always in the back of your mind
You never know it until it’s too late
And then you’re in such a terrible state
Like, “The moon jumped over the cow, hey diddle”
That’s the way the Dipsy Doodle works

When you think that you’re crazy
You’re the victim of the Dipsy Doodle
But it’s not your mind that’s hazy
It’s your tongue that’s at fault, not your noodle”

The Dipsy Doodle – Ella Fitzgerald

I have so much going on in my head right now; when I start writing something I go down a rabbit hole and its a mish-mash of various scenarios and emotions. I feel like I have been trying to heal for most of my adult life. Every now and again when things are good, I pack that shit up in a box and think its done. But then when something else pops up, that box I thought was closed opens up again.

Recently I came to the end of therapy (for now). What is ironic is that I didn’t think I needed it. I thought I had my shit together and the reason I went was because I was referred by my oncologist. After cancer treatment I was left with zero libido. I actually thought it was just physical, but I was 100% mistaken.

That therapy opened up a can of worms within me. I still need to find the words to describe the trauma exposure therapy and the courage to write why I did it.

My eyes were opened to so many of my behaviours, most of them unhelpful. It opened up reasons to unhelpful beliefs that were so deeply engrained I hardly realised that I functioned with such a distorted view on the world. It made me realise that I am allowed to have boundaries, that I am allowed to have a voice and I am 100% in control of what I allow into my space and what I don’t. I feel like I have been given a powerful sword and I don’t know what to do with all this magic; how do I pace myself?

For so many years I wrote blogs on the power within and self love and all that jazz, but it was just smoke and mirrors; opening myself up and really just admitting where I am in my headspace without covering it up with rainbows and glitter, has been empowering. I have felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole seeing all these things fly past me and I am not sure what to deal with first and what to just disregard, it is a-lot. There is also a fair bit of conflict within me. Wanting to to cut ties, but not wanting to hurt. But holding on hurts me, so who do I choose? Since I can remember I have been pleasing others, for acceptance. This in itself is a hard habit to break.

A quote I love from “Alice in Wonderland” is;

“”It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Although right now I am needing to go back to heal those parts of me in order to move forward. I need to go back and show myself some love and compassion. And so the back and forth zig zagging will continue until I can break away from those yesterdays and say goodbye without pretending there was no yesterday.

In my last post about postnatal depression I wrote about how when my identity is shaken I don’t know who I am anymore. I am in a place where I am rediscovering who I am without having to pretend. Its not linear, it is not easy, there are days I just slip back into my old habits of dissociation and its really challenging to stay open, to feel, to just be in a moment and to sit with whatever comes up.

I need to find that place of true acceptance, not the pretend one that pops up when the sun shines. I can see it, I just need to create the path to get there.