Let the Sky Fall and Burn

 Hi Readers and Happy New Year. Here's a trigger warning for sensitive topics below, but I hope you enjoy this post!

There’s this old saying “Home is where the heart is”, but I have always struggled with belonging and figuring out where “home” is for me. Last Sunday, I tried getting back into a schedule for posting and pulling cards, generally just trying to get back to making everything I started over the past few years a thing. With that, I pulled an oracle card for the energy I needed to have to follow through with, and it was Full Moon in Aries which calls for honesty and a return to the fire I had. Hestia, the goddess guiding me this month, also asks this much of me and to do it gently. Writing is one way that I can return to myself and to reconnect with the fire that burns inside. Especially when memories and the trauma that resides in those memories fights to overwhelm me. On my facebook page, I announced that along with growing up with undiagnosed autism, I grew up with undiagnosed OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder) because of the trauma I went through growing up. So, I would like to introduce everyone to my system in sections as we write blogs and other things together. For this post, my “Spicy” protector – Karen, and my regular protector – James, who’s a werewolf, are co-fronting with me.

 

I know I have stated before that reading and music have been a grounding sanctuary for me; reading gave me escape while music offered a return to myself. In middle school, either 7^th or 8^th grade, I was given The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and I latched on to the series immediately because it allowed me to see myself outside of my mind. Growing up as a people pleaser, along with the overwhelming sense of needing to be constantly happy because my mom went through the abuse my biological dad did to her, put me in a constant state of “doing” for others without that being returned to me. Granted, my mom did make sure that I was taken care of, but because of what she went through with my dad, I felt the need to hide my emotions because I didn’t want my emotions to be demonized like it was with my dad. Not only that, but the few times that I did release my emotions in front of people, it seemed like people treated that like a show or something that needed condescension. Katniss, to some degree, went through the same thing. When her dad died in that mining accident, she had to step us as a caretaker for her mom, who went into a depression state, and Prim, who was too young to do anything. Through this, Katniss became distant from kids her own age, but she eventually found safety in Gale, who picked up where her father left off with the hunting for survival, and Peeta, who offered warmth through the bread when they were younger and through the games they survived together.

 

Moving on, I would like to draw comparison to how difficult the three years that Katniss went through the games and the war and the last three years have taken its toll on me mentally. While I haven’t killed anyone, and I hope to not do it unless it’s necessary, 2023 through 2025 has done more to me than what I’ve realized and death has been lingering to various degrees. In January 2023, my hometown faced several tornadoes, which one formed near my house due to a wind tunnel. Winter is already bleak as it is, but the darkness and stillness that fell over the town left me with a sensory issue of lights that seemed dim and bright at the same time during the evening hours when the sun began to set. March 2024, when spring was beginning to set in, we lost our camper to a fire, the same way District 12 was bombed and burned to the ground, leaving me with an empty longing for home. And as for last year, I lost my mom, the last thread of both safety and manipulation, because let’s face it: my relationship with her was similar to what Katniss went through even if my mom didn’t mean for things to go the way they did. It’s a lot of heaviness and emptiness that I have come to learn is part of my PTSD but because my body has learned to be calm outwardly while my insides scream for release. And I have to tell myself what is real and what is not real to make any sense of what’s happening; something I learned even before reading The Hunger Games due to my people pleasing tendencies.

 

With all of this trauma, I have this longing for the father I needed while growing up as a kid. My dad and ex-stepdad were both abusive like I have mentioned before: my dad abused my mom because his mental made him disillusioned and he drank and did drugs, my ex-stepdad abused me sexually and tried to isolate me from my mom and dad via manipulation. My Godfather was about the only male that I had good interactions with as a child before our relationship fell off completely only to find out that he’s in jail for doing the same thing or similar as what my ex-stepdad did to me. The amount of longing for a good relationship with a father figure made my mind create two alters who hold that trauma for me: Alfred who is Puerto Rican and is a mix of Timothy Omundson, Pedro Pascal (I know he’s not Puerto Rican), and Ian McShane, then there’s Tony Ezekiel who’s named after the sound/video that goes like “What’s your name? Tony!” and loosely based on Tony Soprano from The Soprano’s and is Karen’s father in the system. For Katniss, she had Gale, who helped her with hunting, and Haymitch with the mentor role during the games. So, while my mind has its way of dealing with that longing, it doesn’t take away from the hurt that lingers.

 

Another thing that I connect myself with Katniss is the struggle to connect with other people. For myself, my undiagnosed autism and OSDD, which a reminder is that I haven’t seen a psychiatrist for these yet, caused my disconnect from people in my age range because I didn’t know how to fit in. For Katniss, people saw her as intimidating after her father died, but that’s because she couldn’t afford to be seen as weak while becoming the hunter we know her to be. I struggled with being overly emotional until high school, and then it was still a struggle most days, because I was learning to be an adult while carrying adult feelings. But now, as an adult with a kid of my own, I have to relearn how to be myself even though I now have multiple aspects of myself through OSDD. Not to be asinine, but my mother’s death needed to happen for me to be able to heal on this level, just like Prim had to die in Mockingjay for Katniss to have her own emotional release. Nothing more and nothing less to come of this.

 

At the end of the day, we all know Katniss to be the “Girl on Fire” not only because her inner fire was strong due to her convictions and the costumes Cinna put her in, but because Peeta gave her that with the burnt bread. Which is code for hope, in and of itself, and I had to physically do that for myself. My earliest suicidal ideations was in 6^th grade when we were learning how to write checks and my mind dissociated during the instructions. The continuation of the problem was that the kids in my group weren’t exactly helpful either as they were ignoring me or at least it felt like it. I even wrote a note and the teacher confronted me about it, which I could have told the truth, but when you’ve dealt with untrustworthy adults, you’re scared of help and you don’t want to worry your mom. This situation is a big regret for me to this day because if I told the truth, I could have figured things out sooner, but OSDD and DID are covert disorders that also get misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, something that my dad was diagnosed with and I don’t think I would have gotten diagnosed with OSDD in the first place. But I am glad that I have found writing and music to help me when times get rough, and if one of my alters wants to front or help me manage life, we can play certain music and focus on what’s at hand. And that’s hope enough for me right now.

 

At the end of the day, even though I know I have physical people who are willing to help, I am all I’ve got when it comes to keeping myself on track when it comes to my mental health. Hestia’s lesson stands strong as it is “Tend to your flame, one spark at a time” and the card from my Moonology deck also offers the reflection of “Have the courage to let your light shine”. I don’t have to fight it, I don’t have to let it go wild either, I just need to be WITH it.

 

-Liz, Karen and James