I was powerless: literally, without power. I moved to Seattle about 3 months ago with the expectation of a lovely fall, a wet but mild winter, and an incredible summer. Then just a few months in, I was housebound under 2 feet of snow, with freezing external temperatures, and without power. I had no idea what to do.
I was born and raised in the sunshine on the coast of CA, where AC or heat were rarely needed because the temperature was so reverent throughout the year. I had never lived in snow and certainly never been without power in below 30 degree weather. Quickly, I jumped into problem solving mode and called my much more experienced landlord.
“Uhhhh, I don’t have power. What do I do?” I asked. She lives in a log cabin not more than 100 steps from my front door. “Come on over. You can help me set up the generator and stay here until we get the power back on.”
I was grateful for the invite, but hesitant. I didn’t know her all that well and always feel that I take up space that I don’t belong in, and this would be no exception. The voice in the back of my head insisting that I’m a burden, that I can’t take care of myself, and that I’m unwanted started rapidly firing. But, as I had no other options, I packed a bag with the simple essentials, trudged through the icy snow, and arrived at her doorstep.
“Welcome!” She cried, as she invited me into her warm home, showed me my room, and asked what adventurous food we should cook together for dinner. My fears were quickly relieved by her enthusiasm and creativity in this state of powerlessness. For the next two days, we cooked meals together, discussed everything from music, to ballet, to work, to politics, to loss and to life. She let me tinker on her baby grand piano, nap during the afternoon, and empowered me to help set up the generator, our power source, as we incessantly checked for updates on when this power outage would end. By day 2, we still had no idea, but I had a deep sense that it didn’t matter because I was safe, I was cared for, and I was contributing.
This is not how I have experienced powerlessness in my past. As a childhood incest and illness survivor, powerlessness was coupled with violence, desperation, and the potential of death at every surgery, every seizure, and every unwanted sexual assault. Powerlessness felt like needles and knives, like irritable shaking, and like suffocating weight that I couldn’t cease, control, or combat. Fleeing, freezing, and fighting were never options for me, so I simply left my body and began to experience the world through this hazy, observant lens, willing my way from one day to the next knowing deeply somehow that I deserved more: that life was supposed to be different and if I only held on, that I would experience it as it was meant to be.
As soon as I moved out of my childhood home, it was time to recover, which introduced a new type of powerlessness. Now, I wasn’t bound to the needs of a narcissist or a threatening illness, but instead to a process that completely controlled and defined my life. I worked to pay my medical bills, I rested so that my brain could process my trauma, every single decision I made was perfectly calculated based upon my need to recover. My home, my health, and my habits were now all reoriented around rebuilding a foundation of safety, peace, and well-being. My recovery took more than 10 years, cost more than $100k, and I did it mostly alone.
So, when I lost power, when my way of survival was unclear, and when the end of the problem was uncertain recently, you can imagine the triggers that might have arose. The surprising thing was that they didn’t. Because before I had time to freak out and get lost in the terrifying shame spiral of my past, I was invited into a new way of being where powerless was an opportunity to be welcomed by community, to receive support, and to contribute together to making life work until the situation resolved itself.
Lately, I have been sitting in this space between recovery and thriving trying to understand when one ends and the other begins. Asking questions like, is recovery really over? Will I recover fully? What does thriving even look like for me? My brain knew how to survive through dissociation and denial. My body knew it could recover, because recovery was simply revisiting what I had already survived. But the only part of me that knew that thriving was a real option was my intuition- that same part of me that taught me from a young age that there is more for me and that I should seek it out even if I can’t yet see it. I had no experiential knowledge of thriving, how could I possibly align to it?
My powerless weekend in that lovely log cabin with my even lovelier landlord was my official transition to the other side. And now that I am here, I can begin to speak about what life looks like from this lens. And that is this:
I have complex PTSD and a number of physical ailments from the trauma. I will always have to manage these consequences, but I have accepted that. I no longer let my physical and psychological ailments limit me.
I still participate in self-destructive behavior like picking and scratching at my skin to relieve stress but approach these habits with compassion because they helped me to survive some really heavy shit when I didn’t have better tools.
I have an incredibly supportive community that supports me unconditionally. I’m building a better sense of what I want to do professionally everyday with the understanding that it is my job to care for myself first and to contribute second.
I participate in a number of extracurricular activities: paddle boarding, cross country skiing, hiking, dinners, coffee, that remind me how sweet life is and how beautiful naturally and effortlessly.
I share my story safely hoping that my truth may lead you to yours, that my courage might continue to catalyze others into recovery, and that my hope for a better life might be realized as we seek it together.
The end of my recovery years and the beginning of thriving is about improved external circumstances, internal healing, and a courageous choice: the decision to radically accept myself as I am, to seek clarity in my dreams every day, and to surround myself with those who shower me with love and bring out the very best in me.
I hope that others have safe and healthy upbringings. I hope that others have cheaper, faster, and more communal recovery processes. I hope for all of us that when encountered by powerlessness, that we receive a warm welcome and that we all have the courage and the humility to say yes to the abundance on the other side.