Clarity

I started seeing Melanie regularly. She referred me to see Pete, he’s a Healer at Anishnawbe. I wanted that too, I wanted all the things—my heart, my mind and my soul were wide open. 

That’s when all these things started happening with me: vibes, intuition, clarity. I started choosing my people. It was coming up on a year after surgery, and so much had happened—not just to me, but to my soul. I was cautious about who I was going to expose my soul to, and it didn’t take much because I could feel it right away—whether to go right or go left. There was no guessing or thinking about it. It was just the way I veered. I was on a path, I was being led.

I had developed a touch of enochlophobia during those months of healing my stomach. I was only going to cardiac rehab, Anishnawbe, and whatever doctor appointment I had at the time. It presented itself at least six months post-surgery, when I started realizing what the fuck happened to me. I felt fragile—afraid to get bumped or shoved in a crowd. You’d think I would’ve felt like that the previous summer, but I didn’t. I was aware back then that I was fragile, but I wasn’t concerned about it.

I was putting in the work—mind, body and soul. I didn’t feel lost anymore, I was getting strong and I became super protective of myself. My reckless days were over.

Seeing Melanie often was beyond helpful. She gave me tools, always showed me things from a different perspective, and taught me how to navigate my way through difficult situations. I was taking it all in like a sponge. She encouraged me to write, but I had zero interest.

I booked a session with Pete. I was nervous, I was still looking for answers, guidance, instruction of some sort. Pete and I met. He’s very laid back, chill in my opinion with a calm demeanor. The first thing he said to me was “Why are you here? What do you want?” Straight up! “Guidance.” Was my answer. He said “OK, because that’s all you get here, the rest is on you.” I was cool with that. He heard me out, my situation.

I gave him tobacco, medicine was lit and a ceremony took place. This was nothing like the experience I had with Cynthia. I wasn’t expecting it to be, I wasn’t expecting anything. I was hoping these interactions would strengthen my faith and guide me. I was open.

After the ceremony, Pete instructed his assistant to prepare some medicines for me to take home along with directions on how to use them. The only thing Pete told me that the spirits told him was that “I’m on my way, I’m on the right track.” And that was good enough for me! I left there feeling blessed. 

I was given a herb to boil for anxiety, another one for sleep, and another one to bathe in—14 cups, split for 2 baths. All boiled and simmered.

The bath consisted of two days of soaking, immersed in the 7 cups of medicine for as long as I wanted—hair and face included. The medicine stays on overnight; gets rinsed it off in the morning and the process repeated the next night.

After the first bath, I had an appointment at the hospital early the next morning. I didn’t have time to rinse it off. It was for an echo or to hook up the holter—I can’t remember exactly—but I was sitting in that waiting area at Toronto General, texting with my cousin Jen.

As I was texting her I had a rush! I had typed out all these words—deep shit, that even took me by surprise! I read them and was like, holy fuck! It was my pain. My shit. I ended up apologizing to her because it was a lot, and she had just had a baby, and my shit was never-ending.

Jen was with me from the beginning of all of this, she was also in a shit position between me and Kayla. It wasn’t fair to her. I felt like I had become a burden, so I apologized for my rush of words and walked away from her—for a while.

I learned something about myself that day with the rush I had—I went home that night, with clarity, wrote, and sent this to my daughter…

I’m seeing a First Nations counselor once a week and a traditional healer twice a month… things are starting to unravel…

You grew up with an angry mom! The day you got diagnosed, unknowingly at that time… I too also became sick, mentally. I was mad, blamed myself for your sickness, and was angry at the world, not you. I let you down, I let myself down—my perfect baby was now going to suffer for the rest of her life, and there was nothing I could do to fix it, no cure. The anger took over me, it consumed me. Again, I want to point out that I wasn’t mad at you, just everything and everyone else. But you and me, us, were pretty much all we had, and you took the brunt of it 100%! And for that, I apologize. I never realized until recently the impact it had on me in my late 20s, how traumatic it really was trying to deal with it all, being the sole caregiver of my beautiful, perfect little girl!

Your dad was useless during this time; he pretty much bailed. Not once did anyone ask how I was holding up, all the while I was a mess, falling apart, fucked up, pushing through this thing called life, solo with you. While angry at the world, trying to take care of you, I did what I could, primarily focusing on your physical health, not recognizing during this entire ride that you were also suffering emotionally and mentally from my anger.

Trent brought joy back into my world, but I was still angry.

My ex (piece of shit) and Cuba were a distraction, a temporary escape from my anger.

You, since I was 18 years old, have and always will my perfect little girl! I can’t take back those years… that’s how it was, and the issues you have with me are valid.

I honestly never knew or thought about any of this until you stepped away from me and I started healing spiritually. I think you and I both desperately needed it. It gave me time and allowed me to recognize what was really going on behind the scenes with me.

I’ve apologized to you over and over for snippets of incidents in the past, but what I’ve written above lies the reality of what was going on with me for more than two decades.

I love you, Kayla, forever and a day!

Maybe one day, you and I can connect on another level—a happy, peaceful one.

Until then, be well, ma girl!

Some serious shit was going on with me and outside of Faith and Jen, my friend Jen, and my sidekick—(I will get to her shortly I haven't mentioned her yet because she is a whole blog post) I didn’t think anyone would’ve understood or even wanted hear it and I didn’t just think it, that’s exactly how it was, I felt it.

After I sent that letter, and a year post-surgery in April, my daughter reached out to me. She shot me a text asking me to call her when I had some free time. She wanted to let me know she was pregnant before I heard it from anyone else. She also proposed that we try to come together in a way that would allow us to have a healthy mother-daughter relationship. I was ecstatic and fucking terrified at the same time—just finding my feet again.

I called her, and the first thing she said to me was, “Hi, first things first—how is Nobu?!” I never did get an apology for her abandonment or an explanation, nor was I pushing for one.

I needed Melanie ASAP. I sent her an email, and she called me that same day. I explained that my daughter had reached out. Melanie knew the whole K & J story—every last detail. Along with my mother-daughter relationship issues with my own mother. I was excited and happy. Melanie said to me, “I know you’re excited, but be careful. She’s already hurt you deeply once. You’ve put in a lot of work on your journey, but you’re still vulnerable. Take things slow with her.”

I took heed. I yielded. I backed up. I was still in a weird place—in a very absorbent mode. I was taking in everything around me with an intensity that at times was overwhelming.

Well, it didn’t last long. May came, as well as Mother’s Day and two days before Mother’s Day my daughter posted on her very public FB account for her 100K followers and then some to see—a “shared” post about “What it’s like to have a toxic mother…” a good chunk of words there! I was hurt, not crumbled, but hurt. 

Melanie already gave me a warning, so I was mentally prepared—I wasn't devastated. I tried hard not to think about it and carried on with my healing. I never reacted to it, even though it was a jab. I was affected, and when it did come up, her response was, “It had nothing to do with you. I didn't write it; I shared it.” Two days before Mother’s Day! My guess—when Melanie told me to slow down and I did, I was going too slow for her.

This wasn’t helping with my healing process. Taking into consideration the lack of an apology or explanation and the lovely Mother’s Day she intended for me to have—with another rush of clarity and in the name of my protection—I wrote her again…

I’ve been there for you every step of the way—every appointment, every procedure, every diagnosis, every surgery.
You turned your back on me in my deepest, darkest, most needful time of life. You left me for dead, and you did this because that’s what you thought—after all the pain and suffering throughout my life—that I deserved from you? From the person I’ve cared for the most?

I’m not able, at this time, to shake it off, say everything is okay, and just carry on like it didn’t happen. It did happen, and I need time, girl—time to continue working on myself, to heal from all my mental and physical issues, and, well, now also this— the hurt that I feel inside what’s left of my heart. Because that’s what you did here, Kayla. Essentially, you broke my heart.

With everything else that has transpired in my life this past year, I’ve yet to even fully process the magnitude of this situation because I had to focus on myself—my health. I had to not think about you... I had to put myself first if I was to survive, to make it through this past year. That’s the recovery time when you get your chest cracked open, both mentally and physically—a full year. And that’s how long you waited to reach out to me.

I had a major psychotic breakdown on day 4 post-surgery, and it was all about you and the FB shit again. Barb came to visit me and thought it was appropriate, while I was in the state I was in, to tell me some garbage that you were saying to her brother on FB—something along the lines of me... that I could’ve had this surgery years ago, but I chose to do it now. WTF?!

Anyway, my surgery didn’t go well to begin with; there were several complications. One... I was in AFib a very scary and dangerous heart rate situation. I had an ectopic heartbeat with a heart rate of 225 for 4 days, and on that 4th day, still in AFib, late that night around midnight, I broke down completely. Heavily medicated, bawling and screaming... “WHY IS MY DAUGHTER DOING THIS TO ME? WHY DOES SHE HATE ME SO MUCH!” The patient beside me, the hospital staff—they were all freaking out. My heart rate was off the charts, and they called psych in to intervene because if my heart rate didn’t get under control, that was it for me. Your behavior towards me played a huge role throughout this entire traumatic event.

I had a very spiritual, experience that night, and well... I’m still here. My stay in the hospital was said to be 5 days—I was there for 15. You waited exactly one year to reach out to me, and sadly, I’m not ready or able to see you right now. I need to take care of myself, my health. Even writing this is heart-wrenching for me. I don’t want to relive it again, Kayla... not anytime soon. 

Looking at the picture of you you sent me the other day, I can see my little girl who once loved me so much, and I also see and acknowledge the hate you have running through your veins for me—and it hurts like hell! Ya, it’s not something I can or want to deal with right now.

Maybe one day we can get past all of this. I really hope we do.

I was actually just fine until one day, I was having dinner with a friend, and it came up. She said, “Ya, that stuff with your mother.” I was like, WHAT?! My mother?! Show me! She felt bad for bringing it up, but it wasn’t her fault. It was out there for the world to see, and because I brought it up, she thought I already knew.

My lovely mother chimed in on her post in a comment for everyone to see: “As your mother is my daughter, sometimes it’s hard... blah, blah, blah, it’s necessary to be apart.” Or some shit like that. It wasn’t long but ended with, “That’s just the way it goes!” I wanted nothing more than to mend the issues Kayla and I had and there was my mother whom I haven’t spoken to in years condoning the rift between us. Sick woman. Evil.

Now I was crushed. My fucking mother who could give two fucks whether I was dead or alive and my daughter with her red heart on her comment. I was humiliated and crushed and that’s what they wanted. It was all there in black and white for the world to see. My mother knew exactly what she was doing commenting on that post. As much as I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of hurting inside, I couldn’t help it. My mother and my daughter—bonding over my pain. It made me sick.

This is going to sound fucked up, but I always felt inside that my mom took joy in my pain. I never wanted her to know when anything bad happened to me because I could feel her getting off on it.

I was 15, turning 16, the first time I was raped, by three guys—in my own apartment by Woodbine Station. It was around my birthday time. My roommate and I had people over. We were all drinking, celebrating. I went in my room area, which was right by the back door with one guy. The next thing I knew, I was pinned down. There were three guys. They held me down while they rotated, hopping on and hopping off. I was kicking and pushing as much as I could, and that was that. They got off me, let me go, and out the door they went in a hurry! It all happened so fast.

I had no idea where my roommate was at that time—probably in the kitchen, which was in a different section of the apartment altogether. I didn’t even tell her—I just stayed in my room crying because I thought it was my fault for getting drunk.

But ya, that happened, and I never wanted my mother to know about it, feeling like she would’ve thought I deserved it and given me that look—the look that says, 'Well, that’s what you get!' Instead, I pretended it never happened. A few weeks later, I tried to take my own life. I never spoke or thought about that rape until I had that breakdown right before my heart surgery. Real talk!

My feelings, my hurt were too much to contain. I couldn’t lean on Faith anymore than I already was, even though I vented it to her. I felt I couldn’t talk to Jen (friend) about it because she had her own shit going on. And my sidekick—well there was a lot I didn’t share with her throughout this journey for the simple fact that I was a lot. She was young and it was too fucking much. I wanted to protect her from my pain, my trauma as much as I could. I also didn’t want to scare her away. 

I needed Melanie! I emailed her and she called me right back. I was hysterical and she reeled me in and introduced me to to some new tools. She reiterated the reason why my mother did that and taught me how to be stronger than to waste my emotions on evil intentions.

Not one fucking person who I considered a friend that read it—and everyone fucking read it!—bothered to fucking check in on me. NOT ONE! My so-called friends were too entertained watching my daughter’s fucked-up feed for more juice, talking about it amongst themselves rather than giving a fuck about how it affected me.

I was granted so much clarity at that time, on multiple levels, including who had my back and who didn’t.

Healing is a very lonely journey.