ANXIETY OR INTUITON?

I knew my daughter was sick, just like my mother had been sick - and while my daughter's sickness mirrored my mother’s sickness so closely it took my breath away.

I knew that she was not my mother. I knew that she could be saved…. 

But how in the world was I supposed to believe this wasn't some chemical imbalance, mental illness, attachment wound, or an epigenetic trauma coming to the surface with so much anxiety raging throughout my entire body as I restrained her in a hospital room, while she screamed "get me the fuck out of this hospital - fuck these fucking doctors" exactly like my mother had when I was a child? 

How in the world was I supposed to battle the voice in my ear that my mother’s madness was coming for her - that something terrible had happened when I wasn’t looking - that I must have done something wrong, and that all her pain and suffering was all my fault every time we left another doctors office and they added another DSM-V diagnosis to her file? 

How was I supposed to discern the difference between my anxiety and my intuition when I kept flashing back to the same powerlessness and helplessness I felt at five years old every time a doctor looked at my family's mental health history and drew a conclusion about my daughter without truly hearing a word I said? 

How was I supposed to hold onto the belief that I could save her when every time I took my hand off the wheel for five minutes in the past, people got hurt… people suffered….people fucking died. 

I trusted a doctor instead of trusting my gut and now my mom was dead. 

I convinced myself I was overreacting when I knew an adult in my life wasn't safe - and that same individual harmed the child I was meant to protect. 

I suppressed my voice when I knew I should speak up the day my best friend walked out my front door - and the next day she was gone - forever. 

I knew. I knew. I knew. 

But I never trusted myself enough to listen. 

So why, even after all this time - why, even after all the things I've learned - why, even after everything I know - was it still so difficult for me to trust that I knew my own daughter well enough to know what she was and wasn’t?

Because you cannot hear your intuition when you're feeling less and doing more. 

Because you cannot trust your gut if you do not trust yourself. 

Because you cannot trust yourself, know yourself, heal yourself, or love yourself until you feel all the things you have forgotten.