I'm Not Okay And I've Never Been Better

By SJ Draiocht

"I'm Not Okay And I've Never Been Better" will take you on an emotional, introspective journey through the closed-off corners of our thoughts. The 51 topics in the book create a relatable, and at times uncomfortable, conversation designed to inspire and encourage the reader to take on the darkness and fee

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ancient Flame Press
• Release date: Feb 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088019962

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Copyright © 2022, SJ Draíocht

All rights reserved.

This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

I will not be ‘famous,’ ‘great.’ I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.

― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

‘I want to write a novel about Silence,’ he said; ‘the things people don’t say.’

― Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

FOREWARD

SURVIVING

THE FIRST STORY: MY FIRST NOT OKAY MOMENT

THE BIRTH

AFTER BIRTH

RECOVERY ROOM

POST-PARTUM

JUST TIRED

THE DOWNFALL OF BEING OKAY

BACK TO THE POINT

BEVERLY

MORE THAN OKAY

100%

THE CLOSET

LONELINESS

WINNIE

ALONE

MY REAL FIRST NOT OKAY MOMENT

FILLING THE VOID

PRESSURES OF PERFECTION

FELICIA

PRIORITIES

COVID

BOUNDARIES

HELP

THE NEXT NOT OKAY MOMENT OR TWO

BACK OT THE POINT… AGAIN!

SPEAKING THE TRUTH

FAMILY

FAMILY WARS

MY PARTNER: LEO

LEO AND I

RESENTMENT

GUILTY AS CHARGED

PERMISSION

TIME HEALS ALL

WHAT IF

WHAT NOW

SICK OF BEING BROKEN AND FIGHTING

OVERWHELMING

TRANSFORMATION

ACCEPTANCE

FORGIVING

HONESTY

MIND READERS

PRIDE

FEAR

TRIGGERED

ISOLATION

NORMALIZING

I’M NOT OKAY

Dedication

Bugs: You are an exceptional person. You are a fantastic father.  You reign in the inner workings of my Alice mind, and help keep me true to myself. We have had to be the light to help guide the other out of the dark but the light has always been inside you. You are made of stars. You can and will do remarkable things because you are remarkable. Our story is more than these words, and we are far from writing the end. 

My Son: There are no words to tell you how much I love you and what you mean to me. You are the purest, sweetest, most perfect soul I have ever met, and I can't wait to watch you set the world on fire. You are the fuel that keeps me going, and growing to be the best that I can be. Your smile is my reason for being. Thank you for being you. 

JJ, Gma, and Rudy: Everything I do, I do to make you proud. I live in your honor, and you live on in my memory. My love for you is never-ending. 

        Mom: Our road has been a rollercoaster; because of you I know resilience, patience and perseverance. That my opinion of me is what matters and that if I want something bad enough, I need to set my sights and fight for it. You taught me change is inevitable and conflict is persistent. You have also shown me that life is about learning, growing and adapting. It is okay to walk alone and sometimes you need to roll with the punches but always get up and succeed despite everything. Success is the greatest form of revenge.

Foreward

First and foremost, I want to thank you, the reader, for daring to pick up and begin this transformative adventure with me. This book allows for the reader to apply the posed questions to their lives and then guides them to develop the answers independently. The stories in this book may cause triggering that can and will be uncomfortable at some points. The examples in this book are recollections and retellings written to aid in the emotional awareness and growth that comes from relating and understanding the text. This book is designed to be a conversation where you, the reader, answer independently and continue reading when you are ready.

I look forward to sharing my honest truths and perspective with you. I hope this book creates some solace and provides hope for all who read it. May your light keep shining even in the darkest times; the light is only beautiful when the darkness allows it to shine.

Surviving

I’m alright. I’m okay. I’m good. I’m tired. All forms of what (if we are honest) boils down to: I am Surviving. One of the hardest things that someone can do is admit to needing help and admit to not being okay. How do we? What are we supposed to do or say? Who even actually cares? Can you imagine walking around and seeing Susie from the 11th grade in all her high-class makeup and Prada bag while you make fake small talk? The inevitable How have you been? question comes up, and you say, I am actually barely holding on. The look of astonishment, shock, or maybe even some sort of devious happiness at your honest and raw pain since neither of you even truly liked the other flashes across her face. Or Josie from three doors down who when she asks, you let her know that you cried yourself to sleep. Then there are those moments of pure awkward tension because she wasn’t expecting you to not be okay, and now what?

We never admit that we are not okay. We are always okay. We must be because that is living. No, scratch that, that is surviving. Truthfully, we walk around with our walls up so high, trying to protect ourselves and putting on some façade as to being good that we are letting society eat away at us. How have you been? has become a form of greeting instead of a question that we are actually seeking an answer to.

The reality is that no one wants to be honest, and no one wants to hear an honest answer. We don’t want to appear weak, and we certainly do not want to be weak. But what is weakness? Is honesty really a weakness? Is admitting to not being okay truly an example of weakness? Has this world really turned so hard that it has taught us that showing the truth or not being okay is a weapon to be used against us? Even when it has never been, but we just believe it to be that way.

This is unacceptable. This is unacceptable as a society. This is unacceptable as humans. It is an intolerable expectation from others, and mostly it is an unacceptable expectation of ourselves. The truth is no one is always okay or better. Everyone hits a low, everyone gets sad, and everyone needs support. The problem is the place where we look for it isn’t always the best choice or in our best interest. Mental health is so highly underrated; it is terrifying to the point that we ignore it, we deny it, and we live as a shell of who we are or are meant to be because it is better than seeking help. It is better than trying to fix it. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Sometimes it is the wound.

The First Story

My First Not Okay Moment

I am a mom of a three-year-old. I can't believe he is three! He acts like a 17-year-old sometimes. That’s not the current point; however, the current point is that when I look back to how our life has been, I can tell you that I have always said, I am good, I am fine, and I am always okay. Nothing can break me; I am too strong to be broken. Meanwhile, I would cry in the shower that I would take once a week.

The harsh reality is that millions of women experience Post-Partum Depression; sometimes they don’t even know or don’t want to admit it. But back to the story, when I had my son I was so scared to give birth. I wasn’t worried about raising him because I’d been working with kids my whole life; I helped raise my niece and I have a degree in Elementary Education. I love kids. A few weeks before I was due, we found out that he was Frank Breech which means he was sitting inside me with both his feet over his head playing with his toes, with his head under my rib cage. So now here I am, and all I can think is, of course.

Of course, this kid is playing with his toes! Of course! He can come on out and play with them all he wants, but no, not this kid, not my kid. I knew I was in for a handful of a child. Anyways, he could not be turned around, and I was informed that I would need a c-section. The part of me that didn’t want to push a watermelon through an orange was extremely fine with this fact. However, the part of me that really didn’t want surgery was a bit concerned. Now see, with surgery comes side effects and recovery, and long-term issues that no one can possibly predict, and that made me, dare I admit, scared. I researched for days after finding out that I needed a c-section. I explored side effects, worst-case scenarios, what the likelihood of anything happening was—you name it, I was looking into it. Although scary, information leads to preparedness, and if something this big was going to be out of my control, I wanted to be prepared for what was going to happen. Well, you really can never be prepared for your first c-section.

I remember getting labor pains, and I didn’t know if I should go to the hospital or not. They weren’t all that painful, but I had always been told I have high pain tolerance, so what did I know? Needless to say, I only confided in my partner at the time that I was scared. I didn’t need to say it though, because fear was never something he had previously ever seen in my eyes. He will tell you to this day the fear he saw when I looked at him was something that froze him to the core. It was utter terror. I didn’t want to die; I didn’t want him to have to raise this child alone. Not this fights the ultrasound wand and already never doing what he was supposed to do, child. I was scared he would hate him, that he would hold it against this tiny human. Now I know that sounds ridiculous, but it happens. If the partner is lost during childbirth, sometimes the surviving parent hates the kid due to blaming them for losing the love of his life. So I made him swear he would love this child regardless. I was, of course, overreacting because it wasn’t likely that I would die, but with the blood clots and the taking out my insides, it was a possibility.

To everyone else, I was okay; I was doing good. The pain wasn’t bad. I wasn’t hungry despite having been at the hospital since 3 am and not welcoming my child until 3 pm. I would never let my fear come out.

Even during my pregnancy, I was so sick I could barely get out of the bathroom. I would sit in the bathtub, water running, trying to calm my jittery body. I would throw up if I smelled or ate anything. I would even get sick from tasting what I could only describe as a bone flavor in the water I drank. I’d be sick if I drank too much water (four gulps versus four drops) in one sitting. I would get sick if I brushed my teeth. I would get sick if I got dressed to go to work—I was a substitute teacher and a teacher at the Portland Zoo summer camp in Oregon. I would get sick in the parking lot before I went to work, then I would get sick in the parking lot before I got into my car to go home after work. It didn’t matter what I did, I was getting sick. I hated calling into work, HATED IT because that meant I had to tell someone that I wasn’t okay.

If I talked to friends, I would say I was alright, I was okay. If I spoke to my family, I was alright, I was good. I would joke that the flu I had at the beginning of my pregnancy taught my body that being sick is what pregnancy is. And honestly, the fear of having another baby and going through it all over again is one of the most terrifying possibilities I have been trying to overcome.

Now I’ve had this baby, yay! I was so drugged I had to be reminded of what happened because, truthfully, I didn’t. I fully believed that I didn’t hold him for the first two days when, in reality, I, apparently, held him for a few hours after he was born. But after my partner told me the story, I remembered everything. It just took a couple of weeks.

The Birth

I was being walked into the surgical room, and I swear I finally understood what people abducted by aliens feel like. This room had bright lights, surgical steel everything, and one table or bed sitting in the middle of the room with screens around it. I had to sit there and get the epidural in my spine, and I was trying to control the shaking. I didn’t need to increase the odds of something going wrong here. I was told to lay on my surgical bed—the doctors worried about my blood pressure and the preeclamptic state I had entered. My partner was in scrubs next to me, trying to keep me calm. I honestly didn’t even know if he would be in there or not, and it wasn’t my primary worry. I was concerned I was legitimately going to die; that and that the tiny human I was about to have would hate me, and I hate him. This seems extremely unlikely, I know, but to my emotions and brain, this kid had made me throw up every day, multiple times a day for 8 months. The 9th month was touch and go. I could hold food down, but when I brushed my teeth, I would throw up. He would punch the ultrasound wand and never move how they wanted him to. He was in one of the most challenging positions. I mean, this kid was already 30. He wasn’t letting anyone tell him anything, and he wasn’t taking anyone’s crap… I mean, guidance.

I knew from the start this wasn't going to be easy. This little boy was going to be a challenge. I would expect nothing less from something that was half of me. I fear for anyone who'd stand in this child’s way. He will be unstoppable. So, I took it on myself to make him an unstoppable force for good. That was my job. Teach him right and wrong and morals. No pressure.

I start to feel this heaviness on my chest, and my partner’s eyes widen in amazement. They had, apparently, taken pieces out of me and set them on my chest. I felt the weight but nothing else. I felt entirely exposed, which is already embarrassing. I felt fat and gross. And there were SO many people there. It turns out that preeclampsia is a pretty big deal and can turn sour quite quickly. Essentially, it meant that being pregnant had made my blood pressure too high, which meant my heart was working too hard. I look up, and with this shield they put over me, I couldn’t see what they were doing. A nurse or doctor must have noticed me and, in an attempt to comfort me, told me that he didn’t want to come out. Now I was not entirely shocked by this statement, but I just responded with, Well, that’s too bad, it’s a little too late anyway. I’ve already been cut open. I wasn’t attempting to be funny, but everyone in the room laughed at this statement. I kind of mumbled Evicted and continued waiting while the nurse said it was as if he was holding onto my rib or something, resisting the pulling the doctors were doing. Now, I am thinking, you are grown people, and you are telling me you can’t just pull out a newborn baby, and his little strength of holding onto whatever he is holding onto is too powerful for you? Good Gracious!

The next time I looked back at the shield, I saw what I can only describe as gigantic hands holding a little purple blob that’s foot was just dangling off them. I would say I had remained extremely calm until that point. However, I know what a purple baby tends to mean, and his foot wasn’t moving, and panic started attacking me. Why is he purple? Why is he not moving? Why is he not screaming or crying? Why am I the ONLY person in this room concerned about any of this? It was actually all quite simple; see, the baby almost always comes out purple at first because the oxygen levels are different, and their body and organs are now in control of making them live. And he was crying and screaming; he just had the quietest cry, and I couldn’t hear it. That lasted a few months, and now he is the loudest person I know.

After Birth

I was being escorted to recovery. I was lying in the same bed, and the tiny little bundle was lying between my legs. I had no desire to hold him. I was worried we hated each other. I was under the influence of drugs. I wasn’t breastfeeding. And his dad was right there and could hold him if need be or for connection. Every time they asked if I wanted to hold him, I would say, No. These nurses are sneaky, though, and asked me to hold him to change the sheets due to them being soiled from the surgery. Perfectly logical; what were they going to do, set him on the floor while changing the sheets, and then put him back between my legs when they were done? Of course not! Well, I hesitantly agreed, thinking I was helping them.

I remember that I kept waiting for them to take the baby back and put him back between my legs the entire time I was in recovery after fixing the sheets, but they didn’t. Each time the nurse came in, I thought, Oh good, they came to put him back. Just kidding! No, they didn’t. I was played by those friendly nurses. It was their way of forcing me to hold him so that the maternal/baby connection could form and it would, in turn, help both of us heal. The funny part was I am right-handed, so he would lay in my left arm while my right hand would