I want to take a moment right here, at the end of my hormonal cycle that has been the longest and most challenging one yet… and say that I am so grateful for everything that I have done for myself so far.

As I prepare to share my adventure forward, and prepare to share the knowledge I have gained from the hardships of this past year and a half, know that the road that I have traveled has not been an easy one, but nothing easy is free and nothing free is easy as the saying goes. It is worth it.

Even from here, I know that the work is worth it.

I am so grateful for having the courage to never quit asking the questions that I needed to ask to find my answers. People have so much faith that the medical system has their back, so they wait. I can only be left to wait for so long before I need to do something about it. I am grateful that I had the motivation to make a little tiny bit of progress every single day.

I would literally talk to anyone who knew a single thing about biology, neurology, anxiety, pain science and how it was all connected to the hormone system. I went a lot OCD on the research. Then I had the ability to connect with an endocrinologist. (A specialist who specializes in the hormones that travel through your central nervous system). He is referring me on because I know more about my Centralized Sensitization than he does as a practicing Endocrinologist. I am grateful for my ability to be stubborn and blunt enough to advocate for myself.

Overcoming my need to put everyone before me has also been a work in progress for me, but I am grateful that I have acknowledged the need to overcome it and proud of the steps and progress made so far.

I am grateful for my support system. Mainly my husband, who gets the brunt of me and all of my angry pain monster glory. My kids who always brighten any day just by being my awesome kids, who are really patient with their sick mom. And of course the friends and family who have really really stepped up for me, especially after those who said they would, couldn’t. Although we are far away from each other, you always have my back. I am grateful for you. Thank you.

I am grateful for the pause from responsibilities, and obligations that this year has afforded our family. Although none of them seemed to be by choice, they all seemed to be exactly what was needed.

I am grateful for good memories with old friends.

I am grateful for my newly learned resilience skills.

I am grateful for all of the things that were supposed to break me, they have provided me all of the proof that I need that I can rise from anything.

Bring it. I am grateful for my warrior attitude.

I am grateful for my dedication to self love. I am grateful for loving myself enough to place boundaries with people who are harming my healing. I am grateful for knowing that although hard, this is the only way to create space to truly heal.

Some days in the depths of my pain when it gets bad and it triggers me I get right back to shame and self loathing… and some days I am able to keep it all at bay, barely. I am grateful for always finding the motivation to get back up and start again. I am grateful for my stubbornness.

I am grateful for my past, it has made me the me I am today. It wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t all good either. I cant change what happened, I can only adapt how I perceive things because of it all to a more healthy perspective.

I am grateful that I have had the courage to face the stigma of mental health in ways that go beyond coping. Asking for guidance beyond prescription medications from medical professionals is challenging, I am grateful for my ability to articulate, even in anger and through my unresolved traumas.

I am grateful for to myself for showing up and putting in the work, and the effort that was required to save myself from my own misery.

I am grateful to have already taken care of my mid-life/ existential crisis, awakening, official adulting, whatever this chapter shall be called… I am already grateful for it even though it has been the wildest, messiest ride yet; and I am still taken for a spin more often than I would like as I heal, but I am grateful for the strength I gain from relentlessly showing up for myself.

I am grateful for never giving up.

I am grateful that I have finally found love for myself, unconditional love for me from me in an infinite circle.

-B.