Category: Fear

Lost? Yes. Found? Not sure.

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

The Trapped Butterfly is experiencing extreme depression and anxiety. She didn’t want the Christmas season to end. She struggled to settle completely in this season as once Halloween was over, she started finding out about some liberals, including ex-friends, were anti-Israel. She has too many Jewish friends who have been loyal to her and are good people to just follow the liberal agenda of Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza. She understands that Hamas uses its own people as human shields. She stood her ground and still does when it comes to the Jewish community and Israel. Yet, she has nothing but compassion for the innocent people who are suffering because of the war.

However, it was still painful to find out again that the people she thought were “her people” really weren’t. This caused her anger and anxiety which spilled into her life. Thankfully, she has pretty much gone through the process and has limited her self with social media.

The other thing that made it hard for The Trapped Butterfly to completely settle in to the most cosmic time of year was worry and frustration over family as well as her book. A family member is really struggling right now and has been for months.

She dreaded the New Year because she knows that even though the death rate for Covid this fall and winter has been slightly lower than last year and definitely dramatically lower than the previous 3 years, it’s still too high. They have been back to where they basically were last year. People are still dying daily and everyone is ignoring it. Hospitalizations are still higher for Covid than they are for the flu and RSV season. Basically, even though we’re, maybe, making some progress in the pandemic, it’s not enough to be safe living normally for her husband and her.

She has been trying to find her way. Her friends pushed her to get a petition going to try to get masks back in medical facilities year-round in her state. She knows she needs to make a difference in the world so she felt like the Spirit World wanted her to do it. Even with the knowledge that most petitions don’t succeed, she finds herself doing what she did with her first book, with her gofundme campaign, and other efforts to create change…Feeling like she is trying to get positive attention, not getting it easily, and taking it personally. Feeling like she has to do all this stuff that she doesn’t feel like she’s good at.

Wanting to remain open to the Spirit World and trying to find her place in a world where she is even more not welcome in, she set up a meeting with the marketing agent that she still wishes she would have taken her time to find someone who would really meet her needs. She gave in to the need to help people as well as the need to be victorious in getting her children’s book published after all the years of trauma that she has endured to finally get it illustrated and published and hired the guy without knowing that he is a right wing person. Usually this wouldn’t be an issue but with Covid, is for her. It was much easier when the book was in the process of being illustrated. If it wasn’t finished, she couldn’t publish it. She, naively, thought that Covid would be safe for them by the time it was ready. That is not what happened and this year she has lost hope that “this will be the year that they will finally figure something out and she will be free again.”

So when they video chatted with the marketing guy, she was trying to be open. He didn’t want to help with the petition and he gave her “tough love.” Ironically, she hates that word and she believes that she actually shut herself down. She didn’t want to lash out. She wanted to be open and hear him out about going ahead with publishing the book for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month in March. And he is right about the fact that kids need this book. Something else that is bugging her big time. There’s not a children’s book like hers out there and it’s got to get out there. He said that it’s not what we want but we can make it work with online events and interviews. The Trapped Butterfly is trying to get used to the idea of not being able to do the book traditionally.

She still had that gripping pain in her chest as her husband was in agreement with the agent. She agreed while getting emotional about how badly she wants to be in the public doing events. It’s obvious that society has a real empathy problem. They don’t care if the vulnerable live or die or her petition would have thousands of signatures…Actually, there wouldn’t be a need to have a petition for masks in medical facilities because they would still be doing it anyway.

After the meeting, she felt proud of herself for being calm and open about this. But the pain in her chest remained. She reached out to a few trusted people to process it. Then the person who delivered her prescription, got the wrong prescription as the pharmacy got it wrong. So they rushed out to get the right prescription before the pharmacy closed. Nighttime drive.

Despite the anxiety and stress, she tried to enjoy the ride. The sunset was fiery pink, orange, red, and purple. Beautiful. The lights were bright and beautiful. The darkness of the trees in the forest were beautiful. Some houses had white lights still on. Despite the awfulness of the situation and having empathy for her husband who had to snuff out the cigar he was smoking as well as the physical pain he felt to do everything he had to do to get them over there in time, she knew this would probably be the last time she would be in the vehicle at night.

Her mind keeps racing. Her emotions are everywhere. So she is trying to practice her meditation as well as self care. During her “talk” with herself during the time her husband was cleaning up after dinner and feeding the cats, she found her mind going crazy and started to feel panic. She started softly talking to herself as if she was her best friend.

During the talk, she discovered a pattern. Instead of dealing with the conflict in her about the book, she shut down. She didn’t want to argue about it. She just agreed and figured that the fear would go away. Maybe it will. However, despite being a fighter and a firebrand, there are still times when she would just go along with whatever it was. She did it with her family, her friends, and her husband. They probably didn’t realize it because she didn’t even realize it until now. Plus, the abusers got what they wanted from her. It’s healthy to do it occasionally with your spouse but it’s a definite pattern in her.

The Trapped Butterfly knows how to stand her ground, but yet, she is still a people pleaser. Plus, abuse can make one afraid to stand up for themselves. She believes that she did this during the meeting.

Then she found herself questioning her instincts. She felt that she didn’t have good instincts, but she was able to look back at the past 4 years and see how she has made very difficult decisions in order to keep them safe from Covid. She is doing the best she can with all the hell she’s been through the past few years and more.

She often still worries about being a narcissist and being too much like her parents. But she found herself wanting to write people back instead of writing this story. If she was a narcissist, she would not give a fuck about anything but what she wants.

She keeps thinking that she wants to talk to her therapist about this. She cried softly and tried to tell herself that she is doing remarkably well with her situation. She has been going through hell, but still finds ways to incorporate joy in her life.

She really needs to explore with her therapist about her fear versus her instincts because she’s just not sure what is what. She needs to put herself first. Yet, she needs purpose.

She needs to explore why she shuts down sometimes and agrees to things whether it’s right or wrong. Sometimes she just isn’t aware she’s doing it. It feels right in the moment. But with the big stuff, she needs to figure this out before she gets herself in more trouble than she can handle…again…

And she is always looking outside for answers and guidance. This is normal and healthy behavior, but she does need to be able to look inside herself to find answers. She has to trust herself. But how? It’s so hard when things are really hard and she has to make the best decision when they all feel wrong.

For now, she is proud of herself for becoming aware of the fact that she was triggered by the meeting, feels so much pressure to do the book from herself, and for talking to herself as a best friend would. Not offering advice except to take the time to write this story which people may or may not relate to or enjoy but it helps her feel better. She will also remember that she looked up at the sky when they got home from picking up her correct prescription and saw the moon through the clouds. The moon, Spirits, and herself are always with her.

Trapped Butterfly, you got this. You are not alone. We will figure this out. You are doing amazingly well in this unprecedented time we’re living through. You are not alone!

Bombs, gunfire, and explosions

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

She is in a weird wooden old house. At every turn a bomb is detonated. It’s loud, bright orange and yellow, and narrowly misses her and her husband as they try to flee from the house. Gunfire erupts with bullets passing right by her. She is terrified. She sees no way of getting out alive. The loudness is overwhelming. Fire everywhere.

The Trapped Butterfly wakes up in a panic. She gasps for air and her body is tense. Her heart is pounding. She starts to look around the dark bedroom with the blue night light on. The white noise is comforting. Her husband is peacefully sleeping next to her. It’s after 3 AM.

She has always had weird dreams about people trying to hurt her but this was the most intense dream she has ever had. She is afraid to go back to sleep but she’s stuck in bed because she can’t just get up and go read or do something else. She finally meditates herself to sleep only to have more weird dreams.

The summer has been one of getting to do some things normally and safely. The staff at the eye clinic masked up and did their best to keep them away from people. However, she got to safely interact with some young children who were in the eye care center while they waited outside for the staff to get them right in a room. Their sweet, curious faces smiling at her and looking at her and her wheelchair with curiosity. It was wonderful and made her cry tears of joy when they got home.

The vet made it so she could come in with her husband and kitties for the first time since the pandemic started. Nobody was there and the tech put them right in a room. She and the doctor wore masks for her.

Her professor came over for a visit outside. She is going to be with them for The Trapped Butterfly’s birthday.

However, her world continues to blow up. Yes, she is very aware that actual bombs are still blowing up people in Ukraine and the Middle East. Gunfire is a common occurrence in her local area and in her country. However, she still has a right to her own pain.

Her new children’s book is done and was about ready to be published this week, but despite how hard she fought to pick up the pieces from her “chosen family” fucking around with getting it illustrated and then not finishing it because they were mad at her for stating facts and trying to enforce boundaries, the closer it got to actually publishing it, the more dread and panic filled her. This is not how one is supposed to feel about releasing a book.

She knows that she could do some controlled events with masks outside, but there are new variants of Covid going around and people are getting sick that are trying to still be careful. And she knows that seeing other local authors who are going to be doing their own events that she should be doing too.

Then there’s the media. Not that she expects to get famous, but the book was written many years before Covid. She never imagined that she wouldn’t be able to have a normal schedule of live events in her area. There are so many opportunities for book events in her area. How is she going to answer the questions that the media might ask.

Media: “Do you still love antiquing? How often do you go antiquing?”

The Trapped Butterfly: “I don’t get to go anymore because of Covid and our high risk of getting seriously ill.”

Media: “But other people with disabilities are out and about.”

The Trapped Butterfly: “Yeah and some are still dying from it.”

Media: Do you have any book events planned?”

The Trapped Butterfly: “Only private, controlled ones with people wearing masks.”

Cue up the laughter from the Covid deniers and the “how sad” but move right on with life from more sympathetic people. Yeah, no thanks.

She is dealing with an unbelievable ignorant, ableist world that has moved on from a virus that isn’t just a respiratory illness but a disease that attacks the body in ways we are just learning about. Yes, we are in a better place than we were last year with hospitalizations and deaths but we have not had a day where no deaths have happened in this country and other countries. Now hospitalizations are rising. There’s clear evidence from multiple research studies are showing that repeat infections of this virus is making people more likely to get seriously sick and die or get long term health problems. Covid is not the flu or a cold. It affects the nervous system, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system, and brain. Basically it attacks the whole body even with a mild case.

Then she’s having to deal with someone who is not Covid friendly which makes her sick. But she is making it work by being assertive. She should have done more research on the person. Yet, another mistake she made.

So another night she dreams about going back to school. They were in the wrong room and her professor came and found them. In her dream, The Trapped Butterfly was being pushed by someone else and they weren’t masked, thus, breathing on her. When her and her husband got into the correct classroom, they tried to sit where people wouldn’t sit right by them. Except they started crowding around her. She had a panic attack and started crying. Her husband got her out of there. She was sure that they would get Covid.

Dreams are weird. Some dreams she’s being normal with no worries about Covid. And others are just full of fear and panic.

After the going back to school dream, The Trapped Butterfly made the hard decision to delay releasing the book right now. She is terrified of getting this virus. She also doesn’t want to feel even more left out than she already does. So she is going to create a video and announce it to everyone. She feels selfish because she knows that the world needs another book like this. She knows that little children need a book to encourage them to keep fighting for their dreams and goals. But with the current uncertainty of the virus and even the uncertainty surrounding getting another shot soon is making her want to just cocoon herself again and do her best to enjoy the cosmic season of fall and early winter.

She is angry and sad. She still doesn’t understand why people are so ignorant and insensitive about the virus, thus, helping to make people who are trying to do everything right in order not to get sick, get sick. I wonder if some of these people would feel horrible if they found out that they put someone in the hospital by spreading it around instead of following proper precautions that are proven to prevent it. The media and government are not helping by downplaying it.

So here she is…Her birthday week…and her world continues to blow up all around her. Best to just cocoon and keep hoping that the day will eventually come when she is no longer trapped.

Down in a Hole

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

Alice In Chains blasted from the wireless speaker that her sister-in-law gave them years ago. The Trapped Butterfly was having a meltdown and her husband was helpless to help again after the meeting with the marketing agent working with her to get her children’s book published and out there!

The book is beautiful! The illustrator is excellent and got it all done in roughly 8 months. It’s now ready to be uploaded to Amazon. This will be happening this week. It’s still a few weeks away from being ready to be available to the public. She is grateful for that because, again, she feels like she doesn’t know if it’s the right time to publish the book.

Covid has gotten better the past few months but people are still dying from it when the flu is not around yet. There’s yet to be a week with no deaths in the country and world. Plus, long Covid is still an issue. People are accepting the unacceptable. Sure, 500 deaths per week is so much better than the thousands of deaths per week earlier in the pandemic. In March of this year, it was 1800 deaths per week. But people are still dying!

Her marketing agent is wonderful! However, in order to try to get people to come to events that will have to be outside, no “trigger words” can be used. She knows that the idiots get all mean and stupid when Covid and anything related to Covid is mentioned. Fewer people are masking regularly. She isn’t able to mask because of spasms and even if they are able to get it to stay on, it will further impede her ability to speak. She has wracked her brain to try to figure out how to do some events in person safely. Masking appropriately would make it safer for her and her husband to do so. Yet, it appears that that’s not possible from the marketing standpoint. So a bunch of people who may or may not be up to date with the vaccines will be interacting with them. Her husband will be taking credit cards and money from them. He is going to be helping her sign books. This puts him (and her since he is her 24 hour caregiver) at risk even though he will be masked as usual.

She watches other people live their lives in blissful chosen ignorance. She doesn’t know if she’s able to tolerate watching other authors doing the local events. She feels so robbed of something that is supposed to be joyful and fun!!

Thankfully, a little over a week ago she finally got some freedom safely. She sat in the cozy room that they were able to enter from the outside to avoid the rest of the tattoo shop. It was decorated with various weird things and artwork. The artist is so nice and willing to accommodate them! He finished the lizard leg that had been an open wound for 2 years. The needle stabbed her millions of times over the course of almost 3 hours. They could hear people talking in the main area of the shop. It felt wonderful!

Every time she looked at the progress of her leg, she was so happy and blown away. The artist wasn’t even fazed by her spasms. He created a beautiful piece out of a shitty outline. When it was finished, she was raw, but just stared at it especially when they had to go to the front desk to pay. Her husband remained masked and didn’t get close to anyone. While she waited for them to come back, she just kept staring at it and smiling.

Dark purple flower pedals. Green iguana with a grayish blue background. Bright peach desert flowers with green leaves and more grayish blue shading with the desert flower fauna. It could not have come out better—even if the original artist had finished it.

It’s still healing. Every time she sees it, she smiles at it instead of cursing it in her head or telling her late iguana that it will get done soon. She is so happy to have ink back in her life with an artist that is up to date with the Covid shots. He is also very like-minded about a number of other issues that are going on right now.

Why can’t there be more people like him? Also, she has been promoting the fact that July is Disability Pride Month. Until a couple years ago she didn’t even know about Disability Pride Month because the damn mainstream media ignores it. People with disabilities have been the most ignored minority with laws that used to not even allow them to be in public. Disability rights are constantly in jeopardy, especially now with the right wing cult trying to take away women’s rights and the LBGTQ+ community is also being attacked by the right wing cult. Taking away the rights of transgender individuals to get gender affirming care, not allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender in which they identify, and not allowing them to change their gender on their driver’s licenses or ID cards. She is grateful to live in a state where these rights are protected.

She tries to calm her heart and anxiety. But as Alice In Chains sings, she is “down in a hole. Feeling so small. She wants to flllllyyyyy.”

Red Sun, Smoke…Is This The Right Time?

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

She looks out the small holes of the wooden blinds on the windows. The sun shines right at the house in the late spring and summer so they have to close the blinds at a certain time in the evening so it doesn’t blind them. It’s red from the smoke due to the horrible wildfires in Canada. She and her husband have been wanting to go outside but the air quality has been bad for people with asthma to be out for a prolonged period of time. It’s been very difficult for The Trapped Butterfly since they are still not able to live how they used to due to Covid. Smaller and smaller groups seem to be trying to avoid getting it or being reinfected with Covid despite the research showing that it is affecting health in pretty nasty ways.

As she looks at the red sun, she tries to see it as a sign that everything is going to work out with publishing her children’s book…Except the reality is that the thought of publishing it now that it’s finally done is scaring the living shit out of her.

Technically, The Trapped Butterfly is already a published author and has been called horrible names by Christian pro-spankers. She dealt with the trauma of the book not taking off and then finding out that the publisher was bad. They went to jail for embezzling money.

She is living through a terrifying time in her life…Well, it feels like it hasn’t really let up since her beloved mother in law went to Heaven. But this current situation with a virus that seems to be getting less severe and less acutely deadly than it was as well as all the division in the country with the narcissistic right wing cult of hatred, it feels terrifying to release a new book. She is fucking desperate to be able to interact with children in person!! She truly believes that people will come to her book events! But trying to explain her situation with Covid to people is scary because she has been laughed at as well as the typical bullshit the Covid deniers continue to spread when they see anything about Covid. Even her marketing agent was weird, unless she misunderstood, about having people wear masks for interviews and events.

She also had an unexpected wave of grief after speaking to her marketing agent. The sudden grief was about her biological family not being there for the first time in her life to cheer her on…Not that they did it for the right reasons but still…

Then she had a dream about her narcissistic mother that her mother had changed the book with other family members. Yet, The Trapped Butterfly was kind of happy to see her mother. She felt sad when they departed in the dream and she had to decide whether to have her mother back in her life in some way or not.

Of course, knowing how sick her mother truly is, there is very little chance that she will ever be able to have her mother back in her life. Her mother is incapable of truly forgiving. She only looks out for herself.

The Trapped Butterfly just feels more trapped again as well as overwhelmed. She knows that she will push through. The book will be published. And she will find ways to be able to safely do stuff without hurting/killing her husband or herself. But the uncertainty is killing her.

On top of all this, it’s also the worst time of year for her and her husband. They lost their beloved kitty almost 6 years ago so they still struggle with heavy grief and PTSD from the loss. Their sweet calico kitty is about to be 17 years old. The kitties were adopted and brought home together. She is so grateful for the calico continuing to do well with her kidney disease unlike her brother, but The Trapped Butterfly is fighting thoughts about the horrible loss of her someday… May they have a few more years with this sweet little kitty. May the quality of life for her kitty remain high too.

In the end, she has to trust that everything will work out how it is supposed to go. It will be fine…Yet, is this the right time for everything?

Is Anything Good Enough? Is She Good Enough?

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

The Trapped Butterfly is feeling frustrated, depressed, overwhelmed and like nothing is good enough. No wonder since she has been told she isn’t good enough throughout her life by society and her family. Today’s Mother’s Day and it’s always been rough since her beloved mother-in-law left the Earth almost 8 years ago. She is always with them.

Over four years ago, The Trapped Butterfly found out that her mother was extremely narcissistic. The signs were always there but it took her mother rejecting a visit from them for The Trapped Butterfly to find out that her mother is very sick. It makes sense with all the horrible things that she has said to The Trapped Butterfly and the hidden criticism from her mother. After all, what kind of mother chooses a car over her child? What kind of mother would always keep things over her child’s head? And what kind of mother would tell her daughter that the corvette jacket that was her beloved grandpas’ would “look stupid on her” and refuse to let her have it? Not to mention the fact that she allowed The Trapped Butterfly and her siblings be abused by their father.

Yet, there are times when The Trapped Butterfly wants “her mom.”

On top of Mother’s Day, the children’s book that was so traumatic to get illustrated by supposed “friends” is finally almost finished. Yet, except for a few people, the lackluster response to the book is making her have loops of negative thinking which is something she constantly struggles with. Negative thoughts flying around her mind.

Is the book crap? Was it all for nothing? Was this another royal fuck up? What’s the point with Covid still being a threat to her husband and her which is infuriating!

She is grateful for meditation and to try to replace the thoughts with truth. But she is so fucking sensitive!! Even watching tv, she cries at literally everything that is sad or really happy. She has always been this way. Her husband always tells her that she can’t carry the whole world on her shoulders. Everything hurts her heart. She isn’t perfect and can definitely be a bitch, but she feels so deeply.

She knows that her book is awesome. The illustrator is a professional that is published as the illustrator of other books. So why wouldn’t anyone not love it except for the insane Christian right wing cult that hates anyone who is different from them?

She knows people are trying to help. She needs the help. But can’t it just be about getting endorsements and reviews? She isn’t ready for criticism about the damn book! She wrote the title of the book literally with her nose! Not an easy task to do!

It will all work out, she thinks to herself? Somehow the book will be published and it will be as successful as possible. What that looks like is a mystery.

She will always wonder if anything is good enough. She needs to keep learning the she is good enough no matter what society says.

And she won’t always be trapped.

Dark Clouds, Sunshine, Venus, and More Dark Clouds

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

It’s been a good month for The Trapped Butterfly. The 20th wedding anniversary celebration was awesome! The rain stopped for it and despite the park having the wrong date for the shelter, the group that was using the shelter left without a problem.

Seeing people that they haven’t seen in years was wonderful. Not worrying too bad about Covid was wonderful! Everyone’s eyes were so sparkly. The trees were full of fresh buds springing to life. The temperature was perfect. The only annoying thing was the wind blowing at times.

Looking into his beautiful sparkly brown eyes as I they renewed their “vowels” as The Trapped Butterfly had been calling it was breathtaking. She actually can’t believe that she didn’t cry that much. The ceremony was led by her early childhood professor who is now a lifelong friend and the ceremony was full of laughter and love. Typical for The Trapped Butterfly and her husband as they have a both goofy yet sweet relationship. It came through in the ceremony!

Being around people again renewed her spirit and sense of hope that she will eventually get her life back. She looks forward to celebrating her children’s book that is finally almost finished and ready to be published!

So much trauma with this book. Her so-called friends wanted to help but they fucked them over. This true illustrator has gotten this done in about 8 months. It’s just about done!! Her “friends” didn’t keep working on it consistently and they quit because they were assholes.

While she is so excited about her book finally getting done, she is sad because she can’t do what she’s been hoping to do and go to libraries and schools to read the book. She hopes to have an outside book party with a plexiglass cube around her to avoid Covid exposure while, at least, getting to celebrate the book and see children. It’s heartbreaking that she hasn’t been around children for 3 years now. She misses it so much. Her husband thinks that with a cube around her and having it outside will be safe.

Despite all the beautiful sunshine from having major things finally going right, she feels the dark clouds still coming in as she deals with the fact that, yes, she hung out with people and celebrated her 20th wedding anniversary as well as her book getting done, she still isn’t completely freed yet. They are going to get their second bivalent shot next week, but unlike most people, they still can’t just be normal. They are terrified of Covid and she doesn’t have the ability to take the treatment for it. They are still trapped. But she is trying to hold onto hope that this won’t last too much longer. She has to accept the darkness of the clouds.

Plus, tomorrow is her narcissistic mother’s birthday and she hates it. It’s weird because she didn’t feel sad about her family not even knowing about the vow renewal. She didn’t miss them. She is grateful for the video her friend took of it because they haven’t watched their wedding video in years with so many nasty people that have hurt her deeply, but yet, she wishes she had a mom like she thought she did before everything finally blew up 4 years ago.

Then May 2nd is the 7th anniversary of her dear grandpa leaving the earth. She misses him so much. She can still hear herself screaming, “Grandpa, No! No! Grandpa!” Tears wick at her eyes writing that. He was far from perfect. They fought sometimes but they never let it go beyond that time and always ended on a loving note. He was the only family member that was able to have a healthy relationship with her.

She looks out the top of the window and she has been seeing Venus in the night sky. It gives her comfort as she continues to hope for more of the sunshine (without the heat) moments and faces the dark clouds that are always trying to overcome her.

Again…Really???

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

The Trapped Butterfly’s eyes and head hurt from just crying and sobbing! Her mind keeps spinning as she tries to process what her husband said after watching Downton Abbey. The character, Sybil, needlessly dies after having her baby due to the doctor and her father not wanting to listen to the other doctor who had known her her whole life and knew she was experiencing Preeclampsia. Had they gotten her to the hospital and delivered her baby via C-section, she and the baby girl would both have probably lived.

Of course, earlier today The Trapped Butterfly had a doctors appointment via telehealth where she asked about the treatment, Paxlovid, for Covid. Due to her severe cerebral palsy, she has trouble taking pills and is unable to take any that are not small. Even those can be a nightmare to swallow. So if The Trapped Butterfly gets Covid, her doctor said that she would put her on the Z-Pack (liquid) to prevent any nasty bacteria and steroids. Basically the treatment that was given at the start of the pandemic. Isn’t that nice?? Just symptom treatment and not something that is proven to keep most people at risk of severe illness from Covid out of the hospital or dying.

She was encouraged that the doctor said she was seeing milder cases recently.

But the fact that The Trapped Butterfly has to solely rely on the shots that she has gotten to fight it off made her cry a little right after the appointment. Then watching this heartbreaking episode of Downton Abbey made her husband finally breakdown and tell her that he was terrified of the tattoo appointment on Monday. The artist isn’t vaccinated against Covid and when The Trapped Butterfly checked in with her, she claimed she couldn’t find a N95 mask and to please bring one with a laugh. Her husband isn’t comfortable with her at all.

The Trapped Butterfly knows he is right and feels stupid for making the appointment in desperation to get this damn lizard leg done. But now she has to cancel again. She worries about how it will be received and if it will ruin other chances of getting ink. She is terrified of not finding someone to do it and do a cover up for her. She is terrified of her life being stolen even more. Why’d Roo and Yellow Man have to turn out to be fucked up assholes?

Sadness, anger, despair, exhaustion, fear and panic keep running rampant through her. Thankfully her meditation practice along with pot and a few shots of tequila with a beer are helping her to feel it without running away. It’s hurting so much. She talks to herself like a mother would….

“It’s ok, Little One.” “It’s ok to cry and be sad and angry.” “I know you’re having so many scary thoughts.” “You got this.”

She was looking forward to seeing what the artist would do with the tattoo. She was looking forward to a break from her life and the fact that she was choosing the pain of the tattoo. And finally having her leg look different…but again…It’s being ripped away from her because fucking Covid could still really hurt her and she doesn’t want her husband to watch her die an awful death. And despite it getting better, she doesn’t want to see her husband die from it either.

She hopes that the anniversary celebration will happen. Is anything safe? Why can’t they get a vaccine that will prevent it? Why????

For now she will use the following memory to try to get her through.

She’s lying on the soft orange carpet in front of her grandparents’ fireplace with a round coffee table in the middle of the room. She is lying on a soft pillow and is covered with a blanket. Grandpa is lying right next to her watching tv. She must have been sleepy because she has her head turned towards her grandpa and is looking at the shirt he is wearing. He is warm and she feels very safe with him. The shirt has the city of Chicago on it which is where she had just taken a school field trip.

She will fall asleep and will be carried to their bed without waking up. She is safe with her grandpa….

Trapped Again by Covid and Selfish People

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

She had a nightmare the other night that the new tattoo shop was full of people. Her husband had to tell them to stay away from her. She was trying to cover her face with her hands and people were making fun of her.

Another Covid dream. She’s been having them since the pandemic started. She is terrified of getting the virus. She’s terrified of her husband getting it. Yes, they have made some progress in the vaccines and treatments, but unfortunately, due to the narcissistic person who was president at the time of the start of the pandemic, the CDC and conspiracy theorists have made this worse than it might have been had they had a normal president at the time.

Now that tattoo appointment that she had to do a bunch of research on before she made it is gone. The governor has put her state in another state of emergency due to Covid and the flu going nuts. Hospitals are overwhelmed and again people are on ventilators.

What the FUCK??? Rage filled her body. She HATES people. They are illiterate and have an IQ of -120!!!! Don’t mask. Don’t get vaccinated and boosted. Don’t continue to limit crowds. She is actually surprised that it took this long for the whole thing to blow up. She thinks it did in the summer but not to this point. And the media kept it under wraps due to the election.

She has been sacrificing her fucking life so everyone can live and get people sick. It’s the politicians’ and greed’s fault. Money above all else. Sickening! But The Trapped Butterfly is so sick of sacrificing her life!! She is so done with empathy for anyone but the children and the people who are truly trying their best to protect themselves and others from illnesses!

If people are going to restaurants and doing other shit without a mask and get sick with Covid, too bad! They are making it impossible for her to fucking live, so she is angry. They are absolutely destroying her wings!! And their own health as well as other people’s health.

Covid is the worst thing ever to happen! She can’t risk getting it or her husband getting it. It’s getting harder for him to care for her. When he had pneumonia last month and was out of breath from carrying her, it scared her! What if he was able to stay home with her but couldn’t get out of bed and care for her and the kitties? And then they looked up the oral treatment for Covid and they said that the pills cannot be crushed or broken so if she can’t take them, she is fucked!!!

Everything hurts so much. She misses her family—both biological and chosen. They shit all over her and she still misses them so much! It hurts so much! Gawd dammit!! It hurts! Her body aches and she sobs. She is so fucking tired of choosing the hard road to try to get to the better road. Is there even a better road??

As Bryan Adams sings, “It cuts like a knife, but it feels so right!”

Just a Trapped Butterfly in a Complicated World

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

It’s already Christmas time and she has been struggling with grief, physical pain, anxiety, and depression. She keeps getting the ache in her chest and stomach as if her heart was ripped out and she has been split in two. She has been having trouble with her emotional responses lately. It scares her.

Recently a few people have gotten Covid and have not been doing everything in their power to protect themselves from it. She has very little empathy for them. Really, she feels angry at them for being so stupid and selfish by not doing everything they can to help prevent it. Of course, she wants them to be ok. But her darker side is almost wanting something bad to happen to really wake them up to the fact that this virus is still deadlier than the flu. She knows this really isn’t who she is or who she wants to become, but being unable to free herself without fear of getting really sick or getting her husband really sick has made her just over it.

She actually misses the days of the start of the pandemic when many people were doing the right things. There were always assholes, but the majority of the people who were smart and on the side of Science did everything they could to help protect themselves and others. Now it’s even lonelier. The majority has decided that the pandemic is over and that Covid is not something to worry about.

Not even a year ago thousands of people were dying from Covid. Now deaths are lower but still higher than the flu. She just doesn’t understand. And yet, she’s supposed to be all empathetic when people who are not doing enough to protect themselves and others get sick? It’s confusing. She wants to be free, but she’s afraid of the virus because they are so high risk.

Her wings are desperate to open more. Yet, the other day while waiting for curbside services, she was watching all the people in the parking lot and she felt so grossed out. The thought of even trying to get out of the vehicle gave her physical tingles down her spine. She thought that if she was to try to get out of the vehicle, she would have a panic attack.

She feels like she’s losing her mind. She has a tattoo appointment in a week, and yet, she’s not able to be excited about it. She has to make sure that they don’t come in contact with unmasked people. She had to research the hell out of them before she even contacted them to see if they would work with her unique body and then keep them safe from viruses. Nothing is simple anymore. NOTHING!! Being severely physically disabled is always complicated. And the older she gets, the more complicated it becomes. But now she can’t DO ANYTHING WITHOUT INTENSE PLANNING!!! And with the country acting like it is over, it’s even more dangerous and complicated!

So why should she have a lot of empathy when people are sick if they don’t even try anymore? She’s literally lost so much ability than she already was limited by her disability. Hell, she can’t even take a shit without a very special, supportive chair for the butterfly to sit in. Hers is falling apart and hurting her hip but it isn’t readily available. Hopefully the guy she was hooked up with will find her one. But she can’t go to the wheelchair place to see if they can make one for her unless it’s private and they wear masks.

It hurts to be ignored even more by society. It hurts that people are just doing whatever they want and not being careful. What about us?

Yet, there are times when the spirit world hears her. Yesterday was one of those times. As her husband smoked his cigar, The Trapped Butterfly “went antiquing” online. Oh how she used to love antiquing. The smell of old things made her take deep breaths to drink in the scent of days gone by. She loves antique cats and Santas. The smell of her husband’s cigar made it smell antique like.

After looking at some cool antique Santas, she decided to look for a couple of Santas that her grandparents had in her childhood. Anyone who has been following her journey since Grandpa went to Heaven knows that she quickly learned that her grandma isn’t who she grew up with, and that her narcissistic mother started really showing her true self even more after her grandpa left for the ether.

She realizes he was her mediator for the stuff she was was either unaware of and/or didn’t want to see. So knowing that she will never get anything else from them when Grandma finally goes, she decided to find one of the 2 Santas that she remember from childhood. One she was afraid of because it would dance when you squeeze the belly. The other one was dancing on a stand. She asked her grandpa to help her find one. Her husband asked the spirits to help her as he sent cigar smoke to the heavens.

She couldn’t find the exact one but she showed her husband the picture of the one they have and the set she found on eBay. He immediately said yes because she was over analyzing it and wanted to make sure that it was close enough. Her husband immediately recognized it was very close to the one that her grandparents had and she ordered it. Plus, Mrs. Claus is included. Tears of joy ran down her face because Grandpa was helping her again. Thank you, Grandpa! I love you so much! Big hug! She got hers!

Eruption

Posted on by The Trapped Butterfly

The Trapped Butterfly has been fighting for this opportunity for a few months after the tattoo artist she found to give her a private tattoo session failed her this fall. She finally found another private shop where they are very liberal about everything. She took her time researching the shop and the artists. She hemmed and hawed over reaching out to them.

See, her biological family, including her narcissistic mother, have tattoos and she always wanted one, but due to her inability to sit still due to her severe cerebral palsy as well as her low tolerance for pain, she never thought she could do it. After her beloved grandfather went to Heaven, she decided she wanted to do it and get one for her grandpa.

Nobody thought that it would work for her. As determined as she was, The Trapped Butterfly had her doubts about it. Then she researched it herself and found out that others with her condition had tattoos. She still remembers the day when her husband took her to a local tattoo shop to see if anyone was even willing to try it with her…Ahhhh….The days before Covid…The days before all hell really broke loose leading to pretty much constant trauma…The days when she was as free as she could be…

Anyway, the day they went to the tattoo shop, she was so anxious that they would just reject her. She hated rejection. But they didn’t reject her! She got the appointment for the day after her birthday and she got so fucking high for the tattoo and she did it!!

Since then, she can’t get enough ink. In the past 6 years she has covered her body with beautiful colors and artwork that reflect her and the different things she loves as well as the different traumas she has been through. Getting tattoos makes her have to remain in the present moment. Tattoos make her feel accomplished, successful, pretty, and in control. She has constant physical and emotional pain. Tattoo pain is her choice!!

She tries so desperately to keep her emotional pain under wraps but it comes out. And it came out this morning when she got a message from her, hopefully, new artist that she’s not able to get her in in the best time of day for The Trapped Butterfly and her husband. Well, her brain, even though she had just meditated, went into panic and fight and flight mode. She knows that this is a very difficult time of day for them to be getting her tattooed. It’s during dinner time and tattoos usually take 2 hours or more. When her husband wasn’t able to give her what she needed, she erupted.

She admitted that the time was awful. She wanted him to help. But he couldn’t help her, and then she felt backed into a corner. Trapped. Her wings fluttered frantically in attempt to right themselves and not let go of some freedom.

As trapped animals do, when he couldn’t help her, she lashed out at him. In this moment, he was an enemy to protect herself from. She could feel herself doing it again and couldn’t do anything about it. She screamed at him for not helping her even though he does everything for her. The Trapped Butterfly wanted him to understand and feel the pain she was feeling and said something stupid about him not being able to smoke cigars anymore. That led to the response of her being like her dad. Her dad was so selfish and narcissistic that he couldn’t be happy for anyone who had something that he wanted and couldn’t have.

She knows that she can be like her parents. But gawd damnit, she was fucking trapped for almost 3 years!!! Man, not even being able to do anything herself should make her bitter. She desperately wanted children but it didn’t work out, so she should be mad at people for having children. Fuck, she should be pissed at all abled-bodied people for being able to do everything but SHE’S NOT!!! Yes, throughout her life she has felt left out and depressed. She’s gotten envious and angry. But never to the point of her dad. She is not perfect. The majority of the time she’s truly happy for people because she’s got her own full life, or at least she did.

The comment only made her feel worse about herself as she had already felt bad for hurting him. Unfortunately, she was out of control so that comment was the breaking point and she screamed “I HATE YOU” over and over again and that he was like her dad and mother and she screamed her dad’s name over and over.

She screamed and flailed as she was in more pain about her out of control eruption of emotions that she couldn’t control until finally she started to cry and she started to be able to breathe and use some comfort phrases. She played the song, “Beautiful Girl” by Sarah McLachlan in her head to help calm her down and be like a mom talking to her daughter.

She took a while to calm but finally everything started to quit flailing around and she apologized for what she said but she expected it back. She isn’t perfect and she has a trigger about apologies being accepted and forgiveness. She was still in somewhat her head when he apologized and she already forgave him but she forgot to say it so she said it when he asked if she was going to tell him that she forgave her.

The Trapped Butterfly has to be selfish and see if this can be her new home and safe place. Here in rural country, there’s not much selection for tattoo shops and they have to be willing to work with her body as well as keep her and her husband safe from viruses that are spreading because people are selfish and won’t keep wearing masks and keep up with their vaccinations. It’s just bullshit that she continues to be trapped despite being up on all the vaccinations! So she made the decision to go ahead with her tattoo appointment with the new artist and hope for the best with the messed up schedule. Hope that she can release some of the agitation, the restlessness, the pain, the rage by getting really high on cannabis and the meds she needs for her body to relax as much as possible and feeling the pain of the needle going across her skin, stabbing her hundreds of times. The pain that is producing beauty on her body in which she gets to keep forever and ever.

While The Trapped Butterfly still feels very anxious about it for many reasons, the fact that the artist has already been so willing to work with her and responds to her is a hopeful sign. It will all work out. But in a few weeks The Trapped Butterfly will get some much needed freedom and relief!!!