On Mondays I have standing (back-to-back) meetings and the kids have individual therapy, so I work in my car. This morning, my hotspot was lagging, and my brain was screaming “You’re not enough”. I dodged questions like dirty looks, hoping no one would notice the lag (they did, of course).

In that moment, I felt so thin; like there will never be enough of me to fulfill my current demands.

…but I pushed on. The kids finished therapy, I recapped with each of their therapists, and we headed to get lunch before I checked them back into school. Then it’s back to work for me. Again, hoping I can just ‘be enough’ for the rest of the day.

Thursday is group therapy after school on the other end of town. It’s a fun trip through the Baton Rouge evening traffic.

Soon, it will be another group therapy (for my son) at an unknown date and time but it will definitely be on the other end of town; a fun trip through Baton Rouge evening traffic.

All this while juggling recovery, self-care, basic household duties and a million other little things that only count when they are all added together.

I am NOT complaining. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I have the opportunity to provide healing for them; that I have the flexibility at work to make their appointments. I wish I had the same through my own early childhood trauma.

I’m just angry. It feels like something else that was taken from us.

Another layer of ‘fuck you’. It’s more salt in the wound from our abuser.

This is the first of (I’m sure many) tiny effects of this trauma that I have yet to recognize.

The big ones are obvious. The pain, the anger, the remorse and grief and guilt. It’s the physical, emotional and recovery that is needed. But it’s also stolen time…and added complications to a daily life that was already on the brink of collapse.

It’s not feeling like I can fully be in any one place at a time. I can’t fully be a mom, walking her children through (hopefully) the worst experience of their lives. I can’t fully be a friend, present in a conversation or a leader, mentoring her teams to success. I can’t fully be any version of me because I’m so broken. It’ll probably be this way for a while