Six years. That’s how long it took to be properly diagnosed and taken seriously. Six years of unexplainable pain and feeling like I’ve gone insane. Women are often dismissed and ignored by medical professionals, and as a woman whose health wasn’t taken seriously for many years, the most important message I could share is to advocate for yourself no matter how exhausted you are and how long it takes. It’s 2013, and I have extreme symptoms when it’s time for my cycle to come around; other women in my life don’t seem to feel this way. Am I just weak? I go to get seen and they assume I’m being intimate. I’m only sixteen and sex is the last thing I want. I’m saving myself for marriage. I’m put on the pill for pain.
2014, they suggested more exercise, dieting, and flossing more. I’m healthy and have good dental hygiene this doesn’t make sense. 2015, a new form of contraception and the diagnosis of a thyroid condition called Hashimoto’s disease finally explained what I’ve been feeling. I start to let out a breath of relief but it’s not complete. My virginity is stolen from me, and I’m now at an all-time low, and I give up on finding out what’s wrong. In 2019, I experienced a chemical pregnancy, and my symptoms and pain have increased tremendously. The pain is constant and debilitating. I enter a fight or flight mode. After several years of pain and feeling like I’m being listened to but not heard I’m ready to give up and take my own life when I discover my last glimmer of hope.
My aunt. My hero. The one I owe so much to had taken me out to dinner and listened to me vent. I was finally being heard and given the courage to try just one final time before I let any negativity win. I make an appointment with someone new. I explain how I haven’t felt seen, what I was experiencing, how it makes me feel, and what I thought it was. I was practically diagnosed on the spot, but this is something that can only be diagnosed through exploratory surgery. December 16th, 2019, the day my life was changed, and I was finally heard. I was diagnosed with one of the most painful diseases most commonly found in women. Endometriosis is an often misunderstood chronic inflammatory disease where scar tissue grows on your organs. There is no cure and few treatment options but I found hope knowing I wasn’t weak and my pain wasn’t made up. It was real. I was finally able to let out that breath I was holding in for so long. I often wonder how much longer it would have taken to discover I was dealing with such an awful disease if I had given up and listened to the medical professionals who told me the pain was in my head. I have known of a few women who weren’t taken seriously and died of this disease. I hope sharing my journey encourages people to listen to their bodies and fight for themselves when they know something is wrong. If we don’t advocate for ourselves who will?

To my daughter: You asked to know more about me.

Thursday morning:

This 6 a.m. August daylight of the Arizona desert still carries the coolness of the storm from two days ago. I can see the dim sunlight filtering in through the cheap wood blinds, just enough to illuminate the beautiful plants by the window. The house is quiet. The dogs are outside, the cats are roaming the counters helping dad get ready for his short overnight trip, waiting for a treat.

Today, I have no responsibilities—except making art, sleeping, and getting high. I rarely get the house all to myself. Your brother left for work around 1 a.m., right at the peak of my trip. I handled it well, but he still questioned something I said, with that familiar “what the hell are you even saying, Mom?” look on his face. Then he softened it, to be kind, as a courtesy to me. He tries so hard to love me and be polite. What used to be painful, and insulting is now kind of charming, and I’m grateful to him for that.

I think today makes it a couple of days since I last slept. Today is Thursday 6 a.m. and I think the last time I slept was Tuesday morning before my shift. But that sleep was good, and it’s held me over just fine.

So, I have the house all to myself. Heaven!

This morning’s trip has been all about love. Everything is love and gratitude. Everything. I used to be scared to say that out loud. Growing up Mexican, you learn that you can’t be too happy – God will remind you He exists, and so do problems and misery. You can’t be too grateful or too content, or God might strike you or one of your loved ones, just to make sure you remember how life really is, and so that you’re grateful for Him, not your life.

But it isn’t just God. Even now, I feel a sense of guilt, as if acknowledging and sharing my good fortune is somehow portentousness. Society suggests that I haven’t truly paid my dues – that all the strides and hard work I’ve put in become irrelevant the moment there’s comfort and financial security. Who am I to tell anyone that their perspective shapes their life, their present, and their future? Who am I to suggest that pain can be transformed into gratitude and love, just as it’s been happening to me?

Me. Indeed, that’s my perspective. But I know other perspectives are just as valid, and I respect that. The more I embrace that understanding, the more grace I have for my own journey, the more love I feel. And with that love comes the realization that it is possible to shift perspective, to shift toward love. The more I understand that we are both the same and different, the more everything shifts to love.

But with this growing love, my need to share expands alongside it, and that’s scary. I find myself talking too much, sharing my real opinions a little too loosely, using words like love, alignment, acceptance, and curiosity. My PTSD and insecurity creep in, trying to protect me from all this vulnerability, reminding me that being real hasn’t always worked out for me. Being real got me fired within two weeks of a new manager, after eight years at my job.

But the love, acceptance and curiosity keep flowing out of me, beyond my control. If someone wants to play the chronic patient, I’ll support them in their story. If they see themselves as the suffering family member bearing the burden of the world, I’ll validate that too. I’m with them. I’ll agree, feel, and truly taste it with them. I believe them. I know it’s their truth in that moment, in that space and time.

I have a patient who is the exact replica of Jabba the Hut – a barely mobile triangular puddle of skin and bones. The first time I received her report, it was full of examples of her neediness, labeling her as a frequent flyer who just seeks attention and medication. I was ready to do the bare minimum – keep her clean and drugged to her liking. But then I also chose to be curious, and she surprised me. She was aware, painfully aware, that she had chosen this role and was playing it to the best of her ability, even though she hated it.

She had a family, grandkids, a life beyond this hospital bed. When I asked her what first led to her decline, she started telling her story. But the deeper she went, the more detached she became, as if she no longer owned it. It’s fascinating to see someone dip in and out of their narrative, aware and then unaware, perhaps to avoid destroying the world they’ve built. What would she have left if she took responsibility for creating her life? Devastation, maybe.

Either way, I did my best. I repositioned her, making her more comfortable, brushed her hair, and tied it in a ponytail. I surprised her too, by offering to set her up to brush her teeth and wash her face in bed. I’ll take credit for the very basic needs of human dignity I provided; I will take credit without guilt or a sense grandiosity.

I, too, could easily slip in and out of my own soggy story – the one where I’m the saintly nurse who sees and cares for people on their worst days, a blend of Nightingale and Mother Theresa. It’s a good story, and it’s valid. Yes, being a nurse feels like carrying a crucifix every day. How did I end up here? Why didn’t I take the easy way out, some job with less emotional weight? One with a less intense kind of customer service. But here I am, and it’s teaching me so much about what I’m missing as a person, about who I am and who I’m not. And most importantly, it’s teaching me who I want to be. I am grateful every day that my experiences at bedside help me polish my humanness. It is a humble honor to remain curious.

That is one thing you all have in common, especially you, my strong, determined daughter. None of you take the easy way out, or in.

As I write this, I am less high, more grounded. Things are starting to get denser. The liberating feeling of doing whatever I want is dissipating with my high. But I know I will enjoy my day, regardless. The plan is still the same: do nothing.
I love you baby girl

Never ignore a person who cares for you.
Because someday you’ll realize
You’ve lost a diamond, while you were busy collecting stones.
You see…I’ll do a lot for a man I love…
But I’ll do even more for a man I know that loves me…or so I thought.
You’ve got to build with somebody who wants it as bad as you do.
I thought he did but I was fed something until I didn’t want to be fed anymore.
I never wanted to control him.
I wanted to let him do what he wanted so I can see what he would rather do.
I let him lead.
There is something sexy about letting a man lead in the relationship, just as long as he’s not controlling it or controlling me.
His actions will show how much he respects you and how much he loves you.
Just because you’ve brought something up, it doesn’t mean you want to argue.
It means communication.
It means you want to resolve things, get some clarity, learn, and grow together.
You both are adults and should be able to communicate.
I did so much for a man and was left because he couldn’t communicate and I believe he grew bored and that it broke my self esteem.
Maybe the 6, almost 7 years was too much for him.
But he told me this:

“You care and worry about the wrong things and let them eat you up to the point you turn and lash out so how about you know something. If it wasn’t for you half of my ships wouldn’t have sailed, you saved my ass on numerous occasions. You are worth more than money can buy and know that you yourself just in care alone… your currency is priceless, you’re more than dreams can buy. Like stop letting the little things you think and feel deter you from being in a happier place. Yeah things suck and aren’t what you want but that doesn’t make it worthless.”

He lost his diamond.
Funny because I was born in April.
He knows what I am worth now after everything he’s done to me but yet I still ask myself this question…
Why didn’t he fight for me?
Why wasn’t I enough for him to stay around for?
Why has he stayed with who he’s with now but has let me go so fast?
Oh wait, I’m sorry, he repeatedly tells me he’s not with her.
Things aren’t what they seem.
He’s not happy.
He wants to get away from all of that.
I am the mother of his youngest daughter.
The woman his other children love and who I love so much like I was the one who carried them inside of me and gave them life.
His best friend of over 20 years.
We planned a forever together, chose the colors, the theme, songs, and now look.
Nothing…
All due to his infidelity and I can’t seem to shake it off that maybe it was also due to me growing half of him inside of me.
He and I weren’t ready to be parents again.
But I accepted this beautiful little blessing that came to be another girl.

Dear World,

It started when I was in the psych hospital in August 2020 for a severe mixed manic-depressive episode.

I was sitting at the table, coloring pictures with the friends I had made at the hospital.

I looked up and saw the psychiatrist who was seeing me during my two-week stay. Except this time, I was looking at him… differently. He stood across the day room at the nurses’ station, his back to me.

I actually checked him out.

Checked. Him. Out.

“This is crazy!” I thought.

“What’s crazy?” my friend to my right said.

“Did I say that out loud?” I asked.

“You sure did.”

“I think I’m… in love with my psychiatrist.”

There was pandemonium at the table. My friends asked me so many questions. Nobody had ever talked about having romantic feelings for their psychiatrist. The interest was high.

The problem was that I had no idea how to answer any of their questions. This concept was new to me, too.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I spent months battling my romantic interest in my psychiatrist. I felt confused. Ashamed.

I was seeing my psychiatrist in intensive outpatient therapy as well. I never once mentioned my love for him. I was afraid that if I told him, he would reassign me to another psychiatrist, and I would never see him again.

One day in January 2021, five months after I… you know, I was curious and typed “I’m in love with my psychiatrist” into the Google search bar.

The results were amazing. I was not alone. There were articles about people falling in love with their therapists. Psychiatrists were less common.

I was experiencing a phenomenon called transference. Simply put, it happens when a client transfers feelings about an attachment figure in their lives, usually their parent or guardian, onto their therapist or psychiatrist.

Usually, those feelings of transference are familial, but sometimes those feelings are romantic. So while I am not a common occurrence, I am certainly not alone in my romantic feelings.

I digested this information on my own for two weeks. Then, I summoned the courage to tell my psychiatrist that I had been having romantic feelings toward him for the past five months.

My psychiatrist was compassionate. He said that while he will never pressure me to reveal anything else, the invitation to discuss my love for him will always be there.

I poured out my feelings to him slowly over the next four months as I kept switching between inpatient and intensive outpatient treatment. However, I still felt anxious to tell him yet more.

I had told very few people about being in love with my psychiatrist. I still felt uncomfortable sharing my feelings about him with others.

One day, I finally told my therapy group at intensive outpatient treatment that I have feelings of love for my psychiatrist. Then, I told them a little about transference.

I was not completely alone. Two other clients in the group said they had loving feelings toward their therapists, but it was parental for them, not romantic.

The group therapist said that transference is “the goal” in therapy – that if a client wants to make any progress in resolving their attachment issues, then they need to experience those feelings with someone compassionate – a therapist or psychiatrist – who will help them process and heal their attachment trauma.

I don’t think I’m a typical case of transference. I don’t see my psychiatrist regularly, only when I am in crisis at the psych hospital.

I have a therapist I see weekly, with whom I process my feelings toward my psychiatrist. I wish I could see my psychiatrist at least twice a month, but that, unfortunately, isn’t possible.

It has been four years since I fell in love with my psychiatrist. I have not resolved those feelings yet. I have processed so much, yet something feels stuck. However, I still believe it is possible to heal, so I am honest and open during every session with my therapist.

Here’s my message for you: If you develop strong feelings for your therapist or psychiatrist, whether your feelings for them are familial or romantic, you are not experiencing a setback.

You are making incredible progress.

Keep going. Explore your feelings for your therapist or psychiatrist. Talk to them about how you feel. A good one will be receptive, warm, and friendly.

You will peel back many layers of emotional pain and trauma, and you will eventually heal. I believe in you.

Dear World
If I’ve learned nothing from my days on this earth thus far, it is that I control very little in my life. Whether you believe in God or some other higher power, it is evident that someone else is in control.
I believe that God has our lives planned out for us before we gasp our first breath after leaving the womb. And to take it a step further, I believe that his original plan for us is one that is much easier than the path that we actually take.
Often times I have heard people say, “Why would God let this happen?” My response is always the same, “Why not?” Why wouldn’t He challenge us?
I’ll give you an example. My first marriage was a challenge. From the start, there were signs that it never should have happened. But, as a young girl with starry eyes and visions of a Cinderella story in my head, I ignored the signs (most likely hints from God that it wasn’t what he wanted for me) and walked down the aisle. Even my father questioned my decision right before he took my arm.
I spent the next twenty years trying to make my fantasy become a reality. The man I married was not a man of faith, which made things even harder. And there were signs along the way, opportunities for me to deviate from the path I had chosen, but I didn’t. I believed that if I broke the vows I had committed to that I would fall from grace.
Once again, instead of listening to Him, I continued to keep my marriage glued together in whatever way I could. I do that a lot. I’ve done it with my family for years. But if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that God is far stronger than I am and I need to step out of the way.
When my marriage was ending, I continued to glue it together, thinking there was no way I could survive without it. My children would suffer, I would suffer, and it would be a mess. But the truth is, once I let go and let it happen, things got easier. That’s not to say that divorcing someone after 20 years of marriage and two children is easy, it’s not. But I can tell you that with time, things got easier. I got stronger and happier. But it wasn’t on my own; God was beside me every step of the way.
There have been many other challenges in my life. I have learned not to be afraid of what life deals me. I have learned that there is lesson in everything that happens, even if I don’t know the reason.
I have also learned to cherish the quiet times. Those times when life seems easier, and more peaceful. Those are the times when I contemplate the moments that weren’t so quiet and what there is to learn from them.
Philippians 4:12-13 “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

I’ve learned to not walk in your shoes
The ones where you took them off in the club
The ones where you didn’t get your feet rubbed by a lover

The ones where you ran away from all that loved you
The ones where you stepped on glass and didn’t understand you were protected

I’ve learned to not walk in shoes
That didn’t belong to me anyway
I learned to not walk in shoes because they didn’t get me closer to you

I learned that your shoes held memories
I never wanted to have
But needed.

I learned from your shoes how much you love yourself
How much you punish yourself for loving others
I learned how much you’re willing to give and give
Until you’re depleted

I have learned from your shoes
With love:that this world has mistreated your heart
Held it in their hands and called you
“BABY. You know nothing.”

And yet you’ve walked in so many hoe’s
And yet I’ve walked in yours
And I still see that I love you

I love your scars
I love your sadness
I love your happiness
I love how you love
Even when the love hasn’t been returned to you

So, my love.
I want you to know that I would walk in your shoes again
And again
And again

Until we meet at a crossroads
Between time and space
And I would trade shoes with you

Just so we can be close again
I love you
And I want to rub your feet
The ones that are tired of running from the love you give

So. You too can feel like love
Because you always have been
Running from yourself.

Rest your heart, your mind.
Your Soul
Your shoes

Your spirit

With me.

Allow me to be with you
You beautiful soul
With feet made to fit the palms of my hands

I will always walk in your shoes.
Til the end of time.

My love.

what is life? life that’s heavily filled with mistakes and blessings but most of all intelligible lessons

you choose a certain route that you believe is the right way to go but deep, intensely down inside you know there’s a dead zone

approaching really and mighty slow you still take your time to believe to do what’s right but what’s right when two wrongs can’t make a right, up there look! at the left light you finally realized there was a yellow light all of this time but you still decided to speed on up right?

through and bright like the red light see this is why we have to accept things we cannot change the stop sign is only there for it’s own specific gain

which is for you to abide by and not potentially meant to be changed but change we expect to always fluctuate but are you ready?

to build up and mouton because you expect for things to always go your way but when human beings aren’t meant for you trust me you won’t have to over think double checking if you’re actually coherent in your own brain

the brain that allows for you to grow and change within all the impossible says and impossible many ways

another thing this isn’t a Marco Polo game stop choosing what chooses you listen don’t get offended

I’m talking about the venomous snake that’s in the grass that you live in, that you walked in with your own two feet without looking down to find yourself nothing to see

see the tricks that many sour candies can cause that you eat which is always sour than sweet but this life is created for everyone including you and me

but i can only talk not preach
this is your lesson, your mistakes, your testimony, your personal journey made just for you to experience and even see

My message to the world would be simple. We as humankind must understand that we are not control of anything. Life happens we are on our own individual assignments. And what happens along our journey is predestined there are events that are out of control, the death of someone close , why are some able to stay and others leave this world much too soon Who we love and nurture we don’t get to choose our families, we become apart of them and they apart of us. We can’t control a person’s thoughts. And how they feel about you as much as we want them to love us , they choose not to. When can only take our thoughts captive. The journey of life is tedious and captivating . That’s not to say that are robotic we feel emotions , we strive for better in our individual ways. But at the end of everyday the fact remains we are just micro fragments in scheme of life. And we control nothing.

In the backdrop of the Wasatch mountains, a little askew from where life zooms by at 80 miles per hour, I stood with my friend on a trail, panting and staring up at a starkly blue sky. I was trying to find peace while he was droning on about the dramas of his dating life—of this twenty-two-year-old girl he was in love with and her inability to choose him. I think there was something about a forty-one-year-old preying on her, that she was letting it happen, and my own thoughts about youthfulness—about how she wasn’t at an age to know what it was she wanted. I kicked a rock and thought about how long we had been hiking, about how long he had been talking.

But did I know what it was that I wanted? After all, I had come to the mountains to breathe in the slowness, and I had selected terrible company for that goal. I’m twenty-eight but there’s not much difference between twenty-two and me, when my grandparents of eighty-three are smashing cake into each other’s mouths to celebrate sixty years of companionship. Even in their experience, they still don’t always know what it is they want for dinner that night.

My grandparents have experienced a treasure chest full of life, but life expands farther than their sheltered, walled in realm of Utah. Their treasure chest is their microcosm, their eighty years. A good microcosm, but not quite enough to have life “figured out.”

That was how my friend put it when he was relenting to my questions about this young girl he wanted to love. She thinks, at twenty-two, that she has life figured out. That she knows what this forty-one-year-old wants when he says he could see himself marrying her. I told my friend that he didn’t have life figured out either. No one did—not even ninety-year-old men who had seen everything under the sun. If they had seen war and read hundreds of books and maneuvered great political events in history, if they had lived to one-hundred-and-ten—

They still wouldn’t have life figured out. Because life is bigger than them.

The hiking trail I stood on with my dog and my friend and my backpack full of water was a microcosm in itself. It was a sliver of the greater planet that had eons of history embedded in it. It was a fleeting conversation between friends on the matter of life and love, truly young minds trying to grasp something abstract about living that they’ll never be able to grasp. Not a single person on this Earth has life figured out, and probably won’t until death.

From where I started to where I am now, helped me realize how quickly we can arrive at our destinations.
Soon after, these destinations become pit stops on the journey to our next location.
We rarely stop to take in all that we accomplished, and rush to do or be more.

I often remind myself to ‘lighten up,’ as I know I am walking in the right direction.
Sometimes I feel as though time is just passing me by while I stand in place.
Then I look back and realize I’m in a spot I once longed for.

Be sure to stop and acknowledge all you have accomplished so far, and use that as motivation to further yourself.

We are forever evolving and there is no time frame for growth. Embrace your journey with a whole heart and at your own pace.

Have you gone stagnant with life
And lost your sense of control
Pick yourself up no matter the strife
Learn to love your soul

Open your heart for all to see
Don’t let anything hold you back
Allowing someone to control thee
You’re life will always crack

Your journey is a learning one
It’s truly for you to feel
If you can read you’re not done
It’s a time to live and heal

Sometimes when you don’t understand
Where the roads seem to go
Someone will come take your hand
And love you from head to toe

If you’re feeling unloved in anyway
Send prayers up above
Open your mind everyday
And God will send his love

Dear Unsealed readers;
You may find my letter cliche in its content. The roller coaster I’ve been on since my illness, I assure you is compelling fiction. Growing up we are told to be grateful and appreciate what we have. I never truly understood that life lesson until I got sick.
Starting my 30’s already stressful. Add an extremely unplanned pregnancy after 8 years of just me and my son! Topped with a move, promotion, and progressing strange medical issues. Fast forward 7 years, surviving breast cancer every day. Along with navigating my life around my paralysis due to a rare side effect of cancer, Paraneoplastic Syndrome. Both my children live with my mom, who I’m grateful for. It’s the smaller things we forget as a “normal able body” person. I’m talking about things even as I type them that seem silly; using the bathroom when and where you want, standing up on your own, wiping your own vagina, driving, stairs, not being limited to public places because of stairs or small doors! Don’t get me wrong, I have always been a person who appreciated and was grateful for everything. My lesson is to show your gratitude and appreciation. Telling people in your life how much they mean to you. Thank often!