What's My Story?

Some people ask, “How did a biological anthropologist working on her dissertation end up in a cabin on a mountain living off the grid? And why did she end up work withing grief and trauma?”

After a rapid succession of significant losses including my grand thoroughbred mare, who died suddenly of a burst aneurysm; the loss of my much-adored husky; my father‘s injury, subsequent care, and death in hospice; followed by the loss of my best friend… that was a lot of loss to handle in a short amount of time and then….

October 1, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada. The shock and trauma of that night shook me to the core. As he had for several years, my husband was covering the Route 91 festival as a photojournalist. He ended up documenting a massacre. It was a nightmare for everyone and too many losses to even imagine. Our community still grieves.

After that horrific night, my husband got counseling but I didn’t know what to do to help myself. All of the grief seemed overwhelming and I didn’t know where to begin to deal with everything. Add to this all the significant loss and unattended grief I’d been carrying, even back to the loss of my brother and mum years earlier. I chose to do what I had done in the past, what many of us do when we feel overwhelmed and unsure how to ease the pain. I bottled up my emotions until finally, I retreated to the mountain and withdrew from everything and almost everyone.

I sat on the front deck of my cabin looking down over the valley and felt removed, detached, insulated from harm. But I knew that was just an illusion. The fear of losing anyone else disturbed my dreams, which morphed into nightmares on a regular basis. I would wake up covered in sweat, shaking, heart pounding, hyperventilating.

Finally in seeking support for my husband at a group, the chaplain turned to me and said, “Misty, you’re a bit of a mess right now and you need some help.” If you believe like I do that the universe sends us what we’re seeking, I’m thankful that someone heard my plea and recognized my distress.

I was diagnosed with what is called complicated grief (Prolonged Grief Disorder) and panic stress disorder. My body would shake from the inside out so hard it would be uncontrollable. I thought everybody was going through something like this after what happened in my town. I began to feel more comfortable remembering the dead than interacting with the living.

Let me tell you, that is a dangerous and slippery slope?—?if you find yourself there, reach out in whatever way you’re able?—?for help.

Believe me, you have something worthwhile to contribute to this world. Never give up on yourself.

Anyone who has experienced complicated grief knows that it’s like a dark hole that you fall into and at the bottom, find that you’re in a quagmire of hopelessness and despair. Trauma also can get stored in the body, and results in biological responses that arise from a hypervigilant nervous system.

My recovery required working first on the ability to regulate my body’s biological responses in order to begin working in a regulated state on my grief, layer by layer. Once I learned how to self-regulate, only then could I begin to address all the grief that I’d buried.

Today I’m forever grateful to have gotten the help I needed to climb out of that hole and begin living life with my whole heart. But it took somebody reaching down into that mess to offer me a hand. To tell me I was worthwhile. I’ll never forget that lifeline.

Grief and trauma led me to a place I never thought I’d find myself. It’s a place I hope you never go?—?but if you do, please know that there are people who genuinely care about you and believe that you are worthwhile. That’s why these days, I provide healing spaces for grief and related trauma.?

With support, I know that we can find our way through the dark. Life is a gift that’s worth living with your whole heart. I’m here to tell you that it can be done. You can rebuild your life after loss. You can find new meaning and purpose. I’m living proof.

“Wholeness does not mean perfection; it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life”?~ Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life