Hammered. Plastered. Sloshed. However you call it, that's what 2023 has been so far.

Have you ever been dealing with an obscene amount of stress, but can’t actually talk about it? I’m in that boat right now and I’m here to just discuss how stupidly hard that is. I would maybe go as far as to say it's laughable, because you know how sometimes there literally are no words so you just sit there with your jaw on the floor like contemplating if this is real life? That's where I'm at.

I really love to write, and I love to share my stories, as you know if you’ve kept up with me (and if you’re new here – welcome!), so it’s extremely difficult to not share all the details of what I have been through as of late. I know for a fact people out there can empathize with the drama and pure fucked-up-ness of it all, which is why I want to blog about it so badly. And hopefully one day I will be able to share the tales of my very recent history, but alas, that day is not today.

Instead, I will say that the sheer capacity of emotional and mental abuse I have endured over the past several months, or I guess it’s really been almost a year now, is nothing short of absurd. I have dealt with abuse like this all my life to some degree, but damn, 2022 into 2023 (for real, 2023 is drunk) has really been giving me a run for my money and testing my mental endurance on a whole other level. I have just a couple close friends who know the ins and outs of all of it, and more than once each of them has expressed genuine concern for my mental health. My therapist says I have some sort super human emotional strength, which I very much take as a compliment. I think it’s just the trauma [insert awkward laughter].

Anyway, everything that has been going on has affected just about every facet of my life and it has been utterly exhausting. I had to drop a class and eat the cost of it this spring because there was just so much on my plate mentally that I didn’t have the cognitive space for it. The stress has actually been so bad that just in the past month I’ve been to my doctor twice, the dentist, and the optometrist all because I thought I had various forms of cancer (thank you anxiety and Google). I saw my chiropractor every week, and also talked to my therapist a few times (bless that woman). Just everything about all of this has been so messed up and so mind-bending and so. fucking. hard. All while being a mom nonetheless and NOT ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO TALK ABOUT IT!

So, I just want to really take a moment to express my respect (and also vent a little!) for those of you going through some real shit that you can’t talk about yet, if ever - and I don’t mean like you can’t talk about it because you’re afraid to report something to the authorities, because if it’s a case of safety and you’re reading this, you need to tell someone as soon as possible. What I’m talking about is not being able to discuss it with others because something bigger than you is at stake, or because it is mostly isolated and would be detrimental to something important to you and/or others should word get out. And because you’re so strong, you simply endure it and stick up for yourself behind closed doors rather than blasting it everywhere for everyone to read or hear, but while also sitting in a corner barely clinging to sanity because you're in a constant state of what-the-actual-fuck. All for the sake of preserving something or someone else's reputation. If you are going through something similar, you are 100% not alone and I 100% see you. It is not necessarily the best way or even the way we want it to be happening, but it is the necessary way, at least for right now.

A drunk 2023 that you can't even talk about is not for the faint of heart, so trust and believe that you are tough as nails and a true force to be reckoned with. Literally not a single aspect of this is easy, but I stand with you through all of it, and one day we will get to share our stories – and boy will they be entertaining and powerful ones! Until then, keep holding firm, you beautiful bad asses. I am so proud of you, and you are so much stronger because of this. And honestly, 2023 was drunk like back in Feb. Now she's just a hot dumpster fire writing outrageous new shit by the day. Is it 2024 yet?

Cheers!

- The Whiskey Mom