Rock Bottom Was Only The Lobby

Tag: #RockBottomWasOnlyTheLobby

  • Get Out of the Lobby: Why I Finally Stopped Letting Other People Rent Space in My Head

    Get Out of the Lobby: Why I Finally Stopped Letting Other People Rent Space in My Head

    Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. I know my recent posts have been a deep dive into the “horror show”, especially that recent look into the generational trauma and the absolute, inherited madness that was running through my family tree way before I was ever born. I know I’ve been wading through some dark, inherited sludge lately.

    But I want to be crystal clear: this isn’t a tragedy. I’m not writing this to keep us stuck in the basement of our own histories. I’m writing this because the end of this story? It’s actually a really, really happy ending. I want you to stick around because, while I’ve had to walk through fire to get here, I’ve finally reached the part of the movie where the protagonist actually wins.

    You know that specific, arrogant little moment where you think, “Yes, finally! I have arrived! I have cracked the code of the universe! I am an enlightened being!”? And then, five minutes later, you find yourself staring at a wall wondering why you bought that weird blue cheese at the grocery store?

    Yeah. That’s my life. I live for those “aha” moments. But I’ve realized that right when I think I have it all figured out, the universe leans in and reminds me that I absolutely do not. And for the first time ever? I’m okay with that. I’ve learned a lot, and the tuition for this education was exorbitant. I paid the price. I’m talking full-market-value for my wisdom.

    The “Dumpster Fire” Era

    From 2015 to 2023, my life was essentially a low-budget horror film that had been doused in gasoline. After my husband Keith died, I found myself trapped in an abusive relationship, spiraling into a haze of drugs, just waiting for the curtain to close. And then, the universe pushed me further than I thought possible: I watched that partner take his own life right in front of me.

    That was the peak of the chaos. I felt like I was just waiting to die because everything else in my world had gone to absolute shit.

    The “Aha” Moment (That Didn’t Fix Everything)

    I didn’t always know what boundaries were. In fact, before I met Keith and his mother, Barbara, I thought a “boundary” was just a suggestion you ignored to keep people happy.

    I’ll never forget the day I got my first real taste of the truth. We were sitting there filling out disability paperwork for me, this huge, heavy, life-changing stuff, and my mom called. She demanded I stop everything to run her errands. I got off the phone and told Barbara and Keith I had to leave to do it. They just looked at me like I had three heads. “What the fuck are you talking about? We’re doing this for you right now, and this is important.”

    I was defensive. “But it’s my mother! I can’t tell her no!”

    I was wrong, and they were right. No was an option. But here is the raw truth: knowing that and doing that are two very different things. I didn’t become a boundary ninja overnight. Far from it. I stayed in that abusive relationship way too long. I let myself get taken advantage of; I was robbed; I had so much taken from me while I was still trying to figure out how to stand up for myself. I was out there in the trenches, just trying to survive without a roadmap. It wasn’t until after that final tragedy that the real, permanent shift finally took hold.

    The Rescue Mission & The Retraining

    Around the end of 2020, I started my real-life rescue mission. I saved my mother from my sister, who, let’s be real, is a certified nightmare. I did it because I needed a purpose, and I was ready to be a daughter again.

    But bringing Mom into my life required the ultimate boundary test. It took some serious retraining. I told her, “I will take care of you until the day you die, and I’m happy to do it. But it’s going to be with respect, love, and strict boundaries.”

    And do you know what? She listened. We healed 40 years of hurt and pain. I saw my mom, who had been depressed for as long as I could remember, actually become happy. It was my first real crack at holding a boundary, and I realized: boundaries aren’t there to push people away; they’re there to create a safe enough space for love to actually grow.

    The Great Pivot

    Then 2023 hit like a wrecking ball. I lost my dad, then my mom. I began noticing more and more how some of my friendships were one-sided. Then they imploded and I cut off contact. It wasn’t just friends I had to cut off anymore, I had to perform surgery on my own family tree. I cut off the toxic members, stopped letting them have a seat at my table, and stood in the wreckage of my old life, completely alone.

    But this time, instead of avoiding pain I did something revolutionary: I leaned in.

    The “Don’t Touch My Shit” Era

    Once I stopped letting the wrong people have a seat at my table, I became a person I didn’t even recognize.

    I was single for a while, and let me tell you: it was fucking fantastic. I discovered the absolute, intoxicating joy of sovereignty. I could do whatever I wanted. No one touched my shit, no one moved my shit, no one took my shit. I was in heaven.

    I realized everything I’d ever begged a partner, friend, or family member to give me, validation, help, fulfillment, I could just give to myself. The moment I stopped getting angry that they weren’t providing it and just started providing it for myself, the whole world opened up.

    The Real Payoff

    And here is the beautiful part of the plot twist: When you finally do the work, set the boundaries, and cultivate that self-love, dating hits different.

    I’ve spent a lifetime in weird, dysfunctional dynamics where one or both of us was fundamentally broken. But this is the first time I’ve ever been in a healthy exchange with another healthy adult. There is so much power in the “I don’t need you; I choose you” energy. I don’t need someone to save me, to complete me, or to fix me. I am already whole. Choosing to be with someone from that place of strength? It’s amazing. It is a completely different world.

    Ascending the Hotel

    I look at myself now, and I see that little girl who got her dreams crushed all those years ago. I scoop her up. I tell her, “It’s okay. I got you. I’ve always had you, and I always will.”

    I have my own back. I pick myself up off the floor, and I climb another level of this hotel.

    If you’re feeling lost, know this: you are not stuck in the lobby. The lobby is for waiting. The lobby is for people who think they need a receptionist to tell them where to go.

    I’m writing this because I don’t want you to have to wander in the dark as long as I did. I had to learn this in the trenches, the hard way. But I’m here to tell you that there is a way up. Find the stairs. I’m currently on the top floor, and honestly? The view is spectacular.

  • The “Family Curse” is Just Untreated Trauma: It Ends With Me

    The “Family Curse” is Just Untreated Trauma: It Ends With Me

    We call it a “Family Curse.” It’s a convenient phrase, isn’t it? It implies that the tragedy stalking our bloodline is mystical, unlucky, or somehow out of our hands.

    I’m done with that. I am done laughing it off to keep the peace. I am done pretending that what happens to us is a matter of fate.

    The “curse” isn’t some abstract, supernatural hex. It is a cycle of silence, denial, and untreated trauma that has been passed down, unexamined, for generations. And every time we stay silent, every time we “protect” the family name or the perpetrator, we are just handing that curse to our children.

    I realized this when I looked at the patterns. My grandmother’s husband killed himself. The man she was with after did the same. My husband killed himself. The man I was with after did the same.

    Moms Parents Estella Pearl 1928-2003 & Russell J.R. 1921-1967 (Died by suicide)

    But the rot goes even deeper than that. It starts with the absolute violation of the most sacred space: the home. My mother eventually confided in me, a heavy truth that changed the entire landscape of my understanding of our family. She told me that she and her sister were sexually assaulted by their own brothers when they were children. My aunt lost her virginity to their oldest brother, a cycle of abuse that repeated over and over, trapped in that house until they could finally escape.

    Grandma (moms’ mom & brothers)
    Aunt and uncles

    They were children. And because of the silence, that trauma wasn’t just left in the past; it was baked into the foundation of our family’s reality.

    When my cousin Crystal from my Dad’s side of the family, who was living out of state, finally found the courage to tell us she had been molested by our grandfather, I was 10 years old. I will never forget the horror of listening to her pour it all out. But what bothered me even more than the act itself was the reaction: my grandmother (Dad’s mom) didn’t believe her. That is a betrayal that cuts deeper than words. And he was never held accountable. That is absolute bullshit.

    Me in my grandfathers lap. Just knowing we were unaware of the danger of this yet… makes me sick.

    That betrayal was just the beginning. That cousin, Crystal, the one who had the courage to speak up at 12 years old, she carried that trauma her entire life. She was nearly 40 when she died by suicide. And the cruelty of it is almost too much to write: she died in my grandparents’ house. The same house where she was victimized.

    The cycle didn’t stop with her, either. Her brother, Corey, took his own life a few years before she did. Her daughter took her own life at just 14 years old, less than 2 years after her mom died.

    Corey & Crystal

    Do you see the pattern now? Do you see how this isn’t just a “curse”? It is a bloodline being systematically destroyed by secrets that were never allowed to see the light of day.

    They say 1 in 4 girls are molested by a family member. That number is staggering, and it is a reality that is making us sick as a collective.

    I was 11. It was at a surrogate aunt’s parents’ house during her daughter’s birthday. I had won a pair of pretty earrings in a game, lost one on the porch, and was so anxious about it that I couldn’t sleep. I went into the living room, and the aunt’s stepfather was there. He had me sit in his lap. He started touching me. I told him to stop, and thankfully, he did. I ran back to the bedroom and I didn’t get back up.

    I didn’t tell anyone. I held that secret until I was 16. I was at the pink house in Broken Arrow. My little sister came to my room crying. Tensions were already high because another cousin had just been victimized by a neighbor, a predator who was eventually arrested for molesting multiple kids and producing child pornography.

    My sister told me she had been molested by the son of a babysitter she had years prior. I told her the only thing that made sense: You have to tell Mom. When she hesitated, I promised her: I will tell Mom what happened to me, too, if you agree to tell her what happened to you.

    We made that pact. We told. My mom fought so hard to find those men, the stepfather who had nearly beaten his wife to death, and the babysitter’s son. But these were the days before Google, before the age of information. We couldn’t find them. We couldn’t get justice.

    The point of sharing this, of exposing the darkest, most horrific corners of my life, is not to rehash the pain for the sake of it. It is to expose the problem. This is happening everywhere, every day. And it is making us, as families and as a collective, incredibly sick.

    Stop protecting the abusers. It is not helping anyone.

    I am writing this because I have children. I have the future. And the idea of them walking this path, of them inheriting this “curse,” makes me want to throw up. So I am blowing the lid off this shit. I am facing the rot so that I can clear the foundation.

    If you are reading this and you are carrying a secret, or if you are protecting a secret, please: Do something. Don’t let your family end up like mine. The curse stops here. It has to.