Trigger Warnings: Boundaries and Empathy

TW: suicide attempts, suicide

 I was going to write a follow-up post to my hospital stay, instead, I had a triggering experience in my psychology class so, I'm going to discuss triggers. When the professor talked about suicide without any warning on  Sunday morning, I decided I needed to share my thoughts and try to explain why the first line on this blog post is incredibly important to me, and most people. Somehow society has decided that giving a trigger warning is weak and makes you a "snowflake". First of all yes I am unique, and there is no one else like me, so yea a snowflake. Secondly knowing your boundaries and understanding that others go through things you don't understand and trying not to hurt others, or push others to hurt themselves makes you empathetic, not weak. The first thought that might come up when you push back on trigger warnings, is how could words that are spoken or written trigger an emotional response they are just words? That is of course not true as the words are shared to connect to people either to educate or to evoke an emotional response and create dialogue. Words have power people wouldn't use them if they didn't. When the teacher mentioned suicide attempts and thoughts this morning she wasn't trying to hurt anyone, yet I, as someone who struggles with suicidal thoughts, ideations, and sometimes even attempts got thrown off my mental seat. Talking about suicide with no thought to the fact that others may be going through struggles with it and no warning creates a space of fear, I had no idea what she was going to bring up next. The way the students were answering her questions about suicide.  And the discussion brought to the surface many of the same thoughts and emotions I went through. Can I handle it, today yes, but I felt bad about maybe needing to leave class as it was a shock I wasn't expecting, but I didn't want to leave. Secondly, I didn't want to bring up my issues in the middle of a zoom lecture to the whole class. I speak about suicide and a pipe dream I have is to write a book about it, but that happens when I am in charge of choosing to think, speak and write about suicide when I am in the mental space, where it doesn't harm my mental health and spiral me to a dark space. This morning I had enough mental energy to acknowledge that what was being said was triggering, take myself mentally out of the class and take my mind off of the thoughts by playing a game and then doing some cleaning after class. Had this discussion been thrown at me on Friday night the situation might have ended with me ideating about suicide and sliding down the path of suicide itself. This idea that society has internalized about having emotions and sharing them and being impacted by others is a huge part of the breakdown in our society. Our words have an impact we are the only species with the gift of spoken language (technically, not going down that route right now) and the use of language for connection or dissent is on us. Emotions and mental struggles are not unique to me, the choice I have made to share more has shown that to me with the number of people that reach out. I have lost people to suicide and have lost myself and refound myself through suicidal thoughts and attempts. That idea is for another day.  The importance of empathy for others and the choice of words is for today. Your words have power, and you already know that as you use them to help others, to connect, to hurt others intentionally or not. Trigger warnings are mental boundaries for people, they give me and you the choice to check in with yourself to see if you are mentally up for the discussion. Having and knowing your boundaries and understanding that everyone has mental and emotional boundaries, and that doesn't make anyone weak. Use trigger warnings even if you still don't understand the meaning of it as it can save many lives, and each life is invaluable to this world.

Psychiactric Hospital series: Part 1- The first days: Restarting the Race

Leaving the hospital is like being pushed off the dock on the start line of a rowing race. You use short, fast strokes to come to your balance and come to race speed, and only then do you slow down and lengthen your strokes for the duration of the race. Before the race starts, you know you have the skills and abilities to compete you have done the same things a thousand times in practice. Yet the nerves and pressure of the actual race change your initial response till you find the inner place of knowing your abilities and trusting that you can handle it. The first day and week out of the psychiatric hospital are the start of the race. Pushing open the door out of the hospital is adrenaline inducing, similar to the start of the race.  With that comes returns of the pressures of the race of the outside world-of life. The first afternoon when you get out, there is both this excitement of being out of the hospital and having your own space and being able to sleep in a completely dark room (#roomates, a story for another time, maybe.) Of course, you also get to choose what you want to eat for meals, which is a double-edged sword. While sometimes or even a lot of times the hospital food wasn't overly impressive, you were served three meals a day, without you having to do any thinking, shopping, and cooking. While I sometimes find cooking relaxing, the recreation of all the hospital structure immediately feels overwhelming, that hopefully turns into a small burn and then completely off, but being in a global pandemic doesn't help the process. One thing that came up right was having to organize my medications and set up timers to take my meds on time. In the hospital, we are given our medications at specific times without you having to do any thinking or preparation. You almost don't notice it anymore as you get used to the schedule of the hospital, but especially with the addition of an evening medication for me created an extra thing to remember that I struggled with for the first few days. Another internal struggle that arose in the first days out was the internal pull to two sides.  One to go back to the bubble of coloring and audiobooks in the hospital and the other side wanted to organize and get back to doing all the things I was doing beforehand. The balancing act is to keep rowing and change my behaviors as needed, as dictated by the race and my internal abilities. The art is understanding what my mental capabilities are each day if it's a day for a sprint or trying to keep rowing the race no matter how slow your strokes become. The first days pass in a blur like the start of the race sometimes, with the focus completely on finding the internal and external balance to rowing the race of life.

Cerebral Palsy and I- My longest relationship

 Cerebral Palsy and I go way back since I was two years old and diagnosed. The diagnosis story is one for another time.  It has been a rocky road, and while we are on better terms twenty-three years in, we still have plenty of tiffs. Preschool was a shining light in my childhood as I went to a school for children with disabilities that was in the same space as my physical and occupational therapy. We sometimes did occupational and physical therapy together, and we all had private sessions as well.  We didn't feel different as even though we had different severities of Cerebral Palsy,  we all got each other on a deep level. I spent the rest of my childhood pretty angry and felt emotionally isolated.  I switched schools for kindergarten to a class with no other disabled children, so having CP and wanting to fit in was made pretty much impossible. I was the only one with a physical disability and, my differences came up in a few ways wearing leg braces, doing constant physical and occupational therapy.  The biggest difference showed up during, my surgery which required me to relearn how to walk and miss plenty of class, and even when I came back it was in an even weirder wheelchair and needing plenty of adaptations. These needs take a lot of time and cut into building social relationships, so CP and I were on our own. Leg braces were a major part of my childhood, sometimes they made me feel like a robot/alien from another planet, while every once in a while, wearing them made me feel strong and powerful. I never really accepted Cerebral Palsy as my life long partner for a long time, much more of the time I spent annoyed and upset CP took up time in my life and the chronic pain and spasticity it brought along with it. I'm not exactly sure at what exact moment I started reevaluating my relationship with CP. But, I realized at some point that hating my body and disability full time was taking up a lot of mental energy and making my life with CP worse than it needed to be. It is a process, and it is slow going for me. I evaluated what Cerebral Palsy had given me, both good and bad, and also just worked on acceptance. I think that acceptance is an idea that living with a disability makes harder, as in a way, because of my disability,  I spend or at least used to spend a lot of time, fighting what society accepted as what I should be able to do. Between if it was a doctor who told my parents when I was two, that I'd never walk or talk or just society's assumption of what disabled people can achieve. I never wanted to give in and wanted to fight everyone on what I was able to achieve.  I believe that also led me to fight my cerebral palsy and many times, I  didn't listen to the internal messages it would tell me regarding pain, including other bodily messages. Cerebral Palsy and I together actually achieved many things that I would never have dreamed up as a kid.  Even though I get super annoying hand spasms while writing notes or while rowing and chronic pain can sometimes leave me in bed all day, I have come to love what CP has taught me and continues to teach me. This by no means I don't have plenty of internal struggles with Cerebral Palsy. I still struggle with issues about body- acceptance that arise with different topics that come up in life some expected some not. With all that being said, I have come to a point in my life that usually rather than getting or staying upset,  I can sit with my CP and figure out the crux of the issue so together we can grow and build the world I want around me. Cerebral Palsy and I are forever going to be together, and hopefully, I can use what our relationship brings me to help others and bring change to the world.

Rowing Back to Myself

I wasn't planning on getting on the rowing machine today. But, after basketball practice, I felt like I still had some cardio energy to use up so,  I went to the gym thinking I was going to handcycle as my legs are shot from all the physical therapy this morning. Yet I saw the rowing machine first, and couldn't stop the pull within one minute I was back in position. I wouldn't classify my relationship with the rowing machine as a love-hate one, just somewhat complicated.  I think my relationship with rowing in Israel and the old memories it brings up is one I have yet to fully process. But, I felt the urge to row instead of using a handcycle. I decided to sit and try and go with the flow of my body.

The numbers flash on the screen with my first pull, but for the first time, they dont start millions of calculations in my brain. Numbers mean a lot in rowing, especially competitively. They are one of the main measuring tools used to check how you are raising your skill and power, as the race is who can race the fastest to the finish line. The type of number differs between stroke rate, Five-hundred-meter average, power levels, and more but, it's all numbers on a screen. Numbers used to mean everything to me. I would constantly compare my times with others.  In the early days, it was against another teammate whom I was competing for a spot on the international team. During that time, it was also with the numbers on the scale, but that's for another post. Then in Florida, regardless of how much my coaches tried to help me make it just about my personal growth, I could rattle off last year's world championship times, and the standing world records for my divisions at any moment's notice. Towards the end of my stay in Florida, Coach Katie's words about rowing for myself, making personal goals and achieving them, while enjoying the process started to permeate my brain.  But, they stayed in my Florida rowing box and never made it to the Israel rowing box in my mind.

     Today, the numbers still sat on the screen in front of my face.  But, for once, if not the first time since Florida, they were that just numbers on the screen. I didn't try to speed up to get back to a pace I did when training four years ago, and didn't get upset when the numbers went up and down. The numbers were there, yet I listened to my body and enjoyed every pull and alternating types of pulls and just giving myself space to enjoy the rowing movement. Not letting myself fall into the need to hit a certain distance, or taking dreams so far in one practice, like trying to row a 5k and in my mind going all the way to international competitions. It was so different as many a time I've tried to come back to row on the machine that I miss so much. I miss rowing a lot, the power, and the release of the monotonous movement, the water, the breathing technique it requires me to use. Rowing takes me to a different place in my head. When I've tried to come back in the past, I would go to the box in my mind of competition with my old self, and where I used to be when I rowed all the time, this time I was able to stay in the moment and just row.

The first time I rowed it was on a rowing machine, my mom and I came to meet the rowing coach, he pulled the rowing machine out and set it up so I could see the water.  He showed me how the rowing motion, and then I was just supposed to try it for a few minutes. Two minutes in and I'm hooked and say I don't ever want to get off. Twenty-five minutes later, and the coach is like you should probably stop, you will be sore tomorrow even if it doesn't hurt now. There is something about the monotonous movement that calms me, my deep inner self. Maybe it's like swinging on a swing, the back and forth is so balancing outside and inside. Many moments and interactions happened after that moment, both good, bad, and ugly.  But, the rowing machine and I always had this first version of inner calm, that I found when rowing before politics, nasty comments, and after internalizing it all, had poisoned rowing in Israel for me.

Five years later, and maybe I'm healing. Because when I get on the machine and row, it's not about proving to someone that I am better than someone else, that my body doesn't contradict my results. It is about me loving the monotony of the row and the body that is giving me internal calm. And with that, loving my body enough to listen to it. Even though  I wanted to keep rowing till tomorrow, I listened to my body when it's tired, honoring it, and loving it. Throughout the row and all the passing time, I have removed many of the old hurtful voices that used to show up in my head, when I would try to come back and row.

This moment tonight is a lightening moment. One that I feel like I'm finally taking some trash out of my brain. Especially since my next thought wasn't, I need to compete in 5k indoor races around the world.  Rather it was just this rowing movement feels amazing, feels like a mental home, so I'm going to do it healthily for me and no one else.  Row,release,breathe,repeat.

Ownership of my Wrists

Unchaining My Wrists

TW: Rape,assault,cutting 

My wrists. they came up briefly in my a few of my Pride series posts and they have been a point of contention for me my entire life. This is an intense post one I've felt bubbling but have been struggling to write and talk about since I found this sketch and got the tattoo on my wrist. I haven't owned my wrists for years. How can I say that? They are part of your body, you own your entire body. First of all, to that, I'll say you have never lived in a disabled body before, but that's a topic for another post. Secondly, I'm pretty sure most people who have been through any type of assault, will tell you taking back ownership of your body is one of the hardest struggles long after the incident. 

The first time I felt like I didn't own my wrists I was probably three years old, having cerebral palsy meant I wore leg braces since I was two or three until 9th grade. I got these braces made, probably once a year and that required being casted as a mold for the braces. Which also meant as someone who is partly claustrophobic and hating to feel confined, but I was too young to explain how the process made me feel inside, I would just try to pull or push the casts off my legs, so the caster had my mom hold my wrists and lay me on my back. I think it took me two or three years of this process so by the time I was eight years old I knew to just lay on my back and wear my internal wrist chains. These chains laid dormant for years,or so I thought. But thinking back to when I started hurting myself I never touched my wrists, whether it was pinching, slapping, digging in nails, cutting, burning lightly. Many people assumed I wasn't hurting myself since they couldn't see the results. Especially since society has mostly decided the only place people assume self-harm cutting happens is on the wrists. I really never thought about that at that point in time but most of this self-understanding came sitting on my psychologist's couch many years later talking about tattoos. 

This lack of ownership of my wrists continued when I was assaulted by a healer when I was six, I had already learned just to be quiet and let my wrists chain themselves to the table. This continued when I dated a guy and was used to just being quiet so when I even bothered to say no it was easier to just be quiet, when he grasped my wrists, they weren't mine to ask back for anyway. 

Finally, I started taking my body back for myself, but even my first tattoo there was discussion about getting it done on my wrist but decided on the forearm instead, for a variety of reasons, but an unconscious one, was that I still didn't feel like I owned my wrists. It took years of therapy, coming out of the closet, and learning to own the rest of my body to realize I didn't feel like I owned my wrists. Giving an explanation of the internal turmoil that happened anytime someone grabbed my wrists, and sometimes even my hands. This tattoo thought process was faster than some others I had planned, but I think that also explains where I was emotionally and mentally processing some of the old moldy boxes in the recesses of my mind. This sketch of a cracked heart growing new flowers of life came up in a tattoo giveaway, I didn't win, but the sketch entered my brain and found a spot next to the semi-opened up box of pain, and the growth coming from it. The sketch nestled itself into the box and helped empty it out a bit more, and then sitting on the couch again, I realized that the perfect place for this was on my wrist. Taking back ownership of my wrists one step at a time. 

Musty boxes of my Mind

     I lock myself in the living room of my mind in the middle of the musty and rusted untouched boxes. The untouched boxes I don't want to touch but want to take them out to the curb. I then somehow still manage to ask myself why I am not able to dream about how I want the living room, forget the whole house of my mind to look like. Pen, paper, and words are tools the cleaner in my mind uses, and it creates a love-hate relationship, and when I run for too long from the pen with excuses it cracks the window to find the air. The air of letting go that comes from putting words on paper, I crave it but don't let myself indulge in opening up the boxes and letting go. Many of these boxes have labels. I have applied some of the labels and others have labeled some as well. These boxes are filled with kicking demons and muffled choking memories. I spend more time judging myself on having these boxes filling up the house, than giving myself the grace and space to unpack, process, and throw out the boxes. Holding myself back from opening up the room and letting light and growth into the room and turn my house into a home full of growth, dreaming, and achieving. I need to love myself and the dream house and world I want to create enough to sit through the painful process of emptying out the musty rotting boxes of pain. I notice this more when I turn away from letting myself write many times its because I'm struggling with processing old baggage that sometimes shows up in the same shabby box or gets a bit renovated for me, and instead of sitting an opening the box I try to just numb my mind and do mindless tasks. I'm trying to change this more so I can get to the place of visualizing, thinking and creating the home and world in my mind and in the world around me that I want.

Pride post #4 My coming out story

I feel like my coming out story isn't finished, and sometimes I wish I could have understood and listened to my own inner voice and let them out of the closet sooner, but I also know that my path and process had to go through all these twists and turns to get out of the closet. This is part four of my pride series and my last one at this point in time. I first wrote all these posts in Pride month-June and I'm sharing them here. Enjoy and let me know what you connect to and any questions.


Driving down the straight road to the lake for rowing practice in Orlando My regular taxi driver told me I was gay. He said that id never marry a man,  “you’re too strong for them, and you dont like them that way” he said. I awkwardly asked him why he thought so, while in the same breath saying no way, we were like five minutes away and my mind was sort of already at practice, so I didn’t really listen to the second response, but the comment stuck with me. When getting on the boat I mentioned it to my coach and she said dont worry you dont have to figure everything out right away, I said what do I have to figure out, she just smiled. I tried to file it away but I was finally in a safe space mentally and physically and I could start to dig into this. I never officially came out in Florida and honestly, I wasn’t ready to, but that comment in the car from my driver, started unlocking emotional doors deep inside I had committed to not remembering or believing about myself. That started a process of discovery of what that community even was mostly online, I think I might have spoken to a few people on the community college campus I studied at as well. Not all moments on my journey were objectively huge and had immediate viewable results but this story is probably one of the favorites along my journey and that’s because of the people around me, so thank you, Coach Katie, for those words and holding that space even when I had no idea what that space was, and to my driver whose name I can’t remember of course for being honest and being a messenger on my journey.

 My coming out story- I see other peoples posts about their seemingly straightforward coming out stories,and I search to put into a few succinct sentences my process of a lifetime. When I finally pause and stop searching for an elevator pitch for my coming out story and realize that this month of posts, is actually part of the process of putting my internal story into words . This month has been such a process of self introspection,seeing and understanding all the moments,clues and pieces to my puzzle. Its interesting to see that once I finally came to the conclusion that I’m lesbian. Thanks to a wonderful friend who told me “oh you haven’t come out yet?” And of course I was like come out of what? As what? That conversation led to a lot of self introspection and really did give me that aha moment of “oh wow that's what was missing that piece of knowing,and that way of being told in this clear fashion gave me the internal ability to click and understand myself in this new deep way. I didn’t figure all the pieces out then but it was like putting together the corner pieces and a border to the puzzle of a huge part of my identity. The process is still going on so I still don't have an elevator pitch of my coming out story but this month and filling out the puzzle this month with these different stories has been self validating while building up my internal identity.

Gender Identity- I haven't figured this out yet but I do know when I and others use the pronouns they I feel deeply seen and not like I want to grate my skin off. Only after I came out as lesbian did my good friend who helped me see what was already there about me being gay,said one Shabbat afternoon are you comfortable with your gender because you don't fully feel in yourself to me. By this point I knew a bit about myself but this was another key to my soul someone just helped me fit in the lock,unlocking more of my authentic self. This has been much harder process with accepting and sharing this part of myself. I got much more pushback from people who are supposed to be close to me then when I came out,and people who I had misjudged and expected to understand. I have kind of given up a bit on people getting it,which has led to me disappointing myself and kind of giving up on owning it and processing it more. It's so easy to just allow people to keep saying girl/ she etc and I feel like my sexuality takes up so much space and like people are doing me a favor of accepting it that I shouldn't push for people to "get" my gender and pronouns. Yet all this leads to me is having a harder time with myself,like I should just keep dressing like a girl,and respond to she,her etc. But enough of that if you love me enough that you are a part of my life then here I am Samantha Menuha and my pronouns are they/them and I'm proud and love my non-binary self.