Strength.

Strength is an unexpected side effect of a challenging life. One is not inherently born with strength. It is earned, and comes at an astronomically high price, but the reward is so worth it.

Recently, I began to open up to someone new about my past. My past is riddled with situations that truly tested my strength and resiliency to continue on this journey of life. The person I show up as in this current iteration of life bears very few physical markers of my past, but if you could look inside, only for a brief second, it would reveal the lessons time has taught me.

I want to preface this blog post by acknowledging everyone has hardships and challenges in their lives and I am not discounting anything or anyone or trying to compare my past with anyone else’s. I also know some readers may have experienced similar or exactly the same challenges, so I apologize if I indirectly awaken any suppressed traumas. Thank you.

I knew I would have to be strong from a very young age. The family I was born into had its own unique challenges, which is not uncommon, however, I had to learn to take responsibility for myself much sooner than most people I encounter. I’ve picked up on cues from other’s when I open up about my childhood that I definitely didn’t have what is considered a “traditional upbringing.” I’ve come to terms with that, but I was not exposed to certain pieces of life at a young age that typically help build the foundation for a successful future. Fundamental needs were met, but as for individual time and attention, I was on my own. I was specially conditioned to understand that when a problem arose, I needed to find the resolution myself, instead of seeking guidance from someone older or wiser. I don’t like to generalize, so I will say there were critical moments where I knew I could depend on someone, however, I began to feel a trend that if my issue did not meet a particular threshold, then it was best to not bother anyone with it. This created it’s own issues, including but not limited to me having what is perceived as a “secretive” life, a sole dependency on myself without a true feeling that I could ask anyone else for help, and an empty space that I had to fill with my own compassion, empathy, and self love. It goes without saying, but you can imagine how many times I had to learn lessons to hard way, fail at things that most find easy, and truly push myself beyond any rational person’s comfort zone. The direct result was independence being prioritized so highly that I didn’t know how to ask for help, and a constant feeling like nothing was going to last and that I needed to always remain hyper vigilant with every aspect of my life. I was a walking ball of anxiety and was explicitly considered a control freak into my twenties.

Let’s step back a bit to a point where my strength was tested as an adolescent. From as early as I can remember, I was constantly reminded of how different I am/was. I’ve known I was gay my entire life. There was a time in the beginning where I didn’t know what to call it, but other people around me did. Picture this, being 6 years old in first grade and someone asking if I was gay. I don’t think at that age the malicious aspect had kicked in yet, but I was being told I was different at a point in my life where the concept of “different” was not solidified in my frontal lobe yet. My uncles had always made fun of me, as I was a little more feminine than their misogynistic mindsets could fathom. They would outright call me faggot or gay and laugh like they had done something impressive. I just remember thinking, what is it about me that they can’t figure out? Am I challenging them so greatly that they must resort to ignorant name calling, even though I am not even directly interacting with them?

Getting the ridicule around family was one thing, but when I would go out in the world, it was even worse. I feared for my life on a regular basis. Walking through the mall, just casually exploring stores, and people would shout slurs at me, completely unprovoked. I would literally be minding my own business, trying to find clothes, and people would yell “queer” “faggot” or some other derogatory statement at me. It made no sense to me, again, I was just trying to live my life and find my place in this world, and I was always reminded of how different I am. I was being told by people who meant absolutely nothing to me that I needed to hear their opinion. I didn’t ask for their opinion, rather, it was forced on me. That’s a level of hatred that I will never understand. Live and let live did not exist in my world. I was challenged to stay strong, walk with my head held high, even though I knew there were threats and it would just take the right moment for someone to take advantage of the opportunity to ruin my life. I was so blessed that no one ever hate crimed me, but there were times where the threat was there, and I knew I needed to escape and hide in order to keep my life. This was real life.

That’s always been my biggest issue with this world. I am just existing, minding my own business, doing the things that make me happy and feel so right in my soul, and yet others feel it’s their duty to call out differences and use derogatory slurs to attempt to belittle or threaten me. The amount of strength that came from being exposed to those situations taught me several things:

• Family does not matter. If blood relatives were willing to be abusive and hateful to their own nephews, then they are completely useless to my future.

• Bullying is a much bigger issue than I have bandwidth to ever attempt to understand. Why do you have so much free time that you are willing to waste it on someone who literally matters nothing to your existence. I have always found my mutual exclusivity to those who belittle me has absolutely nothing to do with me, but 100% to do with them.

• I cannot allow my future, my existence, my freedom to be myself to be dictated by anyone. It has been such a difficult life, constantly criticized, always afraid of walking into and out of public spaces wondering if this will be the day someone has chosen to commit a hate crime. I did not choose this life, I did not choose to be this different, this outstanding, this threatening to the generally accepted version of human male. This is just what happened, and I hate that my whole life, I’ve been challenged to defend myself just for being unique, different, and as authentically individual as I possible can be, instead of trying to fit into someone else’s box(es).

Beyond the gay life struggle, life has been rather disrespectfully challenging. I maintain a positive, upbeat outlook on life, always focusing on positive vibes and the notion that anything is possible and people deserve the benefit of the doubt, but know now, that is where my strength is challenged the most. It does not come naturally to be positive and uplifting when you’ve been through the kind of personal life I’ve had to endure. People have shown me on too many occasions how not nice, not kind, not understanding, and willfully judgmental they are. I struggle with an illusion that everyone is accepting, hell, even at least tolerant of things that make us different, but I’ve come to realize that some character traits, some pieces of human nature are too difficult for some people to comprehend. Even though the resources are there to scientifically explain the differences, the willful ignorance is more important to them than treating people fairly and without judgment.

Mother Nature has proven she has the power to throw strategic curveballs at me(us) with some situations that have affected the planet as a whole. If we dive into the 2020 pandemic, there is a sense of compounded strength. That situation challenged me to the core. So many challenges, but lets go through just a few:

• Staying alive. The simple idea that people were dying from COVID19 was so threatening that it made me wonder if I would survive. I was a generally healthy person at that point, but there was no way to truly know where it would go, how it would end, what level of damage it would do. Luckily, I made it through, but the strength it took to stay mentally and physically conditioned was a daily practice of endurance and stamina.

• To Vaccinate or not. Ultimately, the company I worked for mandated that if I was going to continue to travel to clients, I would need to be vaccinated. That was a tough one for me. How could a corporation know what was in my best interest and set an expectation that if you want to continue to work, you will need to get this vaccine that hasn’t been fully tested over a long period of time. The internal fight over justifying that part was very difficult as I felt I didn’t have a choice, especially when I was getting so much negative feedback from anyone who felt it was not a good idea and that they’d never even consider getting the vaccine. The level of judgment that came along with it was so disrespectful.

• People not believing it was real.

• No social gatherings. I am an extroverted introvert, but even on my darkest days where I want to be completely alone, sharing a human experience can reignite my positive flame. Without the option to see people, having to quarantine in my home, really set me back. I had curated a really interesting life at the end of 2019 and into 2020, and I felt I was on a path to a really interesting future. When the planet shut down, my positive outlook was shattered, and I found a darkness that challenged me consistently and constantly. My inner strength was trying, but there were still days where I opted to stay in bed and avoid everything going on in the world.

The pandemic was a big enough test, but there were more items to come in 2020. Just as the signs of things getting back to normal began to shine, a devastating hurricane entered the gulf in August, headed straight for my life. I evacuated with my family, but what we came home to was truly life altering. The amount of complete and utter destruction left my spirit crushed and my soul was left asking the question, “am I supposed to want to keep living?” The challenges we faced once returning home were far worse than anyone could have anticipated.

• My parents’ house was unlivable, so they, along with my sister and grandmother, moved into my house. My house was 970 square feet, two bedroom/two bath and not enough space for five humans to comfortably live. There were three holes in my roof, some siding had been ripped off, and water had obviously gotten in through the walls as the hurricane blew through. We patched the holes in the roof with tarps and had mattresses in the living room to accommodate everyone to at least have somewhere to sleep.

• We didn’t have power for over a month, which meant we had a gas generator connected directly to the house. We would alternate the breaker box, the air conditioner could not run at the same time as the hot water heater, and other things were not able to pull the generator at the same time. We just had to wait for time to pass, for work to be done to rebuild the infrastructure to get power back.

• There was debris literally everywhere. 30+ year old oak trees in the yard had been mutilated and some had been uprooted straight out of the ground. It was a disaster area. It was like a bomb had been dropped, but the culprit was Mother Nature. How do you hold Mother Nature accountable? It was the worst internal dilemma because it made no sense. Staying mentally healthy during that time was so incredibly difficult, not to mention my whole family was going through the same mental anguish with no real resolution in sight.

• Food was an issue. Most buildings were also impacted, so grocery stores did not get back to business very quickly. We would have to drive up to two hours to restock food, and that was hoping the shelves actually had enough food for us to shop.

I still don’t know how I kept it together during that time. I was not mentally okay. I would meditate and call on my spirit guides to watch over me and my family, even though the heat was exhausting and there was literally nothing to do. Businesses were all closed waiting for repairs, so there was no shopping outlet to take my mind off of it all. These things were not shown on the national media. We were living like a third world country for over a month, and no one knows. I have told my story over and over and people just stare at me in awe with their mouths open, not realizing that this stuff ACTUALLY happens in the United States of America. My strength has been tested the most by Mother Nature by far, on such a monumental scale. I wanted to give in. I wanted to be weak. I wanted to cave and just let my life be over. I struggled so hard with reconciling what I could have done to deserve a hurricane ruining everything I had worked so hard for. Why did it happened? I couldn’t have done anything to avoid it, so I was left to her mercy. I didn’t know how to bounce back. I was broken.

Resiliency is a common theme in my life, and I didn’t ask for it. It lives in my central nervous system. It feeds on challenges and struggles and pushes me beyond what I believe I’m capable of. I never asked to be this strong. I had to evaluate what was left of my existence after the hurricane, and I packed my shit up and moved to Texas. That move had its own challenges and I was pushed to even higher levels of strength to make it through. Learning a new city, learning a new job, learning to live without my family next door, learning to live with a person, and then ultimately learning to live completely alone. I am still surprised and delighted by that experience, as I learned just how much I can tolerate, how to set boundaries, when to say “no,” and who I am.

Beginning the mental therapy journey in 2022 really sparked a deeper understanding of who I am and why I react the way I do to life experiences. I initially began therapy after a diagnosis of PTSD from the hurricane disaster in 2020. Trauma is very tricky and once I touched on one piece of my trauma, a whole slew of other traumas showed up wanting attention. Many different mental exercises were performed, including many months of EMDR therapy to retrain my brain. The largest challenge I faced with therapy is the 45 minute sessions. I have weekly sessions, and 45 minutes is never enough time to even begin to address a matter. As soon as something gets exposed it feels like it’s time to wrap up. I have learned many tools that keep me from having too many traumatic episodes, however, I was conditioned from an early age to be independent. Indirectly, anything that threatens my independence is a trauma trigger, because I’ve had to be so self sufficient that some small things can be perceived by my nervous system as a hostile takeover.

I always want to make sure I show gratitude for all the challenges in my life, big or small, because they have shaped me into this strong individual. The ultimate test of my strength is the constant reminder that I’m almost virtually alone in this world. There are very few people who have the capacity to stand up for me, to show unsolicited support, and to check in and ask “are you okay?” There are many days where I have to ask myself if I’m okay, and that’s not a problem. I’ve always been able to count on myself way more than most others in my life.

I do appreciate the people who show up on a regular basis to be part of my life, and I acknowledge I am responsible for pushing some people out of my life. I live in a mental space where intent is held in hard regard, so if a person intentionally brings positivity into my space, they get to stay. If a person is haphazard with energy and brings manic chaos too many times, I have to ask them to no longer be part of my life. I have had to make terribly difficult decisions with some people in my life who at one time mattered a lot, but growing apart is a fact of life. People either grow together or they grow apart.

In closing, I hope I shared some personal experiences that offer a bit more insight into how strong of a person I am, and what built that strength. I didn’t ask for it, but I can admit that I continue to grow through the challenges and my strength is finely tuned at this point. Many points in my life, I have wondered how my life would have been different had I not had to deal with such significant adversities in my past. Could I have still possessed this strength, but maybe it would have been manifested in a way that would have affected me or others in a more meaningful way, instead of me having to go dark so many times to eventually see the light again. This dimension does not allow for me to see the alternate outcomes, but perhaps it will all be exposed one day. My take on it all is, “if it can be this fucked up on this plane, I can only imagine the possibilities on other planes.”

Pieces of Me.

I’m very candid about my trauma therapy journey, including, but not limited to talk therapy, meditation, EMDR, group therapy, and at it’s simplest version, positive reinforcement. After Mother Nature’s indirect shenanigans in 2020, I was diagnosed with a wild case of PTSD, and realized it was in my best interest and the best interest of the entire universe to seek some help to gain a good grasp on reigns of my mental and emotional life. Through all these channels, I’ve learned so many things about myself and my abilities, along with unlocking the door to the darkest depths of my soul, the places where the sun refuses to shine. So, you know what I did? I brought a lamp down there and I plugged it into my soul, and I began slowly illuminating the buried good, bad, pretty, and ugly memories of my past. There’s this thing that happens with any level of trauma: your memories, whether good or bad, get lost in the traumatic experience. For me, I had to relive terrible moments in my history in order to regain the great moments that were lost in the traumatic transition.

Let me clarify something here. There are levels of trauma. Humans have different levels of security and insecurity which are influenced by traumatic experiences. Everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life, personal, professional, friends, family, even strangers, has trauma. It’s how you handle it, how you address it, how you heal it, and how you continue to work on healing it that really counts. There’s no shame in trauma or seeking help for it. This is a safe space, a judgement free zone. I’ve been exploring the different pieces of me that make up the whole Tyler. My therapist and I have been over this multiple times and the greatest conclusion we can come up with is that there is no normal, there is no black and white for how a human’s brain and personality work, and the simple fact is that responses to emotional stimuli are fluid. That’s right, it’s fluid! There is no “this is how I am programmed and I will always react this same way every time, no matter what!” It’s fluid. I may have several different reactions to different situations and I can feel each and every one of them because I’m outside of the “a thing happened, and here’s the traditional response that other ‘normal’ humans typically respond.” I’m not typical. None of us are, but society has to create buckets of reasonably acceptable responses to uphold the unfortunate idea of stereotypes. But alas, I digress! This post is not about that…it’s about the pieces of me that steer this ship.

Recently, during a session, my therapist and I did an exercise similar to a meditation to evaluate pieces of myself. I was to close my eyes and call upon a piece of me that I don’t focus a lot or enough energy or attention on. I thought hard and pulled up my vulnerable side and also the anger side. The anger side is difficult to conjure up, but vulnerability isn’t very hard for me. While focusing on my vulnerable side, a strange thing happened. My essence, my soul, my light side emerged. It was my pure self, the other worldly piece that gets covered up or pushed to the side in my regular life. I always have so many other things/obligations that this part of me is often almost smothered out, which is sad because this is my most authentic, natural, organic piece. It’s the me I want to always strive to stand firm in and can trust. In that moment, however, the doubt, insecurity, and harsh control factors popped back into play and pushed the light back down or to the back of the space.

In that meditation experience, it helped me realize that I need to describe or label the pieces of me and how they interwork with or against one another. I need to break down just how the pieces affect the whole and what I can do to ease the stress and burden of keeping it all in balance, ultimately maintaining a level of fluidity to have it all together but with separate pros and cons. It’s a novel concept to believe that humans are consistent in their emotions, but that’s just not always the case. We are complex, complicated specimens, and reactions are not always predictable or guaranteed to be the same as the last time.

Here we go: (this list is ever growing, but I’m pretty confident in these pieces)

• Essence - my core being

• Manager #1

• Firefighter

• Outside Auditor

• Insecurity

• Security

• Bad Decision Maker

ESSENCE - SOUL - INNER CHILD - BEFORE TRAUMA: This piece is the trust form, the purist, the me that I want to be all day, every day. This piece has a very strong voice with volume capabilities to overpower and shout over any other piece to gain my attention and keep things real. The essence always has my best interest in mind and is willing to duke it out to stay on the correct course of action while always being a team player. There is always room for improvement, but the essence really is the path I would have stayed on and constantly work to get back to had all the trauma and difficult times not forced me into this guilt ridden state of necessity. The essence is a place of great power and strength, always able to steer the ship back to a healthy center and maintaining grace and gratitude for the entire mental health team. LOL.

MANAGER #1 - THE BADDEST BITCH - INTERNALIZED CARETAKER: This piece normally uses good judgement to make great decisions with safety and security in mind. Cautious - powerful - strong - not always perfect and not always a true team player. What to say about the manager? She was created out of some sort of intense trauma from a very young age. There must have been some significant reason for me to conjure up such a badass mother fucker to run the show for so long. She is the epitome of security, taking things too far many times to keep me and the essence piece from getting hurt or having feelings in general. The manager sits in a place of logic and fact. The other pieces are always agreeable because she is practical and takes into consideration the most important facts and makes, well suggests or recommends the perfect case scenario, regardless of what the other pieces have to say or how they will be affected. The manager has typically taken into consideration every detail of the situation and keeps a level head when persuading me to choose a decision, but doesn’t always incorporate emotions or feelings, which can create problems. Life decisions aren’t always 100% logical and require emotional aspects. Along the journey, the manager has been more open to emotions and allowing other pieces to step in and help with the final decision, but often times, the logic does outweigh the other challenging pieces. Lots of credit must be given to the manager for getting me through extremely tough times, and I cannot really ever dwell too long on “what might have been different” scenarios had the manager never been introduced to the journey. I keep a close eye on the dealings of the manager because there have been times where my essence has been put on autopilot or checked out during intense times, and the manager stepped in to take control, not always leaving a crack in the door for the essence piece to keep watch on things to ensure a healthy balance. Those moments were also times of extreme trauma or instances where I had been prescribed an antidepressant or anxiety medication, which weakened the essence piece and strengthened the manager piece. I believe in medicine helping people, but for me, it was merely a bandaid, which when ripped off exposed the pre-existing trauma, still waiting to be treated. I work very hard on keeping the manager in the loop, but she has been retired for some time now. She is only allowed to take the reigns if I’m having an extremely rare bad day or if I need some reassurance from self doubt issues. I’ve done a lot of work around lifting myself up and not needing to depend on the logical strengths of the manager. As time goes on, I can imagine keeping the manager on as a consultant, but not full time, and definitely no benefits(LOL), just in case the essence piece ever needs some backup.

All in all, I’ve appreciated the manager along the journey of my post-trauma life, but she needs to stay in her lane and not try to manipulate the show with overly logical persuasion. The Manager #1 is often equated to an Oprah-like figure or someone of high power or significance. A bad bitch or a bad mother fucker.

FIREFIGHTER - SECURITY - PROBLEM SOLVER and PROBLEM CREATOR: My therapist helped me to narrow down this piece as an extra piece in the mix, but a manager #2 type of role. The firefighter has good intentions and does great work, however, there always seems to be a regret or something else is ruined because of the firefighter’s influence. In practical terms, a firefighter is there to put out a blaze, however, when they are gone, they may have put out the fire, but they’ve soaked all the contents and ultimately indirectly caused other damage. Sometimes, it feels like the firefighter is just the Manager #1 with no regard for the outcome or the responsibility factor is lost. There’s no way for me to truly understand why the firefighter is part of the show, but my therapist can sight situations where I’ve made a good decision, but it caused another problem or issue, so I guess it’s real, but IDK.

INTERNAL AUDITOR - OVERSIGHT: This piece is an influence that seems to keep the moral compass pointed in the correct direction with the essence piece, Manager #1, and any other outside force that could hinder the outcome of a situation. The manager may not even realize the auditor is there doing a second check to make sure nothing has been inadvertently missed. This auditor is wild and crazy because the most random potential idea will show up with no chance of happening, but it’s still there as a possibility. It appears the auditor was created as a backup plan if the well thought through Manager #1 still couldn’t guarantee my safety. How far I was willing to enhance myself after the trauma to make sure I was safe and secure. I can understand the significance, however, it’s a bit overkill.

INSECURITY - This is the piece that cannot accept the flaws of this existence very well. The essence piece is flawless, 100% unique, individual, and one of a kind. I always strive to stay secure, but there are things about this physical being that make me self conscious or doubt myself and lack confidence. The insecurity isn’t a piece that shows up often anymore, mostly because I’m pretty proud of my whole self and not many people can penetrate the forcefield around me.

SECURITY - I possess a strong secure side that keeps me happy and satisfied with this life. I tend to enjoy being alive and sharing the special moments with myself and all the pieces. They all contribute to the greater good. Being secure hasn’t always come naturally. Being confident is one thing but owning the security of one’s existence is not easy. I’ve found a consistent connection with security and confidence, so when the scale is ever tipped, it balances back out pretty quickly.

BAD DECISION MAKER - Even with all these great supporter pieces, there is always the bad decision maker. This piece acts out of impulse and sabotages a great thing when given the least bit of a chance. This piece is steadfast and brutally argumentative and will challenge the manager, the firefighter, and all the auditor pleas to cease and desist, and sometimes, when the system is too weak, bored, hungry, horny or looking for a thrill, it will win. The bad decisions are made, and while it may offer temporary excitement or satisfaction, there is burden, guilt, and the remorseful aftermath. Minutes, hours, days or even weeks will be required to heal the bad decisions, and yet the lesson is never really learned, for when a risky or thrilling opportunity arises, the bad decision debate will again rear its ugly head and 9 times out of 10 will get its way. The other pieces aren’t necessarily disappointed or mad because for that brief moment, the entire system wins, even if it’s only temporary.

The pieces are fluid, never black and white. It may sound a bit outlandish, but have you ever experienced trauma that made you react a certain way, created an irrational fear of something that others can’t necessarily understand, or you’re too ashamed to even discuss it with other people in your life. Have you ever met someone with a trauma that has manifested itself physically as a tick or trimmer? These things happen often and to people who are closest to you. I chose to deep dive into my trauma because I have this one shot, this one chance at this life, and I was tired of wasting it in a place filled with too many trauma responses. This is a glorious life, and I’m so grateful for all the amazing gifts and blessings I’ve been given. Have you ever considered assessing your own pieces? :)