How I Went from Being Traumatized in the Desert to Living in My Truth
Two years ago, after attending a spiritual retreat that left me feeling empowered to live my best life, I came home and broke up with my long-term boyfriend of then 8 1/2 years, started planning to quit my job, and booked an 11-day trip to New Mexico to spend more time with a man that I met at the retreat.
At the time, my living situation and my intimate relationships with both my partner and myself were no longer serving my highest good.
As a result, I experienced the impacts of addiction and manipulation, the feeling of false alignment with my intuition, and the harrowing experience of fleeing for my life from various relationships, including my mother, brother, and the now stranger from the desert.
I want to skip ahead and state that while this trip was the beginning of years of growth and trauma, today, my partner and I are engaged and thriving, I run my own successful and ever-evolving business, and I am an active advocate for mental health, often helping my community in the wake of spiritual emergencies.
[The Build Up, Context, and the Toxic Household I was Living in Due to Mental Illness.]
However, up to one year ago, my household was toxic. For years, my partner and I had cared for my mom and my brother. Growing up in a Mexican family that greatly values family, my partner’s sister had also taken on the role as provider and caretaker of their mother. But our household was different, it had become a catchall for family, friends, and acquaintances, all of whom were dealing with their own experience of struggle, addiction, or mental illness as they were passing through.
It was about 8 years ago that my brother started showing symptoms of mental health distress, which has now been diagnosed as bipolar disorder, amongst other things, and often shows up as psychosis, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and more. In an effort to help my brother, my mom and I have spent the past 8 years doing all that we can to understand, help, support, and provide care whenever and however we can. We’ve consistently exhausted our emotional capacity for giving and in turn depleted our own self care and overall livelihoods.
For my mom, it became so consuming that she began to lose her life and sanity due to her obsession with helping him and her constant fear for his life. In turn, she absorbed much of the emotions and neglected caring for herself, often taking her anger out on herself and my partner and I, and ultimately, everyone around her. With my brother, it had become easy to separate the truth of who he is with the symptoms of his mental health disorders that often caused him to do irrational and scary things, such as punch holes in the wall, sing loud droning noises for hours in the garage, or isolate himself for weeks in the coat closet. However, it was difficult to understand how to help my mom out of the obviously impossible situation of feeling helpless as she watched her son struggle to accept, treat, and cope with his disorder.
Up until last year, I didn’t yet know the lesson of not being able to provide for others if my own needs aren’t being met. In short, a year after the incident in New Mexico, my brother had moved out but the obsession my mom experienced over my brother’s care turned into a temporary period of psychosis that required us to move out immediately, for fear of our safety, and get a restraining order in order to be able to move her and our household items out of the house. I didn’t understand that those in a state of crisis will use manipulation, abuse, and whatever is within their capacity to cling to a light source, hoping to absorb some of it for themselves. It took a lot of time and therapy but we are all on speaking and even loving terms and I have since learned to build boundaries like my life depended on it, because it does.
With that said, my own physical, spiritual, emotional, and financial needs were not being met as a result of all of these dynamics and it was clear to me that I needed to remove myself in order to be happy and free.
[My 8.5 (now 10.5-year) Relationship]
Over the 8 1/2 years of our relationship, my partner and I, who met at 18 and 19-years old, had endured a year apart when I studied abroad, various breakups, experiences of minor infidelity performed by the two of us, and 6 constant years of care-taking for my family and those around us. We not only struggled and persevered through the difficulty of maturation that accompanies adolescence, college, and imminent stages of existentialism, but we also had to learn how to communicate our needs as we discovered them, and find common ground in our often differing views of spiritual belief systems and ideologies.
We were deeply in love, but as we grew together, we often grew apart.
The breakup conversations were uncomfortable but felt like ripping off a bandaid and almost immediately the idea of being one step further removed from my current reality was a relief. I didn’t think about the result of my partner being in the house with my mother or brother, just that I wouldn’t be there and they would have to make decisions for themselves. The days passed and I grew emotionally distant. He refused to leave the house and I was still confined to work and sharing a bed until my month-long trip would begin where I would spend time with my dearest of friends, as well as new friends from the retreat, and then culminate with 11 days of unbelievable interactions that made me question my sanity.
My longing to be met on an equal plane with shared interests and passions in music and spirituality had been an ongoing theme in our relationship. As a more logical, science, fact-loving individual, my partner and I didn’t often meet eye-to-eye. I am a creative, God/Spirit-loving, intuition believing, Universe and Energy-guided being, and I believe in something larger than myself and that guides and sustains me, empowers me, and humbles me. Sometimes, our joint conversations seemed shallow and unfulfilling. I’m a lover of words and our bicultural and bilingual lives weren’t filled with the poetic prose my heart longed for and often sought out in other people and places. I no longer believed that these were all things that I could compromise on or fulfill in myself alone.
I would soon discover that this experience would result in a joint growth that pushed us to evolve as humans and partners and brought us much closer together than the temporary distance ever pulled us apart.
[Getting Ready for My Trip]
Each day leading up to my departure was filled with a mix of insomnia and what felt like daily revelations. I would wake up early, excited to explore the day, and focus on myself and what mattered to me. I would often communicate with the friends I would soon be seeing, including the man I met from New Mexico. The two of us are musicians and the spark between us stemmed from a state of shared spiritual vulnerability at the retreat and a deep personal longing to connect with a fellow being that spoke the same language of music as I do.
We shared playlists and used songs to communicate feelings that transcended words. The experience was truly extraordinary and unlike any connection I had felt previously. I listened to music so much that I would hear full songs clearly in my mind and would wake up to music playing so loudly, it was as if I had fallen asleep with headphones on.
Nonetheless, the reality of the duality of my physical and emotional connections would hit me daily, resulting in extreme insomnia, panic attacks, and constant distress. I was going through a process of heartbreak, self discovery, and exploring new relationships all at once and it was almost too much to bare. But, the fire that was ignited from all of this was burning strong in my root chakra and literally felt warm and palpable. It took turns traveling throughout my body, making it difficult to decipher between a sensual longing, a desire to be grounded, and a perceived freedom and connection resulting from this newfound connection.
All I truly wanted was to live in the truth of my being, to be free, to be connected to my intuition and to show up with purpose and joy in the world. Each day, I felt a sense of wholeness and beauty that I had not ever experienced before. This expression of self was notable, I felt filled up with light and was attracting other light-filled beings and having amazing interactions with people daily.
But, being blinded by this light, I ignored warning signs. I thought that this new found awareness, love, and desire was connected to him. It became a blurry line between my love of Spirit/God and my new found love for this being. I love everyone so it is easy for me to express a desire for someone’s well-being. We shared so many intimate details of our lives but the one common thread was our joint desire to be in connection with the Universe, with Spirit, with God.
It seemed pure and beautiful. But, a joint desire to be connected with our own personal divinity does not equate to a healthy relationship based on the foundation of respect, honesty, communication, selflessness, determination and love.
There would be moments of pain in my stomach as this new friend and I would be talking and a great discomfort whenever we changed the topic away from spirituality and growth to personal conversations. It was not always easy or possible for him to communicate and sometimes, even in our initial interactions, he would shut down. I found it difficult to express this sudden desire and change within myself to my friends and they asked me to be cautious and also wanted to be sure that I wasn’t being carried away and that the feelings were jointly communicated and they most certainly were. Filled with butterflies and the ideas we shared of living a harmonious life together, where we would share in meditation and music and maybe one day marry and live a happy beautiful life, I felt inspired to buy the tickets to see him and live out this dream to see if it could truly be a reality.
The first week of my trip was spent with my best friend, as well as a group of friends who belonged to another Center for Spiritual Living in Southern California. The time away from my household with friends who adored me and whom I adored lifted my spirits and validated my journey of self exploration and love.
Even still, my mom was in a state of panic, the beginning of her becoming unhinged. Letters, several pages long, would flood the inboxes of my friends as she tried to further control my life.
[New Mexico]
The day came when I was to fly into New Mexico for 11 whole days to spend time with a man who I had spent only a few days with and several weeks on the phone. Why so long? I think it was a combination of it falling on his birthday and my very real desire to see if we would like each other enough after 11 days to pursue a long distance relationship.
Seeing him in person again was strange but I pushed back those feelings of newness to make way for deeper feelings that superseded the superficial.
Red flag #1, we had touched base on the phone about alcoholism. He informed me that he had attended AA but wasn’t an alcoholic and didn’t currently have a problem with alcohol. However, once I was with him in person, upon getting into his car, I witnessed the mandatory breathalyzer installed due to his previous DUI’s.
Taking a deep breath, we quickly moved forward, excited to get to know one another face to face.
Red flag #2, we arrived at his parent’s house instead of his own. I knew that he was in debt and that he was struggling financially. I agreed to pay for my trip and joint expenses while I was visiting. However, I was never informed that we would be staying at his family’s house or that he was behind on rent at his own house and was too embarrassed to confront the situation. When we arrived, already a little late in the evening, he said, my family is excited to meet you, we’re going to stop here first.
The living situation became staying on his small cot in his mother’s music room and sleeping on the couch. I confirmed prior to coming that he did indeed have a couch or a spare bed where I could sleep as I wasn’t volunteering physical intimacy just because we were exploring friendship and a relationship.
After night 1, we slowly began to drift apart. Without any acknowledgement of going to “his house” or the living situation, we carried on. Taking his car out on my own was admittedly frustrating, having to use the breathalyzer myself, not to mention the excruciatingly hot heat of the desert making it quite unenjoyable to be outside. But, I drove to get groceries for the week for myself and to share with him.
Red flag #3, while making us breakfast the next morning, he received a phone call at the table, answered it, and began to mention words like paternity and alimony. I was dumbfounded. I actually found myself walking away and laughing in disbelief. Was he a father and didn’t tell me? Without a desire to want to blow up at him at his family’s house and wanting to hear his side of the story, I asked kindly if we could take a drive and talk. When we parked and I asked him what was going on. He then informed me that my response was not empathetic enough for him and proceeded to ask me if I just wanted to leave already. No real explanation. No, sorry, I probably should have discussed this with you before you came out here. No acknowledgement for the way the situation was handled at the table or my existence and potential existence in his future at all.
Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable drive back to his house and left us both with feelings unresolved.
Red flag #4, he left the house, for a long time. This was a physical expression of how he would shut down in conversation. He would quite literally leave or stop communicating. I pushed and I pushed through text messages until I could finally get him to return.
Red flag #5, his mom sat me down to ask me what was going on and talk to me about how this just is the way he is. I expressed my frustration about being deceived about various things and most importantly the lack of honesty and communication. I expressed my deep care for her son and my desire to be a friend for him and at the same time my concern for this behavior and the desire to above all communicate.
We made up. More or less. It felt like temporary progress.
[My Partner, Ex-Boyfriend at the Time, Called Me.]
Sometime within the first few days of being in New Mexico, as I was sitting outside in the back yard alone, my partner called me.
“Are you in New Mexico?” he asked. He was able to track my location from my phone and I knew that there was nothing left to hide. So, I told him everything (within reason).
He knew about this man as I had given him a ride to the airport after the retreat ended. They met each other briefly and I had mentioned him various times after.
I told him about how difficult his situation was. I spoke with him like the best friend he always was for me. He expressed empathy and love for me and I found myself comforted and supported.
Red flags #6, 7, 8 …
Each day presented new challenges. The combination between his actual behavior and his lack of self love, worth, and confidence was debilitating.
I watched him get ready for work every day to show up at a job he had expressed wasn’t paying him. This constant cycle contributed toward his continued debt, keeping him hostage between a cot in his parent’s house, without enough rooms for him or his sister, and a bed not slept in across town with back due rent he couldn’t afford from his job that didn’t pay him.
I watched him drink every single night.
I watched him grow distant and cold.
I watched him want me physically, emotionally, and spiritually and then express repulsion toward me.
Losing my dignity: one night, I went out by myself. I found an open mic and performed poetry and music. When I came back to his house, I was feeling vulnerable and opened his door to see if he would want to talk or connect. I was completely ignored and rejected.
Feeling so embarrassed that I was immobilized, I lay on the carpet on the floor for nearly 5 minutes. When I finally decided that I was done with my self talk of hatred and shame, I stood up, left, spent hours outside in the fresh air and went to sleep, knowing, for certain that nothing would ever ever grow from this relationship.
I had spent everything I had on this trip. I didn’t have the money to get an alternative Air BnB or hotel room, let alone pay the fee to get an earlier flight back home.
Before the 11 days ended, here are a few more terrible situations I lived through in New Mexico: we drove out to a hill in the middle of nowhere to see a viewpoint and instead got stuck in a ditch for hours in the middle of the heat of the summer until we could find a somehow distant connection to pull us out. We watched 4th of July fireworks in the most horrific, physically and emotionally distanced seating arrangement where he basically refused to speak with me all night. I paid for a trip to visit Santa Fe and we truly enjoyed the day-time part of the trip and paid for an AirBnB for us but he convinced me to meet up with his younger sister an hour away to drink and go dancing and then was angry at me for wanting to spend time together in the Air BnB and wanted us to stay with his sister instead.
Here’s a kicker: we never really sang together, played piano, or meditated. But, he and his mom convinced me to sing in their band on stage at the Center for Spiritual Living on Sunday, in place of mom, because her voice was damaged.
They chose Love Lift Us “Up Where We Belong,” a famous love ballad duet for him and I (oh the irony). I was also supposed to sing the very difficult “Firework” by Katy Perry, solo.
Here’s the actual kicker: we never played music together and we barely practiced our song that we were obligated to perform on stage.
I had longed for opportunities to sing on stage, to connect with musicians, and to nurture this shared language of music together and it NEVER happened.
The performances were pretty terrible and I was so grateful when they were over.
[How I Survived.]
I called a best friend of mine, who I had met at my own Center for Spiritual Living, after praying for more friends. He would be my confidant, the reason I attended Al-Anon meetings when I returned, and one of the many reasons I found myself back in my loving long-term relationship.
This friend of mine is a recovering alcoholic. He is also one of the most beautiful, smart, kind, interesting, funny people I know. I love him and trust him with my whole heart.
Being heard, witnessed, and supported by friends helped me stay sane and validated my experience daily.
Once we left Santa Fe and drove the hours back to New Mexico, I had given up faith in our relationship entirely and spent hours speaking with my best friend in Spanish just to get me through the car ride.
I also picked up his guitar and allowed myself to practice and play every single day (after many years of not taking practice seriously). Ultimately, this consistency led me to where I am in my own music and confidence on stage today.
[The Astounding Lead Up to My Departure.]
The two days before my plane ride home, I felt defeated.
I had started this journey in a place of alignment; I felt connected to Source; I was emanating light and love and I wanted to share that joy with the world.
By the time I left, I felt like a wounded puppy, whimpering, starving, dehydrated, dying.
I didn’t know how to even get through the days, so I searched MeetUp New Mexico to find ANYONE who could serve as a healer and a piece of community for me in this far away land.
(I don’t actually consider myself very “woo woo,” I hadn’t previously used crystals or spoken about chakras or energy the way that I was beginning to but at this point, I was open to anything.)
I found the right person. The next day, as he went to band practice for his family’s weekly musical performance at their church, I took the car to a shop downtown where I would meet a healer that would empower me with all I needed to get the f*** out of town.
I sat with her in her quiet and gentle space and just allowed conversation to flow as she recognized my experience without either of us sharing the details. One of the things that she did express that stuck with me was her telling me to get back to the water (She didn’t know I was from California but it was a literal and metaphorical stark contrast to be in the dry grueling desert heat instead of the coastline I grew up in). Another thing she expressed to me was the visibility of a pink aura around the top of my head. This meant a lot to me seeing as I had just gone through a very dark experience. To me, this meant that having acknowledged that this relationship was not for me, and having sought out conscious healing, I was yet again in true alignment of the joy, positivity, and happiness that is meant for me.
She gave me various stones and crystals for protection and healing as well as printed descriptions and the properties of each one.
[We Were Almost Struck by Lightning]
Fast forward to us being in Texas, driving to the airport, both in good spirits, in acknowledgment of all this was and wasn’t, and I believe, wanting the best for one another despite the experiences.
It starts to pour. It had only sprinkled very briefly on our way to Santa Fe, which he said was his favorite smell in the world, the aroma of freshly fallen rain the first time it hits the ground after a drought.
I pay for the expenses of our food and gas, one final time, even gave him cash for the road, and recognized in my mind how crazy even all of the financial burden was of this trip, thousands of dollars later.
Minutes before pulling up to the airport, a lightning bolt strikes the ground right in front of us.
Coincidence or not, it was a powerful sign from the Universe to leave and never return. We hugged briefly, said goodbye, and the feeling of relief flooded over me as I realized that while the next trek of my journey home wouldn’t be easy it would be NOTHING like the experience of a lifetime I survived in New Mexico.
[Powerful Lessons Learned]
Trust your intuition, your gut, your highest self. If you don’t know what’s right for you, sit in silence, ask the question, meditate on it, forget it, and allow the answers to come — you’ll know.
Don’t fall for the potential of who someone could be. Whoever you’re pursuing now is the actual person you are in a relationship with, not who you want them to be, who you believe they could be, or who they’ll be once you’re done with them.
It is not your job now or ever to heal someone else. No matter how loving you are, no matter your intentions, your ability to forgive, to teach, to listen, etc… unless and until someone is willing to heal themselves, or accept help, or reach out for help, it will not happen.
Get support. If you need support, I have found INCREDIBLE fellowship through Al-Anon (for friends of families of alcoholics but there are people who also have mental illness and other struggles), there are also many alternative support groups including groups on co-dependence, NAMI groups for friends and family of individuals with mental health disorders, etc.
It wasn’t until the following year, when I went through the trauma of separating from my mom, that I pursued therapy full-time. I found a therapist to be extremely helpful and constructive in order to teach me skills needed to communicate and build boundaries.
Recognize warning signs and trust someone when they tell you or show you who they are. One of the red flags I perceived was alcoholism, he even acknowledged AA. If he said he had a problem and then didn’t have a problem, I should have paid more mind to that. They say, “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” If he were serious about sobriety, he would have remained in AA or had a sponsor. There were many other red flags about problems with communication, dishonesty, various levels of manipulation, mismanagement of money, and more.
There are often more solutions available in a relationship than just breaking up or walking away. At some point, I had come to the conclusion that the only way to achieve self fulfillment was to leave my relationship. I even communicated this concept to my partner’s sister-in-law when she and her husband of over 20 years were separating. Finding yourself might require much needed space but it doesn’t always have to result in the end of a relationship.
They say communication is one of the most important concepts to maintaining a healthy relationship and I couldn’t agree more. My partner and I have both acknowledged how necessary these experiences were for both of us, so I can’t regret the fact that it happened. They forced us to grow and talk about important topics. We had both entered into survival mode in our household and become complacent in our relationship. Now, we have each other’s back, we support each other, we have joint boundaries and household boundaries, and we are more informed and available to help others in constructive ways. I feel our relationship overall is even more powerful, loving, and uplifting.
Sometimes you have to experience what you don’t want to know what you truly do want. Every single day that I would wake up in New Mexico, the interpersonal interactions and even the geography of the region affirmed everything I do NOT want out of life or in a relationship. I felt like I went to a strange opposite world, like the upside down from Stranger Things.
No, no, no. Understanding what I did not want helped me embody and manifest all that I do.
[Today, an Update on Life.]
Returning was challenging but we took it one day at a time. I didn’t go rushing back into my previous relationship because I had realized that the entire experience was always about me and who I am and how I show up in the world and then ultimately about how me and my current partner show up in a shared union together. It started with him insisting on picking me up at the airport, with food in hand, and forcing me to go out dancing that same night in San Francisco. (It was originally how he got me to fall in love with him.)
The next year, starting in January, (I returned home from New Mexico in July of 2018), we began the familial journey of separating from the toxic household and eventually found a new place to call home by August of 2019.
I have since found power and healing in educating and empowering people to break the stigma of mental health disorders. Just as well, I have grown comfortable speaking about my own experiences with trauma, mental health, relationships, and the importance of independence and for me, entrepreneurship.
In April of 2019, I left my old job and started my own marketing business. In October of 2019 my partner proposed in Hawaii. And now, we are present, supporting one another, showing up for our families and friends in stronger and healthier ways, and excited about what the future holds.
