This is not the post I wanted to write. This is a post about mental health. This is a post for anyone who struggles, who has felt the irrational grip of PTSD.

The three year anniversary of my trauma is October 5th. That’s the day I gave birth to my fourth child, when my uterus ruptured into my bladder, when they told me I was fine and it was normal pain, when they told me I already had a Percoset, and they couldn’t give me anything else. When, three days later, despite still having horrific symptoms, they told me I was fine and sent me home.

When I was in therapy, my counselor asked me, “Bekah, when was the last time you felt safe?” This is the time of year I stop feeling safe. It’s not something I choose, it’s body memory. There are so many good things in my life right now, but I can’t enjoy them like I usually do, because, around this time of year, there’s a constant blanket of anxiety that wraps itself around my body.

I had two panic attacks this month. I haven’t had any since last year at this time. I buy food to make from the grocery store, but I don’t want to make it. It’s strange, really. If someone puts food in front of me, I’ll eat it, but the act of making food somehow seems really difficult and overwhelming. I have spurts of being my normal self and then I try doubly hard to complete the tasks I haven’t when the blanket wraps around my arms.

I know there are people that say it’s time for me to get over it. I heard people say that weeks after I had my surgery, the surgery that lead to me overdosing on morphine in the hospital because my pump wasn’t properly capped, that lead to taking Narcan, the surgery that put me in the hospital for a week, where I had to learn to change my own catheter bag that I’d have to take care of for the next month. The week where I didn’t see my newborn baby or my kids because I had a six-inch incision up my abdomen.

I want to get over it too. I want to be able to sleep at night. I want to be the person I am the other 11 months of the year. I don’t want to dream that things are crawling under my incision. I don’t want to feel ashamed or embarrassed that I have no control over what’s happening with my anxiety level for one month a year. I want to get over it more than anyone else.

But here’s the thing, I can’t right now. This is part of my story. This is what leads to the other eleven amazing months a year. This is what helped me to be the person I am today, a person who is better than that person three years ago. For now, I need to accept that in exchange for those eleven great months a year, I’m going to have a bad one. I’m going to have panic attacks and a hard time concentrating. I’m going to be emotional in a way that I cannot control. I’m going to be frustrated.

Someone asked me last year at JSConf Hawaii if I could go back and do it all over, would I erase this experience, and the answer is a hard no. First, I wouldn’t have my daughter who brings so much joy into our lives. Second, I wouldn’t know how strong I am, how much I can overcome, I wouldn’t understand empathy as I do now, and I wouldn’t have met so many amazing people, whether in the coding community, local community, or those healing from trauma with me.

This is a part of my journey that I cannot change. This is the part that I need to accept where I am at, because mental health isn’t a thing that I can magically snap my fingers at and be better. Even Frodo felt the pain of the blade where he was stabbed by the Witch-king of Angmar every year. They say that Frodo’s wound was as spiritual as it was physical. It’s easy to see how a physical wound heals, but the spiritual wound is something I carry inside. I need to give myself the grace to feel wounded this time of year. Would it be amazing if I wake up one year and don’t have that wound? Absolutely. But for now, this is me accepting myself where I’m at.