I think I can minimize how intensely you suffered during the height of your dizziness. How life changing it all was! This chapter takes me back into it. I marveled at your amazing ability to steady yourself with needle felting. And such an awesome gift of talent you demonstrated! I still look at the Sphinx cats given to me that you created during the height of your dizziness and marvel at your raw talent. How perfect you chose Sphinx cats as they appear furless…expressing the vulnerability you must have felt during the height of the dizziness before a correct diagnosis was revealed… 💜
I, too, can minimize it now that the waves are, on most days, a lot more subtle. I think it's part of how our brains adapt, sequestering the painful stuff into smaller and smaller boxes. But you were witness to some of the worst of it, and so patiently, lovingly held me through it. I will never forget, or minimize, the magnitude of strength I drew from you in those months. xo
Your intense dizziness freaks me out when I try to imagine it---your endurance is the most intense example of persistant strength---and then I am completely pissed off for you, TOTES, when you go to the top dizzy doc and find out he's a complete ass.
This sentence, "Surrender and defeat vie with each other in stifling shades of grey.", is gripping me hard. Bless your kitchen nook for being there in that womb-like way...you are so effing brave.
I love your Turquioise-blue Rex IX---I see you.
I love your vibrant, embracing Rexes---I see you. I love your nurturing Rexes---I see you.
Toni, you write with such visceral force. I just love reading your comments. They make me laugh, tremble and want to do cartwheels. Yeh, unfortunately (fortunately?) that doctor is now retired or he'd have quite the Yelp review. :) I love my grumpy turquoise rex too. He has a very special place in my heart.
Your presence here is such a loving, powerful embrace.
Just made it into real-time with this chapter. This one hits home hard, so hard. I have so much I want to say about so much of what you’ve written, but for now will just go back and ❤️ each.
Welcome to "real-time"! (Though spoiler-alert, it's not actually real-time, I'm thankfully about 8 years out from this horror.) I so appreciate you Eric. What a whopper of encouragement I've felt from your presence here, something I can only imagine has been fostered through your own chapters of uncertainty. Bowing to your compassionate way.
Your wool work is beautiful! This is probably different but I went through a decade in my 20s and 30s with panic disorder and agoraphobia. I felt very similar to what you describe. I remember being desperate for a physician or even my therapists to tell me what was wrong, and they couldn't. Back then, they thought talking about your childhood ad nauseam should take care of it all. I discovered painting right around that time and the flow state I entered into helped me a lot. I had other "work" to do to actually untangle from my anxiety symptoms but I've never stopped making art and that adds so much to life. Great article!
Thank you Linda. And not that different at all actually. Panic disorder and my eventual diagnosis have a lot of similar neurological attributes. The refuge of art is so essential when the world feels harsh and abandoning. I'd love to see some of the paintings you created during that time. Do you still have them around?
Every time I need a reminder to keep going, embrace it all, you’re ok, no matter what—I visualize your little Rex’s. I even somehow made a little emoji out of one of the pictures and I don’t know how I did that?!
OK so I've never heard of needle felting, but did you make those cats? Wow, they're so impressive. So much life in them.
Every chapter of this is so bursting with feeling. All kinds of feelings. Your writing is alive on the page. I have a hard time grasping what you have been through, mentally and physically.
Also, happy birthday, or perhaps now belated happy birthday, but happy birthday regardless!
These cats blow me away every time see them. The glib nature of my doctor as he diagnosed me is something that will forever ignite my fury. You are a much better human. 💜
Good grief, not only did you manage to keep going after listening to the ridiculous doc, (how could he have been so insensitive so basic…?) you went home and created beautiful felt kitten(s) filled with (it looks to me) with all the emotions you were feeling, they are works of art Kimberly, I don’t know where you found the strength of mind and wobbly body to continue but, that you did and to a such a visibly brilliant degree is awe inspiring!
Your story pulls my heart strings into the oddest places, it’s so very beautiful, so sad and gut wrenchingly filled with love also and despite how difficult these years were for you still shined! X
When I was really struggling with chronic back pain I found distraction was one of the most effective antidotes. And so, it was relatable to hear you found this in needle felting.
Your descriptions of this time of struggles isn’t just great writing, it also has this way of making me take stock of my life and how much I take for granted.
Also, I chuckled at — “... Pluto squaring Disney” :)
Distraction is such a crucial yet underrated coping technique...in our culture the word even connotes laziness or inability to focus and that couldn't be further from the truth. Bring on crafting and art, bring on re-runs of The Office, bring on Zelda! It's the medicine our brains need when suffering is too loud.
First, I want to wish you the happiest birthday! 🥳 🎂 I hope you're having the best time right now. Second. The kitties 😭 They are so beautiful and I teared looking at them. They really do embody the raw vulnerability of it all. They are gorgeous, and tender, and sob inducing. I felt (teehee) all the feelings looking at them. They are SPECTACULAR. I don't know how many kitties you made but you should put on an exhibit. I'm obsessed with them and the story behind them. Also lol'd at "Pluto squaring Disney".
I was talking about a memoir the other night to Joe and we got on the subject of memoirs, and I stated talking about ones that I deeply enjoy. Of course, yours came up. He asked me if you planned on submitting it for publishing, I looked at him with the most dead serious of faces and said, "She better." He burst into laughter. (He gets a kick out of my passion) Then I remembered myself and that it wasn't my call. I don't know what your intentions are with this, but just know I will pounce on that preorder link like a bobcat!!! Not to compare but if the memoir I was reading got published with a huge campaign behind it...there is no way you won't get a contract. Okay, I'm done. I adore you and your writing. You're already a bestseller in my heart and eyes.
OHMYGOD I love you. Please email me your snail mail. I have something I wantneed to send you. As for publishing... well... I'm faint of heart. I've tried with a few already to no avail. Such a drastically different experience than sharing over here—deflated vs buoyed? I'll take the latter!
Kisses and hugs from me and my kitties. Yes, I made 13 in total over the course of 2.5 years. Each one took about 3 months to make and I have them placed around the house to constantly remind me of their lessons. They truly saved my life.
I love YOU!! Will email you my snail mail address! I feel you so hard on the publishing thing. It is hard to want to pursue publishing when this place is so rewarding. Trad publishing really is like Hollywood. Who you know, connections, blah blah blah. I've seen it very up close and personal, it turned me off so much that I even stopped writing for a while. (I was young and in my 20's and not as steadfast as I am now.) If you ever visit NYC, I'll tell you all about it in person. Whatever road you choose to go, know that I will be cheering you on the whole way. I'm so grateful we get to have access to your gorgeous writing.
3 months?! Wow. And also, makes complete sense. The kitties are true works of art.
Lovable and awkward... two of my favorite words mooshed up together. And thank you for the backseat of the moving car. I feel those words and even now, wobbling back and forth as I write this, I can relax into the imagined space. You're so dear.
I think I can minimize how intensely you suffered during the height of your dizziness. How life changing it all was! This chapter takes me back into it. I marveled at your amazing ability to steady yourself with needle felting. And such an awesome gift of talent you demonstrated! I still look at the Sphinx cats given to me that you created during the height of your dizziness and marvel at your raw talent. How perfect you chose Sphinx cats as they appear furless…expressing the vulnerability you must have felt during the height of the dizziness before a correct diagnosis was revealed… 💜
I, too, can minimize it now that the waves are, on most days, a lot more subtle. I think it's part of how our brains adapt, sequestering the painful stuff into smaller and smaller boxes. But you were witness to some of the worst of it, and so patiently, lovingly held me through it. I will never forget, or minimize, the magnitude of strength I drew from you in those months. xo
Your intense dizziness freaks me out when I try to imagine it---your endurance is the most intense example of persistant strength---and then I am completely pissed off for you, TOTES, when you go to the top dizzy doc and find out he's a complete ass.
This sentence, "Surrender and defeat vie with each other in stifling shades of grey.", is gripping me hard. Bless your kitchen nook for being there in that womb-like way...you are so effing brave.
I love your Turquioise-blue Rex IX---I see you.
I love your vibrant, embracing Rexes---I see you. I love your nurturing Rexes---I see you.
Toni, you write with such visceral force. I just love reading your comments. They make me laugh, tremble and want to do cartwheels. Yeh, unfortunately (fortunately?) that doctor is now retired or he'd have quite the Yelp review. :) I love my grumpy turquoise rex too. He has a very special place in my heart.
Your presence here is such a loving, powerful embrace.
Just made it into real-time with this chapter. This one hits home hard, so hard. I have so much I want to say about so much of what you’ve written, but for now will just go back and ❤️ each.
Brilliant brilliant heart wrenching brilliance.
Welcome to "real-time"! (Though spoiler-alert, it's not actually real-time, I'm thankfully about 8 years out from this horror.) I so appreciate you Eric. What a whopper of encouragement I've felt from your presence here, something I can only imagine has been fostered through your own chapters of uncertainty. Bowing to your compassionate way.
I take comfort knowing you are beyond this (I hope!!), because reading what you've gone through ...!
Your wool work is beautiful! This is probably different but I went through a decade in my 20s and 30s with panic disorder and agoraphobia. I felt very similar to what you describe. I remember being desperate for a physician or even my therapists to tell me what was wrong, and they couldn't. Back then, they thought talking about your childhood ad nauseam should take care of it all. I discovered painting right around that time and the flow state I entered into helped me a lot. I had other "work" to do to actually untangle from my anxiety symptoms but I've never stopped making art and that adds so much to life. Great article!
Thank you Linda. And not that different at all actually. Panic disorder and my eventual diagnosis have a lot of similar neurological attributes. The refuge of art is so essential when the world feels harsh and abandoning. I'd love to see some of the paintings you created during that time. Do you still have them around?
Yes... you can go to my IG page and see a lot... @llochridgehoenigsberg (believe me I'm going to change that...lol)
Oh wonderful! Going to head over there now!
How infuriating! Far too many formulas and wand waving, not nearly enough compassion... 💜💙💚
Those cats! Oh my god, I'm in love! 😻
Haha! We didn't even get a chance to talk about our fur babies. But probably would've needed a few days for that..;)
haha yes, pet parents are not childless, we are childful... 😂
Every time I need a reminder to keep going, embrace it all, you’re ok, no matter what—I visualize your little Rex’s. I even somehow made a little emoji out of one of the pictures and I don’t know how I did that?!
OMG! I love that!
OK so I've never heard of needle felting, but did you make those cats? Wow, they're so impressive. So much life in them.
Every chapter of this is so bursting with feeling. All kinds of feelings. Your writing is alive on the page. I have a hard time grasping what you have been through, mentally and physically.
Also, happy birthday, or perhaps now belated happy birthday, but happy birthday regardless!
I did..They're all over our house now. ;)
Thank you for the generous feedback... "alive on the page" is such a huge compliment to someone who felt so dead for so many years.
And thank you for the bday wishes!!!!!!
What a statement! I'm sooo happy you no longer feel dead! 🤗
These cats blow me away every time see them. The glib nature of my doctor as he diagnosed me is something that will forever ignite my fury. You are a much better human. 💜
Good grief, not only did you manage to keep going after listening to the ridiculous doc, (how could he have been so insensitive so basic…?) you went home and created beautiful felt kitten(s) filled with (it looks to me) with all the emotions you were feeling, they are works of art Kimberly, I don’t know where you found the strength of mind and wobbly body to continue but, that you did and to a such a visibly brilliant degree is awe inspiring!
Your story pulls my heart strings into the oddest places, it’s so very beautiful, so sad and gut wrenchingly filled with love also and despite how difficult these years were for you still shined! X
You are spring sunshine on this very foggy, Oregon day Susie. Thank you from the whole of me. xo
When I was really struggling with chronic back pain I found distraction was one of the most effective antidotes. And so, it was relatable to hear you found this in needle felting.
Your descriptions of this time of struggles isn’t just great writing, it also has this way of making me take stock of my life and how much I take for granted.
Also, I chuckled at — “... Pluto squaring Disney” :)
Distraction is such a crucial yet underrated coping technique...in our culture the word even connotes laziness or inability to focus and that couldn't be further from the truth. Bring on crafting and art, bring on re-runs of The Office, bring on Zelda! It's the medicine our brains need when suffering is too loud.
Hear hear :)
First, I want to wish you the happiest birthday! 🥳 🎂 I hope you're having the best time right now. Second. The kitties 😭 They are so beautiful and I teared looking at them. They really do embody the raw vulnerability of it all. They are gorgeous, and tender, and sob inducing. I felt (teehee) all the feelings looking at them. They are SPECTACULAR. I don't know how many kitties you made but you should put on an exhibit. I'm obsessed with them and the story behind them. Also lol'd at "Pluto squaring Disney".
I was talking about a memoir the other night to Joe and we got on the subject of memoirs, and I stated talking about ones that I deeply enjoy. Of course, yours came up. He asked me if you planned on submitting it for publishing, I looked at him with the most dead serious of faces and said, "She better." He burst into laughter. (He gets a kick out of my passion) Then I remembered myself and that it wasn't my call. I don't know what your intentions are with this, but just know I will pounce on that preorder link like a bobcat!!! Not to compare but if the memoir I was reading got published with a huge campaign behind it...there is no way you won't get a contract. Okay, I'm done. I adore you and your writing. You're already a bestseller in my heart and eyes.
OHMYGOD I love you. Please email me your snail mail. I have something I wantneed to send you. As for publishing... well... I'm faint of heart. I've tried with a few already to no avail. Such a drastically different experience than sharing over here—deflated vs buoyed? I'll take the latter!
Kisses and hugs from me and my kitties. Yes, I made 13 in total over the course of 2.5 years. Each one took about 3 months to make and I have them placed around the house to constantly remind me of their lessons. They truly saved my life.
I love YOU!! Will email you my snail mail address! I feel you so hard on the publishing thing. It is hard to want to pursue publishing when this place is so rewarding. Trad publishing really is like Hollywood. Who you know, connections, blah blah blah. I've seen it very up close and personal, it turned me off so much that I even stopped writing for a while. (I was young and in my 20's and not as steadfast as I am now.) If you ever visit NYC, I'll tell you all about it in person. Whatever road you choose to go, know that I will be cheering you on the whole way. I'm so grateful we get to have access to your gorgeous writing.
3 months?! Wow. And also, makes complete sense. The kitties are true works of art.
Your Rexes are amazing!
Those symptoms ~ like constantly walking on water, as if you were continuing Charles Brauers' unfinished journey...
Lovable and awkward... two of my favorite words mooshed up together. And thank you for the backseat of the moving car. I feel those words and even now, wobbling back and forth as I write this, I can relax into the imagined space. You're so dear.
THANK YOU!!!! Yes, calling it quits at noon so Dave and I can go hang at a N. Portland spot called "Knot Springs" (hot springs and massages!)