Healing the little girl inside: What no one tells you about the impact of growing up without a mother and your stress response.

1999 will be a year that's engraved into my mind until the end of my time. The year my life took a dramatic shift nobody could've ever prepared me for. My mom took her final breaths on July 1st of 1999 after a drawn out battle with, to put it simply, heart disease. A virus that attacked her heart resulting in cardiomyopathy and thus, requiring she have a heart transplant. February 2nd 1997 the surgery was successfully completed and we were given more time with the woman who was the glue to our family.

We were in Chicago - her hometown, visiting family for a week after visiting family in Dallas for a week during the summer. It was a sudden, final goodbye that nobody anticipated. My mom had, had a heart transplant a little under 1.5 years prior and this was a final rejection of the surgery.

If you've ever experienced the death of someone close to you then you know how your body is unable to process the words initially. It's unfathomable to think of life carrying on and insulting when it does.

I was 9 years old and remember it like it was yesterday. After laying my mom to rest in the same plot of her mother's grave, my dad and brother flew home to California. I stayed in Illinois for a few extra days before flying back with an Aunt. Going back home without my mother that I flew to Chicago with was going to make it all real, and I wanted to postpone that moment as long as I could. I can't account for every detail at that time of my life but I can tell you I watched the world around me change, I watched myself change. I felt the need to try my best to make it look like I was doing ok for the sake of everyone else's feelings. My dad's words to my Aunt were something along the lines of " ...they're gonna have to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and keep it going." A true man's man. I love my dad and he really softened up in his last years but in 1999 and for years to come, he was tough. He was hurting, and doing the best he could with knowledge that he didn't have about how to be a single dad of 2 children without assistance from anyone else. We had no other family in California and from 1999 and on we were a team of 3.

I learned how to do my own laundry by 9 years old and how to cook myself some basic meals. My dad couldn't coddle us and he made sure to let us know we needed to step up, to grow up. So we did. My period started the next year at 10 years young. I believe the stressful nature of my life at that time and ther shock my body went through had something to do with that. He quit is teaching job after my mom passed and went back into personal training for a few years to come. There's something about such a dramatic shift in your life like the death of your wife, that makes it impossible to go back to your regular routine. He had a couple older women he'd regularly train and they knew his story. They gave him a couple colorful bags filled with pads for me to have on deck when the dreaded initiation of womanhood came knocking at my door. Thank God for those women who never met me a day in their lives and lovingly thought of me. Pads sucked. They still suck. I knew about tampons and figured that's what I needed so one day I asked to be taken to Rite-Aid, a local convenience store. My plan was to grab a box of tampons and get in line to buy them with my chore money without needing to bother my dad with that information. He drives me to the store and waits in the car while I went in. I got in line holding a box I chose out of what seemed like 50,000 options and a man soon after got in line right behind me. I freaked out with embarrassment. I got out of line quickly, shoved the box of tampons into the nearest shelf and swiftly walked out, crying. Opening the car door, now in tears, my dad said "What are you doing?! What's going on?" My brother was in the back seat so I whispered in his ear - "I need tampons". I barely got the words out of my mouth before he was getting out of the car to go in and buy them for me. I guess I could have asked for help to begin with.

As the years went on, this habit that had started to form of not wanting to bother anyone with my own issues continued. I got in trouble for forging my dads signature more than once on newsletters that would go home and have information about upcoming projects or events we were to have at school. Speaking of projects, I'd also skip out on some of those out of fear of overwhelming him with help that I'd need of going to the library or the store for supplies. Suffering in silence I call it, and believing that I had to.

It started off as a fear to ask for help and my brain rewired it along the way into - asking for help makes you weak.

In the years leading up to 1999 I was a sweet little girl (most of the time) who had sass and attitude of course and loved to dance and sing on the coffee table to entertain my family. Birthdays were the best days because I loved being the center of attention and my mom always made sure that I was. I was a mommy's girl through and through and she loved it. I was dramatic, and emotional, and allowed to be. That changed when she left. I felt outnumbered and misunderstood in a house of males. I created my own ideas in my head of how I needed to be to survive and held true to those ideas until adulthood. I found myself in toxic, abusive relationships again and again through my 20's along with friendships that had no mutual respect.

Suffering in silence manifested in my body too.

I'll save the details of my health for another time but I can tell you without a doubt, the overly-sensitive gut that I have today has been immensely impacted by years of holding things in. Years of harboring resentment and anger for why the next girl got to pick out her prom dress and then her wedding dress with her mom, while those were never options for me. Years of crying in the shower and putting on a happy or even mean face for the world to see. Years of forgetting that I'm deserving of love.

Healing isn't linear, and I have days where asking for help still seems impossible. There's still days where resentment rears its ugly head. My mom died at 42 years young. I'm only 7 short years away from that age, and I can't imagine the lights being shut off that quickly. I'm committed to my own healing not only for myself but in honor of her beautiful presence that I miss and feel at the same time, all the time.

My friend, if you're reading this, just know you're not alone. Healing takes time, a lifetime. More importantly than time, it takes awareness.

We can consume all the best supplements, all the latest and greatest health trends, we can spend countless hours in the gym and still be unhealthy. Why? ... because our bodies tell a whole story.

No one was able to prepare me for what my life would inevitably hand me. This may sound crazy but, I'd do it all again. I'm a firm believer that there are no accidents, no wrong turns. I'm beyond blessed to have an angel of a mother to miss and I know many others with shattered mother/daughter relationships dealing with the pain that story brings. We're all trying to do our best, at least that's what I want to believe. If you know someone who needs to read this please share it with them. Suffering in silence is never required. Myself, and the younger versions of me are grateful that you're here. Thank you for another opportunity for healing.