 filming yourself in actual public? yeah super uncomfortable but we're gonna do it anyways and he's gonna keep looking at me. good morning my beautiful friends! i am pushing myself this morning to leave the house and go work instead of staying home. i've been staying home to like study work edit do anything i need until brian gets home and then i'll you know go do stuff with him or we'll go work together somewhere so that i have someone to open doors for me and i feel like he's a buffer between me and the world i feel less awkward less weird walking around without a leg if he's with me but i couldn't really focus at home today and i wasn't getting a lot done and i want the good coffee that i don't have at home so that's step number one but step number two is i also didn't want to put makeup on today and i was like oh god but if i'm leaving the house i really need to because people are gonna stare at me and if you have been here for a while i've talked about this in a previous video which i will link up above feeling like if i'm leaving the house now i have to look put together because people are looking at me and i still can't wear any kind of prosthetic leg because of the cyst lump abscess whatever it is today i was like you don't know i really don't feel like doing it like it won't be a fun thing for me today i'm going out not put together by myself and uh we'll see how it works i may have made a horrible mistake i forgot that it snowed like a lot yesterday and so the parking lot is full of the bane of my existence cake batter that happens uh the day after snow i'll show you what i mean yeah i might die good news guys uh i made it i was able to get into the coffee shop and over the ice obstacles successfully i feel like i should like i can't do in the car but like make one of those like successful on the air motions that gymnasts do because i feel like i accomplished a great feat but this was my first time that i went to anywhere aside from a post office which was walking and walking out actually alone and especially without a prosthetic leg so it's like just me on crutches trying to get into a building that doesn't have handicap accessible buttons um with no leg and carrying heavy bags which looks pretty awkward i'm super uncomfortable about it right and i texted my husband just out of frustration i was like god like i feel so weird like i just feel like such a weirdo right now like i'm that person that everyone is talking about and whispering about um like i feel like i look so effing weird and he replied with i think you mean beautiful and that actually turned my day around because he's the sweetest guy ever so um it was actually really nice to get out of the house and just sit and work for a couple hours and i got a lot of stuff done and now i'm off to get my brain right talk to my lovely therapist and go from there so i feel good i feel good heading into counseling today so i don't know how many of you guys actually have ever gone to counseling but on the days when i'm like super upset and having a hard time i i know what i'm there for but um when i roll up to counseling and i'm like god i'm doing good i don't even need a how many therapists today like i should probably just cancel that i've learned to be afraid of those days and uh today was no exception i talked in past videos about having difficulty sleeping and feeling anxious a lot of the time and i think when you make a decision like i made to amputate your leg like i made that decision i was sure of it but you can't actually be sure like it's a giant leap of faith like a leap of faith that i've never ever ever ever taken and i there's no way i could have allowed myself to feel all of the emotions that were actually there at the time because i made the decision and about two and a half weeks later i actually had the amputation in retrospect it was probably kind of rushed but i needed it to be because i knew what i wanted i knew that i couldn't drag it out and i don't regret that but at the same time i didn't have time to panic i didn't have time to like stop i didn't have time to be super afraid i was aware that i was feeling those emotions and if you go back and watch some of those videos like you can see it but i also felt like i had to convince everyone around me that i was sure of this because a lot of people understandably had doubts um so i think i i felt like i had to project this image that like i was you know scared it's a big deal but like i was good like i knew what was going on and i was thinking specifically about the moment today because i was writing about it that i said bye to my husband i kissed him by i hugged my mom by i was on the surgery bed and the anesthesiologist was like it was just me and him you know it was it was time and when i actually think about that moment alone it brings tears to my eyes because of the panic that i felt i shoved it all down then too because i was like well we're doing this aren't we i started this training and i can't get off of it now and then that's basically like when i like faded out and went to sleep i don't think i ever processed any of that fear any of that panic i just shoved it down and the thing with putting emotions on shells which i have a lot of experience with is that they don't go away we just put them somewhere and i think the reason why i've been filled with like so much anxiety about everything over the time way more than usual is because it's like displaced emotion you know i didn't let myself feel anything before and so after my body's like hey all that fear that you weren't feeling all that panic is still here it needs to be noted it needs to be noticed and taken care of and that was kind of a realization for me today and on the one hand it still feels so utterly pointless like it feels so it feels so pointless to me as someone who talks about mental health a lot i really have issues feeling emotions when i feel like there's no point to them like getting angry i don't get angry at stuff like ever because i'm like well what's the point like if i can't do anything about it i can't do anything about it even if it's something horrible but anger is there for a reason like we have emotions for a reason and we're meant to experience them and i need to emotionally participate in this journey and i think that maybe that's what grief means and grief looks like it means feeling things instead of shoving them in boxes on shelves where we hope i hope they don't emerge again because they do emerge again because they emerge in the fact that i'm anxious all the time they emerge in the fact that i can't or don't want to sleep and it's weird to think about the fact that in the past four months i made the decision to amputee my leg two weeks later i had that done and now i'm here it's a very short period of time and a lot to absorb and i'm very proud of how far i've come some days other days i like beat myself up but i know that like i am proud of how far i've come and in the videos right after surgery i mentioned a couple times like i keep waiting for emotions to hit like i keep waiting for that to happen it's not happening so maybe i'm fine and sometimes i just have to laugh at how naive i really can't be i think the thing about experiencing this new normal is that i have to go through it i think if you've ever experienced anything if you've ever gone through any trauma if you've ever dealt with mental illness or anything like that you know what i'm talking about you can't go under over something to get past it we have to go through it if we really want to get through it and so i'm trying to participate in that so last night brian drove me out to our p.o box and you guys um i was able to pick up a bunch of letters from all of you and i cannot tell you how much that means to me like sincerely from the bottom of my heart thank you and i'll be writing back momentarily also i want to say a huge personal thank you to andrew and april and maryland who are new patreon supporters thank you so much for your generosity and supporting me and what i'm doing here i don't really know how to properly thank you like honestly thank you thank you thank you so much truly from the bottom of my heart um i mean the world to me not that you all just watch um but so many of you support me in so many different ways so thank you guys so much