YOUR BODY WILL WARN YOU

Chenise Sinclair photographed by Celeste Shiels

I’ve always said I don’t believe in writer's block. 

But I do believe that the creative flow it takes to write can sometimes feel like a flower that’s been stepped on and trampled over when life gets sticky. I also believe when nurtured correctly, patiently and gently, that same flower can grow and bloom nice and strong, up and out through the harsh and cold concrete cracks.

So here goes nothing.

I read a quote online just the other night that read, “You cannot create art in survival mode.” 

And I think that’s my problem, but I won’t let it stop me. 
Actually, I can’t.

I want to write so badly. Writing to me is like breathing air. 

There are plenty of ideas I have, stories to share, lessons to learn and to teach but for some reason it just won’t land on the page.
Am I scared? Am I retreating? Am I in survival mode again? 

Yes, yes and yes. 

Another quote that has inspired me to write again after 3 months off, is one I actually put on my vision board. It says, “The thing you are most afraid to write, write that.”
So here’s the beginning of facing my vulnerability-fears I guess. 

All of my open journal entries have been written many moons ago, long before I even thought to end my six and a half year marriage. 

I used writing as my escapism for a long time and it had been my safety and my sanctuary in isolation. 

I still have a lot to share that has already been pre-written; however, I can’t help but feel a very distant gap from the current-me compared to the entries I have shared. I started this blog to be authentic, raw and real and to be honest with you, although my entries are still true and accurate, they’re not anything close to my current state of mind or life. 

When I re-read them back every Monday before I share them live, it’s a bittersweet realization that the woman who wrote those entries is not the same woman I am today. 

In such a short period of time my life has done a complete 180. I’ve entered a new season of life, with new characters, new plot lines, new settings, and new priorities all with more alone time. 

Some days feel like I’m living in a weird dream. While my head feels in a constant state of brain fog and I’m coasting on auto-pilot, things feel hazy and my body feels like it’s functioning in slow motion. As if I’ve taken substances unknown and the side effects are lingering longer than expected.
Is this really happening now? Truly? 

Before I left my ex-husband, I used to daydream of having the strength and courage to leave. To start my life over on my own with my daughter. To ‘live in the arena’ if you will. Meet new people, build back my confidence, find my independence again and learn to live life properly and to no longer be locked away in a big, glass-box house like Rapunzel was in her tower. 

When I finally did leave, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do.
For money, where to live, how to even get a job. The thoughts I had on moving forward were so large it felt absolutely debilitating and daunting that my body would literally physically react negatively when I would think about it. The task ahead felt too scary, too hard, too unknown. 

But eventually, the thought of staying became more terrifying than the thought of leaving. 

The last eight months of my marriage, it had gotten so awful my body began physically deteriorating. 

I lost over 13 kilograms and became severely underweight. I have never struggled with weight before and if anything, it’s always been harder for me to gain it than to lose, however I was dropping weight faster than anything. 

My clothes were rapidly falling off me and I was already the smallest size in womens clothing. I didn’t notice how skinny I had gotten until I threw my daughter's 2nd birthday party and that was the first time I had seen many of my relatives in a long time in person and a lot of them mentioned my weight loss to me. When they went home I looked at myself in the guest bathroom mirror and assessed just how little I had gotten. 

I didn’t recognise myself.

My collar bones were obvious, my jaw line had slimmed down and my cheeks had lost that little chub I used to hate. 

My thighs no longer rubbed together when I walked and my arms were stick-thin against the sides of my ribcage. 

I began to weigh myself and track my weight loss. I would eat as much as I could but it was no use. I just could not gain weight. 

I started having extreme nightmares and sleep paralysis. I would wake up drenched in sweat some nights with my heart palpitating and pounding in my tight chest while I gasped for air to desperateley fill my lungs. 

In the mornings when I would wake up at 7am to have 1 hour to myself, I would immediately feel nauseous and be stuck over the toilet for a solid amount of time dry reaching (sorry for the TMI). 

I would have severe panic and anxiety attacks all day, every day and I had never been one to experience that either. (Other than my previous post-partum anxiety but this was a whole new territory.)

I was constantly on edge. Waiting for something to happen, like a constant fear of impending doom was lurking around every corner in my icy, cold house. 

To distract myself from my deteriorating health and avoiding facing the root of the issue, I started overworking my body. I used to clean my house until the paint would come off basically. Cleaning was the chore I could do without feeling guilty for ‘wasting free time’. I was extremely exhausted daily and it would rinse and repeat every day. I would open my eyes in the morning and say, “It’s groundhog day.”

Each morning I would walk down the stairs past our crystal chandelier dangling three stories high, and feel conflicted with my materialistic reality vs my emotional, physical and mental well-being.
It wasn’t making sense to me that externally my life looked perfect.
I had it all. The mansion, the cars, the yard, the stuff, the designer items, the husband, the baby, the ‘perfect trad life’. Yet, “Why is something inside of me telling me to get the hell out of here?”

What the hell is going on? 

I began journaling daily, recording every single train of thought I had, recording every conversation that made me feel certain ways, and documented my reality in great detail. 

It wasn’t until I was instructed by The Artist Way to re-read back my entries from the beginning before I realized.

More things started happening, more days became confusing and an emotional juggling act. I began meditating more while sitting outside in the sun on the grass. Listening to the trees and the birds. I used to talk to them too. 

When I would feed them in the morning, I would whisper to them; “Please, help me. Please give me signs, give me strength.” 

I would close my eyes at the end of the day and talk to my higher-self. I began to create a future version of me in my mind. I decided how she looked, how she dressed, what she acted like and I began to mentally talk to her. And over time, she began to say, “Run.” 

It felt like there was this future version of me already out there, looking at present-me wishing she could shake me and scream, “Wake up!” 

When my 27th birthday rolled around in November 2023 and I got treated like a neglected dog that no one wants to play with now that Christmas is over, I knew it was time to go. I would look at my daughter every night and say to her, “I promise I will get us out of this.”
It was more than just me now.
I had her. 

The only way to teach a little girl is to lead by example. 

And that’s what I did. 

Chances are, if you’re Googling things about your marriage followed by, “...is this normal?” it probably isn’t and it’s most likely already over. 

But Google can be your secret best friend if you need it to.  

The more secret spare time I had, the more I researched and learned about what it was I was experiencing. It was absolutely confusing and isolating. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, I literally thought I was going crazy. 

Until I learned what was being done to me.

Knowledge is power and it became enough power to fuel the strength I had been begging for around me. 

And here I am, 3 months out. 

I did it. 

I am safe.

I am free.

All my love,
Chenise Sinclaire.