Thank You God!

by Summer D Clemenson | Aug 24, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions, Prayers, Thanksgiving

Sometimes I have to stop and say: Thank You God

There are times that there is just no other answer I can come up with that explains some of the blessings that come in my life. I have had a lot of loss and I do have a lot of things I have to contend with every day but I know that I am never alone. Even when I forget that, I am reminded by Him that I am not. He is always faithful, even when I am tired and forget to be.

I was surprised to find this in my reading on Tuesday. I have been chewing on this because it makes so much sense, yet I was so surprised that it was part of the relationship with God. We are expecting life to get better and easier as we walk with Christ, and in many ways it is so much easier but in many ways it is also so much harder as well. I find myself thankful that He protects me from what I don’t need to know. I am grateful for His wisdom and that I can trust that He knows what I can handle.

God hasn’t chosen to let us have our apartment yet, and I don’t understand that, but I do know that He knows what He is doing in, and, through us. He has allowed some barriers, yet, He is leading us to be fruitful and generous in the other ways and I have to trust Him.

One thing I want to praise Him for is that I budget my part of the expenses almost to the dollar and for the past several months there seems to be anywhere from $15 to $25 left over in my checking account. I have been tucking away those few dollars into savings accounts. This month there was an overage of $60, exactly what I need to get Xavier’s shots next month. I have no answer but God. I check my list of expenses and see they all were paid and I get the same amount of money each month. But I know that God loves Xavier too and He knows that Xavier’s care is important to me.

Those little transfers may eventually add up to the first and last month’s rent and a truck rental to move without the help we have been trying to apply for. Sorrow is not so hard when you are resting in the arms of your Savior.

After I called the vet to make Xavier’s appointment for his shots in September and his exam in January, I texted my wife, Karen G Clemenson, to let her know I had the money for his appointments in a savings account so she didn’t have to worry about that bill when she the event pop up on her phone. She was thankful. I told her about my checking account overages and all she could say is: God is good all the time!

It is good to stop and say: Thank You God!

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

For anyone reading this that isn’t a Christian, unapologetically, I am a Christian, but I believe there is room for lots of beliefs and religions in the world. It is not my intent to offend people with different beliefs than I have and I would be open to open-minded conversations with no goals of changing anyone’s mind, but sharing information.

If you are interested in becoming a Christian…Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.

There Were A Lot of Decisions That Got Me Here

by Summer D Clemenson | Aug 14, 2023 | About Summer, Chronic Illness, Life, Opinions

I know I don’t have to explain myself to anyone but I often feel the need to describe myself to me. I am not trying to compete with anyone, I really want us all to win at being the best individual we can be and I know that includes our own paths and purposes. What works for me might not work for you but maybe my efforts might inspire you, and since I believe I was put here to be an encourager, I often share my experiences here. There were a lot of decisions that got me here.

The situation that I was talking about in I Don’t Know Everything has bothered me a lot more than I expected. I have spent many more hours being tormented in my mind by the conversation and why it happened and why it concerned me so much. I do have OCD and so obsessive thoughts are part of my world but it took me a few days to understand that this person was part of pattern for me that I am trying to learn and stop.

I have a pattern that I tend to carry relationships. I am the one to initiate contact, make the first call, encourage get togethers, sometimes I even buy things they need, pay for meals and our outings. I am drawn to people that need me. Part of that is that I know what it feels like to need but I also am used to taking care of people that can take care of themselves because that is a dynamic I was raised with. I am aware of this and so in the last year or so, I have stopped contacting people who never contact me first. It isn’t malicious. I still love them and pray for them, but I want a more equality in my relationship. If all they can do is send me a message, that is what I want them to do for me.

When you are chronically ill there is a lot to overcome to create your wellness plan, especially if you have had a lot of unhealthiness in the past. Because I have both mental illness and learned bad habits to overcome, as well as physical illness, I have had to make a lot decisions and fight a lot of demons. I understand that everyone has them. Mine are my own and might look very different from yours. I have learned to create several rules for my day, many you might not see as important to your life and this is what you need to decide.

The fact that my day includes exercise, lots of water, 3 sets of medications, lots of reading, regulated chores because, I only have so many spoons, and little habits that keep me grounded, as my wellness plan, might not be what you need. I fight with food because that is a learned habit that sometimes still kicks my butt in either direction. I probably have specialists that you might not need, or maybe you do and you don’t know it. I have a Primary doctor, a Neurologist, Rheumatologist, Gynecological oncologist, Psychiatric RN, Therapist and I will be seeing a Dietician at the end of August and a Dermatologist in September. I probably need to see an Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist too but I can only afford to pay so many co-pays and right now I am tapped out.

Relationships are super important to me. I don’t take them lightly and I am not good at casual relationships. I have had to really coach myself to not be too much for new relationships because as I try to make relationships with healthier people, who are busy and have their own lives and don’t need my help, I have to remind myself, they are engrossed in their own responsibilities. Needy people tend to be able to respond to me faster because they have more free time. Also most people are not my sister, Jamie Holloway, who is just more thoughtful than most people. She always answers letters, cards, messages. She always shares what she has. I don’t see the things I do for her as carrying her, I see us sharing our lives with each other. I am not looking for another sister. But other friends are always nice.

I had already seen the end of the relationship coming mentioned in I Don’t Know Everything. They were not thoughtful. They didn’t realize how some of the things I shared with them, was me really trying to trust them and they didn’t appreciate it. They never initiated contact and they didn’t always acknowledge when I reached out to them. They made promises and didn’t keep them so I was slowly letting go. When I disagreed with their knowledge, it wasn’t me picking a fight or hating on them, and it wasn’t me trying to show off my big old brain, it was me sharing information I had learned about the topic. When I tried to tell them that, they got really abusive in a way that was not appropriate to the situation. After days of thinking about it I finally realized that this response was so much like abuse I used to live with and that was the real reason I was so upset. It was just too close to home. I wasn’t even that angry with them. I was just reminded of something that I haven’t had to deal with in a long time.

Wellness is essentially a lot of decisions. You can’t keep making the same decisions and expect to change. You have to overcome the old knowledge and as you are able, to make new choices about how you will live your life and what you will allow into your life. It isn’t just about exercise and diet. Abuse towards yourself and others effects our morale and mental health and causes a plethora of negative responses in our bodies. Especially if you have a chronic body, you have to reduce the stress in your life and that includes relationships that take too much from you. Stress can cause an emotional episode, or a flare of physical illness or both for me. I don’t want to have more pain, mentally or physically, I don’t like psoriasis breakouts in new spots, I hate being dizzy or twitching more than normal, I hate it when it my face flares up and drinking water is excruciating…those are just a few of the things that might happen if I have too much stress, and they are the more pleasant ones…There were a lot of decisions that got me here and I imagine there will be many more.

Learning to love myself has been the one of the greatest challenges I have ever begun. But I also think that loving myself properly helps me to love more people better and I think that has been a huge blessing too. I still pray for all the people behind me and I am happy to place them in God’s hands because I know He loves them and wants them to be well too.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Don’t Know Everything

by Summer D Clemenson | Aug 12, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

I have read a lot of books and articles but I don’t know everything. I have read the bible a lot but there is still much to learn about God. I have been to therapy for many years of my life and I have learned a lot of tools but I am not a therapist and I don’t know everything about therapy. But I do know a lot about me, not everything, but more than most people. This was the part of me that I was trying to share with someone recently.

I have always loved to read. It has been an escape and a way to feel better as well as a way to feed this thing inside myself that wants to learn things. Even as a child I was teased by my friends and called a snob because I was always in a book. I often had to be reminded to put the book down to enjoy my human friends. The book was safe. I didn’t have to try to be with the book. People are sometimes harder. Because I have always read, I have a larger vocabulary and I think differently than a lot of people, I also tend to know tidbits of information that some people don’t know. Sometimes I don’t worry about things that other people worry about because I have spent time in books with people wiser than me and I know what is truly important and many of the things we put emphasis on in society are just fleeting moments.

There is a person that I tried to befriend because I know they need a friend that wants nothing from them. I have tried many times to connect with them but it always ends badly. I think they think I am judging them and sometimes I am, but not because I don’t like them. I know they were badly hurt as a child and young adult and they have a lot to deal with. I love that they are in therapy but they are resistant to medication and I have to say I was too when I was younger because the meds I was given in my 20’s were not the right ones and it made everything worse. Meds are scary because it is hard to find the right ones. Karen G Clemenson and I went through quite a trial until we found the right ones for me and I am so thankful she was with me, to go through that with me, so I didn’t have to do it alone; so I had someone who could verify that I was experiencing what I thought I was experiencing. It is so hard when your brain lies to you. But when you find the right medications it is amazing because trauma is brain damage and the right medication can help your brain heal faster. In the last 9 years I have been so thankful to find the right meds, the right therapists, been told the right books to read and I have researched what I was told to research because I wanted to be better, I wanted to not abuse my wife, I wanted to be a peace. I want that for this person, that I wanted so much to be able to call friend.

But as it turns out I believe I remind them of their abuser so in the end they abuse me to protect themselves. I can’t allow myself to be abused so for now I guess this person will have to be put on the shelf. Sometimes we find a book that looks like it will be a great read but we are not ready for the content and it takes years for us to read the whole book, maybe this person is like one of those books…

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

My Final Fracture

by Summer D Clemenson | Aug 7, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

I had an experience on the day after Nana’s celebration of life that really upset me. I was so upset that Anna was awakened. She was my final fracture. I little over 20 years ago I had had a vision, during the day, that God showed me that I was so hurt, that I had about 5,000 fractures. Each one was part of my brain that had taken on a task that I was not ready to handle throughout my childhood and young adulthood. I was working with a Christian therapist at the time and she was very important to helping me to integrate many of them rather quickly. As far as I know, none of them were actual personalities and very few or none of the fractures were strong enough to take me over, however I was experiencing lost time and this was very stressful to me.

By 2014, I had checked in with God and He had told me I was down to less than 100. This was about the time that this therapist felt that we had grown too close and she didn’t think she could help me as a therapist anymore. I agreed. Also, I was confident that, as I was ready, I could continue integrating fractures, on my own with God. He is very gracious to not insist that we don’t handle issues we aren’t ready to handle until He knows we are ready.

I have written about Anna before. I am not sure, exactly how long she has been the last one and actually I think she might be an integration of several fractures because the first time I met her she was 5 years old, but lately she seems to be many ages, some even pre-verbal, which has made it very hard to communicate. Last week was a hard one. My emotions were all over the place. It was hard to reason with Anna. She wanted to engage with people from my past in ways that I don’t want to. She was making me feel really crazy.

On Saturday night, my wife, Karen G Clemenson, went to work and I finally had had it with Anna. So I told God I was ready to integrate Anna. After talking honestly with God I realized I knew that Anna’s job was to hold all the emotions and pain of my past and I had kept her around because I didn’t want to be responsible for those emotions and pain. Before the integration I felt like my emotions were firecrackers always going on outside of me, startling me. After the integration my emotions come from one place inside of me and I can stop and look at them and decide how to respond to them. There is a new type of quiet in me. I am very tired. I am waiting to see what will happen next. I don’t think I have ever lived without Anna so life is new in some ways.

I told my new therapist about this experience today. He seemed to be very excited for me. He agreed that this must be an amazing experience and it would take time for me to totally get to know the new me that didn’t rely on another part of myself.

One thing that this experience has done is made it very easy for me to be at peace with my decision to leave much of my extended family behind me. Many of them have done things to me and other people that I don’t respect. Not only that, they have done nothing to build a relationship with me. Yes I put boundaries on them, but I did not shut them completely out, they just never took the time to figure out how to reach me. I answer emails. Google me. I have 4 websites and Facebook is not the only social media site that I am on. They may not like this but I get to choose my boundaries. If they don’t like them they can stay in the background. I am walking forward.

There are a few of them that I am just not interested in engaging with at all and I get to make that boundary too. That might be painful to some of them but I didn’t get to choose who was in my life as a child. I have the right to choose as an adult.

It is funny how the more information we have, the richer the conversation can become…this is kind of rabbit trail but I think it kind of proves a point too. Aunt Elaine and Uncle Duane stopped by, unexpectedly yesterday. I haven’t seen them in a while and it was nice to catch up. For some reason an old uncle, via marriage, came up in conversation; I don’t know why. He was my uncle when I was a very little girl, probably younger than 6 or 7 years old, at the most. I didn’t have a lot of words, when I was a child, for what I remembered about him, or life experience. My parents were raised in Seattle, Washington, which is vastly different, demographically, than Longview, where I was raised. Longview is still about 84% white. I looked it up and in 1980, when I was about 5 years old, the population was about 90% white. I don’t know what nationality Uncle Hector was but he was not white. I was telling Aunt Elaine that maybe I thought he was different because of his brown skin. I stopped talking about his skin because she paused loudly. Normally when I am around people that seem judgmental I like to poke as much as I can at this soft spot because I can’t see a reason to judge someone for their skin color or who their parents are because we don’t get to choose, but I know there is not a judgmental bone in my aunt’s body so I let it go. But I did add that his eyes scared me. She told me that he was a Vietnam Veteran and he had PTSD and he was always drunk or high and that was probably what I was seeing.

Today, after I had time to think about it, I was telling Karen about my full thoughts about Uncle Hector…yes the conversations never stop for me when they actually stop. I think about them for a long time until all the details make sense to me. Uncle Hector’s name was super cool to me. I mean what the Heck! He always wore a camouflage jacket and dog tags, a look I borrowed in my teens for awhile, of course I also wore a tuxedo shirt with my look. I didn’t like that every time he saw me, he made sure to announce how big I was. Yes. We all knew I was a fat child. He was a very loud guy. That was hard for me but so were most of the Clemenson family. Not only was his hair thick and black and very big but his skin was dark brown and it was covered in acne scars that in my little girl mind, with the sharp imagination, I think it reminded me of some of the characters in the dinosaur show I liked to watch. I also remember that my mom was scared of him and told me to never be with him alone and to make sure I stayed with my dad, if I was going to be around him. She didn’t really have to push that with me because his eyes scared me and now I know his crazy eyes were because he might be having a PTSD moment or stoned or just drunk.

See I don’t like surface talk, small talk, reality shows, gossip or anything easy. I ask deep questions. I like to debate. I read books, articles about just about anything, the bible. I like to feed my brain because it makes me feel good; like I am doing something good for myself. I think reality shows are the bane of our society and I don’t like to talk about people that aren’t in the room unless we are going to pray for them.

It could be that some of the people I left in the background might be more comfortable back there. I don’t want to perform or play games anymore. But if you meet a very tall, probably Mexican guy named Uncle Hector, let him know that I am praying for him and thank him for his service.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

What Makes a Healthy Marriage

by Summer D Clemenson | Jul 31, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

When I was younger I wondered why my grandparents were married. From the surface, they had little in common and I had little to no understanding about relationships, especially what makes a healthy marriage. When I was really little, grandpa hadn’t married Nana yet and it was just Nana that we went to visit all the time in her little house. Before their marriage, I was told to call Grandpa, Bill. But around the time my youngest sibling was born, Nana and Grandpa had got married and they came to see us and the newest family member. I was about 5 years old.

After Nana and Grandpa were married, because I had a lot of grandfathers, I was told I could call him Grandpa Bill; I was confused and didn’t know how to tell him from the other grandfathers. But by the time I was about 8 or 9 years old, Nana told me it was time to just call Grandpa, Grandpa. She was right, he was the most grandfatherly, grandfather I had. None of the other grandfathers showed up to teach me anything or fix anything. Sometimes I forgot and called him Grandpa Bill, but he was the only one that didn’t get called by his last name and I thought that was special too.

I remember at my first nephew’s, 1st birthday party, Nana had sat on some ketchup. She was notorious for wearing white jeans so it was really noticeable. Grandpa asked me if I would help her. I didn’t know how to file that so I declined. It was so sweet to watch him quietly tell her and then help her clean off her jeans. I see it so clearly like it is still happening. I didn’t know how to be outside of myself then. Now I would be able to offer help to someone, but I think it took Grandpa showing me how to take care of Nana, and some therapy to learn how to show compassion and care for people.

As I have been married, I see how much like Nana and Grandpa I am, but also I see how I chose a partner that is a lot like Grandpa in some ways too. I understand that their opposite ways of being are how they complimented each other. Each person was great individually but they were so much better together. When Grandpa teased Nana it was to stop her from being so serious and anxious. I know this because Karen G Clemenson does it to me too. It’s ok that they liked to read different genres of books, what is important is that they took the time to find out what types of books each other liked to read. Grandpa and Karen both love the Seattle Seahawks and I am sure that Nana chose to watch the games with Grandpa for the same reason I watch them with Karen, but I know Nana and I also learned to appreciate other parts of the game; like the beauty of a well sculpted athlete like DK Mecalf.

I have learned over the years that Love, alone, does not hold a relationship together. Liking someone does not hold a relationship together, by itself either. You must have a combination of Love, Like and the most important element is Compromise. Without these three elements from all parties, a relationship cannot be equal, and cannot stand through the trials of humanity. I am so thankful that I was able to see these qualities in my nana and grandpa. I am also thankful that I see them in my marriage and a few trusted friends.

Happy Belated Birthday, in Heaven, Nana.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Am Thankful When Situations Are Easy

by Summer D Clemenson | Jul 26, 2023 | About Summer, Life

God tells us to do our best to be a good example and not cause harm to others. I try to live this always. I would hate to make someone stumble. I am thankful when situations are easy.

I had a wonderful experience this week. I went to my niece’s house to give a gift to my great-nephew. My niece had made a post on Facebook that she needed a break. Her little one needs to touch her all the time and she just needed a break. So I bought him a doll made of silicone. When silicone is touched and matches the body heat of the person touching it, it feels somewhat like skin. My great-nephew is going to be a big brother soon so I thought he might enjoy having his own baby to care for while mommy is busy. The doll didn’t come with a bottle so we had stopped at the store to get one. That was a good idea, because he did have a little doll and a shopping cart that he pushes the doll around in, but he didn’t have a bottle or cup to feed the baby with. The doll worked out well. His other baby can’t go in the tub with him, but this one can. He enjoyed taking care of both babies and the bottle and little cup that we bought him helped out a lot.

My niece lives with her mother and it was nice to see her too. Families are made in all kinds of ways and this niece came to me through a marriage that didn’t last but I never stopped loving her so I kept her. Her mother has been through a lot and has worked hard to overcome so much. I admire her journey and strength. I mentioned that I am close to graduating out of therapy. I am still overcome by that idea. After she thought about that, my niece’s mother said: “Good job. That means you have learned all the tools you need.”

People may have said something like that to me but this was the first time that I remember someone looking me in the eye and saying it to me. I really needed to have that experience.

I have been really torn about going to Nana’s celebration of life. I want to see my grandfather. But I am not a small talk person. I am not a big family function person. These people do not send me letters or cards. I have tried to create the type of pen pal relationships with some of them that I missed so much with Nana as she began to deteriorate mentally and that didn’t work. I haven’t spoken to my mother and siblings in a long time. I don’t want to answer questions of people I haven’t seen since my great-grandfather’s memorial service. There are just some truths that are painful and I don’t want to dishonor my mother in order to be authentic.

Becoming an auntie has been the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to see my other nephews and niece so badly, but they have the choice to reach out to me and they don’t.

I am hurting today. I have been hurting for about a week. I always hurt but this is deeper. It is making it harder to function. All I want to do is sleep. I know part of it is a little depression. Funny, Karen never says she can see it, but she says things like: “Please make sure you take your meds and eat some oatmeal today.”

I know that Nana is with Jesus and in my heart. I know that memorial services are to help the loved one remember the one we lost, together, but I have my own memorials for Nana as they naturally happen. I think it would be best if I kept doing that and save my family the stress of my honesty. Besides I hurt. My body is fighting cancer. It is going to be 85 degrees on Sunday and the heat makes me ill. Fibromyalgia is already messing with me…and then there is that bill that I was surprised with that will make it impossible to rent a car for the trip…our car is to temperamental.

To be honest with myself. I don’t think I can do this event well. Not everything is about me.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

Saying Thank You

by Summer D Clemenson | Jul 11, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions, Thanksgiving

Nana was always a big person to remind me the importance of saying thank you. She always told me that people that didn’t send thank you cards, often stopped getting gifts because people like to be appreciated. I have noticed as I became an auntie that when my nieces and nephews were able to read and write, just like Nana to me, I would send them stamps and stationary and mention this same notion to them. As much as I love them, nieces and nephews that become adults and don’t make sure I have an address to mail something to, which would be on a thank you note, don’t tend to get gifts, because I too, like to be appreciated.

I miss Nana’s letters. I miss Nana but I know she is with Jesus. I also know she is with me. I visit her in my dreams and thoughts much more often than I could see her on earth. It was a pleasure to answer her letters and know that she would so happy to read them. I think people have forgotten how nice it feels to get happy mail. (more…)

Nana Really Tried

by Summer D Clemenson | Jun 27, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

I keep thinking about this funny story of shopping with Nana lately that keeps me chuckling. My nana really tried with me. She was not accustomed to dealing with a child as fat as I was. When she was a child and had gained a few extra pounds my great-grandmother (Grammy) took her to the doctor and Nana was put on a diet. During her pregnancies, my grandfather was in the Army and the Army hospitals were very strict about weight gain during pregnancies. That is probably why Nana was so calorie conscious. She was naturally a very active woman. At her prime, she was 5 foot 7 inches tall; just like me. If I had been born with her metabolism I would probably have grown to be somewhere between a size 10-12 just like her, but I was born with a different metabolism. (more…)

Dear Nana

by Summer D Clemenson | Jun 12, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

Grammy came and saw me a few days before Mom sent the email that told me you had had your stroke. I saw her in my reflection in the mirror. I had been thinking about her off and on. She didn’t say anything but I felt her very strongly. I knew it was profound but I didn’t know why until I read that the doctor didn’t think you would recover. I don’t remember her voice; she died when I was so little. But I feel her love and strength. I know she was the head of the family until she died and you had taken her spot. I don’t know what we will do now; I think I will have to become that head of my family. I think I have known that for a long time now.

It was Thursday May 25, 2023 when my mother emailed me. I know it was hard for her. I appreciate her communication. I know you understand why I have stayed away, because you told me that grandparents understand. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t enjoyed our visits in my dreams and the letters I have written you. I wish you were able to answer them. I have missed your letters to so much. As I was talking to God about you, I knew He was with you. Most importantly I didn’t want you to suffer and being unable to communicate or move was not the way you would want to be alive. I asked Him to heal what He was going to heal, knowing that that doesn’t always mean our bodies, and thanked Him for his grace and mercy for our family. (more…)

Cancer Update May 2023: I Am Scared

by Summer D Clemenson | May 24, 2023 | About Summer, Cancer, Chronic Illness, Life

The last week or so has been a lot. I am tired and I am scared. These are the words to sum up how I feel and I hate that I have only these words to say. Last Monday, May 15, 2023 I had my final D&C. I didn’t realize it would be my last one, but now I know it is. It was the most painful. I don’t usually ask for pain meds, but I begged for some, at least 2 to get through the first day. After that I welcome pain to help me know my limits, but that first day, I felt like my lady parts were on fire and it was not something to be ignored. When I heard from the doctor again it was to inform me that I had to come into the hospital again for an MRI on Sunday May 21. There is nothing calming, sweet or non-traumatic about an MRI so I wont go into details, but my technician was really nice.

Today Karen and I met with my oncologist, online for my post-op. We were told that the hormone treatments have kept the endometrial cancer from growing or spreading but they have not done anything to get rid of the cancer. We have been working on this for over a year now. But since the treatment is keeping it at bay, my doctor is concerned about my breathing and my weight (it is allergy season and I am very congested and I have only recently begun taking Mounjaro) and my doctor is about to have a baby and going on leave from June to October, we are planning for my hysterectomy to be in October. This will give my body a chance to see if Mounjaro will help me with weight loss, get through allergy season, and my doctor will have a chance to have her baby and heal and bond with her little one.

I trust my doctor. She is a good doctor. She gave me many more details but beyond the fact that my surgery will be at Good Samaritan Hospital because they are set up for larger patients and she wants me to see a plastic surgeon about a tummy tuck if they can’t do a laparoscopic hysterectomy, I don’t remember anything else. It is weird how the word CANCER can create a vacuum in your mind, making it really hard to remember important things.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Am Sorry

by Summer D Clemenson | May 9, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

I would like to take a moment to say I am sorry. I am sure I have offended someone this week and I will probably offend someone again before the week is through. As most people with chronic illness know the change of the season is hard and not only that, I had to get another rheumatologist, which means sometimes it is hard to get the first refill of meds done properly and I have missed my dose of methotrexate for this week. This drug helps keep inflammation down in my body. I have been taking it for about 7 years with success and this was not the week to skip a dose. After faxing from my pharmacy, a failed email from my client portal, I believe I have had success with a phone call today, so my dose for next Sunday should be ready. I have hope. I am holding onto that because that is what you do when you are chronic.<

This morning I have slept through til the afternoon and woken up swollen, sore and grumpy. I try to be conscientious of others but sometimes I just want to say what I am thinking. Sometimes it is healthy to just vent a little. I always try to make sure people know I am just venting or having a rant so they know I don’t live in a bad mood all the time and maybe this is just a moment where I am struggling a little bit. I know I share this world with lots of people and we all have our needs.

I know how to handle my pain. I am good at it. I think my biggest struggle is the pain of others that is hard. My weekly visits with my sister, Jamie Holloway, have been nice. I can’t say it isn’t hard to travel to see her every week and that it doesn’t exhaust me, but I am glad to have time with her. I am glad to help her with her foot care. I am glad to bring a meal that she doesn’t have to think about. I am glad to give her sister a little bit of a reprieve. I love to hear Karen making Vicki laugh or seeing them do a project together that Vicki couldn’t do alone. Vicki has had so much to do over the last month and a half to help Jamie during this last bout of illness. I know Jamie is not a normal sick person. She ebbs and flows. She gets tired of being sick and checks out a bit; if you don’t know this, it may seem like she is letting go, but really she is just finding more courage to keep fighting. I never realized how lucky I was that I can disassociate my pain until I realized that Jamie cannot, and being an empath, I could feel the assault not only on her body on Sunday, while her bandages were being changed, which is very, very painful to her, but also the assault to her spirit it is; It was like being punched on her insides to be near her.

For Jamie, the weather change, including high pollen counts is terrible. As much as she loves nature and flowers, the pollen makes so much mucus, she can hardly keep up. Currently, our nation has a shortage of albuterol. Jamie relies on daily nebulizer treatments to help keep her already narrow airways clear and all she has to use is saline solution. It isn’t enough. Foods make more mucus, certain foods are worse than others, but all food makes mucus in our bodies in order to keep our airways moist but Jamie’s throat is more narrow than the average person’s and she can’t keep up without her nebulizer treatments. She is constantly coughing up balls of mucus and eating even the simplest food can cause her to throw up. It is making getting nutrition very hard. All because pharmaceutical companies don’t make enough money by producing albuterol. Plus with the pain meds she takes to be able to handle bandage changes she is having other digestive issues because pain meds cause constipation.

I hate, more than anything, to see Jamie suffer! There should be laws that force pharmaceutical companies to produce all the medications we need in this country. Isn’t the United States one of the most influential and stable countries in the world? Why aren’t we taking care of all our people?

Then…it is time to start thinking about the next presidential election. I am so torn about this. I like the platform, mostly, that President Biden stands on, but he is too old. He can’t remember what is talking about much of the time and he needs to retire. He would be a great mentor for someone younger. I don’t want to hear about Bernie Sanders either. If you are old enough to be my grandfather, I will not vote for you in the next election. I am very disappointed in the options that the Democratic Party is putting forward. It looks like the only other people running for the Democrats are Marianne Williamson and Robert F Kennedy Jr. I love Williamson as an author and inspiring mentor, but I don’t see her as a president and after reading a few articles about Kennedy, I think he is not a wise choice.

As for the Republican Party, for some reason Donald Trump is still thinking he should be president again and I just can’t go there. I know many love him but out of a man’s mouth comes the thoughts in his heart…that is what the bible says and many times I have heard nothing but evil out of Trump’s heart. I can’t do it. I haven’t had a chance to read about Larry Elder…but he and Trump are both old enough to be my grandfather so there is the rule I already listed. There is a guy named Vivek Ramaswamy that is running. He is pleasant to look at and I enjoying listening to him speak but when I read articles about him, he thinks Trump is too conservative. And now I have to read more about the US Department of Education because I need to understand why so many Republicans hate it…Vivek said it would be his first duty (even though it is unconstitutional) to disband the US Department of Education if he won.

However there is a saving grace here. One of my wife, Karen G Clemenson’s, clients told me about a woman named Nikki Haley. Every time I take a moment to read about her I am impressed. Although she worked for Trump, she also stood up to him. I like that. She is an United States citizen born to Indian emigrants, raised in South Carolina. I just ordered her book. I am so ready for a woman President. I usually don’t care about gender when it comes to people but it would be so nice to have a female in the Presidential Office; I have never been impressed with Kamala Harris…

I believe in people, not parties. This is why, if you are wondering, I would look at everyone running for president. What I do know is I want something new. I am tired of the status quo. I don’t want the same old white guy who has been in politics forever to do basically the same thing the last guy did before him. I want someone with energy and gusto. Actually I was hoping Pete Buttigieg would run but he wont run if Biden is running. I love that Buttigieg is a war veteran; we haven’t had a president that was a war veteran since George H.W. Bush. I also like that even though his is a Democrat, he is a moderate one so he can hear both sides. I like that he pauses before he answers questions and he answers questions intelligently and as though he has been thinking about that question for a long time. I love that he is younger than me, married and a father. All of these traits help me get over the fact that he is a white man…I also love Stacy Abrams but she apparently is running for governor of Georgia right now. She must have important things to do for the people there. All of this helps me see Nikki Haley more clearly in my future…so far…

I don’t have anything against white people, I just like the idea of letting some diversity and perspective change.

If you are still with me…You are at trooper! Thank you for listening to my thoughts. I didn’t really have a big point to make. I just wanted to vent a little and explain the big things in my head. I hope you are blessed.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Am In A Semi-Shut-Down

by Summer D Clemenson | Apr 27, 2023 | About Summer, Opinions

I am in a semi-shut-down. My therapist asked me to write down my emotions prior to a real shut down. I think they are pretty much the same. I feel alone. I feel stagnant. I feel exhausted. I feel like my choices don’t make an impact. I feel like I can’t have what I want. I feel resentful. I feel jealous, not that I want to take what other’s have but it has been seemingly impossible to get ahead so we can have our own. I feel angry that I feel jealous. I feel sad because while I don’t have the stability that I crave, there are things I don’t do that would make a difference, but if I don’t feel like I have a safe space to come home to, I can’t really put myself out there.

This has been a hard few months. My sister, Jamie Holloway, has been through a terrible bout of sickness that no one thought she would make it through. Some for a moment and some forever. I know my friend enough to know to give her a chance to rest a bit and make up her mind before I write her off. And after about a week she proved to me that she was going to fight for that ounce of life she had, but others had made choices based on her condition when she came into the hospital septic and in renal failure. For many patients this would have been the end but Jamie is nothing of the average patient. Unfortunately this left her having to prove that she was a fighter and also having to make some hard decisions. Luckily her sister was able to be here and watch the transformation and also to fight with her. I was able to cheer them both on and try to be there twice a week while Jamie was in the hospital and now 1 time a week, while she is home. She lives in Vancouver and I too am chronic, we have 1 car and my wife works 3 jobs so it has been a challenge.

Besides Jamie, I am trying to focus on the end of my therapy; I am about to graduate out. I needed to define my last need. This is it. I get overwhelmed with too many stressors. I have also begun meeting with a peer counselor, I have been taking essential oils classes, trying to get used to my wife’s work schedule which includes days, graveyard and swings, sometimes all three in a 24 hour period, while continuing to make sure the laundry is done and there is something good to eat in the fridge whenever she walks in the door, because I am not sure when that will be. I am also getting closer to my last D&C before we decide if I must have a hysterectomy and that scares the hell out of me…all while we live in a hotel.

The hotel is a wonderful option, when you are technically homeless, compared to living in your car or on the street. But it is stressful. This is a nicer hotel. It costs a lot. But it allows my companion animal and it is not infested with bed bugs and cockroaches, which I can’t say about a previous motel we lived in. Why would we live in a motel or hotel, over an apartment or house? It is not easy to get into a place without the first and last month deposit, pet deposit and a low or no credit score and no rental history. Unfortunately when you live in motel/hotels, or with friends, you don’t have a lease so you don’t acquire rental history. It takes a long time to correct bad credit and build good credit. We have been working on that. There are programs meant to help us but if you are willing to work and can’t stop everything whenever you are called by them, it makes it harder for them to help you. If you have mental of physical health issues that cause barriers that the organizations don’t want to accommodate that too is an issue. When you have an emotional support animal, even if you have the paperwork, renters will just wait until someone else comes along without an animal to rent to so they don’t have to deal with you. This is not a temporary reality to me, this is my life for that last 9 years. It is taking its toll. Sometimes my compulsive thoughts just take over. I feel crazy at home with regularity.

I don’t have a kitchen, a garden or another room to go in to. These are things that many people take for granted but that I know would bring so much value to my life. I have made do because I am a creative and strong woman. But I want to live in a peaceful place where strangers are not walking by my front door or my only window all the time. Where I can vacuum my home when I want to and choose what cleaning products are used. I want to be a foster mother and love on children that deserve to be loved. I want so much more in my life.

I know I am not alone. I have God, Karen G Clemenson and my cat (who doesn’t think he is a cat). I also have some great friends that I would like to be able to invite to my home. I want to be able to make choices about how to decorate my home because I hate the colors of the room I live in and I want to express my wife and I through design and practicality. I want to have more room to have my hobbies around. Right now my choices are survival choices but I would make more choices if the majority of my things weren’t in storage.

I have been sick lately because of the stress of the last month. I am getting better and I am trying to get some balance back. But my emotional balance feels out of reach and I feel overwhelmed. I force myself to do things because I know it is good for me to get out of here. Not just because I hate it here but because it is good to see the world and the trees and talk to someone that isn’t in my head. I was made for so much more than this hotel room. And yet I am so thankful for this hotel room because I see the remnants of people’s lives on the street. I see the tents and tarps and I know that I am blessed. When we go to the grocery store, I see other homeless people and some of them are mental health patients that don’t have a clear wellness plan and I am grateful that I have Karen to help me stay on mine. So just because I live with challenges, I know that we have come so far and I am not unaware of that.

But it doesn’t stop me from not eating or eating too much or sleeping my day away sometimes. The weight of my thoughts continue into my dreams which often include being chased or attempted murder by relatives. Sometimes my dreams are sweet and I relish those. I love the ones with children, where I can cherish them and help them to grow or help a group of people work more efficiently because I have the resources needed to do that. Xavier wakes me up when the dreams are too stressful. I appreciate that. That is one of his tasks, besides making sure I take my meds when the alarm goes off. He can be very persistent when he needs to be; he has learned from Karen how to stare at me just right and then regularly meow until I just take them.

Xavier is getting old and I wont have him forever. I am thinking my next emotional support animal will be a dog so I will have a walking partner. I need a house with a fenced yard. Small dogs make me nervous and I have only felt safe with large dogs. I have learned to love other people’s small dogs, but I want a German Shepherd blend or something similar. I believe in rescues so I am not going to seek out a pure breed. We are all mutts in our house. So we are back to the home. This is the argument that I always come back to. Most cats don’t like to go for walks and I need to walk, yet I can’t run so I need to be able to provide a space where my dog can do that because dogs need to use their muscles and run. Plus sometimes a dog can reach a hurting child better and faster than a human can and I know that a loving dog might be just what a hurting foster child needs while they adapt to new surroundings.

But even looking for rentals is a stressful thing for me. I am angered that renters are so selfish. It is so expensive to find a home. The rules and expectations are set so high. You must have 3 times the income of a rental that is already nearly $2000 per month, 2-3 years of good rental history, no evictions and you have to be able to stand on your head and hold your breath for 3 minutes. How does one do that in an area where most of the jobs are minimum wage…and that is why my wife works 3 jobs. Most rentals don’t allow for any pets, let alone one little cat that is really well cared for, and wouldn’t have it any other way. I know that some pet owners don’t care for their animals properly, but I am not that person. My cat has a high standard and if Xavier is not happy, we do not sleep, until he is. I really do get up with my cat in the middle of the night just for his need for cuddles; if I don’t he will sit at the foot of my bed and grunt until I do. If he doesn’t think something is clean enough he complains about that too. I know, like Jamie, me and my household is not the norm…I wish that other households had not ruined it for me.

I am trying to build the future I have been dreaming of for as long as I can remember. I am feeling desperate. I have prayed for this for a long time and so many times that I am feeling like I am losing hope and my faith, which I rely on for my next breath, is wavering. I don’t want more empty promises that turn out to not be true. I need a miracle. I don’t want to shut down.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Woke up Today From a Dream

by Summer D Clemenson | Apr 26, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions

I woke up today from a dream. A nightmare, really…In my dream my father was trying to murder me. I know this isn’t real, but only a dream. But in the dream my father was angry because I didn’t like the way he wanted to celebrate Christmas and I wasn’t going to come. There is some truth to that. And I don’t come to family functions. Actually I have had to cut myself off from the family because I don’t like the way they treat me and when I asked for change it didn’t come, so I realized I had to make the painful choice to choose to separate myself from them.

The part of the dream that is surprising to me is that I am so used to being in danger at the hand of family members in my dreams, that although in my dream, I breathlessly defended myself, I woke up feeling very normal. I am allowing myself to mourn the expectation that I should feel safe with my relatives. I feel sad. But I also feel hopeful because I do know I am safe because I chose my safety. I didn’t ask my relatives to do anything I wasn’t willing to do. I asked them to show me respect and seek therapy, for their own peace and mental balance. It isn’t healthy to lose days or weeks after a visit with family members; that is my experience with many of my relatives. I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t just trigger my PTSD but maybe I triggered them, which is why our visits are so stressful. That thought too makes me feel sad. What if I made their lives hard, in the same way they caused all the emotional memories to take over and make what could have been a great time, be anxiety ridden and stressful?

In my dream I was being chased by my father, which according to an article I read, could symbolize that I feel out of control. There is truth to this. I have no control over what the rest of my relatives are going to do. I can only control myself. That is why I left. I asked for more care and relationship and it was not available to me. I asked for better honest communication and less manipulation and that could not be arranged. My family shows love through things and I don’t want things. Money is of higher value than relationship and that is not how I roll so I had to go. I was told that if I was the only one with the problem, then it was my problem.

In the article I read, they only gave examples of what it might mean if someone were trying to kill me with a weapon, but in my dream my father was trying to strangle me. I don’t need someone to tell me that he wanted me to stop talking. I was taught to be the secret keeper by both my parents. I am a great secret keeper, which makes me a great person to confide in, for people that need someone to talk to, but I have kept secrets that didn’t benefit me and I am not doing that anymore. I need to talk about the pain that I held in. That pain is killing me. I am telling my stories. Unfortunately, my stories are attached to other people and this is making other people angry. Abusers don’t like to be outed, especially when they may not have realized they were abusers because of their own trauma experiences that have never been healed. But you have to let the ugliness out into the light so it can be healed and that is what I am doing.

I am proud of myself though because in the dream there were other parts of the dream where I was showing how I have grown in my ability to make decisions and take my power back and I want to revel in that for a moment. Towards the end of my dream I was taking control over the parts of the dream that were my domain. No, I can’t control other people, but I can control my life. I can set myself up for success. I can speak my truth. I can help others. Maybe some day there will be enough healing to allow room for my relatives but that is in God’s hands. He has done larger miracles and He knows best. He knows and loves my relatives too. I have faith that He wants to heal us all. Maybe that is why I was at peace when I woke up. I don’t have to worry about His timing or His protection.

Dream of Trying to Kill Me: A Spiritual Interpretation of Your Dreams by Sophie 1-1-2023 for Inside My Dream

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

What is a Lifestyle?

by Summer D Clemenson | Apr 18, 2023 | About Summer, Community, Education, Opinions, Queer Community

There was an event at Father’s House Church last Saturday that I felt that I would have wanted to protest, but my body would not have been able to handle the stress. According to the flyer, very conservative Republicans from the Family Policy Institute of Washington wanted to talk about what they think is being taught in public schools about inclusion and gender and sexual identity, Critical Race Theory, their fear of health clinics in schools, parents rights, and to encourage parents to pull their children out of public schools and put them into home schools or private schools making less dollars available for public schools, so that children with less advantages, will continue to have less advantages. Meanwhile there has been a few new laws passed over night to stress more conservatives out a bit more, while protecting abused and yes, possibly, queer and transgender, children. I didn’t think my body could stand on unforgiving cement in the cold and rain but my fingers can type faster than most, and my mind is clean so I began debating with a few people on Facebook. What is a lifestyle but a choice in how we live.

Lifestyle is typical way of the life of an individual, group, or culture says Merriam-Webster.

Examples of lifestyle habits are:

Sleeping patterns
Eating tendencies
Level of physical activity
Stress management practices
Hydration habits
Achieve/Maintain a healthy weight
Be free of dependence on tobacco, illicit drugs and alcohol
Spend quality time with family and friends daily
Take time for spiritual renewal

Why is this important to my point? Because in one of my debates one person used the phrase “gay lifestyle” and I wanted to go through the roof. I didn’t. If lifestyle is a choice than we can say that people that color their hair is a lifestyle. But people born with brown hair, they were born that way. I know, I was born this way.

My therapist told me yesterday that I was probably given an unique opportunity because I was a late bloomer, bi-sexual and demi-sexual. Relationship was the most important to me so my sexuality was not important to me. I happened to fall for a guy first. He was not the one. Then I felt feelings I didn’t understand for Karen G Clemenson and for years I prayed with my Christian therapist about them and they never budged. When I asked God for a partner because I was exhausted with walking alone, there she was and I could not ignore these feelings and they were not one-sided. But because it happened to us later in life, I don’t have the scars and triggers that a lot of my queer community family have. I can actually debate with others and listen to them.

I am often taken aback by Christians that I feel are reacting to the world in fear and anger and what looks more like hate than love. I am not wired like most people, and God has told me that He didn’t make me to fit in, so I have been working on feeling comfortable in myself since I rarely feel comfortable anywhere else. But since, we as Christians are supposed to be the light of the world, I sometimes have felt like I didn’t want to admit I am one of them, not because I don’t love Jesus but because some of His followers seem to be very confused.

I don’t care for politics. They stress me out. I don’t think Jesus did either, I mean wasn’t it for that reason that he cleared the tables in the temple in anger (Mark 11:15-17)? Didn’t He die to make the high ranking Jewish leaders happy? (I do understand He did that on purpose to fulfill prophecy and I am grateful because for that reason I am able to love Him) But Jesus is about authenticity and love. He came to free us from the law because the law is not made for righteous persons but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners (2 Timothy 1:9).

I have read the new laws. I am not intimidated by them. I am thankful for public schools and for sex education classes. I know that some families do not support their children in healthy ways. I know that some families should never have children and those children need help. I also know that each transgender person’s path is unique and not like anyone else’s and being afraid of their medical procedures, especially if they don’t have them now or at all, is ridiculous. What all children need is compassion and love. Growing up is hard and children don’t need to see us fighting and hating each other. They need to see a strong and compassionate front.

I know some Christians are stuck on gender, that God only made male and female, but I think that gender is a human issue and only important when it comes to bearing children, which is not a defining reason for marriage by today’s standards. “there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

What God did tell us to do was to be together and to be like minded: Psalm 66:16-20, Acts 1:14, Acts 2:1, Acts 2:46, Acts 4:24, Acts 5:12, Philippians 2:2, Matthew 18:20, 2 Timothy 1:5-9

These were just a few scriptures from a few of my most recent bible studies but they fit here.

I came on strong with one debate:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider that plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:1-3

I do try to live with this one on the top of my mind. I can’t say I don’t have to be reminded sometimes but we really have to be careful. When we judge other people, we are asking to be judged back and people can be harsh. When you judge me because I married my best friend and the person that I believe that God made for me, you are telling me that God made me wrong. It is like me telling you that your blue eyes should have been brown. Imagine if you had told a child, since they were small that they were wrong, because you could tell they were different, but there was nothing they could do about it. You have possibly terrorized this child for the rest of their life for being who God made them to be. If he was born that way, how could he be wrong? If God doesn’t make mistakes, how could he be wrong? Just because you don’t have words for something doesn’t mean that it is wrong, it just means you have something to learn.

Being queer isn’t a lifestyle. It is a demographic. Being mean is a lifestyle though and I would like to see it stop.

LIfestyle: Merriam-Webster Dictionary online
Lifestyle Changes for Improved Health by Delight Medical and Wellness Center
Ten Lifestyle Goals for Healthy Living by Wellsource Inc. 2003-5
Photo Credit: 12 Tips to Better Manage Your Works and Family Life by Carizon September 13, 2017

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Am The Most Like Him

by Summer D Clemenson | Apr 7, 2023 | About Summer, Chronic Illness

I will always have a pain inside of me about my father. Out of all of his children I know I am the most like him. He protected me when I was a little girl. My mother loved me but I wasn’t the baby she wanted. She wanted children that wanted to be taken care of and for the most part, that wasn’t me. I was the first born and I was so much like my father. I looked more like him, I thought like him. When my first sibling was born, they were a failure to thrive child. They needed to be cared for. They needed to be doted on. They were born mean and they needed a lot of tending to. They got away with terrible things.

I was super sensitive. I was a kind child by nature, inquisitive, with lots of questions, who wanted to be taught how to learn. For the most part this worked best with my father. He knew how to give me tools to teach myself. He wasn’t perfect. He had a terrible temper with a violent streak that my mother was afraid of, but I could read him well. And I learned quickly to obey him or not get caught and I could avoid the rage, for the most part. My mother, on the other hand had a mental illness that was unknown and they did not have reliable treatments for. She was hard to read.

I know that my father was raised with horrible abuse. My grandfather was a practicing alcoholic for most of the years my father was in the house. My grandmother was a devout Catholic so there were lots of children. My father was the 3rd child. The way I have been told, my oldest uncle was my grandmother’s favorite child, my second oldest uncle was my grandfather’s favorite child, and my father, being the third oldest child was the perfect scapegoat. Not only did his sister, born right after him have mental illness, but she was manipulative and set him up for more beatings, but the older boys abused my father too. In a family with so many children in the 50’s-70’s, with parents with little education, I am sure this situation was normal. I have watched my father closely all my life. He is different, like me. I can feel it. I know he is sensitive and creative and very intelligent. He doesn’t really look like his siblings, but he does look like relatives. He stands out in family pictures.

I had breakfast with one of my aunts yesterday. I am thankful for her. Since I have had to cut myself off from most of my family, she has been the one that has sought me out and kept in touch. She is younger than my father. Her version of life is different because, essentially, she had better, older, wiser and healthier parents than my father had. My grandparents didn’t keep abusing alcohol and each other and their children. They got better and their youngest children are very different from their oldest children.

There was a brother born after my father, named Mark. He died when he was 5 years old from brain cancer. He would have been about 4 or 5 years younger than my father. I think with the 3 sisters that came before Mark, Mark would have been important to my father. My father has told me he has no memories of his brother. He remembers him as a pudgy toddler when he went into the hospital and then an 8 lb skeleton when he was dead. Grandma, being a devout Catholic, made sure the mass was an open casket affair and she made her children say goodbye to him this way. I can see why this would have been very traumatic to a very sensitive child. But my aunt, who was a year older than Mark, had other memories. She said that when Mark was in the hospital that she and my youngest 2 uncles were sent to other family members because Grandma would work graveyard and then spend every other waking moment with Mark at the hospital. The older children had to go to school and probably fended for themselves a lot. But there were times when Mark would come home. My aunt would help my Grandma watch him because she wasn’t in school. He loved to go outside. She would pull him around in the little red wagon or put him in the swing with the sides on it and push him. He only had enough energy for about an hour of play before he wanted to go back to sleep. She had to make sure to never let him bump his head. He was often having surgeries and there were always bandages on his head. He was wobbly on his feet so if he walked she would hold onto him to make sure he didn’t fall. This little information about an uncle that I was never allowed to talk about has me feeling so many emotions.

I have great compassion for my family members. I know they may have other thoughts on this but I had to cut them off to save myself. I can’t be the scapegoat anymore but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand them and love them and even miss them sometimes. My parents are good people but they were terrible married to each other. My mother needed help that wasn’t available to her and she was abusive to my father and to me. My father was the only one to protect me from my mother and my sibling and when he left, I was alone. He also didn’t understand the full responsibilities of being a parent which came out in a lot of painful ways.

Then he married a true narcissist. I have given a lot of thought to this and spoken to my therapist about it and she has affirmed what I knew in my spirit. My step-mother has used my father’s anger and violent streak to benefit herself. I have watched her rile him up against her own daughter and grandson. It is terrifying. She is the reason I can’t have a relationship with my father. She is broken, yes, but she has hurt so many people, and they don’t even know all of the evil things she has done.

I wish my father could see the benefit of therapy because I wish he could be set free from the terrors inside of himself. No one should have to carry what he has had to carry. He deserves peace. I wish the same for my mother too and I have told her the same.

My wife, Karen G Clemenson, asked me if I thought I should reach out to my father and tell him how I felt and I told her no. If I could reach out to him and know I was going to reach the little boy inside of him that needs support, it would be great. But most likely, I will be talking to the angry man that has been building and building the rage and it will just make things worse. She said she thought I knew him so well, and I said, “Of course. Out of all his children, I am the most like him.”

There is a rage and sadness that has been passed down through generations that is inside of me. It used to terrorize me. But I have learned to not feed it and try to focus on the things that lovely, pure and good, like the bible says. I meet people like me every now and then and I understand their inner fight. This is why compassion is so important. Some of us are born with things we didn’t earn but we have to learn to walk with.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

Book Review: Bible Gender Sexuality Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James V. Brownson

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 29, 2023 | About Summer, Book & Product Reviews, Education, Opinions, Queer Community

Bible Gender Sexuality Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James V. Brownson is the first book I have read on the topic of what the bible says about being queer. I have read the bible and I have spoken to God but I want to read what more learned people have written on the topic. This topic is personal to me because when I was 20 years old I knew that I had a fight inside of me, although I didn’t know the words. Being a late-bloomer, it didn’t bother me, until I found myself attracted to a few ladies I knew. It wasn’t overwhelming, but I didn’t have overwhelming feelings about men either. At the time, I didn’t know the word demi-sexual or even bi-sexual, which explains why I wasn’t rude about my attractions, like my friends were. I always thought their comments about body parts was belittling to the whole person, therefore, disrespectful. I now know that they were probably what is considered, “normal” and I was different because although I might find a person attractive, I am not sexually attracted to them until I have a deep emotional and intellectual bond with them.

I was raised in a conservative Baptist church and I found the scripture that said homosexuality was an abomination. I had other things to do and no real relationships so I stayed busy. I met Karen G Clemenson 10 years before we became engaged. For some of that time I was seeing a Christian therapist and I admitted some fears I had about feelings I was having about her and sometimes feelings I was feeling from Karen. I prayed a lot. Karen was a wonderful friend. I didn’t want to mess that up. In 2014, when I got sick enough that I couldn’t fake it or hide it, she was by my side and never left. She was never overwhelmed. She was my rock. She was my nurse. She encouraged me to find strength when I didn’t know I could. Somewhere in there; in all that bloody humanity we realized that we had a love that was beyond friendship. We were married 11 days later. It will be 9 years ago on May 9th. After a year of marriage and seeing a different therapist I was able to admit that I was bisexual. Before then I had told people I wasn’t gay, I just married my best friend — talk about denial. I am not in denial anymore because the light of Christ is an amazing thing and this book is just one of many that can help shine light on a dark spot.

As many people engage in polarizing debates we must not only focus on what the scripture says but what it means. Throughout history we have come to understand that we must change our discernment of the bible. During most of the bible times slavery was prevalent, yet we now know slavery is wrong. Brownson wants to help the reader understand key points in the bible and history to re-open discussion about same-sex intimate relationships.

Gender Complimentary Argument

Arguments that same-sex intimate relationships violate God’s divinely intended gender complementarity, but this implies that male and female are incomplete on their own and that is not true. The one-flesh union spoken of in Genesis is not a physical one but a kinship one. Adam and Eve were celebrated for their similarities more than their differences so Genesis does not teach a normative form of gender complimentary. The overall context and language of scripture suggests that the one-flesh bond mentioned in Genesis 2:24 is a lifelong kinship bond which is described through prophetic tradition in the Old Testament when we see Gods’ faithfulness to Israel as a marriage bond which is lifelong and emphasizing grace. This same emphasis is also seen in the New Testament.

The reason against promiscuity is that people are not to say with their bodies what they can’t or will not say with their whole lives. In scripture it is clear that one-flesh bond only takes place between and man and a woman but there is nothing in the bible that excludes committed same-sex unions when the other characteristics of the kinship bonds are met. One flesh does not only refer to sexual relations but the relationship, love, social, community ties and responsibilities the relationship creates and supports.

The bible does not teach normative understanding of gender complimentary.

Cultural Norms

The bible was written in an honor-shame culture where public esteem was highly valued and male/female roles were clearly and sharply defined. Western culture is not like this. The need to honor each other is universal but the concept of shame varies among different cultures. The modern world doesn’t understand gender roles as they did in the ancient world. Men are not offended by female bosses. Women are not naturally passive, subservient and subject to passions. Cultural expectations in the old world have no way of viewing the notion of sexual orientation.

There is a lot of patriarchal beliefs or contrasting egalitarian beliefs shown through the bible, however the New Testament illustrates we leave that behind in the New Life we share in Christ. The hierarchy of gender cannot be used today as a form of gender complimentary, which is allegedly violated by same-sex intimate relationships. Many people can argue that what the bible says about same-sex eroticism that ancient world does not apply to the committed queer relationships of today. We need a cross-cultural sexual ethic that includes justice and love that may have relevance for queer relationships.

What is normal in the bible may not have been able to be envisioned by the writers of the bible due to cultural norms. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider them.

Procreation & Sex

Marriage does not require the ability to procreate to be valid and the inability to bear children is not a reason for divorce. Reliable contraception has changed how we think about relationship between sex and procreation — increasing the importance of bonding through sex and in some cases replacing the procreative meaning of sex.

The Old Testament does not call for celibacy as a lifelong calling for all people, although it is appropriate for short-term avoidance of sex for holiness purposes. Some people are called to a life of celibacy but not all. If not all are called to a life of celibacy than isn’t it better to allow queer people to marry so they do not fall into promiscuity from their unfulfilled passions?

Promiscuity is rejected because it cannot cultivate a lifelong relationship and spread disease.

Other Benefits of Marriage

In ancient days marriage was important to maintain the responsibility and duties to sustain a household. Now society benefits many ways when people live together in long-term committed unions — taxes, better health are just a few.

Society has interest in supporting marriages in order to provide for care of children but this is not the only reason and this lack of procreative capacity cannot deny legitimacy to queer couples in a stable marriage.

What Paul Says

When Paul talks about sexual behaviors that are unacceptable in Romans 1:24-27 he is talking about excessive, self-centered desire and not normal sexual relationships. He also might be referring to the Roman Emperor Gaius Galigula whose idolatry and sexual excesses earned him a gruesome death.

Paul doesn’t see sexual desire as a sin but if it gets out of control it can become lust and lead to sin.

The core form of moral logic that characterizes sexual misconduct as “impure” is the internal attitudes and disposition — lust and lack of restraint. In committed same-sex marriages, where there is discipline, can we still call this union impure?

The Church Today

The church has welcomed queer folks but abhorred their way of handling their emotions with shame. The church may wrestle with Paul’s words about queer relationships but the real issue is promiscuity and lack of self-control which are not part of committed marriages.

The church should stand against relationships marked by dominance, lack of consent, lack of mutuality, including and especially relationships between adults and minors. The bible verses that speak regarding homosexual or same-sex relations are relating to extreme situations: rape, incest, human trafficking, prostitution, sex with angels, overindulgence, idolatry; of course we, as Christians, should be against this lack of self-control and humiliation of others. This is not the type of behavior celebrated in most loving and supportive marriages whether they are same-sex or heterosexual.

Psychologists recognize a persistent, non pathological pattern of same-sex orientation as a “natural” phenomenon in some people. This phenomenon results from a complex interaction between genetics, hormonal influences and social context and it is causing us to question the “nature” of individuals.

Because we are all one in Christ.

I already know God made me for a time such as this. I know He loves me and He knows that my wife and I love Him and each other. He has not condemned us. It was good to read something from someone that knows more than me, but I already knew I was blessed because when I asked God, once I was able to say, “I am queer,” if I should divorce my wife, He said no.

I got this book from my own collection. You can get your own copy of Bible Gender Sexuality Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James V. Brownson on Amazon.

Read My Review on GoodReads:

Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships by James V. Brownson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I felt that Brownson gave a real effort to explain the cultural differences between the time when the bible was written and the way we live now and how we have already made many changes according to how we have adapted to change: like how we view women in leadership and slavery. I appreciate how he studied the scriptures and related articles of the time to look for connections between gender-complimentary as a requirement. He answered the question of procreation as the reason to outlaw same-sex unions, because it is not a requirement for heterosexual unions. He answered the medical proof that many queer people have not chosen their orientation and instead of requiring them to live a frustrated life where they may end up failing away to sin, that honoring loving, stable, lifelong relationships would answer the need for the lifelong love language between married partners that might lead them to another form of the new creation in Christ. It is a good start for some.

View all my reviews

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

Memories Are Bigger Than the Thing We are Responding To

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 24, 2023 | About Summer, Life, Opinions, Prayers

Sometimes when we have a strong response to something it is because memories are bigger than the thing we are responding to. The other day I made a post on Facebook because I have seen so many memes and posts with the middle finger and it made me angry. It wasn’t my original post but it was the most important part. It said the important part for who I am now: I do swear but even my wife says it sounds weird coming out of my mouth. I have heard that often in my life. I do like fancy words better. My Nana always said there were so many beautiful adverbs to use instead of vulgarities. I agree with her. My one peeve that I can’t get over and it is getting worse is the middle finger. I think it is the trashiest thing one can ever do. Talk about low class not only to the person being flipped off but by the person doing it. It’s like you have decided to use one perfectly good finger to shut off all communication.

Since the day or two since I posted it, I seem to be fighting in my head again with real memories and feelings that have to do with the person I hate the most; the person that seeing “the bird” reminds me of. These are big statements. One, I have allowed myself to blame Anna for some of my behavior but as I am taking responsibility for my wellness, I realize that Anna is me. She is sometimes younger than me, but she is still me and I am responsible for her. Another thing that was hard for me to face this morning was that I have hate inside myself. I didn’t think I did. But after really paying attention to my memories, my responses to these memories and what I really want from my analysis of these memories, I do, in fact, have hatred inside myself. I know that forgiveness is a process and even though I have chosen to forgive many times, there are specific things I have tried to set down, I have failed.

A part of me wants to write a raving article about the terrible things this person did to me and my family. How their self-centered actions, time and time again hurt me, terrorized me, and made it impossible for me to ever trust them; even when I really tried hard to honor their role through marriage to my father. She stole things from me that cannot be replaced. She instilled things in my family that can not be forgotten. Her “helpfulness” was usually a way to get what she needed. But she knew how to pet my father, who deserved to be petted.

If I allow myself, this blog will go forever with accusations. I don’t want to live like that. I have to remember that. I have worked really hard to learn how to choose peace. It is no surprise that this lifelong problem has been lying in wait for me when I thought I had figured most things out. That is when foundational issues usually come out. I feel depressed because I have found myself guilty of holding hatred and unforgiveness for most of my life inside of me. I am talking to God. There is fear of letting this go. I don’t know life without this hatred. I am grateful that He has brought me to a place where I can finally take stock. I am grateful that we have walked through similar walks before and I know that when I am ready to let go, He will told me together. I am even grateful that He loves my step-mother and wants her wellness too because I don’t have to like her, I just have to forgive her.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

New Survival Skills

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 22, 2023 | About Summer, Opinions, Prayers

I was triggered today. Even though I may be ready to graduate from therapy, doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments when my PTSD isn’t still in the room with me; when I suddenly feel the dread, fear and victimization that I felt growing up. I still have to deal with the child inside of me that didn’t get what she needed. I was on Facebook, randomly scrolling, as on does when I saw a meme that said: “People with siblings have better survival skills because they’ve had experience in physical combat, psychological warfare, and sensing suspicion activity.”

I suddenly remembered why I quit playing with dolls; because one sibling always pulled their heads off. I was saved by Cabbage Patch Kids because you couldn’t pull their heads off…but then again, I remembered watching TV and suddenly have piercing pain in my head as the nose of that sibling’s bald headed Kyle Blakey came down on my head. Or the sadness I felt when my Margaret Elizabeth and Weston Carlton got makeovers with the blue ball point pen that never washed off by an artist of the same name as my sibling. There were more dangerous things they did; more deadly. I never had peace. My parents didn’t physically abuse me but they also never did anything to protect me from the sadistic behavior of this sibling who thought it was ok to chase me through the house with a steak knife more than once. I was bigger. They didn’t believe me. They probably didn’t know what to do.

The list of hurts kept going and I tried to make it stop. Instead I decided to focus on a bible study. That usually helps me focus on today. That sibling is not in my life.

God’s mercy is enough for me and He has proven His goodness. His mercy is also enough for my sibling. He knows what we both struggle with. Mentally healthy people don’t abuse each other. Mentally healthy people want light and life for each other.

Even though I had a lot of confusion growing up, that is not what God did. He has created peace for me that is what I am looking for and that is what I choose. I have the right to choose this. I also pray this for my sibling.

I am not without sin and never have been. I am not tied to it but as a child I didn’t know that. Even if my only sins against my sibling were in response to their bad behavior, I am sure there were some, in fact, I know there were some and I am sorry.

I don’t know if we will ever have the ability to trust each other. I know we don’t know each other. As I responded to the harsh realities of losses growing up, I shut down parts of myself. I never felt safe to be myself at home. Maybe my siblings felt the same way. Maybe even my parents felt the same way. I know this meme was supposed to be a joke, but it was a reminder that physical combat, psychological warfare and sensing suspicion was part of my life, every day, growing up and I have the scars to prove it.

Now as I have learned to make decisions, I am choosing to have a life of light and peace.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Never Considered

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 16, 2023 | About Summer, Chronic Illness, Life, Opinions

I never considered that there would come a time that I would end my therapy. I have had at least 2 mental breaks in my lifetime. I was smart enough to be able to fake enough balance that I didn’t end up confined. I know that would not have served me well. I am thankful that the people I kept close to me knew that too. My last one was the biggest and took me a long time to overcome because it happened at the same time that my body too was overwhelmed. Since 2014 I have been fighting for myself. Sometimes harder than others. I am not done. There is more to be done but my therapist told me yesterday that it may be time that I graduate out of therapy.

I am stunned.

I am overwhelmed and then I am not. I take my wellness seriously. I have made many changes. I make changes. I will keep making changes, gradually, because that is what works best for me.

When I began my session yesterday I mentioned that I had decided that I was done fighting with the voices in my head. That the voices of people that weren’t real because they were not in my life and they had to go. It had taken me a long time to realize it was all in my head and I had the power to tell them to go away. I had help. God helped me. When they snuck back in through dreams, I asked God to bless them and keep them away from me. I asked God to love them and give us all a good nights sleep. I trust that if God wants reconciliation between me and the real people, God will orchestrate this. I don’t have to make anything happen and I can trust that because God loves me and these characters more than I ever could, or they could. I believe that God will make the heart and mind changes happen so that we can see each other in all our humanness and forgive each other and have an authentic relationship without gossip and backbiting and other hateful habits that don’t show love.

My therapist told me it was time to update my treatment plan. But I couldn’t think of what that would be. She couldn’t suggest anything. She listened to what was on my mind and suggested that we give me the space of considering this until our next session. So I am talking about this with Karen G Clemenson. Who also seems surprised that I might be ready to graduate out. I don’t think either one of us considered there would be an end to therapy.

I asked my therapist about my medications. That scared me because I know when I don’t take them. They slow me down so I can remember my tools. The same tools that seem to be working so maybe I don’t need therapy anymore, or for at least this point in my life. She said that my psychiatrist would still meet with me and maintain that part of my treatment.

I know I should be happy for me. Part of me is starting to feel that. Part of me is also feeling a bit of satisfaction because I think I knew I was coming to this point. There is a quiet I am getting comfortable with that I have never had. I have learned that I can make boundaries. I can say no. I can say yes. I can say what I want. I can be me and not worry about if that offends because I know who I am. I like myself. I am not perfect at this but I am sure that this is what you practice as you live. Loving is not just for other people, it is for ourselves too.

The thought of not needing a therapist is new. I have had this therapist for a couple of years and I really like her. I like her because she doesn’t waste words or time. She is direct. She is what I needed. I trust her. When she told me that fighting with the voices in my head is a mental illness issue but the other things I worry about are normal things to worry about and not mental illness. I thought: I healed myself…I might be normal…whatever that means.

In the end I will miss my therapists’ affirmations of my choices but that is what I have God, Karen and Jamie Holloway for…it is the success I never considered. That is part of self-love too.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

I Have Been Learning Me

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 10, 2023 | About Summer, Cancer, Life, Opinions

I have been learning me diligently for about 20 years now. It might be odd that I didn’t start until I was in my mid-20’s for some, but it makes sense to me. I lived in a very controlled environment. It didn’t even occur to me to ask myself what I wanted until I was 35-years-old. I am not angry about it. It is just a fact. I don’t believe that age confines us to anything. I believe that age is just a number to keep track of how long we have been here, what is important is what we think and believe.

In fact what I thought and believed kept me in a small and controlled environment because I didn’t believe I could leave. I didn’t have faith in myself. I was scared. In reality I can’t afford to live on my own. The cost of living is well beyond my disability benefits, which I didn’t have when I was living in my controlled environment. Even with a wife who works 2 jobs we have had a hell of a time finding housing that isn’t too close to the industrial area of town or infested with bugs. I can’t live with either. We lived 2 blocks from the industrial area for 3 years and I was constantly sick and terrified with the drug and gang life that surround the area. We lived with cockroaches and bed bugs for 11 months and I came really close to another mental break; I still have flashbacks. I think people that can live in these environments are so brave. I am not brave in this way.

I hate fighting. I avoid it and have avoided it at all costs all my life. I am so thankful that Karen and I agree on this. We don’t fight. We both grew up with fighting. We have fought about 2 times; for real fights. Enough to know we fight the same. No one is listening and everyone is screaming and saying things you can’t take back. So we don’t fight. We take a time out and then we talk it out. Tearing down the team is not on our agenda. But most of the world is not made this way. But as I addressed in Addressing Mental Health Issues, I often fight inside my head with characters that I don’t have in my life anymore, or rather I used to have in my life.

Since I have relinquished these characters to God with His blessings on them, I have been able to sleep better. But they snuck back in through my dreams the last few nights. I tried to ignore them but they were sitting there, ready to fight, until I remembered that I don’t have to live with them and I asked God to take them and love them and bless them and keep them far from me and I feel so much better. I want their wellness and if we are to reconnect, I want God to orchestrate that. Right now I am working on being at peace and I can’t do that while fighting with people who aren’t actually here.

All my life I was told I would never succeed because I was fat. I would never have the job, relationship and health I want because I was fat. I read the books that were put in front of me, I watched and worked out with the videos they placed in front of me; I believed them. But you know what? There is more to me than my fatness. Even though many in the world are afraid or angry with me about my size, I don’t have to be. A few weeks ago I started to think those thoughts because my underwear is falling apart. When I went to the site where I bought them in the past I had to search my purchases because I couldn’t remember the brand and I remember that I really like how they fit in the beginning of our relationship. They didn’t fall down, they didn’t pull, the fabric breathed nice and I didn’t feel too warm. I bought the same brand for Karen, funny enough, I bought her’s 2 years ago, which started me thinking a different thought. Now I wanted to see how long it has been since I bought myself new underwear. You know what? I have been wearing the same underwear for 3 years. I had forgot to replace them sooner. No wonder they are starting to fall apart. It isn’t because I am fat. It is because I forgot to buy new ones…and guess who it getting new underwear next month? Self care is so important.

I am not saying that I should not be aware of my eating habits and working out, but beating myself up about my size is not healthy either. I am very fat. But my blood pressure is always good, unless I am in a lot of pain or angry. My cholesterol is in normal range. My a1C is in pre-diabetic range with the lowest dose of medication. All my blood tests are good. I do have cancer but we are working on that. I have chronic mental and physical illnesses but I might have had all of these if I were skinny too. I recently had a CT scan on my organs and they all look good. There is a little fat on my liver, so I am making a few more changes to my diet; less processed foods, more nuts for healthy fats, but I already don’t drink anything but water, herb tea and maybe a decaf Americano 2-3 times a week. I cook most of our food so I can control what types of carbs and ingredients we are eating; I eat oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts made with almond milk in the morning and that is what brought my cholesterol down.

We did have a treat yesterday though because you have to have treats every now and then. I am so excited that I finally found the pizza of my cravings. For years I have this taste I have craved but have never found it until yesterday. We have tried several pizzas at PieTrio’s Pizzeria and always enjoyed them but it was never perfect until yesterday when I decided to get the BYOP. You can choose 4 toppings so I chose Beef, Salami, Artichoke hearts and Fresh mushrooms. It was perfection! Their crispy crust and the perfect red sauce with the lightest hint of fennel and just the right amount to mozzarella was amazing! Why am I telling you this? Because it made me happy and two thin slices were satisfying and I like to support local business when I can. If you haven’t tried them, you should.

PieTrio’s Pizzeria
614 Commerce Ave Longview, WA 98632
360-353-3512
Find them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pietrios/

Also the fact that I can occasional enjoy some pizza with red sauce proves that my stomach has healed a lot. I have successfully removed nightshades and kept gluten to a minimum so that on occasion I can have a little bit. Although I love tomatoes, my stomach and joints can’t handle them every day. My stomach doesn’t even digest bell peppers or most peppers. So pizza is a treat, not a lifestyle, which is the way it should be anyway.

Everyone’s wellness journey is personal. What works for one, wont work for another and that is ok. I was at a doTERRA class about supplements, yesterday, and we were sharing experiences and people were suggesting things for my chronic stuff. They didn’t understand that I have been doing this a long time. I have been using doTERRA for 11 years and although I don’t know all their products I have tried almost all of their oils. I appreciated the suggestions and was glad to share that my response to Turmeric is anaphylactic so, no, Turmeric is not an option for me because I like to live. But I did learn about a product that I would never have tried because in other forms it doesn’t work for me but after hearing about how it is working for others for chronic pain, I am willing to try it. Maybe it will help me overcome some of my pain so I can train for the 5K I still want to do…after I have healed from the hysterectomy I will probably be having in the next few months, of course.

I was recently invited to join a group on Facebook that looked like a nutrition group. I hate feeling interrupted by groups but I thought I would give it a try. Turns out is a group to market diet foods based on some MMA from the past. I know doTERRA is an MMA too but it is my only one and I don’t tend to purchase anything but oils and I love their deodorant. My body can’t process fake sugars and food coloring well. It causes my blood pressure to shoot up, sometimes the coloring comes out my sinuses or other weird places. I don’t know if it is the fake colors or the oils they use to make them stick to the powders but I just don’t eat diet food. I am better off with a burger and fries than diet food, in most cases. I gave it a try but I can’t stay in a group that keep showing me pictures of “donut holes” that are “healthy”. That isn’t working for me. I have worked really hard to learn how to learn how to enjoy real food in moderation or learn to enjoy healthier foods to sabotage myself like this.

Now all I need is a … well God knows. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

And I Said NO

by Summer D Clemenson | Mar 1, 2023 | About Summer, Poetry

Sometimes we can’t see straight until we are removed
The situation is confused by emotions we want to feel
or don’t know how to name correctly
until we do
And often we are far on the other side before we know those words

I remember those days that I thought I would die
because they left me without their love
I missed the twinkle of their eye and their silly dance
I missed the way they played the drums
it always made me move
I missed laughing and feeling like I was home

Their phone call left me wounded
Walking around with a sucking chest wound
was a challenge
Each step a necessity and hope to get back to my aloneness
where I didn’t have to struggle to breathe so much
The tears kept my pillow like a swamp
Luckily I knew how to float on my back

But as I kept walking forward I started to find
the me I had lost while I was absorbed in what I thought was love
but was much more than love
in a way that I had got lost in it and couldn’t see
Because I forgot to love me
or I couldn’t love me and follow their rules

The multiple and paranoid texts while I was at school
The constant and easily triggered anger over anything
I was always trying to counter
The times I gave into what they wanted to avoid their whining
They could kiss me when they wanted but if they didn’t want a kiss…
Everything was up to them

Until they dumped me
And I was alone
And I found me
And when they came back and tried to reengage
I was stronger
I was aware of their abuse
I saw behaviors I didn’t want in my life
And I said NO

Addressing Mental Health Issues

by Summer D Clemenson | Feb 23, 2023 | About Summer, Chronic Illness, Education, Life

Years ago I was at my friend’s house. My friend and their spouse had only begun addressing mental health issues with their spouse which had the potential to be a danger to them. I don’t remember if they had begun trying to find the right meds yet or not. Just because you start the process of finding medications, doesn’t mean that things get better. It took me several years to find the right blend and we still adjust my medications every once and a while and every person is different. My friend’s spouse has very different diagnosis’ than I do and a very different body. They had broken out in a terrible fight while I was there. The kind where the police might have been needed to bring peace back to the neighborhood because my friend’s spouse didn’t always keep the fights indoors.

One thing that I always respected about my friend’s spouse is that they tried to keep the fights away from their child. In response to the fight, I chose to check on their child, who was wide awake in their bed. They were scared. I sat on the side of the child’s bed and held their hand. I answered their questions. Their parents loved them and each other they just weren’t feeling well right now. We sat quietly and let our tears run down our cheeks until my friend came to let us know that everything was ok now.

Before Jesus came to find me, when I was 5, I never had anyone to hold my hand when the fighting started on the other side of the wall. The characters in my past were not that different than my friend and their spouse. One had the same diagnosis as my friend’s spouse and the other was raised trying to keep the peace and needing to be the provider. We all are Emotional Neglect Survivors and I have been in survival mode all my life.

I was born overly sensitive. I see, hear, taste, and feel things that go unnoticed by many; I always have. I am uncommon. Because I am overly sensitive I was perfect to be the scapegoat and I didn’t get my needs met because I naturally had an overly developed sense of responsibility for others…but not myself. Being a child of divorce, I had two camps and 3 parental figures and they were all, at one time, the scapegoat — at least that is what I can observe. If I keep peeling back the layers, I see that my great-grandparents were immigrants on both sides of my family. If that isn’t a test tube for dysfunction, I don’t what is. Every generation of my family is hard-working, strong, generous, creative, intelligent but there are cracks, as in any family. Some dysfunctional behaviors can be made to look so pretty you don’t realize they are a culture you pass down. I was told by a character in my past that if I am the only one bothered by something, it is my problem.

The truth is I am too sensitive for the petri dish I was raised in. I am not angry about it. I really have forgiven what I believe the characters in my past didn’t know what they were doing, in fact they had no intention of doing. The one dynamic of my past I don’t miss at all is gossip. Rarely did someone talk to me until a small situation was so morphed it was no longer true. Of course I would become enraged. I was only called to do something for someone. I can’t pretend it never hurt to be shown all the pictures of events I didn’t know about, while I showed them pictures of their dog I was watching so they could go…and they would be shocked to learn how much their dog enjoyed the fresh slices of sweet potatoes I gave them.

Why wouldn’t I want to go to the beach? To the park? To dance competitions? The kids’ school performances? Their birthday parties?

Off and on for 42 years I have been in different kinds of therapy…yes even as a small child. As a young adult, I became even more diligent for the last 27 years. I have been labeled lots of things in the last 9 years. Mental and physical. Some labels that were not available when I was a child when many of my issues were showing up. How can I be angry at parents that didn’t know that children could have chronic migraines? Neurodivergent wasn’t coined until 1998…(Social anxiety, Sensory processing issues, OCD are just a few I have always had). For whatever reason the people raising me did not hear me when I tried to tell them things. They didn’t listen to me enough that I quit telling them and so I did not get the help I needed. Honestly, I don’t think they had the ability to hear me. They had their own traumas that were never dealt with, their own physical and mental pains that were never healed because no one knew the term Emotional Neglect until recently. They were taught to work and that is what they did.

In the last 9 years, I have had numerous therapists. All of them told me to separate myself from the characters of my past. I didn’t want to. But I have. There are so many holes in my memory but I have a part of me I call Anna. She remembers my emotions. I am missing a lot of memories. I was in such intense survival mode, I hardly remember high school. I am sure it was great and that the people I went to school with were wonderful, but there are very few I remember. It is hard to have whole parts of my life gone. What is worse — walking into a room of people, you hardly see, and be flooded with emotions you can’t pinpoint. In the last year or so, I have begun having memories return as my brain has been able to heal. The meds and having a peaceful life is helping.

But I realize that there are nights I don’t sleep because I am tormented by conversations that never happened or situations that I am not sure happened because Anna wants to be justified for all these feelings she holds for characters that live in my head because I don’t hold space for them in my real life. I didn’t let the love go away but I had to let room for healing happen. I have to let them go if I am going to have quiet in my mind or any chance and reconciliation of any kind. I can’t get rid of Anna but I can parent her. She needs me to hold her hand and let the tears run down our cheeks sometimes. She needs to be told that I love her and we are choosing peace because the characters of our past didn’t know how to teach us that, but Jesus does.

So I have been thinking about how to let in more air and light. I can’t change anyone but me. I must change how I think because my thoughts are stealing my peace. I wouldn’t let my friend’s child continue to imagine negative things about their friends at school without suggesting some wisdom. I would tell them what my preschool teacher, Teacher Lou said: “If someone is mean to you, play with someone else.” This philosophy has worked for me in many situations. Anna doesn’t need to play with imagined characters and neither do I. If what I am feeling is a real memory that needs to be forgiven or sat with, we can do that, but if it is imagined then I am going to let them go. Either way we will ask Jesus to bless them and give us all good night’s sleep.

Just like any mental health issue the path continues; it never just gets better. Chronic is what chronic does so we learn to dance and move the best we can. Be kind. Be smart.

The Lingering Harm of Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb Ph.D. for Psychology Today
Neurodivergent by Cleveland Clinic
Book Review that isn’t a Book Review: Running on Empty Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, PhD with Christine Mussello, PsyD

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My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

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