Today my therapist asked me what coping mechanisms I will use since the gardening season is coming to an end in our region. This is usually a difficult question to answer. She asked me last year and I was at a complete loss. This year my answer was tropical gardening. I will tend to my avocado, mango, citrus trees, black sapote, Jamaican Cherry, the various other potted plants that are taking over our living and dining rooms, and the host of house plants I’ve just purchased.

I suppose this year’s answer was a bit easier because this spring and summer were filled with so much gardening anxiety. The case against our garden and the countless conversations with our attorney have been a bit much to handle.

But I haven’t spoken about why this case took me down a mental rabbit hole. Most people know about our daughter dying 3 years ago. But most people don’t know about the nervous breakdown I experienced in June of 2017. It could have been May. It’s all a blur, like many traumatic experiences that reside in the recesses of my brain. I just know I couldn’t cope. I needed help. I finally found the right therapist for me.

Sometimes I think back to that time and I’m grateful I made it out alive. Now I know what people mean when they say things like, “my aunt died of a nervous breakdown.” I used to wonder how in the world someone could die of a nervous breakdown. Did they die of a heart attack? A stroke? An aneurism? How? But now when someone says a loved one died of a nervous breakdown, I wonder if what they mean is, “my loved one died by suicide.”

Was I suicidal in May or June of 2017? I don’t know. Again, it’s all a blur. I’ve experienced suicidal ideation before. But I’m not sure if this is what was happening to me then. I just remember spiraling down. I couldn’t speak. Performing daily tasks felt overwhelming. I was almost completely nonfunctional.

I’m grateful I was functional enough to seek help.

In 2018 I began speaking again. I can now hold an entire frivolous conversation. I can go a full day without having to stare at pictures of flowers. I’m better.

Almost exactly two years ago today, my therapist asked me if I wanted to use medication to cope. Though I’m not against western medication, I told her I wanted to find other ways to cope at that time. She knew how much I enjoy gardening and running and how they help me work through so many things so she suggested that I continue doing them.

So I did.

Often when people ask me how I got into Regenerative Agriculture I forget this piece of my history. My brain has a tendency to forget traumatic experiences. That’s one of the ways it copes. I’m working through that with my therapist. I’m starting to remember bits and pieces of things.

Remembering is hard for me. It’s exhausting. It threatens to make me spiral. But now I have my therapist, gardening, and I’m getting ready to start training again. Who knows? I may spiral again one day. But I have tools now.

So what will become of my healing since the gardening season is coming to an end? I will continue using those tools to regenerate myself, our home, our soil. I’ll also spend a great deal of time loving on my ever expanding house tropical jungle.