Reconstructing Cori

Tag: mental health

  • Narrative Vs. Reality

    I’ve gotten some things seriously wrong.

    And other things have fallen so perfectly into place that I question whether or not I’m just imagining it.

    There are times when I am afraid that I am forcing myself to see things one way when, in reality, it must be something completely different.

    I mean, schizophrenia does run deep in my bloodline.

    So does denial.

    But so does reinvention.

    And I will get to all of that, hopefully, and maybe not entirely in this post, but the first point I want to touch on is that what I originally convinced myself to be the grandest gesture of “trying-through-the-illness” was really nothing more than someone still looking to escape justice and accountability and the gullibility of the love-starved child.

    I think I’ve mentioned it before, but an issue with writing and the age of the internet is that there will always be a record of what was said, and when. A tweet from a decade ago can ruin an entire political or social media career before it can even get off the ground. With that said though, I think the record can also show progression, but only as long as there is also accountability. It’s okay to say, “that was my belief at the time, this is why that was my belief, and this is why I understand it was the wrong train of thought to board.” The record doesn’t just preserve our mistakes, it preserves our evolution.

    I’ve written a few articles about my dad now. A piece that was published in The Havok Journal about him being homeless and mentally ill and it not being my responsibility to help him and then a rebuttal to myself that I published here.

    There’s a point I’ve been circling for years without fully recognizing it. We are not the same person to everyone who knows us. Every relationship creates its own version of us. The father I knew is not the father my siblings knew. The man I defended is not the man other people experienced. And sometimes those versions contradict each other so completely that accepting one feels like betraying the other.

    It’s still true that he had great taste in music and could build a home with his bare hands if needed, but he was also a drunk, ran from accountability like it was his job (the only one he could hold down), and left chronic wounds in the people he helped create.

    And he died alone.

    Like my mom.

    I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of why or how it happened, but my mom and I hadn’t spoken verbally in well over a decade. And to make a very long story short enough to digest for this blog piece and so I can move on to what’s really important, it came to light that the things that were being said about me to my siblings and things that were told to me about my siblings, were not even in the same book.

    This is less of a story about my parents and more about what happens when you discover the narrators of your life have not only been unreliable, but were writing different realities for different audiences.

    Same author, different plots.

    I won’t lie and say that I was prepared for her passing. I thought I was. I thought a decade of silence would be enough of a cushion. I thought the times I reached back out, only to be met with no response—or worse, a single emoji—had already done the damage. I thought the grief had happened years ago.

    It hadn’t.

    Distance is not the same thing as resolution. That, unfortunately, is a very human misconception.

    I think the hardest part isn’t that I was lied to, or lied about. It was realizing how much of my life had been built around stories I never thought to question.

    Not only stories about myself, but stories about other people. And how easily I accepted them because they fit a narrative I had already been handed.

    I wasn’t evaluating the information. I was confirming a version of reality that had been written for me.

    The truth, in many cases, was something else entirely.

    And if I’m being honest, part of me preferred the version I’d been given.

    It was easier to hate the people I believed hated me. Easier to turn my back on the people I thought had abandoned me first.

    There was a certain satisfaction in that. A sense of righteousness. Even vengeance.

    After all, if they had already decided who I was, why should I bother proving them wrong?

    And why should I bother giving anyone the benefit of the doubt?

    In those years of silence, I wasn’t just grieving my mother. I was grieving people who were still alive. Siblings. Family members. People that may have been damaged by stories neither side knew were being told.

    And now, I have to figure out who everyone is without them.

    And who I was in their versions.

  • A Post Christmas Update

    Controlled Chaos

    I desire order, but I thrive in chaos.

    Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I’m decent in the kitchen. While I’m no master chef, I do tend to get compliments—and more importantly, my kids prefer that I cook rather than us ordering out. I’m not formally trained, but it’s a skill I’ve been honing for upwards of thirty years now.

    I’ve been in the kitchen since I was big enough to push a chair to the stove. While most of my ability, skill, and intuition came from necessity—having to prepare meals for a family of five or more starting around age eight or nine—some of it came from my maternal grandmother. She was patient enough to answer my random questions while showing me how to peel potatoes, fry cornbread, and slice bananas to uniform thickness for puddin’.

    What I enjoy most about preparing a meal is that it’s a kind of controlled chaos.

    There are known reactions—garlic hitting hot oil will always be intoxicating—but there are also variables. A burner runs hot. An ingredient is missing. Something spills. Any one of those things can dramatically change the outcome.

    When you grow up poor, you learn the basics quickly. If the food isn’t edible, you don’t just go hungry—you risk making others go without as well. And if you mess up, everyone lets you know. There’s no running back to the store. No borrowing from neighbors, because they don’t have it either. You use what you have, no more and no less. There’s very little margin for error.

    So I learned to make adjustments on the fly. How to start with one meal in mind and, due to circumstance, wind up with something entirely different. And even if it’s not what I originally planned, it’s still going to be nourishing, filling, and often delicious.

    It’s a skill.
    It’s an art.
    It’s an analogy for my life.

    The last month has been a reminder that life rarely follows the recipe you start with.

    Before Christmas, my fourteen-year-old asked her dad if she would see him. His response wasn’t yes or no—it was that they were going to spend Christmas with me and that he wouldn’t force them to see him.

    They’re texting now, sporadically, but he still doesn’t respond to me. And he hasn’t spoken to our twelve-year-old at all, outside of a Christmas Day text. They haven’t seen him since early November.

    There’s no dramatic confrontation here. No explosive argument. Just absence.

    And absence, I’ve learned, is its own kind of message. One that’s heard loud and clear by everyone.

    For Christmas, their dad sent money. Which is helpful—it buys things—but it doesn’t sit across from you at the table. It doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t show up when things are uncomfortable. It doesn’t give advice or lend an ear when you need it.

    I’m fully moved in with my love, who, for the sake of things, I’ll simply refer to as Mr.

    The girls are sharing a room, for now. It’s okay, mostly. They’re already getting on each other’s nerves, which feels less like a problem and more like proof of normalcy. Adjustment noises—screams, groans, the occasional curse word. Growing pains.

    As for me and my Mr., I could not be more in love. But being seen—being appreciated—can be uncomfortable. I still deal with my own triggers and insecurities, and I often assign negative intentions to innocuous conversations. I struggle the most with text messages. I tend to read them as if he’s always angry or disappointed in me, although that’s never his intended tone.

    Old wiring doesn’t disappear just because the storm has passed. It takes time to dig new pathways and clear away old debris.

    It probably doesn’t take as much time as the construction on 270, though.
    (Get it together, St. Louis.)

    And yet, my Mr. just keeps showing up. Time after time. In ways I didn’t realize were going to matter, but now I know I can’t—and won’t—live without.

    I am constantly amazed at how present he is.

    He noticed what the girls were actually into. Band t-shirts for the fourteen-year-old. Robux and genuine interest in the twelve-year-old’s info-dumps. Not generic gifts. Not placeholders. Them.

    Me. This may have been the best Christmas I’ve ever had as an adult. I wasn’t showered in gifts, but the things I did receive showed how much he listens and how much he thinks about me—actions I am not used to seeing.

    Us. This past weekend, he showed up for my fourteen-year-old in an awkward, important moment her dad should have been there for. When I called my Mr. and asked if he would take her, meet the people involved, and verify authenticity, he didn’t hesitate.

    He just did it.
    And then he called me with an update.

    The amount of constant consideration he shows for others is astounding.

    I don’t think the girls’ dad even knows about the event—or really much about anything that’s been happening in their lives over the past month.

    I still appreciate order, and I know how to thrive in chaos—that skill kept us fed when there was no margin for error. But there is something quietly magical about a pantry full of staples, about knowing I won’t have to pull something together out of nothing this time. What matters is what’s on the table, and who shows up to eat. Absence taught me what neglect looks like. Presence taught me what care feels like. The difference is no longer subtle, and I don’t unlearn things like that.

  • New Patterns

    I recognize patterns. Not always the obvious ones, but the subtle, repeated behaviors, actions, and coincidences that pile up over time. I’ve been accused of “ruining a movie” by predicting the twist long before the big reveal, but that’s exactly how I see patterns in life.

    And while it’s an annoyance for some, for me, it’s survival. It’s how I’ve learned to notice when something is genuine versus performative, when it’s consistent versus conditional.

    I wrote in a “long ass update on life” that I’ve learned what it feels like to be appreciated and truly seen—and that it’s really uncomfortable sometimes.

    And it makes sense, because I’m not used to it. Consistency. Unconditional care. Attention without expectation. I’m used to the pattern going the other way.

    The difference becomes obvious in the little things. (It’s always the little things, isn’t it?) Date nights happen without me having to remind anyone. Gifts aren’t just “stuff”—they’re thoughtful, reflecting things I actually need or enjoy. There’s even a stocking (a stocking!)—and that feels extraordinary after years without anything like it.

    School pickups, conversations with my kids, thoughtful proactive actions; these aren’t obligations or checkboxes. They’re intentional. Attention is given where it’s needed. Space is respected where it’s wanted. Frustration is named and managed, not dumped out for everyone else to manage. Emotions are acknowledged. Details are noticed. Effort is consistent, not performative.

    This is what it looks like when someone has learned the difference between morals and skills.

    And it’s so important to understand the difference.

    Morals are easy. They live in words, in ideas, in what we say we believe. Anyone can claim them. Skills are the harder part. Skills are what we actually do when it’s uncomfortable. Skills are action. They’re measurable. They’re real. You can’t fake them, not for long.

    It’s a skill to tolerate shame without collapsing, to accept responsibility without rewriting reality, to prioritize others over your own self-image. And when those skills are present, it shows up everywhere—in the little gestures, the attention that’s given without being asked for, the way a home feels safe and a child feels seen.

    It’s unfamiliar, yes. But it’s real. And it’s the pattern I want to keep noticing.

  • Reasoning continued.

    When I said I hadn’t posted anything online in a while, that wasn’t entirely true. A couple of years ago, I started posting on a Tumblr account—somewhat anonymously. I didn’t attach my name to anything, and only a handful of people had the link. Mostly, I transcribed entries from my paper journals. I did this to create a record of what my children and I were going through as my then-husband spiraled from untreated PTSD and undiagnosed Bipolar II disorder.

    Despite the chaos of that time frame, I can’t label my ex-husband as a terrible person. At the end of the day, I still trust him with our children. I know that if I were in absolute dire straits, he would help as much as he could. He had a mental health crisis and spiraled. The person he was during that time isn’t truly who he is at his core. And I can’t paint a full picture of our relationship’s demise without acknowledging my own role in it. But that’s a story for another post, or two.

    To summarize: Did we have our differences? Absolutely. Were there underlying issues beyond our control? Again, absolutely. We officially separated at the end of 2022, but honestly, I think we both knew it was over before that.

    Which brings me to the real reason I started writing this post: brutal honesty. Not just about events but also about my part in them—the chaos I contributed to, the miscommunication, and the misconceptions I carried from my younger years.

    Whew, that’s a mouthful. But let me try to explain, maybe poorly.

    A lot of my mental health progress is due to traditional methods: medication, therapy, diagnoses, and even a “grippy-sock vacation.” But more than anything, I credit my education. I went back to school, earned my Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences, and almost completed an Associate’s in Funeral Services. I officially graduated at 40—which is kind of bullshit because I finished my last courses before my birthday, but whatever. And while I’m still bitter about the credit hours that didn’t transfer from Funeral Services to Social Sciences, I’m grateful for the journey it took to get here. It just took forever.

    And while my degree may not impress many people, I need you to understand: I’m a high school dropout. I got my GED the same day my oldest daughter was born.

    So here I am, back at the keyboard, no longer burying my thoughts in trash bins. The journey that brought me here has been long, messy, and filled with more detours than I care to admit. But it’s my journey, and I’m owning every step of it—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.

    Growth and understanding aren’t linear, nor are they a destination. Instead, it’s a continuous process of learning, unlearning, relearning, and then piecing it all together, slowly and with the preparedness of knowing that you may have to rip it all apart again to make it fit better later on. It’s a hard process and no one should have to go it alone or feel like they’re alone while they’re doing it. So, here I am, sharing my take on the process with anyone who wants to see it.

    I’m no longer just surviving. I’m beginning to thrive. And while that might sound cliché, it’s my truth. Writing is no longer something I fear; it’s something I embrace, even when it forces me to confront the parts of myself I’d rather forget.

    This blog is a dialogue with my former self, a testament to the growth that comes from chaos and the clarity that follows confusion. I don’t know where this path will lead, but for the first time in a long time, I’m excited to find out.

  • The First Post: A Reasoning

    The Artist Formerly Known as Cora Kane

    It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything online. For the most part, I’ve kept my thoughts confined to paper and pen, where they’re easier to destroy—safer than a blog post or some cringey article from a decade ago. Whenever I reached the point where I had to write, where not writing felt like drowning in my own thoughts, I would rip the pages from their binding, hide them beneath piles of wet kitchen trash, or burn them. If it didn’t exist, I couldn’t be accused of saying it—or worse, thinking it. One less battle to fight.

    I’ve come to realize that I did this out of fear. Fear that my words, my truth, might offend someone enough to provoke retribution. And honestly, I was just tired. Tired of fighting battles that no longer felt worth it. So, I retreated. I abandoned the battlefield, so to speak. I stopped writing almost entirely. No more poems, no more short stories, no more song lyrics. No more anonymous posts on random forums or cringe-worthy articles about being a “supportive military spouse.”

    If you knew me back then, you’d know that all I ever wanted was to be a writer, especially in the thriller and horror genres. I grew up devouring Koontz, King, and Rice, hidden under old blankets or tucked away in nooks where no one could find me. During my marriage, I wrote from the perspective of a supportive military spouse, offering advice and opinions I had no business giving. My marriage—and my mental health—were in shambles.

    A decade has passed since my last published article and my now-defunct debut novel. It’s time to re-enter the arena. I’m no longer afraid of retribution or revenge; my name has been dragged through the mud long enough that I’ve grown roots. I’m no longer a supportive military spouse. In fact, I’m no longer a spouse at all. My unwavering support for all things military has eroded into something closer to contempt. I no longer carry the same blind optimism for love and country and, at times, I find myself bitter about the state of things.

    But from bitter beginnings come better endings—or at least some very interesting things to talk about. To discuss. To write about. Including my own past behaviors and beliefs. Even if no one else reads this, it’s a dialogue with my former self, an examination of how my thoughts, values, beliefs, and overall mental health have changed—and been challenged—over the last decade.