What If Healing Starts With Micro Joys

Grief doesn’t just hurt, it reorganizes your whole inner world. I’m Tracy, and I’m talking openly about what happens when trauma and betrayal blow up your sense of safety, your memories, and even your ability to make the kind of art you used to love. I’ve got supplies unpacked and the urge to create, but the quiet can feel brutal, and the blank page can pull up anger, shock, and the life I thought I had.

I share what betrayal trauma feels like in real time: the way songs and TV can trigger instant spirals, the loneliness of having no one left to confront, and the heavy reality of selling what I believed was my forever home. Starting over at this stage of life is daunting, especially when trust in your own decisions feels broken. I also talk about the guilt of leaning on my kids for comfort and why I’m trying hard not to make them carry that weight.

There are small lights, though. My therapist keeps reminding me to chase micro joys and micro goals, and I’m trying: journaling, writing, moving my body, taking a knitting class, and letting myself consider making darker art when that’s what needs to come out. Community helps too, especially mahjong and the chance to teach and share what I’m creating. If you’ve ever felt like you can create for others but not for yourself, you’ll hear your own thoughts in this one. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about grief, healing, and creativity.

Transcript

Trying To Create Again

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello everyone, it's Tracy with Brutifly and uh back with a new episode of Brutifly Made. Um, still trying to actually make a few things. Uh, got my supplies out to a point. I have some of my things out. Um, still a lot in boxes and still a lot packed away, but I do have some ability to create, and um, that's good. I just have to find it inside to uh to create, and that's what's hard right now. Um, still, you know, dealing with a lot of grief, a lot of trauma, and just trying to navigate that all. And it's a new revelation every week of something that I have to deal with. And I think I've mentioned that before, but at least this past weekend I didn't have any major development uh out in the wild, like I did with the um other incident. So it was a very nice, quiet weekend, and uh my kiddos were visiting uh other families, so they weren't around and it was just you know trying to depend on myself to keep busy and explore the area, and I did.

Learning To Enjoy Solo Time

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Uh and uh it's it's very daunting to take on things on my own, like uh sightseeing or exploring new areas. And my sweet counselor therapist, she is like, you gotta give yourself permission to enjoy doing that. And I know I do. I it's just really hard for me to frame that. It's it's also very difficult for me to create for myself right now. Um, I've been given prompts and been given requests by people that I can handle, that I can get creative with. But if I just sit down and try to draw or paint or make something, I still have all of this anger and grief and frustration and trauma. And it's really hard to find the light in anything that I'm doing. It's so it's so hard to put into words, too. How it's a different mindset for me. I don't know how to process things that have happened, and um it's just really difficult to accept a lot of stuff that um that I'm finding and that I'm dealing with.

Betrayal Trauma And Hard Truths

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Um it's it's just it's like betrayal trauma I'm dealing with. And uh, I know that's gonna be hard for a lot of people that knew him to accept and to understand, but that's how it's been defined to me, and uh the narcissistic tendencies that I didn't recognize at the time as I'm going through what has happened and what I have found out, and some of the discussions that the framing of what our lives were like, that's also been stated to me, and it's just really made me step back and take a look at this relationship that I had, and it's very hard when people kind of say his presence will always be with you, he's looking out over you. I don't want that, it's not comforting knowing what I know now, and I am grieving over the life I thought I had with somebody that I had known since I was little, and then the person that he is and was, and the things that I didn't know at the time and now that I do. I'm I'm grieving this relationship that I feel like was like what has happened in 15 years. I don't know this person, and it's really it's really hard to like hear songs and it's really hard to watch TV. I don't want anything coming up that makes a memory come up because it's so hard for me to deal with. Um it's just so difficult. There's so many layers, and I miss my friends, I miss people that were comforting to me and cared about me that were present. I put a lot of that on my kids now because it's comforting to be around them. And that's a big that's a big burden in my mind that they have to be there um to bring me comfort. I don't want that, I don't want that to be on their shoulders. So to be light and creative and bright is really hard. And it's like, how do I find that again? How do I find that joy? Because I got so much joy out of being in the community and creating with the kids there, and now I just embrace that with my grandchildren so much.

Letting Go Of A Forever Home

SPEAKER_00 6:16

The grief in the silence is so overwhelming, and that's what I'm trying to work through is to find the other side of that or how to deal with that on a daily basis, because it just creeps up on me, and I don't know how to process it because at one moment it's the life I thought I had, the time that I spent building a relationship, who I thought I was with, my business, my home, it just got finished, and the contractor did an amazing job, and now it's going on the market, and I need for it to sell, and I, you know, I need to have that finished and and done with because I have friends that are still helping me in Ohio and taking care of all of that, and I couldn't be here and try to have this buffer because being there was so hard for me because there's so many memories. That was my forever home, that was the home we were going to have for the rest of our lives. That was what we worked on, and every room and everything that I would like to walk into, it was heart-wrenching because I I couldn't take it. It was it was so hard, and it was just a house, I know, but it was just all these dreams that I thought we had together, and so I I couldn't stay. I mean, literally, I couldn't stay, I couldn't have the mortgage, it was gotta be gone, and so I I have to sell it, but it's just so overwhelming to think that I have to start completely over now in this stage of my life, and I don't know how to trust myself, I don't know how to grieve for my losses without feeling guilty. There's just a lot, there's so much to unpack, there's so much to get through, and so finding a moment to be like, hey, I want to create something beautiful and pretty and light and fun. Oh, it's so hard to do for myself. For myself, when somebody gives me an idea, it's like I want these colors and I want this and I want that. I'd like I have direction, I have I I know what they want, I can make this happen. But if I just sit and want to do it for myself, it's so hard, it's just so difficult, and that's not me. I am just such a different person now, and that's so hard to accept. I don't even know how to explain that. It's I am not the same person that I was before all of this happened, the beginning of May, and I don't know who I'm gonna be. I just I don't want to be angry forever, and I am, and I am not an angry person. I've just been so hurt, and it's really affecting my creativity, and so I really have to work through

Anger In The Art Process

SPEAKER_00 9:42

that. I think I'm gonna have to create some pretty dark pieces or some things that look angry to get it out of my system and just deal with it because when I start to draw and I feel that coming out, I'm just like, this is not what I want, this is not the look that I want, this is not the feeling that I want to, you know, portray. And then I just get aggravated that it's like get past this. And I'm like, I can't get past this, I can't get over

Micro Joys And New Skills

SPEAKER_00 10:06

this right now. I can't, and I'm journaling and I'm writing and I'm doing other things. I took a knitting class, I've always wanted to learn how to knit, and the ladies were the sweetest, and I cannot wait to go back and I'm practicing just because I want to do other things, want to learn. I've always wanted to learn. Learning is a beautiful thing to me. I've always wanted to learn as much as I can about all different kinds of things, languages, art, you know, processes, people, food, you name it. I I I'm very I'm a very curious person, and I and I love learning and I love people. But right now, I just I have no confidence in myself making like trustworthy decisions because I feel like my trust is so broken, and it's it's just gonna take so much time to get that back and to find joy outside of making it something my kids bring to the table. Because I cannot do that to them. I cannot put that heavy burden on them and make it their responsibility. And um, yeah, I just gotta get I gotta I gotta find a little joy micro joys is what my therapist said I need to do and micro goals and and I'm writing things down and yes I'm trying but it's it's really difficult. It's really hard to to do that. This grief is just so overwhelming and working through it and understanding it and letting it ebb and flow. Um Yeah, people are like I see your videos with the kids, you're smiling, you're happy, and I am in that moment. I am so genuinely happy in that moment with those kids and doing things with my kids and sharing, but it is just not a consistent thing, it's just fleeting, and all of that darkness will just creep back up, and I don't want that. I gotta I gotta figure out a way to get past that or deal with it better, um and not dwell on stuff I can't change, and that's really hard for me to do. It's really hard for me not to want to address the stuff that I'm in knowledge of now and be angry about it, and I want to scream at somebody and I can't. There's nobody to yell at, there's nobody to confront, there's no one to ask questions, I can only think all of these like horrible, terrible things because of the stuff that I am realizing that had happened, and and all I have is anger, all I have is being betrayed and being traumatized and trying to process that, and it's really daunting. It's really daunting. It's not that I got to grieve losing someone, and that was it. I I've lost a lot, a whole lot, and I have a lot to be thankful for where I'm at now, and maybe one day I'll be able to explain what that means. There's been a lot of stuff happening in the headlines that just makes me catch my breath because I'm so fearful that could have been me. Um and in my situation, if things that I have found were found before this happened, and um it's what wakes me up in the middle of the night. Those give me the worst nightmares, and I am just trying to literally survive every day, um mentally and emotionally and and physically, you know, just trying to make sure I'm moving every day. I don't want to sit and dwell, I don't want to sit and just continue to try to like research everything that I'm finding. Um, because I will let myself go down these rabbit holes of like looking for stuff because of how raw and real everything is and new knowledge. I mean, there's just so much that I did not know. I did not know.

How Supporting Art Helps Me

SPEAKER_00 15:15

So I just want I just want y'all to have some grace with my creativity because it's it's not to where it should be or can be or needs to be right now. But don't stop asking me to help because that's giving me encouragement, that's giving me light, that's giving me something positive. If you want to help me and support me in any way, it's continuing to support my artwork, requesting special things. I need that. That's my job right now. That's what is sustaining me, that's what's getting me through life. I mean, I have no support from the VA. I don't have any decisions, I don't have anything. Well, I I'm not expecting their help at all. And that's um just been a nightmare on its own, trying to work through all of that. And um I'm just I just gotta take care of myself as best as I can, and that is relying on a lot of people supporting me, and um and this mahjong thing has been huge, and I am so grateful for that, and I'm leaning into that as much as I can because that's what's doing the most good in my life right now. So I'm getting ready to teach at a center, um, and that's gonna be very light for me, very it makes me very happy. Um, and just sharing all the stuff that I'm creating. So if you are into that world at all, let me know because that's a huge help for me. And then, you know, we have holidays coming up. If there's special gifts that you want and you have requests, if I can do that, let me know. So um, but yeah, that is the state that I am in right now, uh, state of mind.

Staying Here And Choosing Self-Care

SPEAKER_00 17:23

And uh it's I know it's really heavy. I know this isn't the fun podcast, light and bright. I'm not in my studio anymore, I'm not in my shop. Um it's just me trying to get through as a creative person, as a very positive, optimistic person on this other side, and I don't know how I'm doing it, I don't know what I'm doing. I do have help and it's it's powerful to talk about because it may help somebody else be honest with stuff that's going on in their lives. Maybe it will help you um make sure that you have the truth in your relationships. Um I'll have to share down the road how things have been found because again, I don't know if I would have wanted to I don't even know how to like express that. I don't it's it'cause it's so heavy. I just really don't know if I would be here today if it was revealed before all of this happened. I don't know. It's a very odd and scary thought. So um, but I'm here now and this is where I'm working from, and I am gonna continue to do the best that I can, and I love your support and I appreciate you all beyond measure. So thank you. Um hope to see you uh next week, and maybe a little bit more lighter, and maybe I figured out ways to be a little bit more creative. So take care, take care of one another, take care of yourself, yourself first. I've gotta learn that. My therapist says, you gotta take care of yourself first. And I tend to fix everybody else before I fix myself, so that's what I'm working on. But I will talk to you later. Stay brutally made. Take care. Bye.