Miller May 2025 Monthly Update
- JM Miller
- 5 days ago
- 19 min read
This month has been a really difficult one.
I spent most of my time in deep depression: crying all the time, unable to sleep, and not eating for days at a time. When everything hits, everything hits.
I was going over information to add to my story that I am writing, and it does retraumatize you when you recall the multitude of painful stories you had to survive alone. My book and story will be a case study about the long-term impacts of emotional neglect and emotional abandonment from the child’s perspective in a narcissistic family system.
Unheard. Unseen. Unloved.
For the past few months, I have been carefully watching how I interact with others, how I respond to others, how I reach out to others, the words I automatically choose and which ones I tend to avoid, and the persistent patterns of continuous emotional abandonment with just about every single person I have encountered in my life. I do not know how to connect with people and have an automatic fear of rejection to where I disconnect and dissociate to avoid encountering that ‘want’. I turn empty and afraid, hiding and making myself invisible until some bodily need forces me to move. I still revert back to my familiar childhood pattern of having to deal with heavy, deep, and painful emotions on my own. So I hide away and isolate until I have energy to get up and do anything. Take care of myself? I KNOW what that means, but when I reach that state it’s all blank and foreign. It feels WRONG to take care of myself, as if I deserve that pain and struggle. This belief had been established as being ‘selfish’ in my family. My parents’ wants or needs were supposed to always be higher priority, wiring me to care for others even if I am in desperate need of help myself.
No child should EVER feel this. And I have not yet healed from this.
It kicked up badly when Mother’s Day was rolling around, which got extended another week until my sister came back from college. Now there is the unfortunate upcoming of ‘Father’s Day’ next month. Neither of these days are happy for me. I was always wondering why growing up with the ‘#1 Best Dad’ or ‘Best Mother’ cups or products never connected with me. After the past two years of analyzing our relationship… and keeping track of a full year of never being asked ‘how are you doing’ really stood out. Or the fact that both of them went on trips out of state, my mom for two weeks, with not ONCE asking any of their kids how we were doing back home. Oh, but they DID ask how the cats were doing. Once. The whole time in the group chat (me, my husband, siblings, and them), my parents were just talking to each other about how THEIR trip is going and what they are up to. Basically, conversations that my parents should have been having just with each other. What was the point of adding the four of us in if we weren’t even going to be talked to?
This month has just been extremely heavy. With more issues that John is kicking up too. So if I look depressed and disconnected, I am. Though I have had a lot of practice ‘faking’ being okay. So unless you know what to look for, I will always be overlooked.
It mirrors the same emotional abandonment I endured growing up:
If I couldn’t function, I was too much.
If I could function, I was fine.
I was never allowed to simply be in pain and still be held.
I had to play the middle field of functioning just enough to not get the ire of my parents, but function enough so I could somehow meet my own needs wherever I could.
Me being in pain and comforted? What a strange concept! I naturally shy away from it because it doesn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t normal. OR the person who showed it would disappear, never to hear from again. So that defensive response of “I’ll be abandoned” would resurface.
If you think I am over-exaggerating, then you NEED to read my book. If you’ve seen them and think “they aren’t really like that, are they?”, then next time you meet them, keep watch of what WORDS they choose and WHEN they choose them. And even what words they choose to avoid saying.
I have paper documentation that they wrote in dealing with my PTSD behaviors, that were textbook symptoms/behaviors, that they wanted me to change because they were ‘disrupting the household’. So me being suicidal after domestic violence that resulted in an actual DV restraining order was a ‘nuisance’ and ‘bothersome’ to them. I have two of the family meeting notes signed AND dated by both my parents. They are so proud of their professional work making this documentation that you would be speechless it was forced on their child going through an extremely rough time in their life. I didn’t keep the dozens of paperwork I had to sit through, I only managed to save about one and a half.
But just that one is shocking enough. This document will be added in my book as a good set-up for what kind of household I was raised in.
You know how psychotherapy has that funny starting question of "Tell my about your childhood"? Well the world that your parents (or adult figures) build, structures your world and your expectations of the world. Their participation or lack of participation will form your beliefs, and thus your actions and words.
So, safe to say not much went on this month other than crying and reflecting.
It was supposed to be focused on VBS and all the exciting things I could make for it. To not having any energy or excitement to keep up the creativity.
This month’s update will be a bit ‘brief’ because of it.
A lot of catching up this month from what was pushed off. Such as my Medicaid is BACK!
Funny story… well, not as much funny as more frustrating.
The Reyes group, the ones in charge of Medicaid and I think food stamps here in El Paso County, are the WORST in Colorado. Because John, head of the household and whose application mine is attached to, was in the non-paid Medicaid category due to his disability status. Which normally would be fine, but that means that Medicaid HQ of Colorado cannot DO anything.
However, because John’s case manager at TRE, The Resource Exchange, was a little delayed in submitting one piece of paperwork, he was temporarily put onto the ‘paid’ portion of Medicaid.
Luckily it was just for a month, and double lucky that THIS change allowed us to contact Medicaid at the Colorado state level and actually have them step in to help. So with their assistance (thank you so much, Corinne!), we were able to reinstate me within 48 hours!!
So I guess if you are having issues with your Medicaid insurance, be put on the paid portion for a month so you can get direct help.
I was wrongly removed from my medical assistance since August of 2024 to finally get it at the end of May 2025. That’s 10 months they wrongly denied my Medicaid for no valid reason. I mean, we had THREE state-level Medicaid workers writing notes on our account stating ‘they submitted all paperwork’ or ‘please review’ or ‘please look through all submitted paperwork’, stating we sent in everything and there literally should be NO reason for denial. They were even frustrated.
But all the funds that were supposed to support local Colorado disabled citizens were being rerouted. And hearing from the workers, this was not an uncommon problem. THEY were even frustrated because they wanted to help but legally could not step in.
So now that is done, June will be catch-up for a lot of medical appointments. Whoot!
Onto what we did during this past month, besides depression and old wounds resurfacing…
ATCs –We’ve had our two ATC art groups this month! Going to highlight the group at Rainy Day Anime which was such a fun event. Had a little girl happily draw her family on two cards and show them off. It was such a joy to see how proud she was with her work.
Our next groups will be:
June 21st for our Christian Craft Fellowship ATC group at 21C from 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
–AND–
June 29th for our Crafty Card Collective ATC Group at Rainy Day Anime from 11 am – 1 pm
No need to bring anything. No need to have any art skills. Just come in and have fun with the materials we have and chat with others!
21C room will be determined as early as a week before to the day before.
<<I’ve had some issues getting any openings in. So for a study room I will have to call a week in advance to get anything as the meeting rooms are all booked. If you’d like to find out where we are located or if anything has changed, please text me at 719-492-5617>>
Art Swap –
Art Swap was at Ruth Holley in May and it went splendidly! Quite a few people stopped by to talk to us, checking in on what we have been up to and what they’ve been up to. It’s exciting that people actually enjoy our presence there and that means a lot to us. We are looking forward to this month’s Art Swap since this will be the BIGGEST of the year!
June 14th from 12pm–4pm at Library 21C!
Bring a pound of unwanted art supplies to trade for a pound of your selected art supplies YOU want to use! It’s a lot of fun and you’ll definitely find items you can or will want to use.
You’ll also see our ATC table there to make Artist Trading Cards with us for free!
Paper Day –
We worked Paper Day this month and had fun talking to multiple people walking in. Many not knowing what ATCs are, who were new to the store, or who didn’t know about Paper Day or the upcoming Art Swap! So we got to inform quite a few about the fun events coming up.
Paper Day is the perfect day of fun for scrapbookers, cardmakers, and junk journalers! You pay $5 for 4 hours of sifting through piles of papers and ephemera while chatting with other crafters. Looking for vintage items? This is where they tend to collect, so you’ll definitely want to stop by to snag some great items for your projects!
VBS –
This is where most of our attention and efforts were aimed at. It was a HUGE project that turned out wonderful! This was a perfect opportunity for me to get some experience at planning out ideas, seeing what is feasible, what materials are needed, the cost of every step, how to build things, how to delegate, what gaps there are that need to be addressed from last year… and how to deal with frustration and my issues of communicating to others.
We learned so much that we hope to improve on for next year.
For me, this was a stepping stone at building my own programs. I have two VBS programs I am aiming to build, as well as a church reform plan. Then after, there is a Teen Hangout and a trauma-focused Mental Health Hospital I am working on too. Each with another step higher in planning and focus on details to support the goal as a whole.
This is what I LOVE to do. However, I need to get better at leading and delegating. John is the face and leader, he manages the face-to-face interactions for the both of us.
I drain so much quicker and pick up the energies around me that can collapse me. I.e., people at church were rushed and stressed… some being grumpy and rolling over what I was working on. I took that and got extremely frustrated and hurt, having it keep rolling into more and more frustrations that took me out for two days to emotionally regulate.
Remember, I was emotionally neglected and abandoned. I was not taught to recognize nor process my emotions. And because I had to be on edge and constantly aware of my parents’ state of being, I ignore my needs by default to quickly address the emotions of those around me.
This is a struggle I have to face daily. And at age 34, I’m FINALLY becoming more aware of this.
It has caused rifts in my marriage and constantly widening gaps with every friendship I currently have or will have in the future.
So it needs to be addressed. And it will. I will be starting up therapy again with a therapist that is well-versed in Narcissistic Abuse and Emotional Neglect. We are taught to speak a completely different language, and it’s becoming apparent that this has been happening the past few years when I try talking to my own medical professionals.
So VBS has been a very eye-opening experience for me.
Oh right—what was it that we were doing specifically? John and I were in charge of all the decorations. So deciding what would be where, what was going to be built, what materials were needed, instructions on how to build it, who to delegate it to, how to attach it when setting up, and more. My portion was very much the brainstorming and the documentation, which ended up being about 50 pages to start with and what we worked off of.
We really only had about a month to work on everything, with volunteers generally there about 12 hours to help out. A handful of people put in far more hours than that outside of work times, and a few were able to take something home to work on and bring back.
Not enough time though.
So next year I will plan things out to where we can start earlier, have less stress, find more helpers, and generally have things done the week prior to setting up. So if there were any last-minute things, no one would panic or rush.
Because of the exhaustion and pushing ourselves past our physical abilities, I had to crash at home for the week while John was able to stop by a few times during the week to keep up with things—which was great. I stopped by once for 15 minutes on Wednesday, and the kids' energy was too much. I was running into the ground. We worked so hard that our hands and feet were swollen and stinging with constant pain.
When we put our everything into our projects, we mean it. We are not afraid of hard work or pain; we are afraid of going into the hospital and having no one there to help us—only to pile blame on us. That was our norm growing up.
But hearing the feedback from the kids and the adults, we can have this sigh of relief. What we have done was worth it!! The kids were thrilled, even stating to John that we should do this same exact VBS again next year!
lol no.
xD As much as that may make things easier, I am looking forward to the full process of finding and creating items for a specific theme.
The standard process of organizing volunteers, gathering materials, working with materials, and keeping track of everything will need to be pre-planned, but the actual themes won't. I'm still working on the paperwork for a streamlined process next year.
The adults were impressed with what we created—some even shocked that John did not have any formal schooling to create the palm scanners (that worked!!). You can see those sitting next to the security stanchions in the first image. He doesn't even have a college degree, as most of his learning is through YouTube, peer-reviewed and published research articles, skill-focused webpages, and a lot of trial and error.
We learn what we need to accomplish our projects, which has proved through this challenge…we have a LOT of skills and knowledge over so many topics/subjects that it's crazy. We are hoping to utilize them and help where we can this year more and more.
So let’s show you the results of our hard work!
Our last day of creating/set up lasted from 12 a.m. to 7 p.m. to get everything up. John and I were the sole people working on this to make it happen. Sadly, the people wanting to help us had to work on other things (i.e. drama group), but we made it work!
And yes, that is a Perry the Platypus silhouette you see. Because this was a Spy-Themed VBS, I wanted to add in hidden messages and things to find. So I hid about 13 different Perry figures around for the kids to find. They ended up moving throughout the week, but oh well. There was a prize involved for finding them all, so just hope that didn't ruin any kid's chance of winning!
Luckily, a lot of this work will be making its way to another church to decorate for their VBS. So hope this excitement and joy will get to spread to more kids!
Also, thanks so much to our lovely friends at Crafter's Clique for helping us make items for our Spice Market! (It's a connection in the drama that'll make sense to the kids and drama team.)
Their participation really helped add to the feel of the environment, and the children appreciated the extra touches!
Oh no! I forgot to add in the images of the 5 game kiosks that John made! We did have help building and painting them, but John designed the files to be built and coded games for these kiosks. He had them working, but then Saturday came around and the games stopped working. So he woke up at midnight Sunday morning (insomnia) to work on fixing the games, which ended up working right before we left for the day at 7 p.m.
You can see a sample of the kiosk in the 6th image on the right side of the bullet train.
The kids had a blast playing the games and were even learning geography—where locations are around the world. You'll be able to play his games on Itch.io, and we will link them once he has polished those published games.
The Resource Exchange Art Auction!
We are also a part of the TRE Art Committee and helping with the preparation and spread of information for the upcoming Art Show. We would love for you to take a look at what’s coming up and either submit or send this flyer to those who would be interested.
It is free to submit, and if accepted, you’ll be getting 40% of whatever your artwork sells for. The minimum price for each piece will be $100, but some have priced their artwork at thousands, and they had sold at that price!
The TRE is wanting to share what they do and the population they serve in our community.
They aren’t looking to make money from this. They are looking to, at MINIMUM, break even this year. It’s quite costly to host and run this, so whatever proceeds or sponsorships they get will be going towards the overhead costs.
They also help with John’s disability paperwork for medical assistance and my caregiving payments with his Medicaid insurance. So they are directly helping us stay afloat to cover our rent, utilities, gas, and food every month!
—
Ok, so not trying to make everything about me. John is doing well but also struggling.
When one of our triggers is hit, the other has a childhood trigger get set off. Since our parents had similar yet opposite parenting styles, this can be very coarse to us. Such as certain language he uses with me—I take as hidden messages because with my parents, the types of words they omit also tell their true intentions.
When I get upset and have to isolate to cope, it hits his panic triggers because of his emotionally volatile mother. I was neglected and left alone, while he was forced to amend the conflict to make the home safe for him and his younger siblings.
So these rough spots tend to feed into each other, and it cycles, causing so much emotional turmoil and exhaustion.
We understand what is going on, but this childhood pattern controls us. It takes time and professional help to break away from this.
He has also been going through what feels like personal prophetic dreams about his family line and life. So there is a lot of soul-searching about ‘what happened to me as a child or what happened to me THROUGH my bloodline?’
Do you believe in Generational Trauma? What about Generational Curses?
Well, whether you believe it or not, it exists. And those that carry it—you know that weight you carry that you cannot explain because YOU yourself, as a child, couldn’t have done anything so severe to cause such deep sorrow and grief.
It is strange that people believe the spiritual realm exists, but somehow only exists in Africa where there is clear evidence and proof of exorcising demons? The spiritual realm exists EVERYWHERE. That’s kind of the point.
Like Angels? Demons? Yeah, no one doubts they exist—though they may not have personal experiences to pinpoint for themselves. Giants? The Leviathan? Other pantheons of gods? Yeah, they are ALL mentioned in the Bible, yet even in Christianity, in the church, a lot of it is overlooked or ignored.
Giants-
1. Genesis 6:4 – The Nephilim
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."
2. Numbers 13:32–33 – Giants in Canaan
"All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
3. Deuteronomy 2:10–11 – The Anakites and Rephaites
"The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites."
4. Deuteronomy 3:11 – King Og of Bashan
"Og king of Bashan was the last of the Rephaites. His bed was decorated with iron and was more than nine cubits long and four cubits wide. It is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites." (That’s about 13.5 feet by 6 feet!)
5. 1 Samuel 17:4–7 – Goliath of Gath
"A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span [over 9 feet tall]. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels [about 125 pounds]..."
Leviathan-
1. Job 41:1–34 – A Full Description of Leviathan
“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? ... Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.” 📍 Summary: This is the longest and most detailed passage about Leviathan. God describes it as a massive, untamable sea creature to emphasize His own unmatched power.
2. Psalm 74:13–14 – Leviathan Defeated by God
“It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters. It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.” 📍 Symbolic: Leviathan here represents the chaos and forces opposed to God, whom God has total authority over.
3. Psalm 104:25–26 – Leviathan as One of God's Creatures
“There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.” 📍 Tone: Less fearsome; Leviathan is part of God's playful, purposeful creation.
4. Isaiah 27:1 – Prophetic Defeat of Leviathan
“In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword— his fierce, great and powerful sword—Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.” 📍 Symbolic/Apocalyptic: Leviathan represents evil nations or spiritual opposition that God will ultimately defeat.
Other pantheon of gods-
1. Exodus 12:12 – God Judging Egypt's Pantheon
“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn... and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.” 📍 Yahweh wasn’t just judging Pharaoh—He was making a statement against Egypt’s entire spiritual system (e.g., Ra, Osiris, Isis, etc.).
2. Psalm 82:1 – God Judges the “Divine Council”
“God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the ‘gods’...” 📍 This psalm critiques spiritual beings (possibly angels or lesser elohim) who were given responsibility and failed in justice.
3. Deuteronomy 32:16–17 – Israel Worshiped Demonic “gods”
“They made him jealous with their foreign gods... They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God— gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear.” 📍 In Hebrew, these “gods” are sometimes referred to with words like “elohim” or “shedim” (demons).
4. 1 Kings 11:4–7 – Solomon Worships Foreign Deities
“As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods... Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites.” 📍 These are named Canaanite gods. Worshiping them led Israel into sin repeatedly.
🏹 Named Deities from Other Pantheons in Scripture
Name | Culture | Bible Reference | Role |
Baal | Canaanite | 1 Kings 18:21 | Storm god; Elijah challenges his prophets |
Ashtoreth (Astarte) | Canaanite | 1 Kings 11:5 | Goddess of fertility and war |
Molek (Moloch) | Ammonite | Leviticus 18:21 | Associated with child sacrifice |
Dagon | Philistine | 1 Samuel 5:2–5 | Fish or grain god; falls before the Ark |
Chemosh | Moabite | 1 Kings 11:7 | National god of Moab |
Tammuz | Babylonian | Ezekiel 8:14 | Dying-and-rising god; worshiped in the temple |
Nebo | Babylonian | Isaiah 46:1 | God of wisdom and writing (with Bel/Marduk) |
Bel/Marduk | Babylonian | Isaiah 46:1 | Chief god of Babylon |
My point is that so much exists that is mentioned in the Bible, yet even those who grew up in the church would not be able to point this out.
A great way to control people is to hide the information that is easily accessible.
I mean, we have already seen that a lot in politics, no matter what side you are on. But that tactic is the same: hide the truth so that people flounder and grab onto whatever they feel will satisfy them for the time. Use high emotions (like fear and anger) to control and direct people easily as pawns.
But the questions would boil down to… do you follow and worship someone who created these beings, or worship the created beings?
Who do you follow?
—
Ok, that blurb to me was short… sorry if it was a lot for you. John and I tend to go over pages of information at a time to weave into what we already know or hold onto as we search for more connecting information. So we are going off of 8 years of daily talks on a ridiculous amount of topics that both overlap and may have no connection at all.
—
But we are noticing more and more the impacts of the spiritual realm, especially when they use your pains as a foothold to manipulate your thoughts, words, and thus actions. If you have noticed that your choice of words holds power, then you can see and feel the shifts and changes when you make those adjustments. i.e. talking negatively about yourself does pull you down and emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually hurts you. Doing it too much or for too long will also start affecting your physical being.
After 15 years of being suicidal and severely depressed… we were extremely susceptible to these attacks.
Even out of the household and having little to no contact with our parents, these openings still are dangerous. We want to break this cycle and ties.
We are not just our bodies. We are not just our minds. We are not just our emotions.
We have a spirit. We have a soul (which is the blend of will, mind, and emotions). Which are placed IN our physical bodies.
They are all what make us WHOLE.
So if you are addressing your body needs, emotional or intellectual needs, yet something is missing—then the spiritual is lacking.
I am not here to push you to believe in anything we state. But we want to write out our steps and journey as a whole so you can see where we are and where are coming from. We just ask you to take it seriously, what we have gone through, and hold onto what we have said, and test it for yourself in your own lives.
What is true will always hold true. Over time it will never unravel.
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So with that, I will end this month’s update. This isn’t just a summary of what went on this past month, but a flag in our timeline to readdress down the line. We may mention things months or years from now, and you’ll be able to come back and see the steps and paths we took—the details and thoughts we had while making our decisions. It’s not the perfect and pretty story, but the rough and raw journey we are taking.
Life isn’t perfect. But we want it to be the best that we can make it with what we’ve got and what we can do… and with faith in God to take care of the rest!
We hope that your month went better, or that this month will be the best yet this year.
We love you and are so grateful for your time in reading our monthly post and stories!
See you in our next post!
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I took a lot of photos of Sherlock last month. She was so sweet hanging out and investigating everything we were doing. Also insisted on having naps with me wherever I was, so I felt very loved by her during this rough time.
You can even purchase an adorable poster of her too in our shop:
All her proceeds go to her snacks and toys! We will also give her tons of hugs and kisses from you too~
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