Achievement & Defining Moments #reverb10

Tags

#reverb, 5 year anniversary, accomplished, achievements, Big Happy, Big Healing Moments, colours fading, defining moments, dose of hope, excited, free, moth-eaten, nightmares, pock-marked, proud, purposeful, relieved, sharp and pointy, sisterly love

Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down.

Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.
~ December 28 prompt

As I’ve already said, I want to be debt-free by the end of 2011 in order to manage to make a huge change in my life.

I know I’m gonna need help on that front as I’m just not particularly sensible with money. I’ll need to do a bunch of research and take a cold hard look at my money spending/saving habits in the house of mirrors. But I know it’s possible if I am relentless in my thriftiness!

But… oh gosh, how will I feel once I get to that point? Of being debt-free? In the clear? Out of the red?

I’ll feel…

• proud
• purposeful
• accomplished
• excited
• relieved
• Oh, and free

Yeah, definitely!

Because I’ll be on my way, with Part 1 of my Grand-Bold-Stupid-Reckless-Awesome-Totally-Kicking-Life-Plan done and dusted!

So how can I feel/think those feelings right now, with that goal of mine still off in the distant future?

Hmmmm… I’m proud of how far I’ve come, the shit storms I’ve had to face and how deeply I’ve had to dig for the truth. Its way better out than in.

I most definitely feel purposeful already. Dudes, I got myself a plan, the first one I’ve had in YEARS. And that causes a huge amount of excitement!!

There’s a lot of stuff I feel accomplished in – such as completing my first yoga teacher training and having the courage to start teaching. Although… that’s not to say there isn’t more to learn and become accomplished in for those things. Just that hey… what I’ve done so far is cool. 😉

I guess I’m relieved that I know where I’m going for once. Even if my plan changes, even if nothing works out like I want it to, at least I’ve worked out what I want. That really helps.

There’s freedom in being clear about what I don’t want, too. And in the joy of learning to teach, discovering new things about myself and other people as I do. There’s even freedom in making mistakes along that journey because those mistakes inform and refine what I say and do while I teach.

And all of it gently leading me onwards, sometimes with a gentle nudge and other times more forcefully. Forging this new, expanded sense of self: a version of me with a wide open heart, smiling, and with a direct line to my gut instincts at all times…

::

Defining Moment. Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.
~ December 29 prompt

A series of defining events, you say? Yessum, I got those!

This year has been choc-full of Big Healing Moments. But rather than give you the reader’s digest version, y’all can read (or re-read) these posts if you like…

• Rock ‘n’ Roll, Love, Hate & The Universe – on how sometimes your greatest nightmares can manifest right in front of your face…
• And so now for the Epic-ness – on sisterly love and finally being seen…
• Happy 5 year anniversary to me! – on what happened on the very night at the very time this post was being written 5 years later…
• Blowing up the Death Star – on what I did with all that anniversary business…

We all have defining moments, don’t we? But unless you write them down they’re easy to forget, their colours fading like a painting left in the sun. What was once vibrant and colourful becomes watery looking and a little fuzzy around the edges.

Especially if your memory is anything like mine: all pock-marked, moth-eaten and ragged around the edges.

Reading back over some of my earliest blog posts, I’m sometimes surprised by what I’ve written. The intensity of those experiences, how desperately sad and devastating it all was… thank goodness I don’t feel like that now.

It’s the nature of pain to fade – even if it takes years to do so – becoming less sharp and pointy over time, turning into a strong memory that’ll never be forgotten. But it fades so we can keep going. So we can survive.

Of course, it’s not like I’ll ever forget what happened but it’s a good thing to have a record, like this blog. If I hadn’t spent so much time writing about it, I might’ve completely forgotten what it was like to be in those moments and I sure as hell wouldn’t have worked through things as (relatively) quickly as I have. Five years isn’t too bad, right?

But I won’t allow myself to forget entirely. If I did, then how could I ever help someone else who is dealing with PTSD, depression or anxiety?

The writing helps me work through the worst of it, and also helps others in need of their own dose of hope. I know this because every now and then I get an email or a comment on one of my posts that says as much. I can’t tell you how much those messages make my heart sing!

So I write about my defining moments because there is hope, there is healing, and somewhere out there is what the BlissChick calls “Big Happy” for all of us.

~Svasti xxx

Involuntary actions – part 3

Tags

abortion, baby daddy, booty call, Chippy, contraception, Dreams, extreme mutual pleasure, kindergarten, Kinesiology, nightmares, portent, sexual liberation, Sixth Sense, surfer lover

[Read part 1 & part 2 first]

Did you think I wouldn’t go there? I know, I know… sorta left the story with a gapingly obvious question there, didn’t I? But the plan all along was to wade in, really. So don’t worry, coz here we are!

But before I could elaborate on this part of the story, I was lying in bed after publishing part 2 and… ohhhhh [the sound of stuff you never realised before but now see]! Reminded me of the time I broke the overhead light cover in the laundry last year because even to this day I’m *still* finding little shards everywhere. I suspect I won’t get them all until I shift EVERYTHING out of the laundry. But have you ever felt the need to move your washing machine once it was installed? Yeah, me neither… And exactly my point.

Before I go any further, I’ve gotta tell you about these dreams I had maybe ten years later. They seemed completely unrelated, even if they were terrifying. Of course, this is a huge hint that they aren’t unrelated, right? Because I’m not really going for that whole Sixth Sense he-was-dead-all-along twist [apologies if you haven’t seen that movie yet. Okay, not really because you should’ve by now!].

*********************

They started one night out of nowhere and weirdly. ‘Spose my sleepscape has always been awash with weirdness… realistic visions I could’ve sworn were actually happening, the occasional and incredible full scale movie in which I often had a starring role, horror scenes, vampires, flying, reptiles, alleged past lives and more. But also dreams of portent and that’s always been confusing, even to this day. Especially because I never really know the difference until after something I’ve dreamt has turned up and I get that oh yeah moment.

Even trickier is when fact and fantasy intermingle so it looks like one thing, but the message is important and not the visuals. Or vice versa. It’s never simple. And they don’t really give me an advantage at all. Fat lot of good that is, right?

Usually though, it’s not a retrospective message. Let alone many years later. And it definitely wasn’t pretty.

In my dream I was back in kindergarten, a place I remember well for some reason. Our cloakroom with the cool coat hooks in the shapes of animals or toys or ships, and the kid-size toilets tailor-made for tiny people. And the main area which was sort of divided up although it was really just one big space. The art area with easels and tables for masterful abstract kid-ling art. The story space with its huge rug and lots of room to sit next to your friends. The bookshelves. The spot where we’d eat our lunch and drink our milk. And the office.

We weren’t allowed in there except for official business and things like getting our eyes tested. And I was maybe four, and I was in there with my mother for some kind of medical check up. One minute I was sitting in her lap while she talked to the male doctor and the next… well, there’s no polite way to talk about a grown up being inappropriate with a child, is there? I felt like I couldn’t move, couldn’t get up. But my mother wasn’t there any longer. I was trapped in the office with this doctor and I… well, never mind…

I woke up distressed, crying. Was it real? Was it? Was it fucking REAL??? Oh. My. God. No… It couldn’t be real. I don’t think so. I’m sure it wasn’t. Unless it was? Fuck!

It wasn’t the last time I had that dream and before long I was a mess and completely confused. I tried to ask my mother a few delicately hedged questions without giving away my intent but to really explain properly, I had to spill. She was scathing. I mean, after all, I was asking her about stuff from a dream for crying out loud! I know that never happened, her voice tart and short, because there were NEVER any men working at the kindergarten.

So… that was it I guess? Except for the distress. I worried and wondered if this was some kind of repressed memory. I mean, I was a rather sexualised child in a way that apparently kids normally aren’t. What did it mean? Something? Anything? Nothing? No! I knew when I’d lost my virginity didn’t I? I’m sure about that if nothing else…

A friend suggested I go and see this therapist she knew. He was a kinesiologist and counsellor, and she had good things to say about him. If you’re not familiar with kinesiology then this all might sound a little strange. It’s a powerful practice and some especially talented therapists use it to help people tap into hidden emotional blocks, not just physical ills.

In this case, we analysed my very disturbing dreams using kinesiology to test my sub-conscious mind’s reaction to his questions. Which sure, can sound a little nutty but you really had to be there to understand. It was… impressive.

But I can’t describe the indescribable. I can barely remember what happened there. We talked, he used the muscle testing technique. I cried. He asked questions and I thought of certain things. He tested again. And on and on as we narrowed down the result.

And it came down to this: hidden shame and fear about my abortion. Feeling I’d lost the respect of my parents and feeling out of control. Note: this is what I worked out via thinking of specific things. I barely told him anything because he told me he didn’t need to know the specifics.

It made sense didn’t it? I was in that very compromising position as a doctor and his medical team scraped the contents of my womb under general anaesthetic and there was no escape once things kicked off. Consciously I didn’t feel ashamed or upset about it but clearly I held that somewhere in my body.

And so life went on. I’ve never fallen pregnant again although there’s been a few times where I’ve wondered. And some of those times I threatened myself. Body, I’ve said menacingly, you remember what we went through before? Well, it’s not that I ever want to do that again, but so help me if we’re pregnant that might just be on the cards, okay? So… let’s not be pregnant.

Who knows if it was the threats or if I simply wasn’t pregnant in the first place but eventually the bloody evidence allowed relief to replace tension and it was all okay. Sorta.

The other horror and shame of course, came from not knowing who that child’s father was. That’s right, I can’t tell you. It’s possible that had I been able to get blood tests from known the known contenders I still wouldn’t have an answer.

In an ideal/less than ideal world I often wished it’d been Chippy. I liked to think it was. Sweet, loveable cute surfer-boy dude of the sun-kissed golden hair and sunny nature, friend of M’s sometime boyfriend and all-round hot thing. And a wild man in the sack. They’d come over along with N’s (my other best friend) boyfriend when M’s parents were on holiday’s, having taken M’s younger brother with them. Three bedrooms of an otherwise empty house choc-full of horny young things, no vacancies, sorry!

I’d sleep on the floor on a mattress in M’s brother’s room and that’s where we’d romp. Chippy in many ways was my teacher. From this sweet hearted sexy thang, I learned about Grown Up Sex where extreme mutual pleasure was assured. So that’s what sex could be! No in-out-and-over with my surfer lover… it was always fun and downright awesome. Literally a booty call and nothing more, thank goodness for my Chippy!

But he was far from the only one. This was a time of sexual liberation for the three of us, doing what and whomever we wanted whenever it suited us. We never saw a down-side until it happened to me.

As far as M, N and I could figure it there were three possible baby daddy candidates. Well kinda. We joked about it a bit before that fateful train trip, but never after. But let me be clear: it’s not like I wasn’t using contraception. I was, mostly.

There was of course Chippy – my semi-regular lover, some guy I’d picked up at our local nightclub (oh my, the days when I’d go nightclubbing!) who’s number I never bothered to get, and then there was… well, stuff I hadn’t told either of them and could barely tell myself. Not the full story. Not the real story, whatever that was…

[Read part 4]

~Svasti

The PTSD Fog

Tags

balancing act, funerals, handaball, Healing, nightmares, Parental Units, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, PTSD Fog, Shift, shuffle, sidestep, waiting

Been coming across some interesting PTSD-related blogs of late. Including the boys over at Operation PTSD (looking out for war veterans) and Teresa’s blog: My Embodiment (Misadventures and Adventures of a Psychotherapist in Yoga School).

A recent post (**potential trigger warning**) of Teresa’s has inspired some self-contemplation about the “lost years” of my own PTSD induced fog.

Have a look at my Timeline page. Under 2006 and 2007, there are almost no posts. And the reason for that is simply that I barely remember anything from that time.

Jason from Operation PTSD wrote:

Most people who are affected by PTSD will initially recluse into a world of their own leaving everyone around them searching for answers.

And that was me.

Untreated PTSD is like a 3D tactile, sensory and enveloping version of acid reflux on a loop, wherein your trauma repeats on you frequently, engaging ALL of your senses. Sometimes multiple times a day.

Can you imagine living every day of your life in terror of your own mind?

The following is about as much as I can remember of that time…

I didn’t want to think, I didn’t want to sleep. Or rather, I wanted to sleep, but without the nightmares (they eventually went away and then I just wanted to stay asleep – I often slept away whole weekends).

I didn’t want to do anything or be seen by anyone. When I wasn’t at work, I was a hermit, living alone and not going out, except to the corner store for more ice-cream or DVDs. I forgot more than I remembered. I couldn’t manage to get anywhere on time. And I absolutely couldn’t stop crying for the life of me.

I remember wishing away months of my life. I’d think things like “another six months or so, and I’ll be okay”. I wasn’t though. Healing from PTSD doesn’t really work that way.

Some people are amazed I didn’t take medication. Maybe I should have. Maybe it would’ve made my life a little less stressful.

But the truth is I didn’t see a doctor post-assault, because I was too ashamed. I also didn’t know there was anything to go and see a doctor about as I didn’t understand what PTSD was, or that someone like me could end up with it.

Eventually, I think I learned to coat myself with a layer of protective numbness. The Fog. Maybe this is nature’s way of medicating a person from the horrors? And right then (whenever “then” was) is when the Fog really set in!

The Fog was insurance, protection.

It was hard to remember to buy food to eat, let alone anything more important. However, during this time I was also being bullied at work, had bone graft surgery, a crazy neighbour and a mother who almost got me arrested! Stressful much? You bet!

There’s one thing I managed to do pretty well in that time: keep it together at work. I’ve now shared my story with a handful of ex-workmates and they’re amazed. One response was: You always seemed so happy, smart and confident!

Heh. There you have it. Externally, I had an excellent cover story working for me. I needed it desperately, to keep the Fog in tact so life didn’t hurt quite so much. And I think I know where I got that from: the Parental Units are experts.

Something that punctuated the ongoing sameness (apart from the above mentioned) was my grandfather’s passing in early October 2006.

It was just a month after his 85^th birthday, when Dad had driven an hour each way to pick him up (he refused to move after my grandma died even though he was far away from family).

For some reason, I felt inspired to take a few photos of my dad with his dad, arms around each other – they were the last photos ever taken of my grandpa.

He died at home, his heart finally giving out as he made his way from the bedroom to the living room, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

At a family conference the next day in my grandpa’s living room, I somehow agreed to speak at the funeral on my dad’s behalf because he said couldn’t do it without breaking down. I don’t know what made me think I could, either.

But maybe this is just what my family does by default? Shift, shuffle, handaball, sidestep… we wrap what’s really going on in layers of silk, never really looking at it directly. It’s possible to survive like that for a while, but not forever. At least, not for me anyway.

The day of the funeral I arrived early because I wanted to say my goodbyes in private. I was nervous because I’d only seen one other dead person before – my grandmother. In contrast to her plumped and pristine condition, my grandpa looked small, shrunken and stone-like.

Sitting in a chair, I could just see his forehead over the top of the coffin while I said mantra and prayers. Perhaps it was my numbness but while in the presence of his body, I felt incredibly peaceful. Here was someone who’d lived a full and happy life and now he was done. There was no lingering energy of his presence. And in a way, the nothingness was soothing.

Thing about my grandpa was, he never wished away any of his life. Even once he’d lost his wife – the love of his life – he still made the most of his time, socialising, flirting with dental nurses and maintaining a perrenial twinkle in his eye.

But that was then.

I kissed his frigid forehead, wishing him well in his travels as I tried not to look at his shrivelled and sunken eyes.

Of course I didn’t get through the service without tears. They were too readily available. And after, I was back to dealing with the balancing act between the Fog and dealing directly with PTSD.

But I guess in some ways I was glad to have an “acceptable” reason to cry in public for a few weeks. Because I couldn’t always control it, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of the grief I was feeling was as much about my own life as it was for my grandpa.

~Svasti

Never-ending nightmare

Tags

EMDR, Fear, flashbacks, Nightmare on Elm Street, nightmares, Panic attacks, Post-traumatic stress, PTSD, Therapy, Trauma, triggers, Wes Craven

Tried to describe PTSD to a friend, recently. What it’s been like for me, and why my recent encounters with EMDR are so miraculous, given the world I’ve been inhabiting.

To illustrate, I spoke of the creations of Wes Craven’s classic schlock horror, Nightmare on Elm Street. Y’know, how those kids in the movie tried really, really hard to stay awake and out of that nightmare zone.

But inevitably they had to fall asleep. Though, they never saw sleep coming. Didn’t know they were in the dream until, well, they were in it. The slippery divide between those worlds was translucently thin, sliding over the boundaries without realising it.

And Freddie was always waiting for them. Scaring the crap out of them. In some cases, scaring them to death.

Throughout most of that movie, they didn’t feel like they were in control at all.

This is the insidiousness of PTSD. And I believe, it’s partly why it’s so traumatic.

It’s not just the memories being on repeat; it’s that you seemingly can’t control when they appear or how it impacts you. Triggers can be both known and unknown. The unknown ones are the real kickers.

And the trauma is caused by having life as you know it continuously swamped by this broken record, stuck on repeat at random intervals.

The memory itself, was terrifying in the first place. Of course. But repeated over and over… it can stop your heart. Makes dying feel like a much simpler solution. A rest. A break.

But then, it’s not just the flashbacks, though that’s a hefty chunk of the issue. When PTSD arrives, fear and anxiety are the bitter after-taste in your mouth you can’t quite identify. Always there, flaring up when it’s least welcome.

The trickiest thing to understand from the outside looking in… someone who looks perfectly ‘normal’, can, at a moment’s notice become a complete wreck. Can suddenly act like a different person. And mostly, they can’t possibly explain what’s happening to them.

I lost a friend that way, once. She wasn’t exactly a very good friend. But one of the few I did have here in Melbourne at the time.

We were walking to a cinema, and were suddenly walking in very crowded area. There was some sort of festival on, and it became a flesh press… to move from point A to point B, it was necessary to slowly force your way through the crowd physically.

Which completely freaked me out. From my friend’s perspective, I totally over-reacted to what was going on. I had what I can now recognise as classic panic attack symptoms.

But this was only months after I was assaulted, and I had no idea what was happening to me.

My stress levels didn’t evaporate, and when we finally got into the movie, once again I over-reacted to what was going on. Which was (one of my pet hates) people talking in the cinema. It was just previews, which I usually tolerate. But this time I was really angry and aggressive towards the young dorky boys in front of me. Completely out of character for me.

Apparently the combination of these two events was enough for my friend to decide she couldn’t cope with hanging out with me any longer. I was too ‘unpredictable’ for her.

No one likes rejection, and I tried to explain to her what happened (as best I could) but she wasn’t buying it. Which, actually, was kinda fine with me, given she was one of those people who would complain about her other friends to the person she was hanging out with.

But it’s tough… like those kids in Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s impossible to put a stop to PTSD while you’re enclosed in its iron grip. And really hard to properly communicate what’s going on to other people. Especially non-empathetic people.

And it’s a process, waking up to what’s happening to you… to know your triggers (if you ever can know them all), and then… to finally feel like you’ve got a shot at beating it.

PTSD is after all, a kind of warped safety mechanism of the mind, trying to protect the person who’s been traumatised. The twist is, it actually traps them inside a fragile ‘safe space’. Makes them feel like the ongoing trauma is being done to them by someone or something else. Mostly, because the trauma was inflicted by someone else/an external experience.

But its not. PTSD is a defective thought process. It’s broken. It’s stuck on repeat, and in fact, its your own mind torturing you. A tough one to accept, because the flashbacks are so all-encompassing and terrible. It doesn’t ever feel like its something your own mind is creating.

However, it is possible to recover from. That’s what I’m discovering.

For my next trick, I need to let go of the vestiges of this thing. Apparently, I can start getting used to living in a world that doesn’t suddenly shift into a nightmare any more.

I can’t tell you how amazing the idea of that seems to me right now. And I’m slowly trying to trust that it might actually be the truth…

~Svasti

P.S. Note: This is not what I’m experiencing right now. I’m not struggling with PTSD once again. I just felt moved to write this explanation because I realised… there’s a lot of people who really don’t get what’s going on for someone in the grip of this very tricky mind game…