Continual personal evolution required

Tags

bitch, continual personal evolution, disability, glitches, poor memory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD symptoms, sensory overwhelm, Sookie Stackhouse, triggers

An analogy for you: in the same way a person whose been in a car accident might end up with a limp or some other kind of disability for the rest of their life, there are some side-effects of PTSD that remain no matter how much work I’ve done.

Or perhaps it’s that the work is still there to be done, and one day I WILL be 100% symptom-free. Or maybe I won’t. I’m not particularly attached, either way.

I seem to have three lingering PTSD-related “things” that happen from time to time. My disability*, if you will.

1. Really crappy/patchy memory: remembering names (i.e. of yoga students) is almost futile, it can take months. Remembering that I went out for dinner with friends and had a super-fun time – just days later – isn’t easy. I write everything down. EVERYTHING. Or it doesn’t happen. I have to work exceptionally hard to remember the yoga sequences I’m teaching – which requires a lot of intention and presence.

Sure, there are memory exercises a person can do. I eat and imbibe all the foods/vitamins etc that I’m supposed to. Don’t worry, I’m on it.

But I also get really confused sometimes, in a little fog of weirdness that only time can resolve.

2. Occasional sensory overwhelm: it happened again last Friday night, but the time before that was over a year ago. It seems that even in situations unrelated to my own traumatic experience, if I don’t feel comfortable in a given environment things start to get a little whacky in Svasti-land.

Last Friday, I went with my workmates to some dive of a bar for some farewell drinks. It was below street level, deep and dark… walking in there just felt wrong in the pit of my stomach. I kept asking to leave, but I couldn’t make myself explain to my friends WHY I needed to go. So they stayed, and I spouted a bunch of semi-related reasons why I didn’t want to be there. Eventually I realised they weren’t leaving and I still wasn’t happy, so I left. And woke up the next morning feeling bloody awful: the full fight-or-flight adrenal aftermath, thank you very much.

It happens so rarely that even if the people I’m with know my history, they won’t always pick up what’s going on for me.

In fact, one of my co-workers’ impression of me that night is that I was being a complete bitch. He’s all – how can you be a yoga teacher, and behave like that?

Which is when I tried to explain that no one is perfect, not even yoga teachers. But he was asking me that question from his own intense self-loathing, so he didn’t really hear me.

Anyway… here’s hoping with this one, there’s a way to reduce this reaction even more. Although the main issue is that the trigger’s so random and hard to set off that… well how do you treat such triggers, eh?

3. Under duress, I’m not always a nice person: I’m not entirely convinced this is just a PTSD-thing. I come from a family of harsh and mean people. LOTS of in-fighting on both sides. Then there’s that whole thing where I grew up as the target of an exceptionally abusive older brother. I learned to fight back. Had to.

I’m 100% certain that having experienced PTSD made this personality flaw worse. Because trauma causes the traumatised to be harsh towards themselves, and then towards others by extension.

So, when I’m really stressed out, I can be a Grade A Bitch. Harsh. Mean. Unkind words.

It’s not what I practice or teach as a yogi, but for now that’s how it is. I’m not living my practice 100% off the mat, all the time. And I don’t like it at all. Not one little bit. In fact, I feel very shitty approximately thirty seconds after I’ve unleashed a torrent of evilness. I judge myself harshly for such infractions.

But unlike both sides of my family – who all have a talent for selective ignorance around their own issues – I’m not content to remain like this.

The solution to this one is obvious, I think: more yoga. Deeper immersion in studies and practice. Plus, a change of career, out of a toxic working environment that is always rush-rush-rush and so much pressure, to something more suitable for someone like me with my autoimmune condition and my PTSD disabilities…

Luckily, these are all things I’m working towards anyway. Transitioning out of the 9-5 office world. Reinventing my career to be self-employed (not that I think working for yourself is stress-free!). Going to India.

All of these things are on the cards, and actually not too far away, either.

My intention is the same as it’s been for years: continual personal evolution. This is all we can do, really. The only true change we can invoke in the world. And I’m on it. Might take a while though…

~Svasti

xx

*As a side note, if you’ve ever read the Sookie Stackhouse novels, you’ll know Sookie refers to her telepathy as her “disability”. I use the term very much in the same way – these things are both a blessing and a curse. The curse part is especially because it aint always convenient to be all special needs. But it does make life interesting…

Cough and repeat

Tags

Alexander Skarsgard, Charlaine Harris, hunted animal look, ight-or-flight responses, Lafayette, Merlottes, muscle memory, Nelsan Ellis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Rutina Wesley, shower scene, Sookie Stackhouse, Tara, Todd Lowe, triggers, True Blood, Warning signs, wild fire

Just watched the latest episode of True Blood (s03e08), and as much as I love the show and vampire stuff in general, this one left me feeling a little raw around the edges.

For those not familiar with True Blood, it’s based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. Set in Louisiana (USA), it’s a fantastic and phantasmagorical blend of high drama, gore, nudity, sardonic humour, horror and sci-fi/fantasy. Oh, and did I mention that it’s seasoned with generous helpings of insanity, ridiculousness and Alexander Skarsgard? Yes indeed…

Somehow through this lens, True Blood manages commentary on bigotry, politics, human/vampire rights and also touches on many modern pop-culture and social issues. The show never fails to impress, even at its silliest – and there have been some mighty-fine farcial moments and story lines to date.

True Blood is, in a word: Awesome.

Given the amount of gore and madness that goes on, it’s no surprise that several characters have PTSD. One of the characters – Terry (Todd Lowe) – developed PTSD as a soldier, pre-dating the show’s first story. Two other characters – Lafayette and his cousin Tara – also end up with PTSD, from separate incidents throughout the show.

The most recent episode deals with Tara’s PTSD (among many other things!) and how she’s doing directly after the events that traumatised her.

Really, she’s not doing so great! She’s visibly trembling, can’t talk about what happened and is exceptionally hyper-vigilant and angry.

Towards the start of the episode, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) asks: “…I need to know. You gotta death wish?”

She doesn’t think about it for long: “No. I fought like a muthafucker to survive. Never realised how much I wanted to live.”

Okay! That’s good, because a lot of trauma sufferers DO have a death wish. But still, she’s a mess.

This episode made my skin crawl, but not because of the death, blood and gore.

Instead, it’s because Rutina Wesley (Tara) does such an amazing job of acting like a trauma sufferer with PTSD that I found myself sobbing along with her panicked reactions. Her eyes – with that hunted animal look – were disturbing because I’ve seen that look many, many times before. In the mirror.

Ouch!

Seems as if those memories aren’t quite exorcised from my body and mind just yet. Maybe, like a chronic injury, it never goes away completely? Although I’ll keep stretching and working it, maybe there’ll always be just a little weakness there?

I felt the hair on the back of my neck shoot up while watching the shower scene because like many PTSD sufferers, flashbacks used to stalk me relentlessly in the shower.

Can you even imagine being invaded over and over like that in such a private, defenceless and naked place? I can. And it blows.

Then there was the swiftness of Tara’s mood change at Merlottes where she had a flashback to the moment she met her abuser. One minute she’s stacking drinks in the fridge, and the next…

Ah yes… when PTSD is a part of your life, the world can fall to pieces in fragments of a moment, completely screwing with EVERYTHING.

I remember, I remember…

But these days, there’s a difference. I’m pretty sure I don’t have PTSD anymore. I’m okay. Better than okay actually (there’s stuff I want to update y’all on, but this post needed to be written NOW).

Before my EMDR treatments (around a year and a half ago), I don’t think I could’ve watched True Blood, or at least not the episodes where characters with PTSD are losing their marbles. It would’ve been very triggering.

Still, I don’t feel entirely myself right at this moment. It’s almost like someone’s been excavating my insides with steel wool, a pick axe and a shovel. There’s a hollowness in my chest, sort of like my lungs are missing. A tightness in my throat, too. Warning signs.

But none of these sensations are hanging around. Probably, by the time I publish this post, they’ll have faded almost completely.

Because this isn’t my trauma, just my very physical reaction to a TV show. Kind of like a muscle memory, if you like.

However, from watching this episode I think I understand something a little better now. The reason PTSD can be such a hard nut to crack: it’s because it is EVERYWHERE.

Whether a person’s trauma was physical or mental/emotional, it doesn’t matter. PTSD in full-flight spreads through the body and the mind like wild fire. All fight-or-flight responses are on high alert. And it’s very difficult to stop an episode of panic until it’s finished carving a path through your body.

Each and every person who has PTSD needs to find the treatment that works best for them. No two healing paths or timeframes are the same.

But here I am. Living proof that it is possible to stop PTSD from constantly over-running your life. It is ridiculously frightening and difficult work, but it IS definitely possible.

And if all I have to deal with now is a latent reminder every now and then, I think that’s something to be grateful for. Because I can see the difference between where I was and where I’m at now.

And let me tell you that life is about 1000% better, post the nightmare of living with PTSD.

Keep fighting, fellow survivors!

~Svasti xo