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…

Glitching

Tags

computer virus, ducking for cover, fight or flight, freak show, glitching, human cesspool, illicit hiding places, iron-fisted punch, neurological aberration, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Recovery is a bitch, triggers

The calm and peaceful view from my Saturday morning - before everything went belly-up

Lately I’ve begun to think about PTSD as kind of like a computer virus: once it’s in, you’ve gotta completely scrub the hard drive to expunge it. Only thing is, there’s plenty of places for it to hide and then pop up unexpectedly. Taking you by surprise and completely fucking things up. Temporarily at least.

I’ve discussed this before with my lovely friend CK – She Who Also Knows – that in some ways, it’s all a lot easier to cope when you’re still mostly crippled by that blasted virus. You’re intimately involved with what to expect and you’re way more used to ducking for cover. PTSD in full flight might suck big time, but at least you know what’s coming. Well, sorta.

But when you’ve worked your ass off to clear the decks and you’ve kicked over as many illicit hiding places as you can, you begin to feel a great deal more normal. Which is completely awesome. It’s nice to be able to function effectively in day to day life. Really.

Until you don’t. Until you start glitching. Until some stupid little trigger you didn’t even know existed, makes itself known.

These days most people I interact with don’t know about my PTSD history. I don’t often feel the need to talk about it because it generally doesn’t incapacitate me anymore.

Until it does.

Not just in the here, have a physical illness to go along with your mental health issues kind of way. And not in the wow, did you know that PTSD weakens the immune system kind of way, either.

I’m talking about the sort of shit that makes you look like a freak show to the uninitiated. One minute all is well and the next, you can barely breathe. Your throat is closing as if someone is strangling you. You unintentionally mess up the lovely night out we were all having until you flipped.

That kind of freak show.

Ah yes. That was me on Saturday night. Out with my beautiful-of-heart friend, M, and one of her mates. A girl’s night out (without the drinking since none of us were, for various reasons).

I’d no idea that I’d be triggered by being in an over-crowded bar/club. We had fun, we were talking and then dancing to some of the cheesy music being played (Whitney Houston or Tina Turner, anyone?).

And it was all good until, perhaps, the crowd capacity maxxed out. Suddenly it was wall-to-wall people. Elbows in backs, drinks in danger of being spilled and no room to move. Forget dancing – it was all you could do to shuffle around on the spot. Not my idea of a good time.

But even then, I was fine. Until something snapped. Don’t know what. One too many up-close-and-personal moments with complete strangers, perhaps? The sensory overload of music, people, voices and being in a place I wouldn’t choose to hang out in myself? Maybe.

All I know is that I couldn’t stand dancing in that human cesspool any longer. The fight or flight mechanism had kicked in and I wasn’t doing so well. My poor friend M was caught between her other pal and I. M’s friend wanted to keep dancing (if you can call standing flesh-to-flesh in a crowd actually dancing) and I wanted, no, needed space.

Now, I’ve been out plenty of times in recent history. I’ll go to music gigs, hang out at festivals where there’s lots of people. But for whatever reason, I was triggered. And the problem with being triggered is that the world doesn’t make much sense any more. I couldn’t figure out that I should just leave, even though I really wanted to.

My friend M had never seen this happen to me before (she’s only recently moved back to Australia from the UK). So she didn’t really understand what was going on, and with my throat closing in I could barely speak. M kept asking me if I was okay, but my basic PTSD modus operandi has always been to deny that anything is wrong.

So I nod my head and plead with my eyes, I’m okay. I really am. All the while, coughing (a classic sign of stress for me) and sucking on ice cubes from my drink (cranberry and soda with a slice of lime).

It’s not like I wasn’t trying to change how I felt. I worked on controlling my breathing, but it was really hard going. When the fight or flight wild horses take off at a gallop, it’s very tricky to regain control.

M’s other friend really didn’t understand why I was being such a buzz kill. The only thing that made any difference was leaving that environment. Which we did, eventually… the night was pretty much over after that.

I took a tram home and slowly recovered, all the while I was kicking myself. Because I know just how weird that sort of experience can look to others. I’ve lost friends over similar incidents before.

And poor M was feeling terribly guilty that she didn’t get me out of the bar sooner. But really, neither of us had any way of knowing what was going on. Just like those viruses that get past your firewall and raise all kinds of weird and wacky hell on your laptop… completely unforeseeable stuff.

Unfortunately this little meltdown caused Sunday to be a total write off. That kind of neurological aberration socks a particularly iron-fisted punch. I slept until around 1pm and when I got up, I was dizzy. As in, whoah, I know which direction vertical is but I’m kinda all over the shop.

I spent the afternoon eating, resting and writing because that’s about all I had the bandwidth for. And to think I used to somehow get by with those sorts of experiences happening multiple times a day! (“Get by” might be slightly ironic).

So it looks like I’m still not done with PTSD. There’s more to do. And instead of feeling devastated about it, I’m thankful for what happened. Because if I hadn’t had that experience, I’d still be thinking I’m further along the healing path than I actually am.

Recovery is a bitch, but giving up just isn’t an option. Not anymore.

~Svasti

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

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…