Archives for category: Post Traumatic Stress
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

News in the Morning

May 6, 2020 //
0

Caught myself reading the news first thing this morning. I thought I’d broken that habit. I sip my coffee, put that aside, and sit quietly for some minutes, listening to the “shhhh-shhhh” of cars passing by, on the rain-slick road outside my window, at the end of the driveway. I start to fret about this or that challenge, or some other moment of difficulty; I let all that go, too. I sit with my coffee, relaxed and calm, aware of my arthritis pain, and aware of the rainy morning beyond my window. I was in pain yesterday, too, and there were stormy looking clouds on the horizon as yesterday’s sunny day ended, so neither the pain nor the sound of wet pavement are unexpected. Routine stuff. Most stuff is.

I take advantage of the morning’s solitude-in-shared-space to meet that personal need for such time that is so much a part of me. I sip my coffee. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I let minutes tick by without checking the clock. My fingers pause on the keyboard… waiting. I’m in no particular rush. There’s not much to say in this moment, right now. It is enough to simply be. So, I do more of that.

…Later will be busier. I’ll be okay with that, too. For now, I take care of me, and consider the needs of the woman in the mirror. Later on, there will be time enough for new beginnings and all the other things. For now, this is enough, this moment, this coffee, just as it is.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Here’s the Thing About “Going Back to Normal”

May 5, 2020 //
0

Lots of stuff in the news recently about “getting back to normal” and “opening the country back up”. Are you eager to see that happen, or dreading it as potentially premature? Personally, I’m sort of just watching things unfold with a measure of interested curiosity.

I’m pretty sure there will be a “new normal”, and that we would not be wise to simply hit a reset button and go back to irresponsibly not washing our hands and carelessly coughing into open air, or shopping while we’re sick and contagious. One fairly notable thing about “going back to normal” – we can each choose to live a more healthful, safe, life. We can individually continue to commit to exceptional consideration with regard to contagion and personal space. We can continue to wash our hands regularly. We can continue to properly cover coughs and sneezes. We can continue to not go out into the world when we are sick. These all seem like good practices. Why would anyone choose to give them up? Seriously.

This seems a good time to really look into the mirror and acknowledge where my individual practices and habits do (or don’t) support good community health, generally, and make the corrections needed to see that I do practice behaviors that support good community health – and that I am actively promoting those within my relationships, and my community, generally. We’ve had the nudge we all needed, in the form of a pandemic for fuck’s sake, so now it’s time to build reliably healthy habitual long-term behavior for the good of our communities. It’s not that hard, it just needs practice. 🙂

I sip my coffee and let my thoughts move on.

I sit and wonder about our fantasy notions about “normal”, and what we think that means. Isn’t “normal” simply a matter of what we’re most used to, most of the time, rather than any reliably true perception or statement of what may actually be a healthy state of things? I mean, if I live somewhere where there is trash in the streets everywhere I go, that would probably seem to be pretty “normal”. It would not, however, be a healthy situation, or in any way perceivably good. I’m just saying; there’s an obvious difference in meaning between “normal” and “something worth seeking”. “Normal” is often used to limit and control people’s behavior – through shaming them using comparisons to that stated “normal”. I sip my coffee and think about how often I am, myself, out of step with some individual’s concept of “normal”. I think about how individual our perceptions of “normal” actually are. I wonder about where those perceptions actually come from, and how or why we may reinforce them – even when we disagree with them. It’s a weird system. 0_o

It’s a weird morning.

I sigh quietly and update my “to do list” with a couple additional tasks my Traveling Partner asked me to take care of. I think about the long weekend ahead, and the camping trip that I’m not taking because all the state parks are closed. I find myself missing the anticipated solitude more, simply because it is now the week that I would have been camping. In fact, I’d be headed for the forest right now, car packed, ready to hike in, set up camp, and while away some hours just listening to the wind in the trees. The plan was 5 days… come back, spend a day with my Traveling Partner before returning to the work routine. Hell, when I made my camping plans, it wasn’t even a given that my Traveling Partner would actually be in town to spend that 1 weekend day with me, after my camping trip. lol We’ve been together basically 24/7 for something like 60 days now – I was at home sick with a cold for several days leading up to my employer’s decision to have the company working from home “until the pandemic is over”. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the things to do with spending this time together. I miss solitude. The challenge is finding the balance between cherished solitude and joyful intimacy. It’s there, but there are some verbs involved.

My view shifts to include the computer at my desk. The keyboard under my fingers. The monitor in front of my face. My glance sweeps the room surrounding me, and all the things within it that comfort and nurture me, support my hobbies, my art work, my writing, my job. I pause for gratitude. This good quality of life is a team effort; my Traveling Partner and I add more to each other’s experiences than we subtract, by far. For now, solitude is an out of reach luxury, and it’s in very short supply. That serves to make it quite precious, worth savoring the experience when I get to enjoy it. I admit to myself that if I had a surplus of solitude right now, and no time with my Traveling Partner (an experience I have endured in the past), it would be just as hard, just as frustrating, just as unsatisfying as any moment right now ever is – and on top of all that, it would also be quite lonely. I shrug off my bitching with this bit of practical perspective, and move on with my morning, aware that he is having his own challenges with these circumstances. (It can not be easy to be with me 24/7… I’m a bit much, sometimes.)

I become aware of the clock. Aware of the time. I guess I’ll begin again. 😉

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

How Does This Go, Again?

May 3, 2020 //
2

I sit awhile, coffee untasted, headphones on without music, listening to the sound of the computer fan, staring into the blank white abyss of an empty page. My fingers are frozen, poised ever-so-lightly on the keyboard. Mind temporarily paralyzed by the remnants of a powerful fight-or-flight reaction to unexpected harsh words first thing upon waking. Humans being human. Things, generally, are so improved over years past (distant past, at this point, really), that I forget about the PTSD, until I stumble over it. In a flash of circumstance or temper, I’m mired in it, again. Reeling from a flood of powerful emotions, followed by a flood of tears, I’m still shaken, more than an hour later. Vulnerable, and a bit fragile, I retreat to the solitude of my studio, until I can get myself past this moment, and sort out the chaos and damage from what is steadfast and true, reliably real, and less about some damaged moment that is not now.

…This is hard. I’m “out of practice”, I guess, and for that, I am grateful.

The tears erupt again, and spill over, making the text on the page distorted and surreal. Am I okay? Sure. For most values of “okay”, I’m okay. Certainly, I am okay right now, and I am safe, and there is nothing to fear here in this place – or in this relationship. I remind myself, and look around, here, now. Leftover baggage that I may carry for a lifetime weighs me down a bit, that’s all. I deal with it privately, as often as I can. Very few people are actually qualified to “help with this”. I already have the tools, and the practices, and the experience (of an entire lifetime of chaos and damage), to handle the self-care and emotional recovery on my own. With those things in mind, it’s beyond unreasonable to attempt to get help from my Traveling Partner right now.

Reaction? Over-reaction. I recognize that, and begin the tender work of caring for this fragile vessel. Taking care of the physical details will build the strongest foundation for the emotional needs yet to be met. I make myself sip my coffee. It tastes quite fucking awful this morning. It’s a matter of perspective. There is no comfort in it; I’m just making sure I don’t set myself up for failure, later, with a caffeine headache. That’d just be dumb. I take an Rx pain reliever for my physical pain. It’s a rainy spring day and my arthritis is what woke me early this morning, before I was really ready, or fully rested. No point letting that become a thing of greater significance later on. I blow my nose and dry my eyes. I take an antihistamine to combat seasonal allergy symptoms. I correct my posture. I do some yoga. I meditate. All of these individual self-care details help re-stabilize me. Give me distance from that one difficult moment. Build reserves for the moments to come; no way to know what those hold. My subconscious is still shrieking alarms bells at me, as if there is a legitimate concern, where none actually exists.

Fuck PTSD.

I breathe, exhale, relax. I let all of that go. Again. More slow tears. Another breath.

More practice.

I know I’ll take that next step of seeking a positive distraction to occupy my waking consciousness, and move on from this, fairly soon. I’m far more well-equipped for these experiences than I was 7 years ago. Yeah. 7 Years. More. It’s a long journey, not gonna lie. There are verbs involved. I’ve had to begin again ever so many times. In the past, I’ve been hard on myself sometimes to the point of inflicting additional damage. I think I’m past that, now. There are still hard moments. Being human doesn’t come with any sort of manual, life doesn’t have a clear map to follow. Sometimes shit is hard. Ridiculously difficult, and over what seem the most trifling of details. It is what it is. We are what we are. It’s a journey, and in most practical regards, it’s a solo journey; we’re each having our own experience.

I breathe, exhale, relax. I let all of that go. Again. No tears this time. Another breath. I feel calm. Practical. Resolved. Understanding. Compassionate. Still a little fragile, but I’m ready to begin again.

Again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Big 5

Super Grumpy (Just Because)

April 30, 2020 //
0

Sometimes it is a thing; we are creatures of emotion and reason. Just like that sentence, emotion generally arrives to the party first. Reason shows up later. I’m super grumpy today. I don’t have any sort of reason for that, it’s simply how I am feeling, at this moment (and for several hours worth of moments since shortly after my work day began). There is nothing specifically “wrong”. I’m just… grumpy. Correction. I feel grumpy. I feel cross. I feel irritable. I feel prone to taking things personally. I feel “out of sorts” and generally aggravated. I feel impatient. These are how I am feeling.

…Still, they’re just feelings…

Emotions are funny things. We can argue the factual basis of a subject. We can disagree with each other regarding our understanding of circumstances, and our recollections of details; we are each having our own experience. We’re not seeing the world from identical perspectives. We can’t actually argue against an emotion, though. Those are our own. Not subject to disagreement. Period. I feel grumpy. No one actually gets to tell me that’s “incorrect” as an emotional experience. (People may try, but as arguments go, an argument against someone’s emotional experience is rife with thought-errors, fallacies, and a peculiar assumption of entitlement, inasmuch as it presupposes that other person’s emotional experience is somehow superior or has more substance or value.) I’m mostly not even letting my grumpiness “be a thing”, generally, but it is still there in the background.

…I would have been camping next week. All week. Out under the trees. No other people. Only my own agenda. Quietly sitting. Hiking. Cooking out under the sky. Sipping coffee in the morning chill. Watching the leaves unfold, and the spring flowers bobbing and swaying in the spring breezes. Content, relaxed, and face-to-face with the woman in the mirror for a few days of solitude. Pandemic life being what it is, the location where I would have been camping closed, and canceled all pending reservations, some weeks ago. So, not going is not a surprise. Hell, I’m not unhappy to have the opportunity to still enjoy a couple of those days off, in the good company of my Traveling Partner…but…

Today, right now, for no obvious reason, I feel exceedingly put out by every tiny inconvenience. I feel prone toward anger, over shit I’m not generally angry about. I really “want to rest” – but I’m not talking about physically resting this meat puppet. I need cognitive rest. I need time with myself.

It may be awhile, for all of us, before we get some needs easily met. For some folks, solitude is hard to come by right now. For others, what’s hard to come by is community. Whether we call time spent alone “solitude” or “loneliness” is largely a matter of perspective. The emotions involved belong to each of us as individuals. I sigh and alternate between sips of cold coffee left from this morning, and fizzy water that has gone flat. I don’t care for – or about – either one. It’s almost reflexive, as if I am seeking to satisfy a craving, but doing so quite incorrectly for the craving that it is. So… now what?

Eventually the emotional weather will shift, and “this too shall pass”. I could take the mood, and the moment, very personally, blowing it way out of proportion, catastrophizing it, creating monsters out of miniatures. Or… I could let this shit go. Again.

…And then again, if necessary. And again after that. Yep, again once more if I have to. Maybe another time after that. Just keeping putting it down, letting it go, and beginning again. No reason to vilify the emotions themselves; they are not the bad guy here. Far more valuable to look them over tenderly, honestly, and with as much self-compassion as I know how to practice. Then try again if I miss that mark. There is no limit on the new beginnings I can offer myself.

So… I do.

My Traveling Partner comes in for a moment, and glances at the page in front of me. “I’m sorry you’re grumpy.” He says it tenderly. Kindly. Honestly. This, too, is a moment. A pretty nice one, actually. He gets back to what he was doing. I get back to what I am doing, while taking some time for me – to savor this moment. Far too easy to become mired in my less pleasant ones, even though the lovely ones are so much more worthy of my attention. Human primates and their negativity bias. I shake my head, smiling at myself. So human.

…It helps to take a moment, for myself. Some quiet. Some solitude. A moment to begin again.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Another Monday, So Far, So Good

April 27, 2020 //
0

My first coffee is almost gone, and what’s left is almost cold. Another work week begins. Another Monday unfolds ahead of me. Life in the time of pandemic remains fairly constrained, and a little surreal, sometimes. It is what it is. Is it helping? Probably.

Fish swim in the aquariums. Over the weekend, my Traveling Partner added the skimmer I ordered to my 29 gallon peaceful community tank. I watched fish swim. Friday afternoon, the remaining new inhabitants of my shrimp tank arrived, were acclimated, and got to move in to their new home. I got some tidying up tasks handled. We spent happy hours talking over computer builds, and re-organizing this-or-that to improve our quality of life. It was a nice weekend. No drama. Good company. 🙂

Improving my meditation practice has been paying off in improved emotional resilience and reduced reactivity. Win. 😀 Getting more exercise has been improving my general fitness (and wellness), which is an exciting quality of life improvement, itself. So far so good, right? 🙂

Yeah, that’s it. Nothing to complain about, really. That, itself, points to a favorite practice; savoring the good moments. I know, it can be super satisfying in some way to linger over painful moments, challenges, petty aggravations – a bit like scratching a mosquito bite. It’s hard to leave it alone. It doesn’t really do any good, though, to scratch at it, dig at it, pick at it – and doing so causes real damage. So… as comparisons go, it’s so accurate it’s not a metaphor anymore. When we invest, emotionally, our time and attention and focus on some painful moment, or challenge, or bit of irritation or inconvenience, it gets bigger and more important in our thinking. It becomes a larger part of our implicit experience and the very nature of our character can be influenced by such things over time.

“We become what we practice” – spend enough time angry about shit, and anger becomes who we are, generally, and over time it will seem that there are many more things “to be angry about”. Letting shit go, letting small shit stay small, and refraining from taking things personally, over time, results in changes in “who we are”, too. It’s a choice. What experiences do you make time for? What emotional states do you linger in? What are you focused on, in life?

I don’t know that changes to my experience are the true drivers of the changes to how I experience my life, as much as changes to what I make a point of focusing on, and spending time with, emotionally. I do know things are far better than they were in 2013. I also know that if I were in a state of despair, right now, and someone told me “it’ll only take 7 years to change how you feel about life!” I might not have been sufficiently encouraged to make the changes I needed, then, to make… hard to say. There’s been a lot of work involved. Study. Practicing of practices. Self-reflection. More study. More practice… and repeat. Again.

…Here’s the thing, though; it’s worked wonderfully well. It’s been a profoundly successful journey. It is a journey still in progress, and one which I embrace with real enthusiasm. So much has changed…

…Every new beginning has lead me here. Each step along the way has had value. My results have varied. It has been necessary to growth through some uncomfortable experiences. So worth it. I smile, finish my coffee, and glance at the time… Already time to begin again. 🙂

…Where does your journey start? Are you ready to begin?

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »