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Charms and Potions

July 10, 2014 //
2

First, before I go farther, and carelessly hurt someone’s feelings over mystical or spiritual beliefs we may not share; nothing in this post is intended to slight someone else’s personal beliefs, challenge their system of beliefs, or deny them the chosen beliefs that comfort and guide them. Not even a little bit. This is not about that.

Finding peace and balance is a very personal journey.

Finding peace and balance is a very personal journey.

If you read this blog now and then, you are probably aware that I have a certain…cynicism is a good word… about medicine, and specifically the practice of medicine relevant to women, and our experiences. Still, so many of us get to a place in life where our desperation and suffering require intervention, because we are challenged to find solutions within, and many of us choose the Rx solution recommended to us. Sometimes that’s a life saver. Sometimes it is a game changer. Sometimes it is a real and very practical solution to get us through the hard times. For me… when my turn came the solution offered by the VA, in the form of first one pill, then another, then a handful, only seemed to be helping me, and only initially (resulting in ever-increasing dosages and frequencies being prescribed).  Certainly, being stupefied chemically, pacified, and ‘managed’ by way of the careful and regular consumption of mind-altering drugs (and yes, they are) got me promoted at work, and I suppose that matters… but I couldn’t write easily (and you know I love words!) and struggled to paint. When I could paint, it was often only the most wildly fluid abstractions that were still possible. I watched a lot of television, mostly court tv shows; there is something about the interaction of seemingly real authentic people facing challenges that fascinated me, even drugged.

"Metaphor" acrylic on canvas. Painted on Zyprexa

“Metaphor” acrylic on canvas. Painted on Zyprexa

My experiences with chemical intervention in the struggles I faced with my volatility, my PTSD, my temper, and my hormones were disappointing, at best. The drugs the VA gave me slowly wrecked my health, and along the way I gained a lot of weight. The worst thing about all of it? It didn’t ‘work’. I still had to go through it all, endure it all, and get to the ‘other side’ – menopause, better therapy, practicing what worked. I still had to address the real issues of my PTSD.  There was more to know and to learn about taking care of myself, meeting my own needs where I could, and I hadn’t yet found out about my TBI (which is sort of a big deal in the whole ‘taking care of me’ realm). Many of the drugs I was given turn out to be entirely contraindicated because of the TBI; other treatments were more appropriate, safer, more effective, less likely to cause my brain further damage.

Why do I mention it today? Because each and every time I ‘chose the red pill’ hoping for a miracle, I was disappointed when no miracle came. Over and over it broke my heart, to suffer. I felt like I would never be well, and never stop crying.  We put so much faith in our healers, our medicine men, our preachers, our faiths, our pills and cures and potions – and promises. We keep at it, too, as though the issue is not how we’re going about solving the puzzle, but more that we’ve just grabbed the wrong puzzle piece.  For some reason, we don’t just want relief, improvement, progress… we want it now. Right now. No delay and no real effort.  Pills are much easier than working to improve, so much easier than practicing a skill.  Choosing a different approach was much more challenging than choosing a different pill.

Sip of coffee. A calming breath. A reminder; this is not about you. :-)

A sip of coffee. A calming breath.

Pausing for a moment to reflect on my experience; I hope you are reflecting on yours, too, and in loving kindness, and awareness that your choices are your own, chosen by you, doing the best you can. I hope whatever you choose works to improve your experience over time, too, and if that means an Rx solution to some challenge or another, I hope you get the relief you need, and find wellness and contentment. You get no criticism from me; we’re different people. 🙂

It took me the better part of 2 years to get off the various psych meds the VA had put me on. It was harder than it had to be; there’s limited information of what the experience of going off some drugs is going to be like, and in some cases it is beyond scary, in others the damage left behind was unanticipated, and required further recovery.  Throughout the process I had the emotional support of friends and loved ones to complete the undertaking; very few of them ever thought I needed those drugs in the first place, although obviously something needed to be done. (Turns out it needed to be done by me, and drugs are not required.)

I can paint again. I can write again. I can think clearly (You, there in the back, no tittering!). Let’s be fair, though, I’m not doing nothing. I am doing a lot to take care of me, and it is an active process requiring my time and attention, my will, and my effort: meditation, yoga, study, practicing, modeling new behavior, role-playing the deconstruction of bad programming and conversations that could have been healing if handled differently, developing greater emotional intelligence, learning to ‘take care of me’… I barely have time for life and work, I put so much time and effort into learning to treat myself and others well, and healing, and achieving emotional wellness.  A pill would be much easier; there isn’t one for what I need.  (A pill never got me off the hook for doing the work that needed to be done, either, but often limited my ability to see that work needed to be done.)

Where am I going with this? Into the trees. 🙂 I’m taking time for me, in the woods, camping and meditating, hiking and sketching. Practicing. Change takes work. Sometimes work requires a bit of elbow room. It’s just 3 days, a long weekend alone, and I’m eager to get started; there are a few hours of work between me and… whoever I am when I walk out of the forest. Monday does not yet exist, and there’s still one last gear check, and packing it all up, loading the car, and a bit of a drive ahead. I have no particular expectations, there is no warning label, no contraindications, no risk of overdose. It’ll be me, and some timeless time alone with my heart. I hope I make skillful use of it, take care of my needs over time, and walk a path that leads… to another path, and probably more practice. lol

Walking my own path.

Walking my own path.

Did I mention? I’ll be away a few days. 🙂

Today is a good day to take a step forward. Today is a good day to breathe. Today is a good day to love and be loved. Today is a good day to walk away with a smile. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

The Ups, The Downs, the Friendships

July 3, 2014 //
1

I have some amazing friends. I spent time with one of them last night, after an incredibly difficult and emotional therapy appointment. We didn’t talk about therapy. We didn’t talk about ‘my issues’. We got caught up on ‘things in general’ and shared some laughs, some compassion, and some connected time. It was exactly what I needed. Awareness. Support. Affection. Openness.

Things in therapy are headed for deeper waters these days. This is the first time therapy has ever held real promise of reaching emotional wellness… I try not to get my hopes up, and simply be present, and continue to practice what is working now.

Strange stuff in the news; a lot of articles seem more ‘emotional‘ than I recall news tending to be. It’s probably ‘just me’; like anyone else, I read the news in the context of my own experience, and of late it has been an emotional experience. I’m not running from that. I am learning to value my emotional experience, make room for it, and allow it to speak to me. I am choosing to spend less time with people who are not in a place where they can also respect my emotional experience. They have their own path, I’ll let them walk it without interference from me; we are each having our own experience.

Each having our own experience, walking our own path, and making our own choices.

Each having our own experience, walking our own path, and making our own choices.

Much of the afternoon yesterday I felt raw, exposed, vulnerable, and on the edge of panic. I don’t waste any time during my one-hour session with my therapist, we dive into the rough stuff straight away, these days. I walk away feeling certain the effort – and progress – are worth the money. It’s still hard to be near ‘my fellow man’ for hours afterward, and the idle chatter of people who don’t share my experiences grates on my raw nerves. It’s okay; hanging out with a friend is a salve for raw nerves, every time.

Some metaphor about blooming in shadows, or perspective, or... hey, it's a flower. Flowers are lovely.

Some metaphor about blooming in shadows, or perspective, or… hey, it’s a flower. Flowers are lovely.

The world isn’t seeming a very nice place lately, and it’s not for any lack of loveliness; there are flowers and birdsong aplenty, children’s laughter is still commonplace, and there’s no shortage of sunny summer days. People can be so mean to each other, though, so cruel, so callous. ‘Political rhetoric’ is sometimes so vicious, so lacking in compassion, that it  hardly seems that anyone is still aware that the outcome of the things being discussed effect people. Real people. Human beings. Has everyone forgotten? It’s not actually ‘about’ ideology – none of it. It’s all about people, and most everything we do and choose ultimately is.

Please be kind to people. Crazy people, sad people, angry people, frustrated people, people whose ideas are not your own, people who are famous, people who have been overlooked; it costs nothing to be kind, and it can change the world. Please be kind to women people, men people, children people. Please just be kind – there isn’t room on this planet for even one more jerk.  Please be kind to people you just don’t understand, and to people you understand only to well, and dislike completely; kindness can change hearts, and open minds.  Please be kind to yourself, too; you won’t find yourself being any kinder to others than you are capable of being for yourself. Please be kind to sick people, and to people struggling to be well on limited resources. Please be kind to people who are suffering, even when you are suffering, too. Please just take a moment to be kinder than you knew you could, and to understand that each time you do, you prepare yourself for a better world by helping to create it. I’ll do it, too.

Today is a good day to choose kindness. Today is a good day to reach out to a far away friend. Today is a good day to look ahead to better days, and make the choices that create them. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

The Most Important Thing Right Now

June 30, 2014 //
0

I woke feeling a sense of urgency-not-quite-dread that nearly launched me from my bed at high speed, and that my always helpful brain tried to frame up as ‘feeling purposeful’ straight away, no doubt to keep me moving along productively. My alarm woke me, which is rare. Rarer still, it didn’t wake me immediately, and the strident beeping was likely what caused me to wake in overdrive. Even after stopping myself, slowing down, doing some calming breath work and yoga, I got through my morning routine to the point at which I have coffee and email in front of me in an impressive 13 minutes. (No, I didn’t ‘time it’, I just checked the clock when I grabbed my coffee.) I’m not celebrating that as any sort of achievement; I’m not in the Army, there is no urgent crisis requiring timely action this morning, and I am not ‘running late’. In fact… I may never be ‘running late’ ever again…

I do have a ‘complicated relationship with time’.  That’s how I’ve framed up my issues with it, lately.  Before I started down the path of being more mindful and taking care of me, I referred to it as ‘The Time Thing’.  It was a very big, very ugly, very problematic deal with me. Being late, especially if caused through no action of my own, and unavoidably circumstantial, could set me off on a screaming tirade, real fury and rage, on this utterly inappropriate level that isn’t really describable with words. I wore, at one point in my late 20s, multiple wrist watches, carefully set to the same time. I was quietly compulsive about time and timing, and any suggestion that a work task was particularly time-sensitive could set me off taking time & motion data for days until I stripped the task down to its most pure elements, and mastered the timing completely for a more predictable experience.

Yep. I have a complicated relationship with time.  It hasn’t been as bad as all that for a long while, but planning things remains pretty critical to my every day experience, and although I’m damned adaptable in the face of plans deviating from reality – because they nearly always do – I still experience pretty significant stress from small things like being a few minutes late. (I’m salaried, but in spite of that I walk into the office each day at a very predictable time, with little deviation, quite as a matter of practice, rather than effort.) Many of my other behaviors around habits, routines, and productivity build off my issues with time, and timeliness.

I may be done with that. (I may not be.) This morning, over my coffee and my Facebook feed, someone linked an article with a headline that caught my attention. “The Day I Stopped Saying Hurry Up”  I rarely expect an article to resonate with me on this level. We lose so much when we hurry. Why do I keep doing it? Why all the stress over a moment in time that is not now? Isn’t the first most important thing right now always right now, itself? Find my moment? I’m standing on it. Suddenly, I feel so free.  Has the burden of Time been that heavy for so long?  I’m not saying I want to be late for work, but I think I’m okay with leaving late, early, or at some moment on the clock that isn’t pre-selected.

Taking a moment to observe and experience life unplanned, unscripted, and unafraid is worth 'being late'; it is living life.

Taking a moment to observe and experience life unplanned, unscripted, and unafraid is worth ‘being late’; it is living life.

…And I’m okay with enjoying this feeling and not analyzing it more.

Progress, moment by moment, day by day, like a flower blooming its own way, in its own time.

Progress, moment by moment, day by day, like a flower blooming its own way, in its own time.

I enjoy planning things. Learning the how-to of not over-investing in a specific outcome releases planning from its future job assignment of ‘driving stress’, too, and leaves the fun of planning with the planning, allowing anticipation to be a lovely enjoyable experience all its own. I enjoy anticipation. I dislike disappointment. The only thing connecting those experiences is attachment to an outcome. Learning to plan without attachment to the outcome is an interesting exercise in mindfully balancing past experience with potential experience, and preparing for what could be, while enjoying what is. I’m obviously still thinking about attachment, and clinging, and how much I lose when I let go of ‘now’ and immerse myself in what isn’t, more than what is. I’d like to become very skilled at letting go of attachment, and still loving, still feeling, still exploring compassion and joy.

Each ‘now’ moment is so incredibly precious.

Another work week begins. The weekend was not without its highs and lows. I could be unhappy that I didn’t go hiking yesterday… or delighted that I had such a lovely quiet Sunday and got so much done, and enjoyed my leisure time in other ways; the Farmer’s Market, a pleasant walk, Chinese food for dinner.  I could be blue because of some mistake or misstep or other, and bemoan my essential humanity and how much work it takes to do my best and be this amazing woman I am becoming…or I can celebrate the being and becoming of this amazing woman I am growing to be over time, and the unspeakable joy life sometimes brings me now. I could fuss frustratedly that the moments of love and connection with my partners are so few some days…or be grateful to love so well, and be loved in return, when so many don’t have that opportunity at all, through circumstances, or the choices they make. Perspective matters.

So many opportunities, so many decision-making moments, making choice about time can be very limiting.

So many opportunities, so many decision-making moments, making choice about time can be very limiting. Today is a good day to choose ‘now’.

Today is a good day for a fresh start. Today is a good day for choices that meet my needs over time. Today is a good day for acceptance, compassion, and kindness. Today, the most important thing is right now.

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Bread and Circuses

June 20, 2014 //
0

It’s a quiet morning, following gently on the heels of a pleasant and lovely yesterday. My mood isn’t as steady or reliable as I anticipate the day to come being; I am considering things.  When I find myself stuck on some detail, forcing it into context, molding it into part of the narrative of the day, of the week, of my life, I remind myself of the recent readings on ‘narrative bias’ and cognitive errors, in general.  I give myself a moment of understanding and compassion; it’s damned hard to let go of explaining everything, and to pursue questions instead.  It’s so easy to be pulled  into drama and bullshit – mine, someone else’s, the world’s.

The loveliness of the day is only a distraction from suffering if we choose to be aware of it.

The loveliness of the day is only a distraction from suffering if we choose to be aware of it.

I saw a meme in my Facebook feed recently, and it was the sort of catchy slogan, delivered at just the right moment for the words to easily slide into the context of my experience, that it has stuck with me.  Of course, after the fact it turns out to be neither new nor recent. “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.”  Still… I find myself delighted by the simple way it conveys meaning.  I like it. I’ll keep it. lol  I’ve found it pretty easily delivers a powerful reminder of the suffering of attachment, of judgement, and of taking ownership of what isn’t my own. Handy.

I am feeling uneasy, this morning. Struggling to find real balance again after rocking my emotional boat in therapy this week, and after a powerful conversation – honest, real, open, and utterly frank – with a lover that changes…something.  For the better? I don’t know. Is it a big deal? I don’t know. Does it really change any possible outcomes? I don’t know. What does it mean? I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even have great questions to consider, yet.  The step forward in therapy is by far the bigger deal, I suspect, but the heart speaks its own language and sets its own priorities, and even there… my step forward in therapy still matters, and remains suggestive of change to come.

What was the big deal with therapy? Well, simply that I am finally able to express my experience as a trauma survivor fairly simply, in a sentence, using words, without collapsing in tears, or being reduced to an animal state of panic, or wordless terror. I used my words. It isn’t more than that, and it is every bit of that, and I’m proud of myself for taking another step forward.  It isn’t time yet to share such a thing with the world.  It’s not ‘for you’, not yet. Maybe we’ll get there, together, one day? Having never just said it, out loud, so simply, to another real human being, I didn’t know what that experience would be like. Hearing the words said, hearing them hang in the silence and safety of a pleasantly calm office, isn’t really describable, either. I cried – healthy tears, honest sadness, regret, hurt, suffering…and more confused and astonished than angry or terrified. Confused that human beings can be so cruel. Astonished that I said words aloud that I had once been assured would result in my immediate subjection to a long, painful, lingering consequence – and nothing happened to me, aside from feeling all those hot tears slide quietly down my cheeks.  Well. Not ‘nothing’. Something did ‘happen to me’. I know – because I made the choice to make it happen. I don’t have words for the happening, and it is a very subjective thing. Worthy of my attention and consideration, and so, this morning, I consider it.

I’m not too interested in feeling sad this morning, which is a bit irksome since I clearly do, now and again. I find myself rather idly wondering how long this feeling of unease will last, and what it will take to drive it away…then notice with amusement that the idle wondering is much more low-key than the one-time state of panic and dread that would have saturated such a morning, as little as a year ago. Progress. Small steps. Good choices. Good practices.  Focused on what nourishes me, and keeps me headed down my own path, toward my own goals, and meets my own needs over time… Today is a good day to be.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

More of an Edge Than a Line

June 8, 2014 //
0

I slept in this morning, greedily immersing myself in more sleep after each moment of waking, until the morning light through the curtain, and the glow of the aquarium, had become too much to sleep through.  I crashed early last night, fatigued with hormones, hot flashes, emotional volatility and promise threat promise likelihood inevitability of largely unpredictable change future happenings. It’s been that sort of week.

It's still a journey. There's still no map.

It’s still a journey. There’s still no map.

Again, I find myself quite human. Indecisive. Fearful. Bolting from circumstances toward the unknown without patient and thorough consideration; traveling through life as a victim (again) instead of… well, whatever better options there are, and there are many (any of them would indeed be an improvement over panic).  Stress walks my PTSD down the aisle with my TBI and the resulting marriage, like many, is definitely not ‘made in heaven’.  In the middle of a terse conversation about entirely other matters, a partner observed in a frustrated tone that I could take a moment to show myself some compassion.

Well…yeah. Why wasn’t I?

This morning, over my coffee, contemplating recent events and conversations, thinking about needs, looking to understand ‘what matters most’ for me, looking to identify anything that could be tripping me up simply because it is unattended to… I read this in my newsfeed.  Purportedly an article about patience, it spoke to me on a deeper level, and although each and every numbered point is a reminder, rather than new information, the reminders were timely, and utterly relevant.  Meditation. Practice. Acceptance. Recognizing the infinitesimal line between the stories I tell myself, and what is – or may be.

There aren’t many things that calm me the way meditation can. How do I ever miss on that one? Still human.  I make choices, and in a brief moment on a sunny morning it can seem ‘no big deal’ to skip a few minutes of meditation… right? Free will… “I’m a grown up, after all”… “It’s such a beautiful day, and I’m in a great place…” “I just have to get this one thing done…” “It’s not like meditation is medication…”  My TBI already causes me a great deal of difficulty with building habits; not staying firmly committed is careless risk taking (for me) of the highest order.  My ability to show myself some kindness, some compassion, and to recognize my own needs and accept that meeting them is both critical and challenging, snuck off without my noticing and I dived into self-directed anger, resentment, disappointment with myself, berating myself for any decision that could have been hasty or in error, each moment of clouded judgment or poor reasoning… Yep. Still quite human. Still battling my demons, fighting my hormones, fighting the chaos and damage, fighting to go being enduring to achieve thriving. I sure don’t make it easy on me.

I do have ‘needs’, legitimate, non-negotiable, take-care-of-me, value-based, this-is-what-it-takes-to-thrive sorts of needs. Everyone does.  I have not always made it important to recognize and understand what those needs really are, beyond the survival basics, and it’s slow going learning what matters most to me.  I sometimes stumble on an issue, boundary, limitation, or need as an unexpected byproduct of some other event or decision-making; the undiscovered need becomes an unanticipated confound in reasoning that had seemed simple and clear, or becomes the thing that throws a beautiful plan completely off track. It’s inconvenient and inefficient to learn things in this haphazard fashion, and I rather pointlessly resent the crap out of it, wasting valuable time that could be spent understanding more that could be understood.

Patience is hard sometimes. Taking a step back and saying ‘this may not make as much sense as I thought it did’ can be very humbling. Looking into the face of an unmet need that has evolved over decades, as much because I have treated myself callously, and without regard for my own emotional wellness, hurts a lot. However much any one human being has ever hurt me, their efforts do not measure up to the pain and suffering I have inflicted on my own heart. That’s a hard thing to accept first thing on a lovely Sunday morning… but there it is.  How do I move on from the damage inflicted by others when I don’t allow myself to move on from the damage I inflict on myself?

For a few moments last night, I sat alone, still, bereft in my solitude, hurting, sad… frozen. I was immobilized by pain. The evening light began to fade… I sat quietly for uncounted long minutes, heart thumping evenly, breathing. Without planning it, I allowed my state of being to evolve from being emotionally paralyzed to a gentler place. Breathing. Aware. Letting the ‘weight of it all’ fall away.  I made room for my pain, for my confusion, for the simple basic needs of being human: resting when fatigued, comfort when emotional, healing when injured, sustenance, compassion.  I reached out to one partner, then another, open to healing, open to… being open.  Trusting and vulnerable.  They, too, are human.  We all understand the feelings of urgency, fear, need. We all make mistakes. We all struggle to make sense of out of our confusion.

Another perspective.

Another perspective.

I am standing on the edge of something…feeling a little as if the hike I took yesterday could have resulted in more clarity of thought than it did…wondering why it didn’t… feeling open, aware, trusting events to unfold as they will, for things to turn out in some fashion that allows for each of us to grow, to feel calm and secure, to discover and nurture ‘what matters most’ for our own hearts, to gently nurture and support what matter most for the hearts of others.

Today is a good day for calm, and  a good day for comfort.  Today is a good day to meditate, and show myself ‘a softer side’.  Today is a good day to be aware, content, and compassionate.  Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words
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