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Things That are Hard

October 14, 2015 //
2

I woke feeling well-rested and content, and  I got a great start to my day – even on the professional side, or so it seemed, initially.

Like most people, I am not universally skilled at all things – personal or professional. It’s been pretty well confirmed over time that if my symptoms flare up (PTSD), or my brain injury gets in the way of getting things done, like dominoes falling in sequence more challenges begin to pile up, emotionally, cognitively, and socially. This morning, a ‘what the fuck?’ moment of frustration quickly developed into the sort of challenges I can’t easily manage in the office, and I made the choice to get out of the challenging environment, head for home and take care of me. I knew as I walked home in the chilly autumn sunshine that I would be more easily able to support myself in the quiet safety of my wee place, surrounded by green and contentment.

Home.

Home.

There’s been some construction in the community. My windows were recently replaced. Then a tree was removed – part of a ‘drainage improvement’ project. Not easy experiences – but I got over it, and the overall look of things has remained substantially unchanged… (You know where this is going, right?)

Today, when I get home, things are very different indeed.

Today, when I get home, things are very different indeed.

Speechless. Also just at the edge of becoming enraged by frustration, and a feeling of being actively undermined – professionally and personally – at every turn, if not by the willful intent of human beings, certainly by circumstances. This is hard. Frustration is my kryptonite, and I’m not even super.

Now I’m home… my feeling of safety is destroyed by the continuous sound of the voices of strangers shouting over machinery – on all three sides of my apartment (3 different work crews: painters, a pipe crew with a ditch witch, and a crew of…well…carpenters on the roof, or roofers doing carpentry). My sound sensitivity increasing rapidly to the point where sounds will actually seem… psychologically painful. (Is that the right phrase for this experience, I wonder?) My ability to sooth myself is shattered by the combination, and the tears I will no doubt cry sometime soon are beginning to queue up waiting for the next thing I can’t take more of. Just fucking great, right? I come home to take care of me… and… now what? Please tell me – now what? I’m even completely alone, no reassuring hug from my traveling partner, or anyone else, unless I want to step outside and start randomly asking construction guys for hugs. There is no human comfort to be had until I have to force myself into the world to get to my therapy appointment on the other side of town – using mass transit – at which point I can pay another human being a lot of money to spend an hour with me at arm’s length.

Sorry. You’re ‘seeing me’ at what is my current near-worst. I hope you understand that, for the moment, being heard is the best thing I can do for myself – even if it is the being-heard-at-a-distance of writing words that someone else will read from far away. It actually counts for a lot, so… thank you for being here. So…what else can I – what else will I do? Things. There are things to do that will help – the harder part is accepting that each thing may only help some tiny tiny seemingly insignificant amount, and that it is critically important to go ahead and do each and every one to get to the best possible self-supporting outcome. It’s harder than I’d like it to be in the moment.

  1. I’m going to put on some music to mask some of the background noise; I choose Squarepusher, and turn it up louder than I might ordinarily, because some of the noise of the machinery will tend to blend in and fool me into perceiving more music than noise.
  2. I make a soothing hot beverage (no stimulants, though); the heat of the cup in my hands is comforting, and enjoying a cup of tea requires me to slow things down and take a minute for me.
  3. I make a point of alerting the construction crews politely that I am at home, and ask that they be courteous about the noise as much as possible; given a chance, people are frequently fairly kind and accommodating when they are aware that a veteran with PTSD is struggling nearby.
  4. I sit down to write about my experience, without determining in advance whether this will be ‘for publication’ or not, freeing myself to ‘get it all out there’, and leave spelling, grammar, syntax, tone, clarity, and intent to be reviewed afterward. No self-censorship. No self-criticism. Just words.
  5. I review my self-care checklist and verify that meds and basics are handled, making any adjustments needed.
  6. I put the writing on hold for some little while, to meditate if I can (it’s really really noisy around her today), but that may have to wait for the work crews to go to lunch at noon.
  7. Yoga helps me relax my body – and right now every small bit of ease I can provide to myself is going to have value.

I’ve done what I can for now. Soon I’ll be leaving for my appointment, anyway. So far, step by step, practice by practice, I have dialed down my stress enough to feel calm and mostly okay. I am okay right now; it’s important to notice and reinforce the awareness to help build more positive implicit emotional memory, and emotional self-sufficiency.

Today is a good day to be a student. Today is a good day to practice the practices. Today I’m okay right now.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

With a Side of Fail Sauce

June 3, 2015 //
3

I am having a difficult moment. I write those words simply, and hoping that perhaps seeing them on the page in such a practical no bullshit way might give me some kind of leverage, a way to pull myself from the edge of this pit. It feels harder than that. Given a chance I know that it probably isn’t any more difficult that giving myself some tenderness, some compassion, and maintaining the will to look the truth straight in the face, fully accepting disappointments, hurts, and all the small things that don’t feel good. Awesome is possible…but the effort to lift a finger to let go of the hurting long enough to change it is hard to muster right now. It won’t stay this way ‘forever’, however much I hurt right now.

I am not skilled at managing my emotions. I’m still such a beginner. I feel my feelings so strongly – as if they are the only real reality, the only true truth. Intellect tells me it isn’t so. Study suggests perspective matters. Practices, over time, have resulted in so many fewer such moments like this one. Here I am now, though. This one’s harder than most, lately things have been very good. It’s not helping matters that I have no name for this feeling…some mix of disappointment, sadness, frustration, loneliness, and grief…and over something probably pretty small in the bigger picture.

I wrote more. I deleted it. I wrote more after that. Deleted it, too. Writing. Reading. Deleting. Contemplating words in rows. Feeling feelings. Tears slide down my face, ignored. I write. More words. I delete them; they say nothing. I am uncertain what I feel beyond this gray heavy hurting and loneliness. People are not who I expect them to be, or who I want them to be, or even who they once were. People are only who they are, in this moment now, and not even reliably so; I persist in expecting things, assuming things, wanting things. Mere mortals, one and all, each with our own baggage, our own failures, our own hurts – each of us the ‘good guy’ in our own narrative, and making it up as we go along. Something about this must be worth it – most of us keep at it. Again and again.

...Maybe a picture of some flowers will help?

…Maybe a picture of some flowers will help?

I am covered in mosquito bites. The itching drives me mad. I am in tears, head stuffy, eyes swollen. I am resentful of my weakness and my failure – how the fuck did I manage to fuck up a nice bit of hang out time with my traveling partner so easily? I mean, aside from being utterly human? My head aches with doubt and insecurity. Right now, nothing feels good, or holds any promise. This seems an unfair extreme, and rationally I know to doubt the intensity of it. Right now, I feel sad…and a lot of other stuff, none of it any good.  My demons head for the playground. I feel stalled and helpless – and angry with myself that any one other human being anywhere has this kind of influence on my state of mind, however loved, however well-intended, however valued.

Words on a page. Maybe I should delete more of them? What is there to be gained in words about tears? It is wishful thinking to hope the demons might be distracted by a handful of words. They are not inclined to listen deeply, to be considerate, affectionate, supportive, or friendly – they don’t have my best interests in mind at all.  They do not love.  I do, though… it’s just hard right now. First I’ve got to swallow this bitter pill, with a side of fail sauce – then, later, when there are no more tears, sometime after a shower, after time spent meditating, after some sleep…maybe then it won’t be so hard to be alone. I may be doing quite a lot of it in the future – there’s really no way to know what the future holds for  me.

Some moments are harder than others. They’re all just moments, brief and ephemeral – good or bad, they are over so quickly. Hurting sucks, but it will also end. Eventually tears dry. Eventually wounds heal. Eventually, wherever I happen to be will be okay with me. I focus on something small; I am okay right now…it’s a place to start.

Begin somewhere, and keep taking steps.

Begin somewhere, and keep taking steps.

…later…

Change is. Really. That’s even okay – sometimes it takes getting used to. Sometimes there are regrets – and apologies. Sometimes there is distance. Words can be misunderstood. The summer showers of my emotions pass quickly. I’m okay. Tears do dry. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Finding a Way

May 6, 2015 //
0

Another lovely quiet morning follows a lovely quiet evening. I have feelings that fit figures of speech such as ‘I’m really on to something!’ or ‘I found it!’. I am aware that these feelings, like any feelings, are feelings – lacking substance or reality independent of my experience. I enjoy them without becoming invested in them, or building expectations that this sensation of comfort, contentment, and some not yet clearly defined feeling are permanent or lasting. No emotions are permanent or particularly lasting. Emotions come and go.  Our inner world is very fluid, very malleable, very changeable. Change is. For now, though, these are the feelings I am experiencing, and it is a pleasant quiet morning.

One moment, one flower - we each blossom in our own time.

One moment, one flower – we each blossom in our own time.

The title is not ‘finding my way’ this morning…because somehow that implies there may be only one such way of  my own, and I am coming to understand that while ‘my way’ is my own, and my journey is my own, and my choices are my own…there are so many options on a such vast menu of choices that this morning I feel less comfortable implying that any one way is the only one, mine or otherwise. I am my own cartographer, and I choose my steps, choose my path, choose my actions (and even choose what I think those choices may be).

This week I have had multiple opportunities to do what I can to be ‘supportive’ for friends suffering one or more of life’s hurts. (I am not very good at it, although I mean well.) People hurt. People suffer. Sometimes people even choose to do so. That’s hard for me to watch. I want to say ‘hey, choose differently…’, and sometimes I even do say something quite like that, but I know from my own suffering that it can be hard to hear messages of free will and choice and good self-care when we hurt. What is it about the suffering that can make it so difficult to turn away from it, when we suffer? It is undeniably true, in my own experience, that practicing mindfulness, meditation, and good self-care are often quite enough to ease my suffering, however much I am hurting. It is also equally true that knowing this is not enough to ensure that I reliably take advantage of that knowledge, myself. I see the challenge reflected back at me in the suffering of friends and those dear to me; they, too, find it difficult to turn away from suffering, and to choose good self-care, balance, perspective, and to take advantage of the tools in their emotional toolkit to sooth their own suffering through careful application of some verbs and choices (and many of them are not even a little bit ‘broken’).  Life’s curriculum, this week, is enhanced by case studies. We are each having our own experience… we are all in this together.

What is it that stops us from embracing all our choices, or from maintaining broad perspective, or from remembering that ‘this too shall pass’? I am still more about questions that answers.

There is value in considering the vastness of our potential, and our options.

There is value in considering the vastness of our potential, and our options.

Today is a good day to share without pushing, and to listen deeply. Today is a good day for affection, good-natured appreciation of the small things, and kindness. Today is a good day to be practical, and to be hopeful. Today is a good day to make good choices. Today is a good day to enjoy what matters most, and to invest deeply in what I love. Today is a good day to change a world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Quite Deliberate and Willful

February 19, 2015 //
0

This morning I woke with anxiety riding shotgun. I woke early, and abruptly, feeling unable to take a breath. In the face of imminent panic, I managed to grab hold of the nearest practice – in this case, simply breathing – and focused on that, instead of the anxiety.

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

With the first deep breath, in and then slowly out, I observed the quiet environment, and the lack of immediate threats to my safety or wellness.

With the second, I observed my own body and state of being, finding and gently letting go of tension, then self-soothing by improving my posture, and comforting myself with reminders to be present, now, and letting the safety and comfort of the moment soak into my awareness more fully.

With the third breath I acknowledged Anxiety traveling with me this morning, and instead of panic, I gave myself a mental pat on the back for dealing with her – and my PTSD – so well these past couple days.  I took a moment to refresh my understanding that my TBI sometimes prevents my chemistry from appropriately returning to baseline because the inhibition/disinhibition circuitry – and other executive functions – are impaired; this too will pass, but it may take longer than I’d like, and I’ll probably have to help it along.

By the time I complete 5 deep cleansing breaths, my heart stopped pounding, and the surreal terror eased. Was it something in my dreams that woke me so badly? It hardly matters. I am okay, and a new day is beginning. I anticipate the anxiety may come and go today, as it eases over hours without new stimuli. I smile realizing that it feels almost natural… almost easy… to take care of me in the face of my anxiety. It is quite deliberate, very structured, almost ritualistic, extremely practiced, and in no way ‘natural’ or ‘easy’ – but it is lovely that it feels that it easy, and that’s more than enough to bring a smile to my face, this morning as I sit with my coffee, quite alone, and recognizing anxiety as merely an emotion, rather than envisioning it as some powerful super-being capable of destroying worlds.

The tools and practices I have invested so much time and study in really do make a difference. Using SuperBetter regularly helps me stay focused on practicing good self-care practices, and reminds me of all the variety there is in self-care tools and skills, and in creative ways to break problem patterns of thinking and behavior. Directing entertainment consumption towards the educational (TED Talks, SciShow…) has proven helpful, too; the brain is a sort of ‘use it or lose it’ tool, itself, and the sharpest elders I know are people who continue learning well into their elder years as a lifelong passion.

…And then there’s love.  I don’t want to overlook or underestimate the value of supportive relationships, emotional nurturing by loved ones, the comfort in someone listening, or the emotional safety in being accepted and loved – exactly as I am.  Being loved is a bit like buried pirate treasure, though; even though I suspected it might be ‘out there’, and even with a map that had a spot marked ‘X’ to point the way, it took some searching and some persistence, mostly because I did not understand that the love I most yearned for above all others needed to come from me, and until I found my way to that safe haven, no searching would ever turn up the pirate treasure of romantic love in the arms of another (because, even if someone loved me that much, in that way, I would struggle to recognize and feel it, having no similar feeling about myself).

It’s a lovely morning, and a good day to tell anxiety to take a hike – I will choose, instead, to walk with love, deliberately and willfully. Today is a good day to practice good practices, and to take care of me. Today is a good day to enjoy what works, and improve on what doesn’t work so well. Today is a good day to change the way I deal with my world.

 

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

In Brief, In Briefs

January 17, 2015 //
0

I’m still lounging in my sleepwear, and it’s actually 8:00 am. I succeeded in sleeping in – and a good thing, because my emotions and my physical pain kept me up quite late. There’s nothing like stress, hormones, and pain to illustrate all my very worst qualities as a human being: easily frustrated, childishly attached to being comforted, emotional, needy, demanding, inflexible, irritable, unapproachable, resentful, baggage laden, and capable of losing all perspective in a moment. This human primate thing is not so easy as it seems…at least not if I am wanting to be the best that these raw materials allow.

This morning I woke with this headache continuing from yesterday, and through the tears (yes, sufficiently painful to cause tears in the absence of other emotion-causing stimulus) I took time to be grateful for something pretty obvious; I don’t have this headache every day. That’s something. I take a moment and try to apply the same practice to other frustrations, other things I am ‘going without’ or just no longer have in my experience these days, that I continue to be attached to, and to yearn for.  I’m grateful that I ever did have those feelings, and experiences. I appreciate and value the memories that linger.

This is not the most joyful place I’ve been in life. Facing a mid-life health concern, having my own experience – companionship, love, sharing; none of these things actually change one thing that is real and true in all this. I am having my own experience. There will always be elements of my experience I can’t easily share, or verbalize. There will always be the limitation that others are having their own experience, as well, and my words will be filtered through their understanding of the world, and the context of their experience. There will probably also always be elements of my experience that are best not shared at all – that’s been a given all along. It’s one of the most difficult things about having this particular TBI, or of being a trauma survivor; most people don’t try to share on the level I default to, and most people do not want to have a visceral understanding of some kinds of pain. I am alone with my words. A lot. At some point, that has to be okay.

My TBI complicates things, and sometimes in a very unexpected way. I’ve been feeling incredibly discontent lately, less supported than I ‘expected to’, lonely, sexually unsatisfied, emotionally isolated, frustrated, and disconnected in my relationships… I miss a particular time period in a valued romantic relationship (which one would not be relevant, the experience is similar across all of them, to varying degrees). I miss “that year” together, with the intensity of our affection, the continuous good-natured camaraderie, the close emotional bond, the driven heat of sex-all-the-damned-time – and feeling well and truly loved, satisfied, cared for, nurtured, valued… it was fucking fantastic. There’s never been another year like it in my life, before or since – even in the relationship I share with that lover, now. I noticed it at the time, and I valued it greatly. I regularly attempted to express my appreciation and gratitude… and to my later great disadvantage (I realized during the night), his response was to assure me I deserved to be treated so well, and that he always would, and further that I ought not settle for less, ever. I wonder if, at the time, he had any idea that he would be treating me less well over time, himself? I recognized how spectacularly special that time was, and the wonderful way he loved and cared for me. I regret that I didn’t understand his polite refusal to be complimented on it had the potential to set my expectations of the future of love. It’s not fair to either of us that I yearn so much for a moment in love’s life cycle of unsustainable intensity. I’m sure it was a good time for him, too. No time machine. That time is not now.

Here I am now. Love is. That’s a pretty big deal. There are still things I want out of love that I don’t have right now. That is what it is. I suppose I will likely always feel that way. Realistically, if I never had sex ever again… I’ve had more than most people, some of it has been extraordinary. Same with love – if I were bereft of love’s warmth tomorrow, I have at least known love. Romantic promises and hyperbole probably don’t trip everyone up the way they tripped me up…my broken brain got in my way; I did not understand those promises were not ‘real’, only beautiful words of love.

Today I will have breakfast with a friend I’ve been missing, and converse about the things going on in our ‘now’. I won’t need to pretty up the details – he’s the sort of friend I’ve always been able to be entirely frank with, and he’s always there. He’s been a friend since before the relationships of my heart’s landscape now even existed, and has context on who I am over time, and how I’ve grown. When we hang out, I walk away feeling more aware of how far I’ve come, and wholly accepted. It’s never been about sex between us, and it’s good to be able to talk those things over with someone who doesn’t have any potential to feel hurt by it. If you have such a friend – cherish them. You may need the warmth of their good company later on. Later I will ride the train home, and think about all the sex, all the lovers… and the awareness that there is life beyond sex, much of which I’ve not had to explore; most of my experience is sexual in some way. I’d like to find my way to a point on the journey where sex just doesn’t matter, doesn’t drive needs, doesn’t influence my actions or emotions – for now, even the idea of sex tends to feel emotionally compelling, and something more or less on the order of ‘everything that matters’, because for now, it seems to matter so terribly much that without those experiences, I sort of wonder what the point is?

The path isn't straight, the destination isn't obvious, but the journey must continue.

The path isn’t straight, the destination isn’t obvious, but the journey must continue.

Today is a good day to explore the unknown within. Today is a good day to talk with a friend. Today is a good day to wander, eyes open, on strange paths. Today is a good day…to change.

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