what does it take to heal?

I’m sipping my coffee in the quiet of the office, quite early. It was raining too hard to walk in the darkness. Honestly, it was raining too hard to walk. I would not have enjoyed it, and enjoying it is at least part of my intention, each morning, each walk. So I made the drive in to the office, early. I took time to meditate. I made coffee. I had some oatmeal. I walked the halls of the building, a bit, just to stretch my legs and be in motion. I feel stiff. It’s the arthritis, most likely. My head aches. Probably my neck. My tinnitus is loud. It is what it is, eh? A very human, very mortal, experience, and I guess I’m okay with it. There are not presently “other alternatives” from which I’d care to choose something else. I’ve got this, it’s okay, and it’s enough.

I sip my coffee thinking about a note on my calendar I spotted this morning. It reminds me that 12 years ago tomorrow was the day I found out the details of my (most serious) TBI. A head injury in the 1970s that wiped most of my memory, and set back my cognitive and intellectual (and emotional) progress considerably, but which my parents sort of… “kept from me”. I don’t remember the injury itself (hell, I don’t remember most of my life from before that injury, either, mostly just a strange assortment of third person stories told to me by other family members is what I’ve got in the place where my own memory should be, and damned few of those). I do remember having to go to speech therapy. I remember suddenly needing glasses, and being profoundly light sensitive and having a lot of headaches. I remember getting terrible grades in school, when I’d always had good grades “before”.

I found out about my adolescent TBI 12 years ago, because I was in such despair that as I approached 50 taking my own life seemed a rational “solution”, but I’d made myself a promise to give therapy one more try (it was the last item on my to-do list), and I was trying to get into a PTSD clinical trial for a new treatment. In considering my application for that trial, they turned up the microfiche records of an emergency room visit and hospital admission for my (serious) head injury. It was… news to me. The new information simultaneously explained a lot, and also brought a ton of new questions with it. Pieces fell into place – which was useful – but I suddenly also felt like I “didn’t know myself”, and that the entire context of my adolescence and early adult life was completely different than I’d understood it to be. My whole sense of “who I am” felt changed.

…The information did nothing to reduce my feeling of despair, and may have actually deepened it. It also very nearly cost me my relationship with my Traveling Partner; we were neither of us certain that I was even truly competent to be in the relationship we shared at all, with this information available to us. I was so close to giving up…

A short time later, I started this blog. A short time after that, I found a new therapist, and started a new healing journey with a completely different understanding of where I stood as I began it.

The note on my calendar asks me to consider it, and some questions – a note from past me to me here, now.

Is the knowledge still important to me?
What does it mean to me now?
What does the knowledge add to, or take from, my every day experience?
How do I make use of this knowledge in a productive way, today?
Does knowing this about myself improve how I treat myself, or other people?

Deep. Worthy of reflection. I sip my coffee and consider the questions, as I consider that past moment when I found out. The tone of compassionate regret in the voice of the woman on the phone advising me I could not be accepted into their clinical trial for a PTSD treatment because of my history of head trauma. My feeling of surprise, of curiosity, of sorrow, of deepening despair. The call to my mother later to ask about it, and that painful moment when she hung up on me rather than discuss it. The hurt. None of that feels particularly difficult or visceral now, but it was so hard to live those moments 12 years ago. Now it’s just… information. Part of the background. Historical data. A step on a path.

This particular head injury wasn’t the only head trauma I sustained (it’s tempting to say something flippant about domestic violence being a kick in the head, but it’s not actually funny, at all), but it was new information 12 years ago, and it did lead me to consider things differently, and to learn more about what the potential consequences of such things really could be. It pushed me to consider different kinds of therapy, for problems other than PTSD. It let me put other injuries and traumatic events into a bigger picture that was more complete. It let me get therapy and rehabilitative support that I’d never been offered (or able to accept) before – and never known to ask for, or seek out. I wasn’t sure it would help to try to rehabilitate a head injury that was decades old…

(tl;dr – it totally did, a lot)

…It’s a strange path that we each walk, is it not? A journey with no map, no clear destination, sometimes a poor understanding of the starting point as we begin is… a very strange thing, indeed. The journey is the destination. I feel grateful for the many chances I’ve had (and taken) to begin again. I’m grateful for every sunrise I see, and every sunset I’m fortunate to enjoy at the end of a day. There’s no knowing how much time we get in this mortal life. I’m glad I didn’t end mine prematurely; it’s been a worthy journey so far. I hope to go much further. There’s so much left to do, to see, and to feel. So many more beginnings to undertake, and practices to practice, and also… I’ve got this list of shit to do, and the holidays ahead. lol It’s time. Again. Time to begin again. Time to walk my path. Time to practice the practices that have helped me along the way for the past 12 years.

It’s been so very worth it.

Healing isn’t an easy thing, is it? I mean, when the damage is substantial, or the illness left to go too long, there are ‘complications’. Life is that way, too, and emotional healing has potential complications all its own.

So much potential in our choices.

Wednesdays are therapy days for me. I do what I can to set clear boundaries, explicitly state needs for support, and clearly set expectations about any continued self-care once I get home. I don’t use a checklist, but I handle each piece with great care; my partners matter to me, their emotional wellness matters to me, and making room for them to enjoy their experience even when my own is less enjoyable in the moment matters to me, too. It rarely turns out well; they are also human, also making choices, also have needs, boundaries, limits of their own. Although we are ‘all in this together’, we are also each handling our baggage quite alone.

Yesterday’s session was very difficult, highly emotional, and I knew I wasn’t ‘done with it’ when I left my appointment. I wisely set expectations that I’d need some time meditating after I got home. I am learning more about recognizing what I need to take care of me, and learning to set clear expectations about those needs. There’s always more to learn; I apparently need some practice on following through. I got home to a house full of hungry people, eager to go out to dinner, and at least one of them irked with me that I hadn’t already said ‘yes’ or ‘no’, convinced I had been part of conversations about the matter. I hadn’t; I’d just arrived home, and there had been no opportunity to have those conversations with me. (One of the small common challenges of a poly amorous lifestyle, I find, is how easy it is to be mistaken about with whom a conversation happened.) I was hungry, myself, and facing the pressure of both my appetite and theirs, I caved to that pressure and went to dinner straight away. No meditation. That choice affected each moment that followed.

…stormy weather…

I learn more quickly from mistakes than from successes. I won’t likely forget that lesson any time soon.

Wednesdays are hard on me. Harder still to figure out how it is that each Wednesday I am at grave risk of further pain and turmoil at home (or how to remedy that). I either really really suck at expectation setting and maintaining boundaries, or my partners are totally human, wrapped up in their own needs and agenda, and just not particularly engaged with me in this area of my life. That’s pretty simplistic, and I suspect both are true to some extent, in varying amounts depending on circumstances. I could use a break on Wednesdays. I don’t know how to get there. I’d like tenderness, gentleness, kindness, compassion, loving support, lots of hugs and holding, intimate connection in a positive emotional framework… and I’d very much like my experience on Wednesdays to be understood to be ‘about me‘. It seems so simple in text. Somehow, it just isn’t that simple.

This is where my current focus on emotional self-sufficiency comes into play. The more emotionally self-sufficient I can become, the less I ‘need’ from my partnerships, friendships, lovers – and the more I can choose those relationships based on desire, enjoyment and shared values, and maintain them because they have value in my experience, not because they meet emotional needs. Honestly, I don’t see it as choosing between having my needs met by my relationships, versus meeting them myself. From my current vantage point it is more a matter of learning to meet my own needs where that potential exists, versus having those needs met in a haphazard hit or miss way when they can be met by someone else at all. Each Wednesday that I struggle to fulfill emotional needs that are a byproduct of my therapy experience, I learn more about being self-reliant emotionally, which seems worthwhile.

I’ve changed a lot over the past year. It has gotten pretty lonely sometimes, and I experience profound moments of self-doubt, and doubts about my relationships. I say that because it isn’t always obvious to me that this is common to the human experience, generally, and later I may need this reminder that it is quite common indeed. 🙂

…Eventually the light breaks through the darkness, and there is a new day…

Here we are, a new day. An opportunity for new choices. Today is a good day for choices, and for change. Today is a good day to take care of me. Today is a good day to treat others with kindness, and myself too while I’m at it. Today is a good day to change the world.

12 Years Ago, I Found Out

Complications

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12 Years Ago, I Found Out

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Complications

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