While I made progress this year, the sheer enormity of typing and then losing a cribnotes version of my life since high school is still hard to deal with.
So now I'm crying a bit. But it's a moment, a point, a pain in time. I'm reminding myself that "this too shall pass" but I know there is still more pain to come. In the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to have to start sharing this again with a new therapist and doctor.
Okay, not crying now. It's 22:58:46. I'm scared. It's part of the process. I know that in my head, they can't help me grow and heal if they don't know what I've been through. But telling people about it, going over it, recounting it in detail is something my heart can't deal with so easily. It's like ripping the scab off, tearing open the wound, bringing back all the agony again.
My life, just wow. When I look at it, the waste and destruction, the path of suffering I'm amazed I'm still here. But I can't look too closely, because it overwhelms me and tries to drag me dack into that agony and death. Yes, death. So many people died while I was going through hell. My blog has lots of references to the past, but not a whole bunch of detail for no other reason that it take so much out of me to recount this all.
They just had a news article about "Healing Touch Therapy" that some folks are doing here in Cincinnati. Why don't they call it Reiki, that's what it is, or are they not actual Reiki practitioners who are doing something else? It sure seemed like they were talking about Reiki? Why not call it that? Anyway, these folks are offering this healing touch to Veterans for free. I think that's awesome, but what I could of have done without is the news talking about what living with Post Traumatic Stress is like. I KNOW. I'm living with it, or trying to.
Why could I do without it? Becaue they are offering it to Vets, which is good, but battered women? What, we still don't exist? Really, the belief that only War Veteran's suffer from PTSD is so short sighted, and redonculous that it boggles the mind.
Okay, it's 23:45 and the day is just about done, taking with it the year. A whole year gone. May 2009 be much, much, better than 2008. Me I'm feeling better, but writing and giving myself permission to cry helped. I got some other news today that I'm not really ready to talk about. At least not right now, and that's weighing on my heart too.
Geeze, I feel like Donna Rose right now. So many times in reading her blog over the years she's mentioned something in that fashion, and for me it's a first time. Then again, this year I've put more posts on my blog than in the previous five YEARS combined. I have no idea what's come over me.
Okay, so I'm going to go pour myself a little wine, and wait for the ball to drop in just under ten minutes. I want to thank all the wonderful people who wander through here and listen to my ramblings. To be sure, my more frequent posting is because I found out people actually read this. So thank you everyone. I love all of you. And I'm feeling much better right now. The funk is gone and I'm smiling again. Thanks for putting up with me.
Happy New Year!
I'll see you all next year.
It's 23:55, and part of this blow by blow was inspired by Riese over at "this girl called automatic win"
Happy New Year indeed!
Just a couple of comments. First, there is a modality called ' Healing Touch' that was not developed by Mikao Usui (the originator of Reiki). That is probably why it is called that and not 'Reiki'. Also Healing Touch was developed by a nurse, I believe and is often seen as more acceptable to the medical world than Reiki.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a modailty that seems to work quickly and easily with PTSD is EFT. You can get a lot of information - and a manual on EFT for free so you can help yourself - at http://www.emofree.com
May you find peace and healing in 2009.
Actually, the treatment I've read about and learned about in school that seems to be most effective for PTSD is called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
ReplyDeleteHiya Jan, thank you, I completely forgot about Healing Touch, so you are most certainly right about that. Just me and my C.R.A.F.T. problem. (Can't remember a frakkin thing.)
ReplyDeleteI've looked at EFT, in fact studied it enough to use on other folks, I'm just not long enough out of the fire to be able to connect with the trauma(s) to reprogram them. I still go from giving it nice healthy distance and staying out of its way to full on melt down with no transition or warning between them.
Veronique,
Thank you for the words of support and suggestion of EMDR. I think it do requires a certain direct intentional connection to have that work. I am making progress, for example some of the nightmares I do the lucid dreaming thing and just slam the breaks on what's going on, or dramatically change the way I deal with it. At one point I startled myself when I told both of Earls parents where they go and pointing out it was MY dream and I could kill them if I wanted to. Not that I actually would, but threatening them with bodily harm or death changed the pattern and made it hurt way less.
One of the other big problems is my terror they would be expecting me to go faster than I could. Which regrettably is a big, huge trigger for me.
Thankfully my last therapist, when I expressed these concerns said that working on healing for a while. That there was no rush for me to charge into something I wasn't ready for or couldn't handle. She suggested alternative like these and CBT as well, but when I looked into them enough to form and opinion I had a panic attack.
So you are both right, these do help people deal with trauma, and I really appreciate that that bot of you gave this. My body/mind is just a bit out of reach for this stuff just yet. Like the few PTSD approved drugs. I took a quarter of the lowest possible dose the first day, and wow, I nearly killed myself. That was one of the hardest days of my life.
So I'm still a difficult case, but hey I made amazing progress last year, so I'm going to stick to the slow and steady course for the next little while and see where that goes.
Thank you both very much!
Sam