Healing: clean windows!

The healing journey is such a work-in-progress kind of thing. There are bursts of growth and tangible changes mixed in with (often much longer) periods of pain, doubt, tears, flashbacks, and a whole lot of confusion. I love this picture because it captures what if feels like for me when some previously wounded part of me heals and a new level of clarity and understanding sets in.

I’ve posted this poem before, but I’m going to again because I like to remind myself just who the winner is in this battle! To all my abusers:

I won’t crouch down so you can feel big
Crawl around on hands and knees
smiling sweetly and trying to please
No
Not anymore
I’ve closed that door
opened a new one
Walked right through when
no one was looking then
stood up
strong and tall
and now
Now
I’m fearless and peerless
and you need to hear this

I walked through a white hot fire
that should have been my funeral pyre
Used it as a soul purifier
and now
I’m rising
from the ashes

I flew into the blackest of nights
and I’m not frightened no
I’m not afraid of the dark anymore
I’ve learned to open up and take it in
till I’m cracked wide open
and breaking
bruised and aching
but finally able to see

I dove into deep dark waters
angry ugly monsters grabbing pulling
Fearsome pieces of a distant past
collided
with my mind
crashed
but I
I
learned to swim

I can
I did
live through six thousand days
of desolate isolation
carrying the weight of four others
in sickness and pain
while washing the stain
of fear
out of our hearts

I found my way
blindfolded by abuse
deafened by lies
crippled by doubt
but listening to my heart
and figuring it out
My intuition banished their lies
and now
I can
say proclaim shout
that I
am not
the one who’s
crazy

I
am free
I
am AMAZING.

Healing is hard work

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the healing process. Everywhere you turn, wherever you look, there’s work to be done. If you’re feeling discouraged, try to remember that it’s not so much about reaching a specific destination as it is about the process and the day-to-day living. Take one step at a time, and know that it’s OK to be on that step for however long it takes. We are — all of us — works in progress. And we are all perfect right where we are.

The brain hard-wired by trauma

Fractured reflections and under repair. Vancouver, B.C.

Traumatic events such as rape, a car accident, or war, can overwhelm a person’s brain and the nervous system’s coping mechanisms. People who experienced some form of trauma as a child — abuse, neglect, abandonment — are even more susceptible. I’d also like to say that trauma is more about your experience of the event than what other people think is or isn’t traumatizing. So don’t necessarily go by some of the clinical definitions you may read.

When you’re repeatedly subjected to trauma or distress, the resulting emotions and the processing of the experiences can become stuck, or frozen, in your brain. They’re in something of a “raw” state, in emotional form rather than verbal, and so sit there unprocessed. Each time you experience something that reminds you in some way of the original trauma, your body responds as if it were happening in the present. You may not even have any conscious memory of the original trauma, and have no idea that this present event is reminding you of the original one. All you know is that all of a sudden you feel some intense and overwhelming emotions completely out of proportion to what just happened.

This is because unprocessed memories and events are stored in the limbic system of the brain — the raw, emotional, and physical sensation side of things. There aren’t words. These memories are disconnected from the brain’s cortex, which uses language to store memories.

In my case, and that of many others, abuse and neglect in the very early years of life has profound consequences for the developing brain. In utero and through the first years of life, our brains are wiring foundational connections based on our human interactions. When those interactions are cruel and neglectful, the brain hard-wires completely differently, which causes long-term and deeply rooted problems. This is known as Complex PTSD.

Fortunately, research has shown that our brains can be re-wired (neuroplasticity). With time and effort, through things like mindfulness meditation, we can help our brains to wire in a more healthy way. In addition, there are many new forms of therapy that show a lot of promise and appear to be helping many people with PTSD. As I’ve written about previously, I’m doing EMDR which works with those frozen or unprocessed and non-verbal memories, enabling the brain to process and integrate them.

Healing is hard work and takes time. Having spent 15 years actively working at healing on my own I’m thankful to have found a skilled therapist who is open to and trained in a more progressive therapy. EMDR has speeded up my process remarkably but I can say, in all honesty, that I probably wasn’t ready to do this work until this past year.

If you’re suffering in any way, keep searching, keep trying, keep knocking on doors. Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t take “No” for an answer — at least not permanently. You may give up for awhile, or be knocked off your feet for a time by repeated dead ends, but at some point get back up and keep trying. Somewhere, somehow, healing will come.

Coming back from the dead

Decades of crises and trauma, single-parenting, and social isolation have taken a serious toll on my health. Once an athlete, I gradually and then more rapidly declined to the point that even a simple daily walk was difficult. Climbing stairs took great effort; I had to consciously will my legs to move upward and use my hands on the railings to help pull myself up. If I exerted myself past a certain point — and that threshold grew ever smaller — I would experience extreme fatigue for days. Not just an “Oh, I’m a little tired” kind of thing but rather a down-to-your-bones and every cell in your body is utterly drained kind of fatigue. I developed body-wide pain, muscle weakness, loss of sensation, and tremors. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis at only 51.

Last month I began a yoga teacher training program with great trepidation. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, and something I felt I needed to do — was even “meant” to do — but how on earth could I possibly manage it with all my physical symptoms? I followed my heart, applied to the program, and started the one-weekend-a-month training last month.

The results have been, for me, miraculous, as my body has begun regaining strength and stamina. In our first training weekend part of what we learned about was the “chakras” and specifically, the first chakra, which they say is all about foundational issues and energy — security and safety. If I’m honest with you I’ll have to admit that I don’t really know what I believe about all this stuff. If I think about it in terms of physics it makes enough sense for me to hang in there. Interestingly, it coincided with the foundational work I was doing in therapy regarding insecure attachment and lack of feeling safe in the world.

In my previous post I wrote about the EMDR session in which I was able to reintegrate a split-off part of myself. What happened next is kind of bizarre. But it happened, and the results of it are quite real. You’d think that if things like this were going to happen to you, it would be in a religious setting or something. But this happened on a congested freeway while listening to Vox Populi by 30 Seconds to Mars.

Did you ever believe? Were you ever a dreamer? Ever imagine heart open and free?
Did you ever deny? Were you ever a traitor? Ever in love with your blood-lust and need?
Ever want to be free? Do you even remember?
Ever want to just stop? Do you want to surrender? Or fight for victory?

Darkness falls, here comes the rain
To wash away the past and the names
Darkness falls, here comes the rain
To end it all, the blood and the games

As those words sank in, I suddenly began to feel waves of tingly energy and a sensation of bright light originating at what I’d just learned is the first chakra and shooting out — both down through my legs and up through my spine and arms. Wave after wave went through me as I clutched the steering wheel and tried to focus on driving. It lasted a few minutes and then gradually subsided. I had no idea what had just happened but I knew it was something. I also began to notice, as I entered the city, that all the different people I drove by seemed amazing and, well, “god-like.” I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being (Hafiz).

When I arrived at my daughter’s apartment I faced a steep climb up three flights of stairs, which usually cost me great effort. But this day I simply walked up the stairs like nothing was wrong with me. Later, I went for a walk at home, wanting to check this strange thing out — had I just imagined it??? But no, I was able to walk pain-free and with no abnormal effort. This past week I’ve faced stairs on multiple occasions, and every time I’ve been able to climb them with ease.

For the first time in years my legs feel strong and alive. I’ve been able to practice yoga daily without depletion, and in fact practiced it extensively and deeply at this past training weekend in a manner that would have previously been impossible and/or left me utterly drained and fatigued for at least a week. Where only weeks ago I could feel death in my body, now I feel life. Where I felt weak, powerless, and hopeless, I now feel strong and powerful and a growing sense of  hope. I feel like I’ve come back from the dead.

May Love find you — wherever you are, however you are — and meet your needs. May you find the strength and courage to continue your journey, and the hope that things can and will change. You are amazing and astonishing.

 

Surprised by the light

I’ve had a few sessions of EMDR now, and have been amazed by the changes I’m experiencing. While the process has been emotionally painful, difficult, and a little frightening it’s also been coupled with the hope of healing, which has made it tolerable. Some previously buried memories (that can be confirmed) have come to the surface, and a fair bit of dissociation has taken place between sessions.

For the past year I’ve been tormented by an almost constant gut-wrenching terror and sense of dread. After I left a recent EMDR session I noticed, as I was driving home, a deep inner calm. I could think about things that normally triggered overwhelming distress, and instead just felt….calm. It was like this raging storm had simply stilled into quiet. Where there had been constant agitation and fear there was now stillness and peace. I realized I felt tethered (read previous posts) — to myself, to the Earth. I found I felt safe, and able to protect myself. And suddenly I realized I hadn’t thought about wanting to die for months. In fact, I actually wanted to live.

A pivotal moment — thus far — came when I was able to integrate a split within myself that happened when I was around 10 years old. When assaulted, it is common for girls to have a freeze response and to dissociate. That is what I did, when I took part of myself out into the night and never fully came back. I could see the other part of me on my bed, and I blamed myself and felt guilty for not fighting back.

During this session of EMDR, that little girl part of me returned home and I realized that what I had done to survive was BRILLIANT. I had an image of the two parts of my 10-year-old self high-fiving each other for pulling it off. I was pushed down, held down, torn down — but they couldn’t keep me down. I was lost for a long time, but I found myself and brought my soul back with me.

My life is brilliant, and so is yours. Keep fighting, keep trying, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and don’t give up. Hope and light will come — sometimes quietly, slowly, and gently.

Caring for yourself

Today my therapist and I began the actual work leading up to the EMDR sessions. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is a way to desensitize and reprocess traumatic memories. It involves the use of colored, moving lights on a horizontal bar and, in my case, the tactile addition of also squeezing each hand in an alternating pattern. EMDR has a proven track record of effectiveness with victims of trauma, and I’ve already noticed some changes with just the very brief sessions we did for helping me establish a “safe place” within myself.

 

I had been prepared for the fact that the upcoming sessions would become more difficult and/or painful to go through, but also encouraged that the ultimate outcome will be well worth it: healing, freedom from crippling flashbacks, and the ability to form more meaningful relationships. In today’s session my therapist skillfully helped me identify some core memories and their accompanying emotions, and where I felt them in my body. We explored other memories that came up and worked on honing in on what’s referred to as the “touchstone” memory — the first or earliest one that gave rise to these powerful, negative feelings. I was crying pretty much the whole time.

When she asked for an image that would capture what I was feeling, that was no problem: the character of Sandra Bullock in the movie Gravity, when she became untethered from her spaceship and was tumbling into deep space. My whole life I’ve been tormented by deep, deep feelings of being completely untethered from any “mother ship,” alienated and isolated from many meaningful human relationships. A deep sense of dread and terror has been an almost constant companion my entire life. Such is the result of trauma experienced at very early, key developmental stages. This often includes what’s called “insecure attachment” with one’s mother or other caregivers in infancy. Some critical wiring simply doesn’t take place in the brain of the infant whose needs are not responded to, leading to life-long issues with trust and the ability to form relationships.

In between our sessions I am learning to care for myself gently — something I’m pretty sure we could all learn to be better at. For me, this means giving myself a lot of slack on the day of therapy (no other appointments or errands); getting plenty of sleep; drinking more water to flush out toxins and replace all the tears; chocolate; mindfulness meditation; and Yoga. Yoga is not just a bunch of poses done by super flexible people: it’s a way of living, breathing, and connecting with your deepest self. It’s a means of integrating disconnected parts of the body and mind, which is a powerful healing tool for people with traumatic injuries. Yoga strengthens me to accept where I am, be where I am, and grow from there — in a gentle, non-judgmental way.

May each of you find ways to connect with your deepest self, and find the courage you need to go through your healing process.

Animal friends and healing

Part of the healing process with Complex PTSD is learning to be, and stay, in your body. To this end I’m signed up for a Trauma-Sensitive Yoga class to begin next week. I’m also working on the beginning exercises in Peter Levine’s Healing Trauma — A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body.

One exercise is to gently tap all the various parts of your body, one at a time, noticing what it feels like. You start with a hand, and tell yourself “This is my hand. It is part of me. It belongs to me.” This probably sounds crazy to anyone reading this who doesn’t understand complex trauma. But early, long-term abuse and neglect generally cause a lot of dissociation. It’s a means of coping with the otherwise unbearable pain. Part of the healing process, which is long and slow, is learning to reclaim our bodies, take ownership of them, and stay present in them.

Another exercise is to spend time with a beloved pet. For me, it’s my cat Mimsy. In the early hours of the morning he often comes and curls up on my chest to sleep. I put my hands on him and relax into his purring, softness, warmth, and calmness. I find it reassuring, comforting, and healing. It’s also an image and feeling I can bring to mind when feeling upset or frightened during the day.

May you, too, find ways to reconnect with yourself and comfort yourself as you heal.

A complex journey

 

I had never heard of Complex PTSD before, not until I heard it applied to me — to my life — by my therapist recently. I always knew that I had some serious deficits I had to work hard at covering up, and that life seemed to be exponentially harder for me than most other people I knew. I tried to tell myself it was because I’d been in an abusive marriage and church. Then I tried to convince myself it was because I was a single parent to four children. I mean, that would have been hard enough for anyone, right? I like to think that most people would have found that to be a pretty overwhelming job. Add serious scoliosis to three of the four children, and then add severe anxiety and depression to each of the four in varying degrees and combinations. Now I think we’ve got enough to weigh down even the toughest among us.

And yet….I suspected there was more that was making everything so unbelievably hard. And so there was. And is. And will be for a long time, maybe always. PTSD generally stems from a single traumatic event. Complex PTSD means there are layers upon layers of trauma all tangled up, stemming from prolonged and repeated trauma. It’s also sometimes referred to as Developmental Trauma. Basic needs were not met at critical times, and there were likely devastating betrayals by those the child was dependent upon for survival. The results are wounds that run deep, scarring that is permanent, and a lifelong struggle to compensate for the devastation.

I think part of the healing process is accepting that this (or whatever) is your truth. This is your path, and these are the issues you have to deal with. And you may very well have to work with them repeatedly for the rest of your life. It’s not about getting past everything and no longer having any problems — it’s about learning to love and accept yourself, learning to treat yourself with gentleness and compassion, learning to be the love and the healer you need. It’s about learning to establish and hold good boundaries, reach out and connect carefully, offer help to others when the time is right. It’s about learning to calm and steady yourself in the midst of pounding emotional storms. It’s about taking one step at a time on a sometimes very dark road with no light to guide you. It’s about the journey itself. And it’s a complex journey.

A complex life

We took a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, last week — not long after I was formally diagnosed with Complex PTSD stemming from long-term childhood (and beyond) trauma. The following photos are a few from that trip that captured some of my feelings. I’ve been warned that things are going to get worse before they get better and this process is going to be difficult and painful. But the outcome will, hopefully, be a good measure of healing and bless-ed relief. My therapist is incorporating body-based therapies (like Yoga), and will be doing something called EMDR as well. Something that fascinates me is the fact that research is bearing out what Eastern traditions already knew: the body and mind are not separate, and the body stores all the traumatic memories — which surface later in the form of many different symptoms. I can’t consciously remember much of my childhood, but my body remembers. I’m learning to listen to what it has to say, which turns out to be a lot. More on that another time. Photos from Vancouver:

Fractured reflections and under repair. Vancouver, B.C.

Gum-covered head, Vancouver Art Gallery, B.C.

Lost in the Memory Palace. “Placed Upon the Horizon (Lasting Shadows)” is written above in stone. Vancouver, B.C.

Dissociation.

Complex eyes. Sketched by my lovely daughter.

The past is ever intruding into the present.

 

Saving the only life you can

My entire childhood was spent on the needs of the adults in my life. And then when I was older it was spent on the needs of various abusive men. As a mother it was all about my children — which it should be to some extent, but not to the point of completely losing yourself. My problem was I didn’t know I had a self. I was shattered, and definitely lost in many ways. Now I’m working on gathering up all the broken pieces and seeing what new creation I can glue together. I’m still surrounded by the needs and demands of others — heavy, insistent, serious — but I know my time has come. I must save myself now.

Today, my 18-year-old daughter handed me Dream Work by the poet Mary Oliver, and said I needed to read the poem “The Journey.” I did, and I was floored. I cried and thanked her for giving me such an incredible gift:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff finders
at the very foundations —
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the starts began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.