Last night I went out to see live music and dance. I've been an avid concert goer since my teenage years and it always brings joy to my heart. Making the time and effort to do things I enjoy is important to my healing. With recent struggles to set boundaries I haven't had much social interaction. Rebuilding the strength to try again for new friends or reconnecting with old ones. An unfortunate circumstance of our society is the expectation that talking to someone carries intent for more then that immediate moment of conversation. That time spent with someone carries intent for more than friendship. One of the boundaries I didn't even realized I needed to set was not allowing someone to project their own insecurities on me. I kept kindly reminding them no, your assumptions are incorrect, but never used a firm tone or gave them consequences for continued attempts to convince me I am someone I'm not. Boundaries aren't just about saying no. It's also about not giving people my time who don't deserve it, not allowing people to make me feel like I have to constantly explain myself to be accepted. It doesn't matter what anyone says or does. I am still me, I am still free. Don't be afraid to take care of yourself. It has to come before challenging your comfort zone and fears.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Saturday, January 20, 2018
The Only Time Is Now
It's incredible how easy it is to forget this, my most sacred mantra. Ten years ago the abuse hadn't yet begun. The trauma had not taken hold, though there were signs that I'm carrying something with me from childhood. At times I look back dreaming of being her again. Yet without my tragedy I wouldn't be so wise. Of course I wouldn't be so chaotic either. I'm pretty sure we are all carrying baggage from our upbringing, a society full of people challenging themselves to overcome. Whenever I forget to focus on right now, right here, keep breathing; the downward spiral begins. The thing is, the climb back up is always available at any moment. The lifelines all just waiting for us to grab hold. Breathing exercises, physical activity, directing focus on a pleasant thought.
For those of us with hyperactive attention it can seem like we have no choice but to plummet to the depths of despair. When we live in tension it's easy to go looking for the reason, where is the problem. I find myself remembering things that made me tense, even things that made me tense for no reason, or things that were appropriate reasons but not necessary to focus on. More often then not it's just a discomfort of the body. In our present dystopian nightmare it's common and accepted to take prescription drugs to feel relief. The chemicals that affect our thinking and motor functions can be the most difficult to adjust, my challenge is to do it without pharmaceuticals. At times, it's no problem. I stop, I focus on my breath, or if I'm free to roam I find a body of water to gaze upon. Though other times, I get trapped in the loop, round and round between tension, discomfort, fear, back around. My favorite mindfulness meditation lately is to list the Fibonacci sequence. It doesn't bring me back, but it slows down the panic, puts on the breaks just enough for me to find a proper lifeline. My deepest loops are when I'm fighting with myself. When the part of me that wants to follow my old programming, my old habits is trying to overpower the me that knows it's all a terrible idea. Sometimes we have to take risks, but we don't have to take stupid ones. Yet I'm very good at it. Then comes the hyper focus on all I should have done.
Right now, in this moment, my challenge is to stop thinking about how I should have set firm boundaries and stayed away from situations that were too great of a risk, too intense of a trigger, and instead redirect that experience to a solid plan of doing it right from now on. Be firm in my beliefs and standards. Let no one get away with projecting their own insecurities onto me. My power of empathy unfortunately leaves that door open, then I avoid conflict by not challenging the misconception. Or if I do it's timidly with unclear expression via text or email. It seems that sometimes we don't step up to a challenge until it becomes absolutely necessary, we don't see that we took a wrong turn until we are too far gone to back away. Then comes the old cliche anecdotes. The only way out is through. This too shall pass. It's okay to not be okay. Yet sometimes the woods of discontent are thick and dark, and it takes great passion to make it through. That passion may be anger, or it may be love, but it has to be strong, and determined.
When I was a teenager, I cried out about the consequences of stereotypes. If someone is always treated a certain way, they eventually have no other choice but to live in that role. For example, a youth that is treated as a criminal, or a failure, will not be given the opportunity to prove themselves otherwise. Thus it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The same goes for women who are treated like they couldn't possibly be different from the last woman, or the stereotype of a woman. Those women don't have the opportunity to prove themselves otherwise. While an institution such as school or an industry can be conquered in the face of these barriers, it is much more difficult to be true to you when family, friends and lovers want to tell you who you are. I often hear, set boundaries, and I always saw that as, saying no, or establishing intent. Yet this last year I learned it's more than that. It is also not allowing anyone to treat you as someone you are not. Some people will actually listen when you try to explain your life views, your beliefs your goals. Yet others will only hear what they want to hear, and continue to insist on their view of who you are. I have realized that setting boundaries is also about not taking shit. Don't let them convince you, that you are what they say you are. They only say who they are, what they want out of you. It's hard to be true when fighting to recover from trauma, our impulse is to give in to the demands to avoid conflict, but then when you try to get out of the stereotype conflict will arise. I'm hoping that in the future I can take swift and early action. Not just saying no to sketchy or intense situations, but also to be clear and direct about who I am and not put up with being treated otherwise.
Even after coming to these conclusions, realizing all the places I went wrong come back to haunt me. I've processed, I've understood, yet the desire to have done it differently the first time distracts not only from the preparation to handle myself appropriately in the future, but it also distracts from right now. This very moment that I could be doing something good for myself. Doing something I enjoy even if the tension in my body distracts me. Since I've been forgetting that the only time I have is right here, right now, I've started to use an affirmation of redirection. I confirm yes, that would have been a better route to take, so how can I implement that now? Many of the recent failures that are recalled with my body tension were moments of fear, fear of things going wrong, of things going right, of being misunderstood, of being abandoned, of failing to meet whatever challenge I was facing, of how to even set a boundary. When I get caught in the panic, the loop starts playing. The movie that terrorizes my attention, a horror that it's hard to look away from. So I tell myself, alright, how can I do it differently, right now.
When I recall the moment of panic, frozen in fear just yards away from going into a party full of new people, I spent so long trying to convince myself to do it, trying to make my limbs move and just walk in, but I couldn't get out of the car. Yet if I had taken on that challenge, accepted that low risk but properly challenging social situation. I wouldn't have been available to accept a phone call from a person with whom I struggled to set boundaries. It was a moment of weakness, where I made the wrong choice, that choice snowballed into my last major breakdown, the one I'm still removing tension from my body for. The actions I took reinforced the person I was being told I was, which is not the person I identify as. My redirection processes is how can I make the right choice now? I forced myself to go out for new years, reach out to anyone I could think of. I forced myself to accept an invitation to the bar even though I didn't feel like being around drunkenness.
When I recall the day I failed to achieve plans with a woman I was into, something that carried a deep weight because I had struggled to push past the initial meet to hanging out with someone a second time, I get upset that I withdrew, that I was reactionary to anyone who mildly annoyed me. It caused me to lose a friend I had just reconnected with (silver lining their alcohol abuse and my inability to set boundaries means this was a good thing) yet I fell into devastation despite knowing this, forgot to take care of myself. I get upset not at the failure to move forward with her, but at my inability to bounce back and try again. So my redirection when I dive into this pain, this disappointment in my behavior, is how can I do it right now? One way is to stop avoiding internet conversations and stop avoiding men, sure I want a woman, and I carry a great fear of men, reinforced by my most recent failure at boundaries, but online conversations are easy to drop and discontinue. I refuse to go back to facebook, it's bad for my mental health, but when I find myself looping, I jump on a chat room, a game site, something social with complete strangers from all over the world.
When I recall all the boundaries I haven't set, all the challenges I've avoided, how I've failed to keep up with my health, I redirect with; what can I do about it now? Right now I can take an action of self care. Right now I can pursue an activity I enjoy, even if it's hard at first. Right now I can remember, that there is only now. Right now I can embrace the true being that I am, without judgment from others. There is only now, and right now I am breathing, right now I am free to choose my own adventure, take action to do something that realigns my life with my, something that makes progress on a goal.
For those of us with hyperactive attention it can seem like we have no choice but to plummet to the depths of despair. When we live in tension it's easy to go looking for the reason, where is the problem. I find myself remembering things that made me tense, even things that made me tense for no reason, or things that were appropriate reasons but not necessary to focus on. More often then not it's just a discomfort of the body. In our present dystopian nightmare it's common and accepted to take prescription drugs to feel relief. The chemicals that affect our thinking and motor functions can be the most difficult to adjust, my challenge is to do it without pharmaceuticals. At times, it's no problem. I stop, I focus on my breath, or if I'm free to roam I find a body of water to gaze upon. Though other times, I get trapped in the loop, round and round between tension, discomfort, fear, back around. My favorite mindfulness meditation lately is to list the Fibonacci sequence. It doesn't bring me back, but it slows down the panic, puts on the breaks just enough for me to find a proper lifeline. My deepest loops are when I'm fighting with myself. When the part of me that wants to follow my old programming, my old habits is trying to overpower the me that knows it's all a terrible idea. Sometimes we have to take risks, but we don't have to take stupid ones. Yet I'm very good at it. Then comes the hyper focus on all I should have done.
Right now, in this moment, my challenge is to stop thinking about how I should have set firm boundaries and stayed away from situations that were too great of a risk, too intense of a trigger, and instead redirect that experience to a solid plan of doing it right from now on. Be firm in my beliefs and standards. Let no one get away with projecting their own insecurities onto me. My power of empathy unfortunately leaves that door open, then I avoid conflict by not challenging the misconception. Or if I do it's timidly with unclear expression via text or email. It seems that sometimes we don't step up to a challenge until it becomes absolutely necessary, we don't see that we took a wrong turn until we are too far gone to back away. Then comes the old cliche anecdotes. The only way out is through. This too shall pass. It's okay to not be okay. Yet sometimes the woods of discontent are thick and dark, and it takes great passion to make it through. That passion may be anger, or it may be love, but it has to be strong, and determined.
When I was a teenager, I cried out about the consequences of stereotypes. If someone is always treated a certain way, they eventually have no other choice but to live in that role. For example, a youth that is treated as a criminal, or a failure, will not be given the opportunity to prove themselves otherwise. Thus it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The same goes for women who are treated like they couldn't possibly be different from the last woman, or the stereotype of a woman. Those women don't have the opportunity to prove themselves otherwise. While an institution such as school or an industry can be conquered in the face of these barriers, it is much more difficult to be true to you when family, friends and lovers want to tell you who you are. I often hear, set boundaries, and I always saw that as, saying no, or establishing intent. Yet this last year I learned it's more than that. It is also not allowing anyone to treat you as someone you are not. Some people will actually listen when you try to explain your life views, your beliefs your goals. Yet others will only hear what they want to hear, and continue to insist on their view of who you are. I have realized that setting boundaries is also about not taking shit. Don't let them convince you, that you are what they say you are. They only say who they are, what they want out of you. It's hard to be true when fighting to recover from trauma, our impulse is to give in to the demands to avoid conflict, but then when you try to get out of the stereotype conflict will arise. I'm hoping that in the future I can take swift and early action. Not just saying no to sketchy or intense situations, but also to be clear and direct about who I am and not put up with being treated otherwise.
Even after coming to these conclusions, realizing all the places I went wrong come back to haunt me. I've processed, I've understood, yet the desire to have done it differently the first time distracts not only from the preparation to handle myself appropriately in the future, but it also distracts from right now. This very moment that I could be doing something good for myself. Doing something I enjoy even if the tension in my body distracts me. Since I've been forgetting that the only time I have is right here, right now, I've started to use an affirmation of redirection. I confirm yes, that would have been a better route to take, so how can I implement that now? Many of the recent failures that are recalled with my body tension were moments of fear, fear of things going wrong, of things going right, of being misunderstood, of being abandoned, of failing to meet whatever challenge I was facing, of how to even set a boundary. When I get caught in the panic, the loop starts playing. The movie that terrorizes my attention, a horror that it's hard to look away from. So I tell myself, alright, how can I do it differently, right now.
When I recall the moment of panic, frozen in fear just yards away from going into a party full of new people, I spent so long trying to convince myself to do it, trying to make my limbs move and just walk in, but I couldn't get out of the car. Yet if I had taken on that challenge, accepted that low risk but properly challenging social situation. I wouldn't have been available to accept a phone call from a person with whom I struggled to set boundaries. It was a moment of weakness, where I made the wrong choice, that choice snowballed into my last major breakdown, the one I'm still removing tension from my body for. The actions I took reinforced the person I was being told I was, which is not the person I identify as. My redirection processes is how can I make the right choice now? I forced myself to go out for new years, reach out to anyone I could think of. I forced myself to accept an invitation to the bar even though I didn't feel like being around drunkenness.
When I recall the day I failed to achieve plans with a woman I was into, something that carried a deep weight because I had struggled to push past the initial meet to hanging out with someone a second time, I get upset that I withdrew, that I was reactionary to anyone who mildly annoyed me. It caused me to lose a friend I had just reconnected with (silver lining their alcohol abuse and my inability to set boundaries means this was a good thing) yet I fell into devastation despite knowing this, forgot to take care of myself. I get upset not at the failure to move forward with her, but at my inability to bounce back and try again. So my redirection when I dive into this pain, this disappointment in my behavior, is how can I do it right now? One way is to stop avoiding internet conversations and stop avoiding men, sure I want a woman, and I carry a great fear of men, reinforced by my most recent failure at boundaries, but online conversations are easy to drop and discontinue. I refuse to go back to facebook, it's bad for my mental health, but when I find myself looping, I jump on a chat room, a game site, something social with complete strangers from all over the world.
When I recall all the boundaries I haven't set, all the challenges I've avoided, how I've failed to keep up with my health, I redirect with; what can I do about it now? Right now I can take an action of self care. Right now I can pursue an activity I enjoy, even if it's hard at first. Right now I can remember, that there is only now. Right now I can embrace the true being that I am, without judgment from others. There is only now, and right now I am breathing, right now I am free to choose my own adventure, take action to do something that realigns my life with my, something that makes progress on a goal.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Trauma recovery is never finished, but that's okay, neither is the process of self improvement.
I originally started Truth, Chaos and Evolution to continue the research rabbit hole I started on with my thesis. Shortly after graduating in 2010 though, my life hit rock bottom. The trauma started long before then, but once I no longer had the activity and schedules of college to keep me productive and stable, I collapsed into neurosis. With little contact with family and few truly supportive friends, things got worse before they got better. The blog was often neglected, as were my literary interests in reading and research. It's been a challenge to put together well crafted and developed writing on anything for a long time. I started this blog more recently with an intent to focus on more personal processes of poetry and art, perhaps get the flow moving. I've come to realize though, it's more of an ongoing reflection of my healing from trauma. Journaling is a huge part of my self care routine, well if you could call it routine. It's more of a cycle of doing better, than worse, then better again as I try different practices, or try and fail and try again, and maybe again a couple more times. I didn't realize how essential some of these practices are to my mental health until looking back on 2017. I took on many challenges in 2016, despite my small panics and failures the overall outcomes were worthwhile and the experience remembered fondly. I was able to take on these challenges and travels because the first major overhaul in my trauma recovery, selling my home the year before. In that home I'd nearly been killed, had all my possessions smashed, and sexually assaulted, these were by three completely different people. Every day for years was just learning how to live with myself, inside the battered walls often surrounded by people abusing the fact that I had a home, and a kind heart. Slowly I dropped stressful toxic people from my life, I changed my diet, I adjusted my life view. I decided I needed to have a journey of self discovery, rid myself of as many possessions as possible, dump all the previously imagined versions of my life and just seek out adventure, rekindle my passion for art and expression. I was fooled into seeing my path as constantly getting better. Sure my progress was definitely toward self development, renewed health, and overcoming social anxieties; however losing myself, eat bad/feel bad cycles, and negative hyperfocus all plagued me at various times. In 2017 I took on the biggest challenge of them all, socializing with one of the toxic people from my past. We both went in with the best of positive intentions, but that ordeal is another story. Que the heavy drinking, the tension of being treated poorly, and the stress of figuring out how to set boundaries and failing. One of the reasons I saw fit to reach out to an old friend was that my attempts to make new friends had just taken a bitter turn for the worst. I took on full time work while couch surfing but it paid shit. At first I thought I was making great new friends there, but instead made a poor impression by oversharing the reactions I was having to things going on in my life. That is a key sign that I need to spend more time in self care, when I start reacting instead of observing and processing. However both breakdowns came full speed, the venting and reacting was snowballing with every day I didn't write, or stretch or exercise. Over the summer I lost the job, and felt miserable at how I behaved, and it hit me hard. I tried to focus on the studio I had rented to have my own space and I got back into my yoga routine, visiting water and nature parks, tried to improve my nomad diet. Then adrenaline boom, hanging with an old friend, having a new person to hit up who was always down to chat or hang. It was exciting to feel like I might finally be ready, to get out there and meet new people. There were also signs it wasn't a good situation, such as excessive alcohol use, but it wasn't too bad until I again started a new full time job. Slowly but surely I lost my yoga habit, stopped hitting the gym, started getting annoyed at all the wonderful friends who let me crash at their house. When emotional stress started piling on, it was compacted by lack of self care and a cold turkey walk away from drinking, plus a brief stretch without my normal mood regulator, marijuana. It was one of my lowest moments of the last couple years. Yet with it came the realization that the other low moments also occurred during times where I wasn't taking care of myself, wasn't setting proper boundaries with people around me, usually had some drinking going on and most importantly wasn't living up to my own ideals. The pain came from my self awareness, knowing I wasn't acting in accordance with the me that I find when I meditate, when I'm breathing deep and feeling stable and strong. Instead I was operating entirely in reaction, programmed by trauma and abuse. I had reverted back to the worst version of me, and I hated it. So the first step was to forgive myself, and stop punishing myself but rather take care of myself, be gentle, remember all the wonderful work I have done. With constant effort, and regular revolution, the process can start over again, the anxiety and tension can be released again, new challenges can be faced. It hasn't been a steady climb like I mistakenly imagined for the last couple of years. Rather it's been a fluctuation between being who I am and being a shadow entirely reliant on what is said/done/projected onto me. The journey begins again, let's bring myself back out.
Monday, January 1, 2018
I feel sick
When the construct of social expectations is recognizably false through all my senses... I feel like my insides are about to become my outsides. Although I lack enjoyment in the causal conversations of weather and sharing useless tidbits about our days and jobs and what entertainment we take in... sometimes it's the only kind of socializing to have with some people. There's a tricky process to move the conversation deeper that I have yet to master. The art of conversation is a puzzle I have yet to crack. My words so often taken not in the way I intended them. Finding myself trying to correct misjudgment has proved such a wasted effort. Rather I must work on understanding how and when those assumptions occur and subtle ways to show the true meaning of my words.
Yet with the anxiety from trauma it's so easy to get caught up in repeating old "go to" conversations, repeating the words that didn't express myself properly before so why would I think to try them again? The state I've been trying to achieve is to recognize when my heart rate goes up and my mind starts racing, and make it my instinct to shut up and breathe deeply until I return to a functional state. Only then choose to speak or act, because if I speak or act during that state it's reaction to feelings associated with that panic state, so all things being said are being processed as an attack, a judgment, etc. Reacting to it only serves to reinforce it rather than subdue or correct it. I've found that the more physically active I am, the better control of my body and breath I have. Yet even knowing this I don't always step up and find something active to do. There's an error in my programming. The trauma has generated broken code, and the machine of my body and mind is malfunctioning. This can intensify in a feedback loop, brought on by the hyper-focus I experience.
I like to say that we seem to be a world of people trying to break the cycle of trauma, all of us have something that happened that snowballs throughout our life into some kind of minor to major psychosis. Understanding ourselves is the first step, then make adjustments as needed. I've found that drastic change in my environment can help soothe me in times of transformation. Strip away the old, all the way to the bone, and reinvent myself anew. Again and again I've had to do this over the years. Go down the wrong path, return, regroup, try again....
Yet with the anxiety from trauma it's so easy to get caught up in repeating old "go to" conversations, repeating the words that didn't express myself properly before so why would I think to try them again? The state I've been trying to achieve is to recognize when my heart rate goes up and my mind starts racing, and make it my instinct to shut up and breathe deeply until I return to a functional state. Only then choose to speak or act, because if I speak or act during that state it's reaction to feelings associated with that panic state, so all things being said are being processed as an attack, a judgment, etc. Reacting to it only serves to reinforce it rather than subdue or correct it. I've found that the more physically active I am, the better control of my body and breath I have. Yet even knowing this I don't always step up and find something active to do. There's an error in my programming. The trauma has generated broken code, and the machine of my body and mind is malfunctioning. This can intensify in a feedback loop, brought on by the hyper-focus I experience.
I like to say that we seem to be a world of people trying to break the cycle of trauma, all of us have something that happened that snowballs throughout our life into some kind of minor to major psychosis. Understanding ourselves is the first step, then make adjustments as needed. I've found that drastic change in my environment can help soothe me in times of transformation. Strip away the old, all the way to the bone, and reinvent myself anew. Again and again I've had to do this over the years. Go down the wrong path, return, regroup, try again....
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