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.