As much as I dislike the emotional hijackings of pretension I see too often in poetry, I've found myself writing in that form in spurts of collections over the years. The Junior High period (mostly church and people ponderings), the High School period (mostly assignments from creative writing), the Breaking from Home period (fighting my way through abuse to hope), and the Sporadic period (where I write less often, at random, of late). This post is to introduce my opening of a new blog to start sharing the Breaking from Home collection, which I titled Speak for Me.
I wrote these over a period of about four years, from mid 2005 to early 2009. This covers the period from shortly after my mom died, through moving, paternal re-marriage, moving away from home, breaking from home, and moving even farther away from home. It covers a lot of emotions as the ones I couldn't write out in my normal journals would crescendo until they came out in poetry form. They express frustrations, trying to hold on, feeling trapped, mad at feeling scared, and almost always work through till I can find a way to keep hoping for a better time.
Some of the poems have easily shareable themes. Just One Day is the first that comes to mind, and I've already shared that on this blog. They are all very personal and I've been conflicted between pulling it all into a presentable form and resisting actually presenting it. I'm still scared to open this up because a lot of people were oblivious to this part of me and even more people resent the idea that a person can be so extremely traumatized without the socially comprehended forms of physical and sexual abuse.
Sometimes I try to explain the effects of my experiences as brainwashing. Life was often an active battle to simply retain my identity, to not disappear into a mind-less, being-less, soulless slave. The Speak for Me collection is very much my active fighting to survive. PTSD is recognized as trauma that physically threatens ones life and thereby alters the body's reaction to stimulus which recalls the originating trauma. What I survived threatened to erase me, not just my physical body. I believe this kind of abuse is rampant. It is pernicious precisely because it isn't talked about and is ignored when outsiders catch a glimpse. "It's none of my business," is the usual thought response.
How often I wished someone had spoken up and told me I had a right to think what I think and feel what I feel. That what was happening was not ok and was not my fault. That an understanding haven would have been offered where I was wanted and welcome and understood. Instead, I hid in my car because I couldn't face going inside yet and had nowhere else to go. I had imaginary conversations with the closest things I had to friends to try to work through the craziness that was my life because everyone was too busy to want to be bothered by me. I hated looking in the mirror and seeing what I was taught was a disgusting person. I can face mirrors now. I can see me, now. But pictures still make me feel a bit sick. I was left alone, without family, with church as my only refuge, but resented and abandoned repeatedly by people who had no interest in slowing down enough to see that my unusual reactions had a terrible cause. Instead, they just saw them and me as unwanted irritation.
And so, even though I am nervous, I am sharing this because someone needs to start the conversation. Someone needs to say - these are the emotions. And those trapped in the nightmare I finally escaped need to know it can be done, even if no one else decides to notice, care, or try to help. I did it with God by my side, guiding my understanding until I was read to break from home and learn to feel safe in freedom. Speak for Me is my journey during this difficult time.
The scriptures that introduce each poem are almost all the very verses that helped me reach the poems' conclusions I needed to keep going. They were very much my life-line. The afterwords are reflections on the topic or the events which prompted the poems. The new blog can be found at:
Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Thursday, January 8, 2015
The Confidence Doctor
Earlier this week I had a repeat of a conversation with a particular pretend mom that circled back to the ever present difficulty I have with feeling guilty at the drop of a hat. She said we needed to find a 'Guilt Doctor' so that we could schedule me for a 'guiltectomy'. My gut reaction was that I had already mastered guilt so a 'Guilt Doctor' would be of no help. Instead I would need a Doctor that focused on whatever the opposite of guilt might be. She laughed like it was an unexpected, clever comment and the conversation moved on to Hawaii. I did not think of it again until just a little bit ago, today.
I realized that my opposite focus assumption was a surprise because when we think of having heart problems, we go to a heart doctor. And so on and so forth. Her thinking followed that logic pattern. And it is logical. But my brain has a tendency to jump to alternative logic patterns that I then must determine how or why it did so. I just realized that I was thinking along the basis of emotional/spiritual principles which would indicate that if one has a problem with excess pride, one would then need to learn from another who understands humility. Procrastination from diligence, To overcome the excessive leanings in one direction, we must learn to restore the balance by strengthening the counter condition. It is not actually an opposite so much as the flip-side, but I think you get the idea.
Which brings me back to guilt. The first definition of guilt is that the person or entity IS in the wrong, but the next one is, "feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy." As I had been stressing and worrying that I am not inclined by nature to be effusive and that my chronic illness non-functioning on Christmas Day meant that I was guilty for not expressing hardly any emotional reaction to the gifts I had been given (I was truly barely functioning and therefore not really reacting to anything), you can see the pattern of my recurring guilt compulsion.
If you've followed this blog, you have a fair idea of the source of that compulsion. For me, it comes from a life being raised by a family that expected me to be responsible for anything they decided they weren't happy about. It comes from being held to a higher standard of expectations and demands and perfection yet condemned and criticized only. I was trained to feel guilty because that made it easier to control me. I've done much to overcome the years of abuse, but this part seems to still need healing.
Which is, of course, the desire she was conveying in wishing for a guiltectomy. Only we can't look to 'guilt' for the answer. I realized, when I started thinking about this, that a recent project had already given me the answer.
My latest set of scriptures is about ten years old and is well worn and marked, but even though I was gifted a fresh set years ago, I haven't been able to let go of this set. It got me through the nightmare years. It has all the markings and the personalized indexing of the thoughts, ideas, scriptures, encouragements, promises, commiserations, understandings, ... that I don't want to lose. Last week it occurred to me to start transferring them into the online scriptures account that can save and sync with any device logged onto that account. Which would actually make them even easier to search out and find and cross-reference. I have finished the Old Testament (admittedly has far fewer markings than the rest, but also some of the most profound) and haven't started on the New Testament yet, but I discovered that some of the non-indexed markings actually followed the theme of confidence - confidence in God, and therefore in the future and in myself.
It occurs to me that I've been slowly working toward this idea for the past year. Another conversation (with my Institute teacher friend) almost a year ago impressed me with the idea of posting notes around my place that says simple, 'Trust Yourself'. Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, front door. Most of the time, I don't even consciously process it, but I'd noticed that consistently seeing a message on another occasion had helped me break through the barriers that made it hard for me to take it in. And so they are posted still as a sporadic reminder whenever I happen to notice them.
And that is the answer. I was trained to feel responsible for any possible negative emotion anyone had. I was also trained to not trust myself. Confidence, rather than guilt, is what must be strengthened. (Perhaps I need to add a sign that I am not responsible for how others feel.) Learning that I can have faith that doing whatever my best happens to be at any given moment is enough, even if it's not perfect, or even as good as I could do in better circumstances. And learning that some people really are patient and caring enough that they're not going to hold it against me when I can't manage ideal.
Likewise, I need to master consistency at allowing them the same grace. (I mostly do ok with it, but I tend to slip when I'm having trouble with the ptsd.) But this will also help me as I've long noticed that I'm more likely to allow myself patience and acceptance and various graces when I can readily see/allow its application to others. (It's far easier for me to excuse others than it is myself, so when I can easily excuse a trait in others that I hold, it becomes easier to withhold condemnation for myself.)
I'm sure it will take many checkups and adjustments, but knowing the right doctor to go to makes all the difference.
I realized that my opposite focus assumption was a surprise because when we think of having heart problems, we go to a heart doctor. And so on and so forth. Her thinking followed that logic pattern. And it is logical. But my brain has a tendency to jump to alternative logic patterns that I then must determine how or why it did so. I just realized that I was thinking along the basis of emotional/spiritual principles which would indicate that if one has a problem with excess pride, one would then need to learn from another who understands humility. Procrastination from diligence, To overcome the excessive leanings in one direction, we must learn to restore the balance by strengthening the counter condition. It is not actually an opposite so much as the flip-side, but I think you get the idea.
Which brings me back to guilt. The first definition of guilt is that the person or entity IS in the wrong, but the next one is, "feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy." As I had been stressing and worrying that I am not inclined by nature to be effusive and that my chronic illness non-functioning on Christmas Day meant that I was guilty for not expressing hardly any emotional reaction to the gifts I had been given (I was truly barely functioning and therefore not really reacting to anything), you can see the pattern of my recurring guilt compulsion.
If you've followed this blog, you have a fair idea of the source of that compulsion. For me, it comes from a life being raised by a family that expected me to be responsible for anything they decided they weren't happy about. It comes from being held to a higher standard of expectations and demands and perfection yet condemned and criticized only. I was trained to feel guilty because that made it easier to control me. I've done much to overcome the years of abuse, but this part seems to still need healing.
Which is, of course, the desire she was conveying in wishing for a guiltectomy. Only we can't look to 'guilt' for the answer. I realized, when I started thinking about this, that a recent project had already given me the answer.
My latest set of scriptures is about ten years old and is well worn and marked, but even though I was gifted a fresh set years ago, I haven't been able to let go of this set. It got me through the nightmare years. It has all the markings and the personalized indexing of the thoughts, ideas, scriptures, encouragements, promises, commiserations, understandings, ... that I don't want to lose. Last week it occurred to me to start transferring them into the online scriptures account that can save and sync with any device logged onto that account. Which would actually make them even easier to search out and find and cross-reference. I have finished the Old Testament (admittedly has far fewer markings than the rest, but also some of the most profound) and haven't started on the New Testament yet, but I discovered that some of the non-indexed markings actually followed the theme of confidence - confidence in God, and therefore in the future and in myself.
It occurs to me that I've been slowly working toward this idea for the past year. Another conversation (with my Institute teacher friend) almost a year ago impressed me with the idea of posting notes around my place that says simple, 'Trust Yourself'. Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, front door. Most of the time, I don't even consciously process it, but I'd noticed that consistently seeing a message on another occasion had helped me break through the barriers that made it hard for me to take it in. And so they are posted still as a sporadic reminder whenever I happen to notice them.
And that is the answer. I was trained to feel responsible for any possible negative emotion anyone had. I was also trained to not trust myself. Confidence, rather than guilt, is what must be strengthened. (Perhaps I need to add a sign that I am not responsible for how others feel.) Learning that I can have faith that doing whatever my best happens to be at any given moment is enough, even if it's not perfect, or even as good as I could do in better circumstances. And learning that some people really are patient and caring enough that they're not going to hold it against me when I can't manage ideal.
Likewise, I need to master consistency at allowing them the same grace. (I mostly do ok with it, but I tend to slip when I'm having trouble with the ptsd.) But this will also help me as I've long noticed that I'm more likely to allow myself patience and acceptance and various graces when I can readily see/allow its application to others. (It's far easier for me to excuse others than it is myself, so when I can easily excuse a trait in others that I hold, it becomes easier to withhold condemnation for myself.)
I'm sure it will take many checkups and adjustments, but knowing the right doctor to go to makes all the difference.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Thoughts on Escaping an Abusive Environment, Part 2
I hope Part 1 helped you understand that even if you haven't personally experienced emotional, psychological abuse, that it is still a horrible reality with terrible results for others. I had not intended to do this in two parts but setting the stage is critical to begin such a discussion on such a topic and required enough space that a single post would be far less effective. Having primed the subject, now I turn to my notes and thoughts on what is needed to escape an abusive environment. These thoughts are taken from my escape, my mom's inability to escape, and observing and considering the happenings and implications of culture and others' experiences.
Before the idea of escape is even possible, there must be a vocabulary that allows understanding, awareness, social acknowledgment, and dialogue of the realities of the existence and nature of such abuses. This is, in part, why it's so critical to talk about it. Having been so trapped, I am always concerned and a bit agitated when all the conversation goes to physical and sexual abuse. I in no way mean to negate that need, but it puts me in mind of the family who addresses all their concern for one child's health problems to the detriment of the others'.
Until there is a general awareness that there is a problem, those so trapped will be as I was when daring to speak out about it as I wrote in part 1. And even then, I only spoke because I hurt - because my identity and psyche were being so damaged I didn't know how to survive it. So I asked for help from the hurt and the hurting was scorned. I didn't know what was wrong or why or that there was anything to be done about it.
If society can't conceive or won't admit that there is wrong, how will an embattled child know they have a right to better treatment? Especially when the abuser is telling them, convincing them, that they are less human, less worthy. Have you never heard of a victim told that the life the abuser has 'given' them is better than they could hope for anywhere else? Because it's already more than they're worth being given? The victim must know that respect for self and choice and ability are expected and honored and that despite the abuser's claims, the victim has that same right as the members of that family up the street that actually loves and respects each others' existence.
Sometimes victims get stuck in the same pride that others face. They want to believe that they couldn't have fallen for the lies and are stronger than those who get manipulated. Sometimes they think they can shield others in the family by pretending it isn't happening or by 'running interference'. Sometimes they need help to admit they need help, that they are trapped in a bad environment and allowing it to continue only allows for further damage to self and even others.
The victim must know help is available. Will family or neighbors believe and support or will they deny and condemn? My mother had no confidence that support was available for a bed-ridden woman (MS) and her children. She was also afraid that leaving would incline my dad to act out in violence and debated to her death whether it was safer to leave or to stay. Her death took that option off the table. Being sick, she also feared because she was unable to work and provide for her children without the financial support of a husband. Again, discussion and awareness in society would enable to victim's awareness of resources available.
Ultimately, the victim must be brave enough to act. Often it is recognizing the damage occurring to children/others should they stay that motivates final action. Distance often brings a sense of safety by creating a physical barrier that might incline the abuser to consider the inconvenience of pursuit a deterrent. It also means a new environment where new, healthier rules can be put into play without the same social repercussions.
Physical separation is only the first half. Mental and emotional separation is begun in the process of leaving but the healing takes time relative to the length of time and trauma in the abusive situation. Following are things that aid healing. Their lack can likewise hinder healing.
The survivor needs a safe environment and safe people where they can learn to simply be without having to always fear another attack for every little thing they do. They need time to absorb the comprehension that they have a right to correct mis-assumptions of another (an authority figure, even) without fearing recriminations (respect). This means they gain an awareness that silence is no longer needed for survival.
They need an understanding that sometimes the trauma will revisit in times of stress but it is as the aches of an old injury as a storm front comes in. It is also good for those they interact with to recognize this pattern. Like healing injuries, pain killers can incline some to think all is well but when the pain returns, more Tylenol may be needed. The same often occurs in the healing of traumas. Do not fear the pain. It will also be daunting to face the actions of rehabilitation (such as learning to trust again), but, like physical therapy, it is worth the soreness.
Ultimately, it takes time as proof that survival away and continuing safety and even flowering is possible, sustainable, and defensible. This can be aided by working contingency plans should the feared return of the abuser occur. They may never become necessary, but simply having options and plans available returns a sense of control to the survivor.
On a personal note, I have found that my emotional state can be measured by whether or not I can laugh. If One can laugh, one will survive. If there is no laughter, the stress is at a problem level.
Before the idea of escape is even possible, there must be a vocabulary that allows understanding, awareness, social acknowledgment, and dialogue of the realities of the existence and nature of such abuses. This is, in part, why it's so critical to talk about it. Having been so trapped, I am always concerned and a bit agitated when all the conversation goes to physical and sexual abuse. I in no way mean to negate that need, but it puts me in mind of the family who addresses all their concern for one child's health problems to the detriment of the others'.
Until there is a general awareness that there is a problem, those so trapped will be as I was when daring to speak out about it as I wrote in part 1. And even then, I only spoke because I hurt - because my identity and psyche were being so damaged I didn't know how to survive it. So I asked for help from the hurt and the hurting was scorned. I didn't know what was wrong or why or that there was anything to be done about it.
If society can't conceive or won't admit that there is wrong, how will an embattled child know they have a right to better treatment? Especially when the abuser is telling them, convincing them, that they are less human, less worthy. Have you never heard of a victim told that the life the abuser has 'given' them is better than they could hope for anywhere else? Because it's already more than they're worth being given? The victim must know that respect for self and choice and ability are expected and honored and that despite the abuser's claims, the victim has that same right as the members of that family up the street that actually loves and respects each others' existence.
Sometimes victims get stuck in the same pride that others face. They want to believe that they couldn't have fallen for the lies and are stronger than those who get manipulated. Sometimes they think they can shield others in the family by pretending it isn't happening or by 'running interference'. Sometimes they need help to admit they need help, that they are trapped in a bad environment and allowing it to continue only allows for further damage to self and even others.
The victim must know help is available. Will family or neighbors believe and support or will they deny and condemn? My mother had no confidence that support was available for a bed-ridden woman (MS) and her children. She was also afraid that leaving would incline my dad to act out in violence and debated to her death whether it was safer to leave or to stay. Her death took that option off the table. Being sick, she also feared because she was unable to work and provide for her children without the financial support of a husband. Again, discussion and awareness in society would enable to victim's awareness of resources available.
Ultimately, the victim must be brave enough to act. Often it is recognizing the damage occurring to children/others should they stay that motivates final action. Distance often brings a sense of safety by creating a physical barrier that might incline the abuser to consider the inconvenience of pursuit a deterrent. It also means a new environment where new, healthier rules can be put into play without the same social repercussions.
Physical separation is only the first half. Mental and emotional separation is begun in the process of leaving but the healing takes time relative to the length of time and trauma in the abusive situation. Following are things that aid healing. Their lack can likewise hinder healing.
The survivor needs a safe environment and safe people where they can learn to simply be without having to always fear another attack for every little thing they do. They need time to absorb the comprehension that they have a right to correct mis-assumptions of another (an authority figure, even) without fearing recriminations (respect). This means they gain an awareness that silence is no longer needed for survival.
They need an understanding that sometimes the trauma will revisit in times of stress but it is as the aches of an old injury as a storm front comes in. It is also good for those they interact with to recognize this pattern. Like healing injuries, pain killers can incline some to think all is well but when the pain returns, more Tylenol may be needed. The same often occurs in the healing of traumas. Do not fear the pain. It will also be daunting to face the actions of rehabilitation (such as learning to trust again), but, like physical therapy, it is worth the soreness.
Ultimately, it takes time as proof that survival away and continuing safety and even flowering is possible, sustainable, and defensible. This can be aided by working contingency plans should the feared return of the abuser occur. They may never become necessary, but simply having options and plans available returns a sense of control to the survivor.
On a personal note, I have found that my emotional state can be measured by whether or not I can laugh. If One can laugh, one will survive. If there is no laughter, the stress is at a problem level.
Alma 55:20
...arm...th[e]...prisoners...give them power to gain possession of [themselves]...
Monday, August 11, 2014
Post-Traumatic Allergies and Landmines
I've been pondering a blog post on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for almost a year. I am finally writing it.
When people hear PTSD mentioned, it is usually referencing war experiences, rape, terrorism, natural disasters, and significant violence episodes. Those are the angles talked on and researched and beginning to reach the public consciousness. I don't need to reinvent that wheel here.
What I do want to do here is clear up some misconceptions I have seen and parallel some examples I have recognized in various stories.
First off, some metaphors of how I could possibly have PTSD if I don't fall into the above scenarios.
Consider the phrase, "The straw the broke the camel's back."
There were times when I'd be upset, hurt, distressed over the latest incident, I'd often be rebuffed with, 'What's your problem? My family does stuff like that. It doesn't mean anything.' The event certainly didn't merit my over-reaction, from their point-of-view. It was a simple, measly straw. Nothing to get excited about. Unless you were the camel and the straws were only ever piled on and never relieved by also 'normal' things like love and appreciation and gratitude and help. When you are carrying thousands of straws, every straw adds to the barely bearable weight.
"Chinese" water-torture is also an apt parallel. A single drop of water falling on the forehead of a restrained individual doesn't sound like much, but the repetition, the inevitability, the sensitivity of the location landed, the inability to escape it are all elements of control, manipulation, and breaking a person down.
I didn't have to be beaten or raped. In fact, such actions would have propelled me to denounce the abuser because I would have known his actions were wrong. But mental abuse, emotional abuse, they leave no visible evidence. Only one experienced with the scars would recognize the cognitive/behavioral evidence in the non-psychotic victims. Could one have seen my spirit/soul, however, the image might just make one realize just how devastating such life-long abuse really is.
It is an automatic allergic reaction. Allergies are due to 'inappropriate' responses by the body to substances the body should be able to tolerate without adverse reaction. There are allergies of various levels and various causes - sometimes superficial responses, sometimes life (psyche) threatening anaphylactic responses.
It can come from the environment (situations, sounds, sights). It can come from ingested foods (philosophies and ideologies). It can come from safe locations (accidental triggers) or from malicious sources (people who refuse to accept your reality and seek to force/prove otherwise). It can come from sources that previously had never been a problem. Maybe it starts as hay-fever where sneezes short out your attention in a rush or it gets harder to see clearly because sight is obscured or perhaps it is a rash that won't stop itching and makes you jumpy. Or perhaps you are placed in the environment/situation that directly provides the dangerous trigger and it's all you can do to get to safety where you can breathe again.
There are certain things that can help allergies. Ways to try to deprogram the traps and neutralize the mines. Some think it's an easy, perfect remedy. Whether out of good-will or simple impatience, they have trouble comprehending that what took a life-time and specific circumstances to create requires the same to un-create.
Some people imagine that, so long as the events are no longer occurring, there is no cause for current problems because of past events. Just 'move on, already'. Wow. Such thinking betrays a solid lack of understanding of the concept of actions and consequences. It's like condemning a person with an old, 'healed' injury - war wound or sports injury - because the changing pressure systems of incoming weather makes the injury hurt again. It's like saying that because wars are in the past, that any landmines left over should automatically deactivate through wishful thinking.
I knew a guy who showed me a trick he liked to pull on family members and thought to rig the church computers in the same manner. It seems there is some location where basic computer commands can be re-written to effect entirely different results. Some use this to make convenient short-cuts. He used it to tell the computer that whenever someone tried to use the internet, the whole computer would shut down. Having spent many years in written-paper heavy college courses, my dismay was automatic, and apparently unexpected to him. I've lost papers because the computer froze on me when I'd forgotten to save. The thought of doing a quick fact-check online while working on a paper and having that mean I lost all that work because some punk kid thought it would be a funny prank was not funny at all. When I presented that little scenario, he quickly restored the original settings.
PTSD is similar. It is landmines and control traps. It is a form of brain-washing. Pavlov training the dog to stimulus. It is an allergic response. And when the PTSD is from years of repeated and varied abuse, you can't just deprogram for a single function.
I've seen that people often consider the dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to be reflections of depression because they suck the happiness out of people. With my background, I see them as reflections of PTSD because they trap people by making them live their nightmares. The worse the nightmare, the stronger their hold. Harry's worst memories were far more concentrated than the average teen that fears social rejection due to acne. Therefore the dementors affect on him was far stronger than those with more docile lives. I found it appropriately telling that while Harry didn't have a 'happy memory' strong enough to combat them, he found the strength in the hope of what could be ahead of him.
The Avengers has a few spots relative to PTSD. When Tony Stark is talking to Bruce Banner about when he first hulked out, he states his belief that the anger and the hulk protected him from death - that the hulk was something positive rather than a monster. Banner could only see it as the monster that takes over, the one preventing him and others from living safe, normal lives. He tries to control the anger (supposedly by keeping it at a steady steam) to control the 'other guy'. Yet, to my view, the hulk doesn't appear because he 'gets angrier' but because Banner's life is in danger. To me, it looks like a defense mechanism. Sure, the hulk gets angry, but anger is a motivating emotion - it allows one to take actions that they might not otherwise take. In this case - fighting for his life. Once Banner sees that, he is able to accept that it happens and learn how to live with it and even use it to help others.
The other Avengers dual-parallel comes in the form of Hawkeye and Romanov. She had been raised in the spy-world (extrapolated from movie dialogue as I've never been comic-book inclined) and taught from child-hood to live for herself and her missions. Morality had nothing to do with it. At least not until Hawkeye gave her a chance, against orders, to try to fix her moral compass. She saw that event as her one chance at redemption and felt a debt beyond imagining to the man who let her future have a different story.
Then Loki comes along spouting the ideal that people shouldn't have minds or wills of their own. It just makes things messy and them unhappy. And he just so happens to have a means to enable such brain-washing, mind-wiping. Hawkeye targeted, all of his previous functions are over-written by Loki's demands and desires. Until Romanov manages to return the favor with 'cognitive re-calibration'. But when Hawkeye is finally coming out of it, he tells her she can't understand where his head is - 'Do you have any idea,' he asks, 'what it's like to have your mind ripped out and replaced with something else?' Her response is simple and the best one that can be given, 'You know I do.'
The truth is, most haven't experienced the terror of someone who has so much control over you that you can't even remember events, motives, thoughts contrary to that someone's dictates. "So it is written, so it is done" being able to over-write who you are, why you are, and what you can and 'should' be.
I have met two people that I can think of who have any experience with this. The first was like a breath of air to my suffocating self. Like me, she had distanced herself from the abuser. She was making the best she could out of what had happened and engaging her future with determination, but she also had a deeper wisdom and understanding of the darknesses hiding within people due to her experiences. I'll tell you what, though - she was an amazing teacher, with an energy and enthusiasm that drew everyone's attention and made everyone feel pulled into a grand embrace of charity and affection.
The other made a cursory effort to 'deal' with what happened but preferred denial to recognizing the parts that led to her abusive relationship. While she might be able to relate and support a fellow rape-victim, she has yet to recognize the patterns inherent among all abuse victims and is self-absorbed enough to not notice such behaviors in the first place. Someday, perhaps she will recognize what we have in common. Someday, perhaps she will stop condemning me for refusing to deny the landmines I try to dance the clueless around for continued friendly relations.
When people hear PTSD mentioned, it is usually referencing war experiences, rape, terrorism, natural disasters, and significant violence episodes. Those are the angles talked on and researched and beginning to reach the public consciousness. I don't need to reinvent that wheel here.
What I do want to do here is clear up some misconceptions I have seen and parallel some examples I have recognized in various stories.
*
First off, some metaphors of how I could possibly have PTSD if I don't fall into the above scenarios.
Consider the phrase, "The straw the broke the camel's back."
There were times when I'd be upset, hurt, distressed over the latest incident, I'd often be rebuffed with, 'What's your problem? My family does stuff like that. It doesn't mean anything.' The event certainly didn't merit my over-reaction, from their point-of-view. It was a simple, measly straw. Nothing to get excited about. Unless you were the camel and the straws were only ever piled on and never relieved by also 'normal' things like love and appreciation and gratitude and help. When you are carrying thousands of straws, every straw adds to the barely bearable weight.
"Chinese" water-torture is also an apt parallel. A single drop of water falling on the forehead of a restrained individual doesn't sound like much, but the repetition, the inevitability, the sensitivity of the location landed, the inability to escape it are all elements of control, manipulation, and breaking a person down.
I didn't have to be beaten or raped. In fact, such actions would have propelled me to denounce the abuser because I would have known his actions were wrong. But mental abuse, emotional abuse, they leave no visible evidence. Only one experienced with the scars would recognize the cognitive/behavioral evidence in the non-psychotic victims. Could one have seen my spirit/soul, however, the image might just make one realize just how devastating such life-long abuse really is.
*
It is an automatic allergic reaction. Allergies are due to 'inappropriate' responses by the body to substances the body should be able to tolerate without adverse reaction. There are allergies of various levels and various causes - sometimes superficial responses, sometimes life (psyche) threatening anaphylactic responses.
It can come from the environment (situations, sounds, sights). It can come from ingested foods (philosophies and ideologies). It can come from safe locations (accidental triggers) or from malicious sources (people who refuse to accept your reality and seek to force/prove otherwise). It can come from sources that previously had never been a problem. Maybe it starts as hay-fever where sneezes short out your attention in a rush or it gets harder to see clearly because sight is obscured or perhaps it is a rash that won't stop itching and makes you jumpy. Or perhaps you are placed in the environment/situation that directly provides the dangerous trigger and it's all you can do to get to safety where you can breathe again.
There are certain things that can help allergies. Ways to try to deprogram the traps and neutralize the mines. Some think it's an easy, perfect remedy. Whether out of good-will or simple impatience, they have trouble comprehending that what took a life-time and specific circumstances to create requires the same to un-create.
Some people imagine that, so long as the events are no longer occurring, there is no cause for current problems because of past events. Just 'move on, already'. Wow. Such thinking betrays a solid lack of understanding of the concept of actions and consequences. It's like condemning a person with an old, 'healed' injury - war wound or sports injury - because the changing pressure systems of incoming weather makes the injury hurt again. It's like saying that because wars are in the past, that any landmines left over should automatically deactivate through wishful thinking.
I knew a guy who showed me a trick he liked to pull on family members and thought to rig the church computers in the same manner. It seems there is some location where basic computer commands can be re-written to effect entirely different results. Some use this to make convenient short-cuts. He used it to tell the computer that whenever someone tried to use the internet, the whole computer would shut down. Having spent many years in written-paper heavy college courses, my dismay was automatic, and apparently unexpected to him. I've lost papers because the computer froze on me when I'd forgotten to save. The thought of doing a quick fact-check online while working on a paper and having that mean I lost all that work because some punk kid thought it would be a funny prank was not funny at all. When I presented that little scenario, he quickly restored the original settings.
PTSD is similar. It is landmines and control traps. It is a form of brain-washing. Pavlov training the dog to stimulus. It is an allergic response. And when the PTSD is from years of repeated and varied abuse, you can't just deprogram for a single function.
*
I've seen that people often consider the dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to be reflections of depression because they suck the happiness out of people. With my background, I see them as reflections of PTSD because they trap people by making them live their nightmares. The worse the nightmare, the stronger their hold. Harry's worst memories were far more concentrated than the average teen that fears social rejection due to acne. Therefore the dementors affect on him was far stronger than those with more docile lives. I found it appropriately telling that while Harry didn't have a 'happy memory' strong enough to combat them, he found the strength in the hope of what could be ahead of him.
The Avengers has a few spots relative to PTSD. When Tony Stark is talking to Bruce Banner about when he first hulked out, he states his belief that the anger and the hulk protected him from death - that the hulk was something positive rather than a monster. Banner could only see it as the monster that takes over, the one preventing him and others from living safe, normal lives. He tries to control the anger (supposedly by keeping it at a steady steam) to control the 'other guy'. Yet, to my view, the hulk doesn't appear because he 'gets angrier' but because Banner's life is in danger. To me, it looks like a defense mechanism. Sure, the hulk gets angry, but anger is a motivating emotion - it allows one to take actions that they might not otherwise take. In this case - fighting for his life. Once Banner sees that, he is able to accept that it happens and learn how to live with it and even use it to help others.
The other Avengers dual-parallel comes in the form of Hawkeye and Romanov. She had been raised in the spy-world (extrapolated from movie dialogue as I've never been comic-book inclined) and taught from child-hood to live for herself and her missions. Morality had nothing to do with it. At least not until Hawkeye gave her a chance, against orders, to try to fix her moral compass. She saw that event as her one chance at redemption and felt a debt beyond imagining to the man who let her future have a different story.
Then Loki comes along spouting the ideal that people shouldn't have minds or wills of their own. It just makes things messy and them unhappy. And he just so happens to have a means to enable such brain-washing, mind-wiping. Hawkeye targeted, all of his previous functions are over-written by Loki's demands and desires. Until Romanov manages to return the favor with 'cognitive re-calibration'. But when Hawkeye is finally coming out of it, he tells her she can't understand where his head is - 'Do you have any idea,' he asks, 'what it's like to have your mind ripped out and replaced with something else?' Her response is simple and the best one that can be given, 'You know I do.'
*
The truth is, most haven't experienced the terror of someone who has so much control over you that you can't even remember events, motives, thoughts contrary to that someone's dictates. "So it is written, so it is done" being able to over-write who you are, why you are, and what you can and 'should' be.
I have met two people that I can think of who have any experience with this. The first was like a breath of air to my suffocating self. Like me, she had distanced herself from the abuser. She was making the best she could out of what had happened and engaging her future with determination, but she also had a deeper wisdom and understanding of the darknesses hiding within people due to her experiences. I'll tell you what, though - she was an amazing teacher, with an energy and enthusiasm that drew everyone's attention and made everyone feel pulled into a grand embrace of charity and affection.
The other made a cursory effort to 'deal' with what happened but preferred denial to recognizing the parts that led to her abusive relationship. While she might be able to relate and support a fellow rape-victim, she has yet to recognize the patterns inherent among all abuse victims and is self-absorbed enough to not notice such behaviors in the first place. Someday, perhaps she will recognize what we have in common. Someday, perhaps she will stop condemning me for refusing to deny the landmines I try to dance the clueless around for continued friendly relations.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
De-stressing and Refreshing the Hope Banks
Between health difficulties and the stress of trying to imagine how to actually manage the upcoming move when I'm doing good to concentrate enough to make a to-do list, let alone remember to work on it, I've been battling discouragement off and on over the past month. General Conference last weekend did much to lift my spirits, but facing a doctor that has apparently never thought to look for more information about my particular health problems kind of put another damper on them. Since my health problems are rather sensitive to stress, when it builds up to these levels, I have to focus on getting them to drop quickly or I'll be facing worse 'crashes' as time goes on. (It has to do with the system that manages autonomic functioning in the body, including the adrenal glands - the more stress, the more likely it'll trigger another function to falter.) It is, therefore, not surprising that upon waking this morning, my attention has been on how to refocus and refresh the 'hope' banks.
While I may not be able to do all that I used to do before the H1N1 vaccine skewed my body's regulator, even accomplishing a few small things is enough to help dispel the hated 'trapped/stuck' feeling. Remembering that my life is my own and I can act and make choices and have a say in where and how it goes is crucial to a sense of well-being. The hardest times of the past were when there was no sense of freedom, no autonomy from the demands of others and no sustaining connections to other humans who actually cared and wanted to be involved in my life because of me rather than because of how it would reflect upon themselves. Being able to say, 'No, I don't like that; I don't want that,' or, 'Yes! I am doing this even if it seems weird to someone else,' allows a person to retain and remember their identity and individuality. It is quite good for the health. Knowing people who sincerely care and love you and who are willing to talk even if it's just for random talking has also proven very helpful in lifting my spirits.
If you've paid any attention to my previous blog-posts, you know that stories are my passion! If I've had a PTSD trigger (yes, I'm admitting it here as one of my trials in life - read the Moriarty post and you'll have a good insight on how some of that came about...) talking about the story(ies) I am or just have consumed is the quickest distraction to help me out of the bad place. Right now, I'm debating between a Danny Kaye movie (laughter is the best medicine, after all) and watching The Avengers again. (It's been a month or so since last time...)
Meditation may or may not prove helpful for me. If the stress is too high, I'll just get caught in a down-spiral. Boyd K. Packer said that sometimes we need to pray and then get up and go about our lives - that extended time 'on our knees', as it were, won't always grant us the answers we are asking for. Rather, pray in faith and go forth with faith and the answer will come in God's own time and God's own way. So long as we are willing to accept the answer that comes, we will recognize that He does answer. This ties in with a pattern I noticed in the scriptures some years back.
Throughout the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, I kept noticing reference to 'prayers of faith'. Truly, praying, asking for help from anyone, really, requires a confidence that help is even available. But then I also began noticing the phrase 'faith in their prayers'. It shows up most distinctly in D&C 10: 47-52 where the Lord speaks of the prayers of those who wrote the Book of Mormon and their confidence that their efforts would have value for the future generations. There was nothing to indicate the records would even survive after they died, yet they acted in faith, kept the records, and prayed in faith, believing their prayers meant something to God. In D&C 10, He shows us that even that secondary faith has value.
I suppose that could translate into my efforts to finish my education after I got sick. Granted, I've been of the idea that the doctors will someday get a clue and I'll be able to function at least as well as I did before getting sick (there are plenty of clues I've had the dysautonomia since being a child but that my body was able to mostly compensate in functioning). As time has passed, however, one could wonder why it was so important for me to fight the sickness and finish my last semester at the university if I'm often left in such a low level of functioning that it doesn't appear to hold much economic value. Is not paying and striving for an education an 'act of faith'? Now, I'm the stubborn type who is trying to find ways to move on even when it's so *growling* difficult to move, so I look at the education as a victory in itself. But you see how the apparent lack of point, value, effect of the endeavor could be a frustration? I readily admit that another recent topic on my mind is sorting itself out in these terms as I type. (I don't actually share everything in my blog - deal with it. ;) )
Getting a fresh perspective, or as we Mormons like to say, 'an eternal perspective', on things often helps whatever feelings of lack or failure or disappointment fade to the background. Often, things take far longer to completely resolve, but when they aren't overwhelming out attention, we are far better able to handle life as it comes. Since I spent so many years feeling trapped, it is logical that I respond the quickest to the things that helped me escape those situations - action and stories. I am a person of faith and it has served me just as well, so I must remember to bring my perspective into balance with the eternal perspective by using the patterns taught by the scriptures and by church leaders. Another might find their relief in running. Or painting. Or yoga. Or cooking. Or working on a car. Or journaling. The point is simply that if we pay attention to our personal patterns of stress and relief, we can actively pursue restored balance. And I much prefer living with a hopeful outlook on life. :)
While I may not be able to do all that I used to do before the H1N1 vaccine skewed my body's regulator, even accomplishing a few small things is enough to help dispel the hated 'trapped/stuck' feeling. Remembering that my life is my own and I can act and make choices and have a say in where and how it goes is crucial to a sense of well-being. The hardest times of the past were when there was no sense of freedom, no autonomy from the demands of others and no sustaining connections to other humans who actually cared and wanted to be involved in my life because of me rather than because of how it would reflect upon themselves. Being able to say, 'No, I don't like that; I don't want that,' or, 'Yes! I am doing this even if it seems weird to someone else,' allows a person to retain and remember their identity and individuality. It is quite good for the health. Knowing people who sincerely care and love you and who are willing to talk even if it's just for random talking has also proven very helpful in lifting my spirits.
If you've paid any attention to my previous blog-posts, you know that stories are my passion! If I've had a PTSD trigger (yes, I'm admitting it here as one of my trials in life - read the Moriarty post and you'll have a good insight on how some of that came about...) talking about the story(ies) I am or just have consumed is the quickest distraction to help me out of the bad place. Right now, I'm debating between a Danny Kaye movie (laughter is the best medicine, after all) and watching The Avengers again. (It's been a month or so since last time...)
Meditation may or may not prove helpful for me. If the stress is too high, I'll just get caught in a down-spiral. Boyd K. Packer said that sometimes we need to pray and then get up and go about our lives - that extended time 'on our knees', as it were, won't always grant us the answers we are asking for. Rather, pray in faith and go forth with faith and the answer will come in God's own time and God's own way. So long as we are willing to accept the answer that comes, we will recognize that He does answer. This ties in with a pattern I noticed in the scriptures some years back.
Throughout the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, I kept noticing reference to 'prayers of faith'. Truly, praying, asking for help from anyone, really, requires a confidence that help is even available. But then I also began noticing the phrase 'faith in their prayers'. It shows up most distinctly in D&C 10: 47-52 where the Lord speaks of the prayers of those who wrote the Book of Mormon and their confidence that their efforts would have value for the future generations. There was nothing to indicate the records would even survive after they died, yet they acted in faith, kept the records, and prayed in faith, believing their prayers meant something to God. In D&C 10, He shows us that even that secondary faith has value.
I suppose that could translate into my efforts to finish my education after I got sick. Granted, I've been of the idea that the doctors will someday get a clue and I'll be able to function at least as well as I did before getting sick (there are plenty of clues I've had the dysautonomia since being a child but that my body was able to mostly compensate in functioning). As time has passed, however, one could wonder why it was so important for me to fight the sickness and finish my last semester at the university if I'm often left in such a low level of functioning that it doesn't appear to hold much economic value. Is not paying and striving for an education an 'act of faith'? Now, I'm the stubborn type who is trying to find ways to move on even when it's so *growling* difficult to move, so I look at the education as a victory in itself. But you see how the apparent lack of point, value, effect of the endeavor could be a frustration? I readily admit that another recent topic on my mind is sorting itself out in these terms as I type. (I don't actually share everything in my blog - deal with it. ;) )
Getting a fresh perspective, or as we Mormons like to say, 'an eternal perspective', on things often helps whatever feelings of lack or failure or disappointment fade to the background. Often, things take far longer to completely resolve, but when they aren't overwhelming out attention, we are far better able to handle life as it comes. Since I spent so many years feeling trapped, it is logical that I respond the quickest to the things that helped me escape those situations - action and stories. I am a person of faith and it has served me just as well, so I must remember to bring my perspective into balance with the eternal perspective by using the patterns taught by the scriptures and by church leaders. Another might find their relief in running. Or painting. Or yoga. Or cooking. Or working on a car. Or journaling. The point is simply that if we pay attention to our personal patterns of stress and relief, we can actively pursue restored balance. And I much prefer living with a hopeful outlook on life. :)
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