Storms

Through the thorny thicket of anxiety I exist within, I can sense something beyond it, something safer than the world I imagine… possibly even something secure.

There’s got to be a reason, or many reasons, why I am so vastly different than the person I was six months or a year ago. If I had to list the things I believe have helped me in my recovery, I would have to say:

1. I accepted that I fucking overthink everything. Literally everything within my head is exaggerated: what other people think of me, how bad my mistakes really are, how little I am worth… just coming to that realization was probably half the battle.
2. My amazing therapist Dawn Brown, whom I’ve been meeting with online for over a year: We have never even met in person, but she has done more for my well being than any of the dozen or so counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists I have seen over the last 26 years.
3. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
4. Healing Trauma by Peter Levine.
5. The Crappy Childhood Fairy

Because of all of these things combined, I have started to see the manifestations of past traumas as represented in my body. All of these experts will tell you that CPTSD is highly connected to sensations in the body. That tightness in my chest is the extreme anxiety, fearing all other people and nearly every single situation that might occur throughout the day. It’s like all of the muscles remain contracted in such a way as to prevent the person from being hurt again. It’s like the inside of your body becomes armor around your severed and broken heart. I mean, I have pain that is just too big for me to feel. So I hold that back, I hold it in, because I’m afraid of what will happen if I really let myself feel that.

But, little by little, I have begun to ease it out of my body with the guidance and techniques found in the above sources.

The routine I have found that seems to be working magic is adapted from The Crappy Childhood Fairy’s technique.

1. I write down my fears and resentments and I write down my intention to release them.
2. I meditate for whatever small increment I feel I can handle at that particular time, sometimes five minutes, sometimes fifteen.
3. I do the same yoga stretches:
   1. Child Pose.
   2. Cat Pose.
   3. A kind of sitting up on your knees and arching your back backwards while pushing out your chest pose. I don’t know what it’s called, but it does help me relieve some of the pressure in there, and I can usually feel a relieving popping sensation.
   4. Downward Dog.
   5. Sun Salutations.

Just those few poses, done slowly, has eased a lot of built-up tension. And after that, I usually take a shower and try to meditate while in the shower doing mindless washing and shaving. I usually think the words ‘simple’, ‘release’, or my favorite ‘easy’. Then I try to dress in a way that actually reflects my personality and makes me feel better about being seen in public. I’m getting regular massages, and I lie on a tennis ball in bed to ease incredibly tight and sore pressure points. I’m taking better care of my house, health, and finances. I am taking better care of myself… it’s almost as if I am developing self-esteem.

I had some when I was living 12 hours away from my mother, and was earning enough money to take care of myself. But then I went and self-sabotaged the hell out of myself.

Now that I have put five years between my mother and I, I think it’s having  a similar, but much more intensely positive effect. This time… I have truly prepared myself to never see her again if I didn’t want to. I was having nightmares where people were forcing me to see her. My chest is tightening now and my heart is beating faster as I write about it… because my mother terrifies me that fucking much. She controlled me, even when she wasn’t around. She shaped me into someone she could shame in order to make herself feel better. She never truly wanted me to succeed. And she was too fucking smart and manipulative to let anyone else see that side of her. Everything she did was deniable.

I am getting better because I have finally learned that I am my own human being and no one can make me do a fucking thing that I don’t want to do, and no one can stop me from doing what I really want to do… this is my life.

This post inspired by Storms by Fleetwood Mac.