The Trauma Trap

I've started writing about my trauma. It is so cathartic, I can't understand why I did not do it before. I mean I did do some stuff before, while I was in therapy, but it was weird and I'm a bit ashamed of it. Or am I embarrassed? Both. I'll have to look through the big box of journals in the basement, buried under cat bedding and discarded reenactment costumes. Maybe burn them. I don't know--because I don't remember what's in them or writing them.

I just finished writing another section in my trauma journal/memoirs. Again. SO CATHARTIC. Here's an excerpt. This part I wrote about PTSD and how it makes me feel. Here it is:

My ears are ringing so loudly now. I have triggered myself, undoubtedly. The ringing, which is deafening, is like a warning buzzer, or more like an air-raid siren. It lets me know – ‘hey, there’s some deep, darkness, dripping from the inner crevices and corners of your subconscious that you have buried for fifty or so years, which now will bubble and pop to the surface over the next days, or weeks, or months, or even years and years’ disrupting your life and making certain things impossible. That’s my PTSD. That’s how I experience it. I have had the crazy flashbacks. The one that made me go on medical leave from my job, where I ran out into a field because I suddenly smelled pipe smoke while sitting at my desk and then went into a full-fledged panic and ran, headlong, out of the building and into the tall sharp grass to the west of my work building, which was in the country. Those ones were very scary. I ruined pots because I would forget about them on the stove. Lost my job. Lost myself. It changed me, remembering. And there was a lot to remember. I became a new person – born again. I lost my mask. I wore the ugly bruised face for the whole world to see. I became apart from society. Society did not want my trauma. Society needed me to be fully functioning, working. Working. Operational. Able. Able bodied? No. Able minded. But I wasn’t anymore. Now I was broken. Split. There was the before and the now. The now became the then and everything else was just the past. What I remember now is the past, but what I am learning is that the past is who I am even if I don’t remember it. And I don’t remember a whole lot. I can no more separate myself from the trauma than I can separate myself from myself. It is who I am. What made me who I am. Phew. That’s big. Huge. Gigantic! In the end, however, I survived. Therefore, I am a survivor. Also, even if I remember what happened in the past, if I don’t feel the emotions associated with those things, did they really happen to me. Are they suspended in time and space somehow, in my psyche, waiting to be triggered into full blown feelings—while I’m at work sitting at my desk? Like the funerals, where I did not cry. I could not mourn. I did not feel. Now I will cry a bit, again, and then I will shower and get on with my day because it’s a pandemic and I have to pick up groceries.

Trauma has it's strangle holds.

Trauma:

a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

Trauma is the biggest piece of business I need to manage if I'm going to change my life. It's a tough one, because it is me, but it is also limiting my life so much, that I barely live.

Take care,

Faith

Give Me Freedom...Give me Safety...Give me Debt!

Someone came up to me in the grocery store and asked if I had any credit, and I said, "No, no one will give me credit because I am disabled." That was actually true for many years, and then suddenly it wasn't. The man with the clipboard said he could offer me a credit card and he did. Suddenly I had $2,000 dollars at my disposal. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS!!

I remember that feeling. The feeling of freedom and safety I felt when I walked out of the store with a $2,000 credit card in the mail. I was in partial disbelief. When it came in the mail, I thought I wouldn't be able to activate it. When I used it for the first time, I thought it wouldn't be approved. When it worked, I actually felt lucky. I felt safe. It was a trick. I was not lucky.

My daughter's first riding lessons. She was SO happy! They went on trail rides and everything.

I was quite smart about it, though, and saved the credit card as a kind of emergency fund. With no debt I was doing okay. I had just enough, and a little extra for things like horseback riding lessons for my daughter. I know. It was amazing. I miss those days....and these smiles! I guess we were lucky because we could afford the horseback riding lessons, and because we had family that sent us gifts of money at Christmas and Birthdays. That money was not included in my budget, and so extra money we could use to do stuff. With no debt it was easy to use the money for what we wanted to use the money for. Horseback riding lessons was my daughters dream and I was able to fulfill it in that way. That changed with the debt though. The debt stole that dream. (so did my poor choices, but who is splitting hairs here, not me.)

Soon after getting the card, one of our cats got sick. He had crystals in his bladder and couldn't pee. It was an emergency. We took him to the vet and they kept him overnight and treated him in a variety of ways including giving him a catheter, surgery, x-rays, etc.

The x-ray of Sammy's bladder with crystals in it.

The bill was pricey, but our baby was worth it. Look at that face! I had the credit card and used it, and it took the whole balance to pay the bill, but - phew - I did that. I took him to the vet, got him treatment. It felt good! We brought him home.

His first pee!

This was the first pee he did after coming home; I was thrilled! Also, it was heart shaped so I had to take a photo (is that weird?).

I truly believed he would be okay. The vet gave us special food, he seemed okay, we were all happy. He was healed.

BUT that didn't last long. The treatment didn't work long term, and one morning I came downstairs and found him. Dead. He died alone in the basement, straining to pee. It was awful. We had him cremated. We mourned and moved on. The $2,000 debt, however --- multiplied.

RIP Sammy

The trauma of our Sammy's death started my debt binge. Soon after, I got another card, and another (and another and another and another and another and another -- 7 total). One card just kept increasing my limit every-time I asked, until it reached over $15,000! It was a whole thing. At first it felt like freedom. I felt safe; I could pay for unforeseen expenses like Sammy's illness.

After raising my daughter on my own as a single unwed mom who was disabled, and living on a very limited income, counting every single penny (literally) for over a decade--- it was freedom, and it made me feel safe. Having that extra money meant I could do little things that I could not do before. Simple things like going to the movies or even buying expensive fruits or going to the zoo were little luxuries to us that we could now do whenever we wanted! They probably seem like little things to most people, but to us they were amazing! It's hard to explain really.

After: 5 years of being single disabled mom.

For the longest time, those little things did not fit into my tiny budget. When I asked my daughter about this time (she is 25 years old now) she said that we "were able to live a normal life like everyone else. We bought food." She was pretty pissed about it. It gave us the ability to live without worry, fear, or malnourishment. Compare the pictures of me one year into being a single disabled mom vs. five years in. What's the difference? No fancy expensive hair cut. No eating out, or just buying whatever food I wanted. I had been on a special diet for health reasons, which I abandoned. Second hand clothing. Couldn't afford makeup anymore. We did a lot of hiking, but I usually did much more exercise. Also, just that feeling of being separate from the middle-class; on the fringes of society. I'm not sure what it was, but the feeling is a lack of confidence I guess. When my daughter was 9 I also got thyroid cancer. Now I'm just rambling. Sorry. Back to my post.

Before: My daughter's first birthday party.

The freedom the credit gave me didn't last long, and hundreds of little things turned into thousands of dollars of credit card debt. Once the cards were maxed out, all that was left was interest payments. Do you know how much the interest on $15,000 dollars is?!?! I had no idea, because in the past I always had an income, and didn't even notice. Eventually, it wasn't actually freedom or safety I felt. I actually lost my freedom, and became a slave to debt.

Then I went back to school and got student loans. Those added up quick and continue to accrue. Then my car broke down, and for about a year and a half we took the bus, renting cars occasionally when we needed to. Then we bought a car. Well, we didn't buy it. We got a loan. The car still isn't ours and won't be until...ummm...2023? A large portion of that loan is also interest, which I didn't realize. So it takes a loooong time to pay it off.

Without debt we made ends meet, as I mentioned earlier. But once the cards were maxed out, I was no longer able to make ends meet ~~ without the debt. A Catch22 and a Pandora's Box. The interest adds up. While it felt like free money, it certainly was not. Duh. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. Anyhow--I pay my debts, and I intend to pay these. But for now I am struggling. A large portion of my income goes to paying just pure interest. Ugh. I'm not sure how it all works out, but somehow it does.

What I really need to do is turn this around. I'm going to use this blog to find solutions to this problem, and bring you along for the ride. No problem is without a solution. I know I can fix this, and I fully intend to do so. Join me!

Take care,

Faith

The Journey to Health

I started a journalism program a few years ago as a mature student. At orientation I was asked what I wanted to do with my journalism degree, and I responded that I wanted to be a travel blogger. That was my original dream.

Things have changed a great deal since then. Now, I find myself quite often feeling frustrated and confused about the future. When I went back to school, I had hope and a dream. Now, however, there are only roadblocks and dead ends.

Through this blog I will try to correct some of the issues that hindered my course in life...not just currently, but historically too. This involves health issues, but also traumatic events in the past. I will try my best to turn things around and heal. I'll be using this blog as a source of accountability, and also as a way to remember and/or keep in mind my goals--and share my successes and methods.

I hope you will join me as embark on my journey to a healthy balance in life.

Take care.

Faith