Adventures In My Mind via Google Maps

Goldenrod Crab Spider eating a wasp.

This blog is about turning my life around. Dealing with trauma is part of that, but learning how to deal with the after affects of trauma is what is most important to the overall process. That being said, I seem to be experiencing a kind of 'dance with imminent disaster' every single day. What I've come to realize, is that that dance is what keeps me in balance with the needs of my body, mind, and spirit.

For instance, I got sick right after my classes ended for the summer. While I was sad about having to stay home, I think there was some other purpose for me staying home. For one thing it forced me to rest. It forced me to think. The resting made it possible for me to really dive deep into some of my repressed memories and emotions (which came up over the semester), which has led to some deep healing.

Repression

The way that repressed memories and the relating emotions that are triggered and released work is mind-boggling. Music, for instance, can connect us to different times, experiences and even trauma. The song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler, was a song that helped me through a difficult time in my life that felt like I was experiencing a total eclipse of my heart. My grandmother died, and when I went to tell my fiancé, I found out he had left town. The song really emulates the feelings of that time in my life.

L-R: Me, my mom, my brother

So anyway, I've been going through some repressed stuff. So much static emotion is trapped inside of me. That can't be healthy. That is the second time this week that something has triggered an avalanche of memories to surface.

Triggers

The other involved a trip I took with my family when I was about three. The way that things get triggered is important to note for those dealing with repression. For me, this was a long and winding road.

Step 1: I watched a video of someone hiking in Vermont. They climbed what appeared to be a mountain and I was like, a mountain so close to where I live?! Amazing! So I googled it.

Step 2: On the map I saw a place called Storyland. I was like-- oh, cool!

Step 3: I clicked on it (I love google maps) and saw The Old Lady Who Lived in the Shoe exhibit and I was like -- I've seen that before! I clicked on other exhibits and recognized them, too.

Step 4: I began to 'remember' going on a trip to Vermont when I was around three years old.

I have never consciously remembered that trip, though there have always been photographs of it. But now I began to piece the trip together even though I couldn't yet consciously remember. It was like coming out of a dark cave into a thick fog. Sometimes it's not even actual memories, but just associations and feelings.

I also remembered times where I was triggered by things people did or said in my adult life that were associated with this trip/memory. For example, the time I was working with an older man who imitated Yogi Bear and called me Boo Boo. I got so mad at him! He was like, "what did I do?" Afterward I wondered the same thing. Poor guy. He was just being nice. The truth is, I still don't know what happened or why I was triggered because the actual memory is still locked away.

What I did find out from touring around the area (on google maps) was that there was a place called Yogi Bear's Jelly Stone Park, complete with costumed figures of Yogi and Boo Boo. I feel like this is the unravelling of my life, but that it is actually being pieced together, AND that it is going to set me free of another level of trauma.

L-R: brother, dad, me, beautiful Vermont

We all have our trauma stuff. Each and every person has some level of trauma. What I have learned is that we each deal with our trauma in ways that are unique to ourselves, our experiences, our environments, whether we had supportive parents/family, and on and on. My trauma affected me in very unique ways. How about you? Do you have trauma that is unresolved? I guess we all do!

Think about what you are holding onto. Is it using up valuable energy? You can set yourself free, you know. (Do consult a qualified therapist, however.)

Take care of you today.

Sincerely,

Faith

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

Clutter Daze

I am convinced that the clutter in my house is a reflection of the clutter in my body, mind, and soul---caused by trauma. The picture below is my basement, circa 2005. That year there was a flood. A torrential rainstorm flowed over the edge of the flat roof of my condo, poured down the front of my building, and flowed into the basement window, which was open. Here I am doing some repairs in what looks like a hazmat suit, but was really just to keep the sawdust off. It would come in handy now, with the pandemic.

Prior to the flood the room was usable space. There were two desks, carpet, etc. It's where we used our computer. Do you remember those big computers that took ages to boot up, had a big hard drive that sat on the floor, and took half an hour to upload a video? THAT kind of computer. I don't have any pictures of the room, because they are probably on that computer...which is dead.

This room has evolved. It went from usable space, to flooded place, to strip-

ped down to the studs place (see photo to right, where the room is half finished), to renovation space, to space where items collect when they are not being used, to space where items are crammed when not in use and where endless attempts at sorting through the collected things has resulted in numerous piles, bags, sorting systems, and disarray.

The rest of the house is equally problematic. I have been in school for some time and made some half-hearted attempts to tame the clutter, mostly in attempts to create more usable space. Now, however, my goal is different. Now I want to downsize---go minimalist. It has occurred to me that I need very little to live, yet I have so much stuff!

A little gallery of the current state of things....

I appear to be a hoarder from these photos, but I really want to change that.

Stay tuned for some attempts at downsizing, which is and will be impacted by the pandemic we find ourselves living through at this time. I am hesitant to donate, give away, or thrown away much, so I'll be storing things in and around the house until I can actually get rid of it.

This blog will be my partner, my accountability, my barometer, my record of my success -- or failure. Join me! Hope you are having a great day.

Faith