Author Archives: A Year in the Life of PTSD

Being available

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This week I am on vacation at a writing workshop. I came to this workshop because I learned this particular writing technique in the past, and it served my writing well. I want to get back in the saddle of doing it regularly. Unfortunately, I think I discovered why this technique is such an issue for me.

The technique is relatively straight-forward, and I’m going to over simplify it here for the sake of explanation. Number your paper from 1-25 first. Then you meditate for at least two minutes. You take a topic, any topic really, but in my case it was churches, and you start listing images that come to you from age 6 to the present day, one image per line. You have 7 minutes to do your listing. My head immediately began to hurt as I started this exercise. I felt a flood of peeps and selves start to tweak out simultaneously. I fought it because I wanted to do the exercise, and the more I fought it the more tired and floaty I became. The room started to take on a haze for me.

“By meditating you are making yourself available to the images. The memories are there, and they will come if you make yourself available to them.” This was one of the takeaways from the exercise.

I’m struck by what she said because it was very similar to what Doc often tells me about being open to the extrinsic memories when odd things happen to me that make no immediate sense.

It looks like the universe is sending me a message, be available to the memories. I’m afraid to know what lies ahead.

It all adds up

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The Fourth of July was tough. However, I survived it. The day after The Fourth I became aware of the people that are in my life. The previous day I couldn’t see any of this. I could hardly see any light at all. But then I started hearing from various people in my life that I overlooked in the midst of my challenging day.

I had a couple of texts from a friend checking in on me telling me that she loved me, and was thinking of me. I got teary just reading the text. Then I heard from an old friend, and we talked on the phone for a bit. There was another friend that was emailing with me while he was on vacation just to stay in touch with me because he knew I was struggling. Those experiences got me thinking of the people who reach out in small ways: the random person at an AA meeting that spoke to me, a coworker who wished me well on my vacation, etc. I realized and finally felt that I was not alone in this life, that there are people that care about me.

It’s important for me to have this realization because in my darkest moments I convince myself that I do not matter to anyone in this life, and that my life is hardly worth living.

Just know that when you reach out to someone, no matter how small, it all adds up to getting that person to feeling like they matter in this world.

Everything we do adds up.

This day is not going to break me … I hope …

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For some mysterious reason the week of the Fourth of July has historically been hard for me, and I have no idea why. I know in the past that I drank heavily on this day, but I don’t think that’s why the day is hard. I drank to get through it because it was hard. The difficulty of it is still a mystery to me.

In the wake of a stressful two weeks at work I knew that the dreaded Fourth of July was in my sights, but I had to focus on getting through the work stuff. Then it hit me yesterday that the stupid holiday was upon me. And what makes it particularly hard is that my usual supports are gone. Friends have come and gone. I do have some friends, but I don’t push the closeness. These days I am largely on my own, truly starting over. Plus, this week both Doc and my therapist are on vacation.

I’ve written here about my struggles in AA, and being a consistent presence in The Rooms, as we call them. I knew that I needed to get to some meetings today if I was going to get through this day.

Meeting 1 occurred at noon, and it was a very large meeting. I amazed myself by raising my hand to share, but I was never called on, likely due to the very large group. I actually felt okay at the meeting, even in spite of the fact that it was a bit hot in there without air conditioning.

Meeting 2 occurred at 4:30, and it was a very small group of us, no more than 8 of us. I was grateful for the meeting as this really is one of the worst days for me. I shared in the meeting, and embarrassed myself by crying. There was one woman who recognized me from a meeting I used to attend, and she talked to me afterwards. The meeting was a source of comfort, so much so that I did not want to leave. Just an hour earlier I could barely get out of my car to go inside, and now I could hardly open my car door to leave.

Then there was a third meeting. Yes, this is a record for me in most meetings in a day. This meeting occurred in a place with some weird security. It was not easy to get into this meeting. I’ll leave it at that. I walked in, and I only saw men. I immediately looked at the group listing on my phone to make sure I was not at a men’s only meeting, but no, it was a general meeting. It was not necessarily a remarkable meeting, but I didn’t mind as I’m just glad it was there.

And that was my Fourth of July, meeting after meeting after meeting in order to stay kind of sane. I just heard a newscaster say, “It’s a bummer that the holiday is over.” I beg to differ. I want real life with all it’s monotony and routine to come back posthaste.