Written yesterday
\nHard to get out of bed.\u00a0 Feeling \u2014 not exactly depressed \u2014 but some sense of no future, or of getting through the day being a chore.\u00a0 Lonely?\u00a0 I know I didn\u2019t feel like this at Dance Camp.\u00a0 I really need to connect with someone I love.\u00a0 There are people I could call and I\u2019ll see Cory for lunch today.
\nO gosh.\u00a0 I feel tired and demoralized.\u00a0 I have no energy for the projects I\u2019d like to work on.\u00a0 I really want to just lie down and give up.\u00a0\u00a0 and die?\u00a0 that\u2019s not what I want.\u00a0 If it could be any way at all?\u00a0 I\u2019d really like to know that breakfast will be waiting in the Community Hall, and there will be friends to greet.\u00a0 And then either I\u2019ll join in a community project or do one of my own, until lunch.\u00a0 And if I wanted to dance, I could do it, with or without other people.\u00a0 And when my morale was low, I could talk to a friend, or go meditate in a chapel.<\/p>\n
I called Lynelle and asked for a hug before she left for the day.\u00a0 She came and\u00a0 I talked about how I\u2019m feeling, waves of discouragement, everything I think of doing feels like an impossible chore, I just want to lie down and quit.\u00a0 She said \u201cThis is the core of trauma.\u201d\u00a0 She said she\u2019d just read it in Peter Levine.\u00a0 She brought me the book.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In an Unspoken Voice by Peter Levine<\/a>, p 49
\n\u201cIn freezing, your muscles stiffen against a mortal blow, and you feel \u2018scared stiff.\u2019\u00a0 On the other hand, when you experience death as being unequivocally imminent\u00a0 …\u00a0 your muscles collapse as though they have lost all their energy.\u00a0 In this \u2018default\u2019 reaction (when it has become chronic, as it does in trauma) you feel that you are in a state of helpless resignation and lack the energy to fuel your life and move forward.\u00a0 This collapse, defeat and loss of the will to live are at the very core of deep trauma.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nFriday
\nA little easier getting up today.\u00a0 Lynelle was a big help.\u00a0 Just understanding that my discouragement was not me being morally weak, but the last stage of trauma that happens when you expect death.\u00a0 I remember describing the collapse to Karen, like one of those toys on a platform.\u00a0 You push the button underneath and the whole thing collapses.\u00a0 I saw that I was being triggered, and at that time I had started doing S.E. but I was not yet convinced that I was dealing with PTSD and didn\u2019t have any understanding of the process.\u00a0 I also remember seeing how easily I went from reading one of R\u2019s invalidating letters to wanting to die.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t find any cognitive connection, so I made up a phrase \u201cworthless-and-rotten-and-should-be-dead.\u201d\u00a0 I thought, because it was so all of a piece (that\u2019s what the hyphens are for), not reasoned from step to step, not describable in words, that it must be something from infancy.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really understand that it was one of the stages of trauma, and was determined by the physiology of trauma, had nothing to do with the mind or the will.\u00a0 Writing it out, I see that I have never understood that those collapses were determined by trauma.\u00a0 Every time, in some subtle way, I thought they were something I could overcome by will power.\u00a0 So I always saw them as me being morally weak and\/or wrong.
\nThe collapse happens to me, I do not choose it.\u00a0 But I thought I had a choice to pull myself out of it.\u00a0 Many times I\u2019ve bullied myself through it \u2014 sometimes it turns out that if I get up and move my body, I do come out of it.\u00a0 Especially if all I have to do is make breakfast, or wash the dishes \u2014 something where I have an established routine and don\u2019t have to make choices.\u00a0 Other times I\u2019m simply unable to do anything.\u00a0 I look down the list of things I \u201cshould\u201d do and things I want to do (or did when I wrote them) and feel no motivation at all.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned at these times to treat myself as a convalescent.\u00a0 I play Solitaire on the computer (it\u2019s one activity where I can actually get a sense of having completed something successfully) I read or type journal.\u00a0 Sometimes I even curl up under a blanket and listen to a comforting tape.\u00a0 Writing this out, and coming to a better understanding of the degree of paralysis, I can bring more compassion to myself when I\u2019m in the collapsed phase.
\nYesterday morning was hard.\u00a0 I could not possibly have gone over to Neskaya in such a vulnerable state.\u00a0 I thought I would type up what I wrote yesterday and expand it into a blog post, but I simply couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t exactly angry with myself but I wasn\u2019t able to be compassionate or comforting.\u00a0 Though I think seeing what I was feeling written out in Levine\u2019s book, I was able to stop pushing myself.\u00a0 Also I would be having lunch with a friend and knew that would help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written yesterday Hard to get out of bed.\u00a0 Feeling \u2014 not exactly depressed \u2014 but some sense of no future, or of getting through the day being a chore.\u00a0 Lonely?\u00a0 I know I didn\u2019t feel like this at Dance Camp.\u00a0 … Continue reading