{"id":5450,"date":"2017-03-19T14:34:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T18:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5450"},"modified":"2017-03-19T14:34:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T18:34:08","slug":"full-of-wounds-and-still-on-my-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5450","title":{"rendered":"Full of Wounds and Still on my Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning, whenever I stop writing, I\u2019m in a place of emptiness.\u00a0 I feel like I have absolutely nothing to write about.\u00a0 I suppose I could see it as the creative void instead of being scared of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s basically the same as meditation.\u00a0 Why am I scared of it?\u00a0 It makes me feel insubstantial, like I\u2019m not really here.\u00a0 I think Krista Tippett<\/a> says something about that, maybe even in the conversation with Bessel van der Kolk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van der Kolk \u201cThe big issue for traumatized people is they don\u2019t own themselves any more.\u00a0 Any loud sound, anybody insulting them, hurting them, saying bad things, can hijack them away from themselves.\u00a0 And so what we have learned is that what makes you resilient to trauma is to own yourself fully.\u201d p88<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What I see is that what brings me down, what \u201chijacks\u201d me, is not just someone insulting me.\u00a0 I was thinking that I was getting there (wherever \u201cthere\u201d is) when I saw that what I was sad about were things happening out there, and it wasn\u2019t about me the way depression is.\u00a0 But now I\u2019m seeing that I got hijacked by \u201cHillbilly Elegy<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 I am seeing that, as in my childhood, I still feel that it\u2019s my fault when anything bad happens, and it\u2019s me alone who has to take care of it.\u00a0 I can see that the hillbilly book hijacked me because it looks like a difficulty, a culturally engrained group of dysfunctional behaviors, that no \u201cprogram\u201d can help, and I don\u2019t see anybody who is helping, and that makes me feel like I\u2019m supposed to do it, but I can\u2019t, and so I feel bummed out, helpless, and discouraged.<\/p>\n

Bren\u00e9 Brown said something like \u201cremember a time when you thought the obstacles were bigger than you could succeed against, but you managed to.\u201d\u00a0 Going back to the quote I see that it was \u201ccoming out from underneath things I didn\u2019t know I could get out from underneath.\u201d\u00a0 p251\u00a0 I\u2019m interested to see that I seem to see evidence for me being some kind of weakling, unable to beat the odds, instead of seeing that she was talking about surviving things you didn\u2019t think you could survive.\u00a0 Instead of seeing that I actually survived, I see myself getting defeated and running away over and over again.\u00a0 Actually I made most of those \u201crunning away\u201d decisions \u2014 like going to Europe the year after I graduated from college, going out to California a couple of years later, coming back East \u2014 those decisions were made out of desperation.\u00a0 I wanted to find someone who would love me, and I wanted to find some way I could make a livable life for myself.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m remembering, but can\u2019t find the original, had something to do with identifying your strengths that you were able to get through something you didn\u2019t feel you could get through.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t think of a time when I had done that.\u00a0 What I remember is what Kazantzakis<\/a> said \u201cDid I win or lose?\u00a0 All I know is I am full of wounds and still on my feet.\u201d\u00a0 I do know that the many times I collapsed and \u201cgave up,\u201d something in me, usually a day later, got me up on my feet again.\u00a0 I call her the tough little drip that just wouldn\u2019t quit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I remember when I used to see how I got through my life as though I were walking through a blizzard.\u00a0 Somewhere somehow I knew that I couldn\u2019t lay down, though I had forgotten why.\u00a0 I said to myself \u201cNow put your right foot forward, now put your left foot forward…\u201d\u00a0 I remember watering the plants when I was terrified out of my wits by a bad reaction to Paxil<\/a>, and holding on to the stream of water because I had to hold on to something and that\u2019s all there was.<\/p>\n

What Bren\u00e9 Brown actually said was \u201cThink of the last time you did something that you thought was really brave.\u201d p248\u00a0 I do things I don\u2019t think are brave, just make myself do them, and then other people tell me I\u2019m brave.\u00a0 People tell me that those decisions I made out of desperation were courageous.<\/p>\n

Bren\u00e9 Brown:\u00a0 \u201cC.R. Snyder\u2019s work … shows that hope is a function of struggle. … hope is not an emotion.\u00a0 Hope is a cognitive, behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity, when we have relationships that are trustworthy, when people have faith in our ability to get out of a jam.\u201d p250<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m interested that she doesn\u2019t say you<\/span> have the faith in your ability, it\u2019s when others can see it.\u00a0 Your belief in yourself is relational.<\/p>\n

As I write this, I see that when I saw myself as defeated over and over again, the truth was that I was up against PTSD, a truly huge and undefeatable monster.\u00a0 To be still on my feet is an achievement.<\/p>\n

I remember a quote from Rilke<\/a> that David Whyte reads:<\/p>\n

Winning does not tempt that man.
\nThis is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
\nby constantly greater beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All the quotes, except the one from Kazantzakis (which I’ve memorized), are from Krista Tippett’s new book: Becoming Wise, an inquiry into the mystery and art of living.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, whenever I stop writing, I\u2019m in a place of emptiness.\u00a0 I feel like I have absolutely nothing to write about.\u00a0 I suppose I could see it as the creative void instead of being scared of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s basically … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-present-day","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}