{"id":5544,"date":"2017-07-09T13:59:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T17:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5544"},"modified":"2018-12-16T09:33:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T14:33:10","slug":"ptsd-and-dharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5544","title":{"rendered":"PTSD and Dharma?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m very grateful that I\u2019ve been reading Stephen Cope\u2019s book The Great Work of Your Life<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read it before, but this time many things spoke to me in a very personal way. I\u2019m wondering about looking at my struggle with PTSD as my dharma, as a learning to work with, not a battle to the death.\u00a0 In the last chapter he talks about Harriet Tubman and Gandhi, how they asked for guidance, listened for the answer, did what they were told.\u00a0 Put their lives in service to some good for everyone.<\/p>\n

Cope says \u201cIf you don\u2019t find your work in the world, you will inevitably make yourself your work<\/i>.\u201d p244\u00a0 Is that what I\u2019m doing with my hard work in therapy?\u00a0 I think about Journey Into Courage<\/a>, how I saw myself as a voice for the voiceless.\u00a0 Seeing the video of Journey I was reminded that I was guided to it when I talked about wanting to make guerrilla theater about domestic violence.\u00a0 When I realized I couldn\u2019t do it by myself, I said to God \u201cIf you want this to happen, I can\u2019t do it, so you have to make it happen.\u201d\u00a0 Almost the words of Harriet Tubman.\u00a0 Then Lynelle saw a poster for a \u201cDrama class for survivors of domestic violence\u201d and I went eagerly.\u00a0 This was Bess O\u2019Brien<\/a>\u2019s way of starting to create a theater piece about domestic violence, which became Journey Into Courage.\u00a0 When the movie had been made and we were no longer doing performances, I dropped into a serious depression.\u00a0 I was guided to get on medication, and then Lynelle got me to try Somatic Experiencing<\/a>, and I discovered that I was, in truth, suffering from PTSD.\u00a0 I was guided to Erica, and the work with her seemed to reach the foundations.\u00a0 Does in fact work at the foundations, but it\u2019s harder and more painful than I ever imagined.\u00a0 I guess I could say that I was guided to \u201cKindred Spirits<\/a>\u201d by Erica being away for three weeks and what Jack said about people in AA telling the truth.\u00a0 When I got there, I found out what it was like to feel like I was OK just as I am.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to hide my defects, and I didn\u2019t have to hide my gifts.\u00a0 That is my goal.\u00a0 Not fame or fortune, but to feel OK just as I am.<\/p>\n

In my life here in Franconia I\u2019ve discovered that I simply don\u2019t have enough support to be OK just as I am, and as a result I\u2019m unable to share my gifts with people who would benefit.\u00a0 Kendal was, in many ways, a good solution.\u00a0 Moving to Kendal means that I will have enough support to begin to share my gifts with other people in a way I can\u2019t do here.\u00a0 I could teach astronomy, teach circle dance, facilitate writing groups around grief, writing for recovery, writing for healing.\u00a0 But in moving I have to abandon my dear friend of thirty years.\u00a0 Eleanor has been living in the apartment attached to my house, but if I move she won\u2019t be able to live there any more.\u00a0 She\u2019s on disability and has a housing voucher, so moving, especially if she has to move to another state, is full of difficulty and risk.\u00a0 She has enough stress in her life, aging abusive parents, many health problems along with PTSD, a therapist who isn\u2019t really helping her, etc.\u00a0 I feel terrible about letting her down, and it also triggers early trauma about having to take care of my younger siblings, and not having my needs acknowledged.<\/p>\n

This conflict\/crisis has caused me enormous pain and mental\/emotional confusion so that I have made serious mistakes in relationships with people who matter to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m very grateful that I\u2019ve been reading Stephen Cope\u2019s book The Great Work of Your Life.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read it before, but this time many things spoke to me in a very personal way. I\u2019m wondering about looking at my struggle … 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":[9,11,14,4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-present-day","category-spirit","category-trauma","category-vocation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5544","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=5544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}