{"id":6853,"date":"2020-11-19T09:45:07","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T14:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6853"},"modified":"2020-11-19T09:45:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T14:45:07","slug":"losing-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6853","title":{"rendered":"Losing Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been losing ground since I first stopped changing the hangings at Neskaya eight times a year, for the holidays of the Ancient Nature Religion<\/a> of Western Europe. \u00a0I didn’t even notice when that began to happen, I guess I was focussed on getting through one day at a time. \u00a0I was mostly spending my energy on healing from trauma, which involved three therapy sessions a week, and a lot of emotional pain. \u00a0At least I still had Neskaya across the road, exercise and yoga classes once a week, circle dancing once a week. \u00a0Kayla was teaching every other week, so that made my load less, but I remember when I began to just teach old favorites. \u00a0Dances I really knew well didn’t require any preparation. \u00a0I also did very simple centerpieces. \u00a0My spirits were still being lifted by two hours of circle dances. \u00a0I could start teaching depressed, and feel much better by break time. \u00a0So I think I didn’t notice that it was costing me more and more to teach. \u00a0The last time I taught, after I moved to Kendal, I was fine while teaching, but when it was over I almost fainted. \u00a0I could barely put food in her dish for my dog. \u00a0Fortunately, I was going back to spend the night at a friend’s house, and she took care of supper.<\/p>\n

All the work of moving further exhausted me. \u00a0Fortunately I had help, and I didn’t have to sell the house right away. \u00a0Once I got here, I finally started paying attention to my therapist who kept saying “You are BEYOND the end of your resources<\/a>.” \u00a0I hoped that being here, with meals provided, exercise classes, and no extra demands, that I could begin to recover. \u00a0I think I was starting to when I found that just having dinner with a bunch of friends, even if the conversation wasn’t particularly interesting, began to feel comfortable. \u00a0I think it was being so depressed for so much of my life that made me very uncomfortable with small talk. \u00a0Only meaningful conversation would engage me, otherwise I felt the time was wasted. \u00a0Erica pointed out that, as I recovered from having pushed myself unmercifully for most of my life, I began to be supported by ordinary things: ordinary conversation, ordinary hanging out doing not much, going to movies and concerts put on here in the community.<\/p>\n

But alas, the pandemic stopped all those things. \u00a0No dinner with other people, no exercise classes, no movies unless you had a TV \u2014 actually I guess I could even watch movies online \u2014 at least we started doing Quaker Meeting on Zoom, so I still had that. \u00a0At first I was able to feel energetic connection while on Zoom. \u00a0But gradually it began to be apparent that I really need to be present with other bodies, other nervous systems. \u00a0When your own nervous system is dis-regulated, being with a calm person will help you calm down. \u00a0Because of very early trauma, I need this help on a regular basis. \u00a0Bessel Van der Kolk says that what heals trauma is “touch, rhythm, and movement<\/a>.” \u00a0Folk dance, and then circle dance, have been doing this for me for years.<\/p>\n

So now I am getting more and more tired, having trouble sleeping. \u00a0My body is beginning to hurt on a regular basis. \u00a0My brain often ceases to function when faced with even an ordinary task. \u00a0Today, even after a reasonable night’s sleep, I woke tired. \u00a0Walking Mocha I felt like I was a diffuse cloud, not something with solid muscles. \u00a0Instead of brewing a cup of decaf, I just heated up a cup of regular, brought back from the dining room last night. \u00a0That has kept me going during the half hour it’s taken me to type this. \u00a0I am feeling almost as without hope as I ever have. \u00a0What’s missing is the energy to feel really deeply. \u00a0I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep getting through the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been losing ground since I first stopped changing the hangings at Neskaya eight times a year, for the holidays of the Ancient Nature Religion of Western Europe. \u00a0I didn’t even notice when that began to happen, I guess I … 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-6853","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\/6853","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=6853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}