Time away

I've again let my blog slip, and haven't kept up. In the past several months, my 11-yr-old son has been hospitalized twice and is having surgery tomorrow. My eldest son was found to have ulcerative colitis, one of our dogs died, I had two very expensive flat tires while driving to work, my husband was laid off from his job of 26 years, and the unit I work on as a nurse was closed. (guess there's no money in psych care, despite the parity bill passing in Congress)

During my son's first hospitalization, my husband developed a wound (as I mentioned before, he's paraplegic and has his own stories to tell) that has required trips to a wound care clinic and an infectious disease doctor. He has been able to get another job, but it hasn't worked out for me to find one yet. One reason is because I've needed to provide medical care for my family, but the other is that I really want to dedicate myself to my writing now. It may be true that writers are "born not made" as I've read on some author's websites, but I don't agree.

So, I'm going to give this my best shot again. I still see an important reason for writing it, if my family has gone through this much stress in the past few months, I know there are many others like us out there who need a place to reintegrate. The time away has made me appreciate the era we live in. This may turn out to be nothing more than a live journal, and if so, that's okay. I hope for more though, and will do what I can to invite others here to help work out the things in there lives that they might want to share, vent about, explore, or validate by putting it down in letters. It is a way to concretize it, if nothing else.

I'd like to thank my one follower. I haven't done much to earn your follow, but thanks despite that. In the future there will be more worth following if I can stay true to the purpose I stated all those months ago when I started this.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be in the hospital with my son. I hope to keep up posts from there. I'm also on Twitter if you're interested, as Janet45. I'll try to link to it (or whatever it is you're supposed to do) as I continue to learn about electronic publishing. Thanks for your patience, and Namaste'.

Committment

As with many bloggers, I have not kept up with my posting.  I had originally hoped to post at least once per day, but have not lived up to that goal.  My sense at this point is that reintegrating is a very personal blog, which is different than my original intention of hoping to process trauma with others.  I have no training in trauma work yet, other than my basic psychiatric nursing experience and some reading I've done.  All of this being said, I am recommiting to this blog along with my commitment to participate in "The Big Sit" that starts on February 23rd.  Tricycle magazine is sponsoring the "Big Sit" and providing support online to participants.  Hopefully, this will become a regular part of my meditation practice for the next 90 days as this experience moves forward.  After the "Big Sit" is over, I can decide in what direction this blog will go.  Thanks to anyone who has read my infrequent and amateur posts.  I welcome you to join in the "Big Sit" yourself, and thank you in advance for helping me to grow as a meditator and as a writer.

Prickly

Have you had times when you felt something just wasn't right? Your mind couldn't find ease, your body didn't feel your own, and prickly described your overall demeanor? This "not right" feeling, it's constant, gnawing and nothing seems to work (so far) in resolving it. Working on trauma, wanting to benefit others through that work, requires confronting it. Or maybe it's just the thought of having to confront it, as Levine is not advising a reliving of our tramas specifically. Getting in touch with the "felt" sense, with the "feeling" body, is a difficult challenge. (particularly when you've spent a great deal of time and effort trying to separate yourself from exactly that, the feeling body) The anticipation is most likely worse than the actual experience will be. This restless, miserable, irritability - made up of shifting hormones, negative self-talk, and some other unknown factor.....I have to remember it will change. As all feelings do, from rapture to heart wrenching grief, feelings are temporary, like clouds in the great blue sky. Waiting it out is miserable, not knowing how long it will last, but it will pass. Prickly, there is beauty in the cactus, the rose, the porcupine. May we find the beauty in our own prickly situations, and states of mind.

Reflecting on shifting priorities

Today was a day to try and recover from the stress of yesterday. The pain steeped in my bones, my cells, an immersion in adrenaline. The policeman was kind, saying he was worried about me because I couldn't stop crying and there wasn't major damage to the car, both my son and I were okay, what could it be? Wondering if agoraphobia might be my next mental destination, but it can't be because there are so many appointments to take the kids too, committments to keep. Headaches may continue to be the outward manifestation. So, I've resolved to work through Peter Levine's book, Waking The Tiger. There is so much trauma, so much need, and seemingly few to meet that need. Writing is everything, the thread that holds it all together and the time it gets in the day is miniscule. Self-care, my therapist keeps insisting on that. No resolution for the New Year, just a resolve. May it's unfolding benefit all sentient beings.

Blogging and trauma

Blogging about trauma, and wanting to use it as a vehicle to help others traversing the difficult path of resolving trauma is a worthwhile goal. It is a high priority for me, and yet as it seems common for people who have been traumatized to continue finding themselves traumatized unless they develop agoraphobia, or some other condition that prevents them from leaving their home. Even then we can be re-traumatized. This leaves little time for other priorities because we are constantly in the fight/flight/freeze state of mind, with no or minimal resolution. There was abuse that occurred over the holidays and it seemed easy to breeze through it, but the first day the holidays ended and the kids were back in school a deep depression set in. In this state of mind I was hypersensitive and felt re-traumatized by things I read hoping they would support my getting over this. It is that state of living with all of your nerve endings external and exposed, which predisposes me to experiencing things as traumatic that normally would not be. In this state of mind, it is difficult to find time to write, to reach out. My hope is that by continuing to work toward resolution, this predisposition will lessen and balance will return. In the meantime, may all be happy, peaceful and safe. This is my heartfelt wish for anyone reading this and those not reading it. Namaste'

New Year's Night

A very personal post as the new year begins. I wish better days for all, more peace and an end to war, equanimity, and trauma resolution so we may reintegrate ourselves and once more feel whole.
I miss my children very much, as they celebrate away from me. I pray that there time will be joy filled, and bring them contentment. Forty-six years on this earth as a human, so much left to learn, so much left to learn..........

Shock

It has been my experience that when the final event happens that leads to the disintegration of your sanity and sense of self, there is a period of shock. During that time your life may still resemble what it was on the outside, but inside domino after domino is tumbling over. In fact, they gather speed as the protective bubble of shock starts to slip away, rushing toward the destruction of the whole. I distinctly remember a moment when I put my hands on my (then) husband's arms and said, "We're not going to let this tear our family apart." It did though, not because of the trauma itself, but because the trauma shoved the weaknesses in our marriage to the forefront, and there was not enough strength left to hold the other pieces together.
It still takes my breath away, almost a decade later, how quickly the damage became irreversible. The energy required to rebuild a shattered self was, in my case, more than our marriage had to give. More than just a single self, our whole family had to be rebuilt with new roles and expectations to live up to for each of us. It wasn't possible to do it together in that time and place. Statistics would seem to indicate this is often the case. Particularly when family counseling isn't agreeable to all parties, and one person cannot do all the work required alone.
Shock protects us initially. I am thankful for that.