Working with flashbacks

Flashbacks are common for people who have experienced trauma.  They’re a key aspect of post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.  Flashbacks can happen any time, but one of the most frustrating times is when they intrude upon my family life as it is now.  I’m no longer living with the person who filled my childhood with fear, hatred, and sorrow but the aftershocks of his actions can take over in an instant.  My husband’s voice becomes irritable or angry, and almost immediately it’s as if I’ve travelled back through time to the blue kitchen of my childhood home or the dining room where we ate most of our dinners as a family.

Everyone at the table, with the exception of my Dad, would be sitting on the edge of their chairs, wondering what it would be tonight.  What word or sentence delivered with the “wrong” intonation would light the fire of his rage?  Who would be the object of his destruction?  His anger always so close to the surface, like a pilot light gleaming through his eyes.  He teases, provokes, prods, eager for any excuse to explode.  We all share in the punishment, no one escapes it.  So often it is my brother who sets him off, and I hate myself for cowering, for not having the courage to stand-up for him to the bloody tyrant who rules our lives.  The fear is overwhelming, and it is a “freeze” response, rather than fight or flight that takes over.  Always, there is the question in my mind, “why doesn’t Mom DO anything to stop this?”  She has her own battles with him, on more intimate terms, and will not question anything he does in front of us, her children.

One night it was as simple as asking for more spaghetti.  My brother asked if he could have some more spaghetti, and my mother threw a whole pound of pasta into boiling water.  A specialist in punishing both child and mother, my father made my brother sit at the table and eat every single noodle of that pound.  There was no reasoning with him, no way of saving my brother from this ridiculous over-reaction.  All we could do was watch, and in my case, hate my father for doing this.  I don’t know what excuse my Mom made for him that night, she always found one, and made us forgive him.

Most of the memories I have of my childhood are like the one recounted above.  Filled with anger, humiliation and shame.  The house I grew up in was so angry all the time, that I cannot tolerate it now.  At the first sign of tension or irritation from my husband or (to some extent) my kids I go right back into freeze mode.  I shush my children so they won’t make it  “any worse,” and try with all my energy to stop it, to smooth things over.  Hyper-awareness takes over, and all my muscles tense.  (this is what has led to my chronic pain, call it fibromyalgia, call it what you will, decades of steeling yourself against the blow you know is coming eventually fries your nervous system)  At some point though, my own anger kicks in.  I cannot tolerate my children being attacked and WILL not allow it the way my mother did.

Of course the problem with this is that my husband (and ex-husband) are not my Father.  Projecting this old image on top of who they are is not a good way to resolve any current issues we may be having.  It seems, right now, uncontrollable.  I try saying, “This is not Dad, this is ……..” and fill in the blank with their name, but everything becomes enmeshed and impossible to untangle.

Working with flashbacks is really, really tough.  For now I’m trying to cope the best I can, and breathe.

Pain

Many years of trauma meant, for me, many years of being in hyper-vigilance.  It felt/feels like I’ve been in fight/flight since before I was born.  After my son was diagnosed with his condition, I developed panic attacks within about 3 months, and within a year was experiencing significant physical pain in my muscles and joints all the time.  This necessitated wrapping my arms and legs in some brand of pain ointment and wrapping them in elastic bandages. (Ben-Gay and Ace Wraps)  Many visits to physicians, many tests, all of which came up negative or close enough to negative to not make for a solid diagnosis.  One rheumatologist diagnosed me with fibromyalgia, and the rheumatologist I still have to this day said he didn’t believe in fibromyalgia, but that if there is such a condition my symptoms match it more closely than any other patient he’s had.  We’ve had a solid pain management regimen for many years with no significant increases in medications, and some significant decreases at times.  As a nurse who has never been sure about herbal or other alternative therapies it’s been very hard to accept.  The only thing that makes sense to me is that with all the early trauma I suffered, and the ongoing trauma I attracted/created  when my son was diagnosed it was the final blow.  My nervous system was shot, and my body’s ability to tolerate pain destroyed.

This is what happens when you’re in fight/flight/freeze for too many  years, especially if there is physical and sexual abuse accompanied by intense anger.  The number of women I know with fibromyalgia has increased astronomically as time has passed.  It’s a life wrecker, and makes it all the more challenging to be there for your family.  Many women end up completely disabled for at least some period of time.  Still, there are few good studies, and only a couple medications with any promise for treatment.  I suppose this is a warning of sorts to learn to handle your stress with meditation or exercise and diet if you can.  Fibromyalgia seems to strike after a trauma that doesn’t fit with the pain itself.  Chronic pain is stigmatizing, and for those of us with low self-esteem or self-hatred issues, it heaps on more reasons to self-denigrate.  Don’t wait for the pain to start, learn how to handle stress now and find ways to heal the trauma you’ve suffered if you can.  It may save you from decades of disability and a much smaller life than you want.

Weeds root deeply.

The mind is like a garden, it’s soil rich and it’s environment ripe for thoughts to grow and take root.  Our abusers scatter seeds that root deeply and because they tend to scatter certain seeds over and over again, the mind can literally become so overgrown with these thoughts that no light can filter through to expose their ugliness, nor clarity illuminate  them as foreign and not of our own making.  When we cannot choose to leave the situation (when we are children for example) we have fewer options to combat the onslaught.  As adults, if we are lucky enough to find out that there are other ways to live, that there are relationships where love involves nurturing and supporting our well-being, we may find an opportunity to begin to remake our garden.

Sometimes, we may have to start removing the weeds with chemicals (antidepressants or other medications) in order to get them under control enough to be manageable.  I admire people who can remake their gardens organically, who are able to use meditation, yoga, talk therapy or self-help books, and never need to take medication.  But, whatever method  you end up using, the goal is to make your garden, your mind, your own.  The work can be exhausting, exhilirating, excruciating, and eventually liberating.  As I’ve mentioned in other posts, the goal is to let go of your thoughts, but it helps if the thoughts are positive and generated from self-love as opposed to negative and churned up from an unrepentant jerk you had no choice about living with.

Two aspects of Buddhism have been especially helpful to me in beginning to replant my garden, although it may be the teachers I’ve chosen to listen to.  The first is that we are all Buddhas, and that we are essentially good.  What a contrast to the shame, and soil of original sin that made up the majority of my childhood spiritual messages.  (my mother tells the story of sitting in church with me when I was quite small, and me asking her, “Mommy, why is the minister so mad at us?” )  The second is the expectation that you will try many, many times before you succeed in letting go of your thoughts for even the briefest time span and that not only is that okay, it’s part of the path.  The balm of forgiveness is built in to meditation practice without you having to kneel on gravel, have your “spirit” broken, or perform some deed that makes you feel dirty.

I’ve always envied my three older sisters gardening abilities.  They each seem to emulate our mother, who spent hours with her roses, and always had the most beautiful gardens.  Interestingly, my sisters grew-up in India where my parents were missionaries in the mid to late 50’s and had servants, including a nanny.  Our father was not as angry then.  It was when they came back to the United States, and he decided to go to medical school that the anger emerged and became uncontrollable.  Oh, they still got plenty of his nastiness, but maybe because they weren’t so inundated from birth (or pre-birth) they seem to have more self-confidence and are less tortured by self-loathing.  I pretty much kill every living plant I buy or am given.  I’ve never been able to create a beautiful garden.  My hope is that if I can start with my mind, with those weedy thoughts rooted so deeply in my consciousness, perhaps once there is beauty within, the ability to create beauty around me will develop.  It’s worth a try……

Healing

Healing is often a life long project when you’ve experienced trauma.  Particularly when the trauma started young and you were unable to leave the situation.  Children of abuse, any kind, who must stay in their homes for 18 or more years with the abuser have patterns so ingrained that avoiding abusive relationships can be close to impossible.  For those of us who believe in cellular memory, who know how abuse becomes implanted like a post-conception DNA mutation to our chromosomes, teasing that information back out can feel like vivisection.  It must be done slowly and carefully with a lot of support.  Meditation is one way to accomplish this without incurring further damage.

Meditation helps you to identify thoughts as thoughts, and as you stick with the practice, you begin have a pause between hearing and reacting.  As you become more skilled, you can start to identify which thoughts are really your own, and which are the tapes you’ve been hearing in your head for decades.  This is crucial because one of the legacies of  abuse is the abuser’s voice becoming entwined with your own.  We all know how the words used against us become lodged in our minds and sneak out before we can stop them.  (i.e. “you’re so stupid”, “you never do anything right”, “whoever told you it was okay to think?!” and many more damaging words  with profanity tagged on).  My children have even caught me mumbling these words to myself under my breath, and are sweet enough (at 14, 11, and 9) to say, “Mom, c’mon, that’s not true” or “Mom, you’ve always told us we need to say positive things about ourselves, not negative,” and etc.  While the goal of meditation is to be able to let go of ALL thoughts, for abuse survivors that pause between thinking and reacting has both the benefit of identifying which thoughts are authentically ours, and being able to let go of all our thoughts to dwell in “blue sky mind,” a state of peace.

Through meditation and mindfulness I’ve been able to work on two of the most devastating effects of abuse: self-loathing, and projection.  A therapist once told me, “Your self-loathing is so deep that I don’t know if we can even work together.”   Of course, I found another therapist, but her words made a deep impression.  They blamed me for something I had not created (although admittedly I reinforced it), and gave me yet another line to use against myself.  Working on self-loathing is one of the most difficult tasks we face when trying to heal from abuse.  We need to be especially gentle with ourselves, and as necessary, get help from a psychiatrist and/or psychologist (or other therapist) as we work to unravel the self-hatred that has become an endemic part of our personalities.  Each person has their own time frame for healing and that needs to be respected.  We who judge ourselves most harshly need to understand this most of all.

New home for Reintegrating

It’s taking some time, as usual, for me to figure out the mechanics of blogging on a new host site.  I decided to change Reintegrating from being on Blogger to WordPress for consistency.  I wanted to be able to manage and access both blogs (yes, I started another blog on writing) at the same time.  My original purpose for “Reintegrating” was to write about the process of recovering from trauma, and hopefully find people going through the same process who might share their stories.  I had hoped we could be of support to one another, and learn from each other as well.  None of that has happened so far, and may still not, but I’m going to keep plugging away  in case things change.  I look forward to continuing to write on this topic, and to walking this rocky road with others when the time is right.  Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

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’