BITTERSWEET

There is no escaping my past, memories, experiences, or the family born into.

The longings for something different with stability and warm love is not helping no matter how fervently wished for. If only my parents weren’t partiers and drinkers. If only they’d stopped at two or three children not eight.

If only dad hadn’t died, laying there right in front of me. Brothers free to attack filling their teenage lust stealing my childhood, my life.

If only.

ONLY in accepting all of me will peace come. Over winter, a supposed friend, tore me down with her ignorant words. She is thinking herself helpful and supportive, but her cruel words devasted.

It does not matter what another thinks. What I feel and believe matters. My embedded negative self is a part of me. When it comes up which is often, daily, almost constant, just say, ‘oh that.’ She did not bring me down. It was that part of me that feels unworthy, lazy, and no good. She did me a favor really. I need to learn this.

The negative sense of self became part of my personality in childhood. In taking on the evil being done to me I could still have a family. And those that committed the crimes weren’t evil but as much in need of care as I was.

But evil was committed. The culprit of my unhappiness then was the responsibility of the origin family, all of them. (even the those never touching me that way because all expected my silence while befriending the doers) Now it is mine.

Trying to make myself feel positive, grateful, happy? Is that the search? Human existence isn’t all flowers and happiness. It is being with what is there.

After waking unable to sleep (as has become the custom these past several years) the worry-fear bomb imploded causing the switch to flip. No sleep was going to come without a sleep aid.

This morning sadness for having to use it. Peaceful warmth while sitting on the patio in the sunshine with birds splashing in the bath freshly filled mixes with melancholy. Joy and grief mingle while a pair of robins take turns bringing worms to their hatchlings just a few feet away.

Sitting in the shade by the creek, leaves swaying in the breeze with shafts of light peeking through, a heron swooped gracefully over the water bringing a smile, yet tears fell- and that’s OK. Feel it all…

HONESTY WITH SELF

Honesty, my blog has been about boring down to what is really going on inside because for most of my life the training from all origin family, especially my mother, was silence.

When silent about such traumas, repeated for years during childhood, all feelings go silent even from me.

But over years of writing, it is tempting to be dishonest even on an anonymous blog. That is not useful. It is only by writing honestly that learning my truth becomes clear. Morning reflections help by bringing meaning, clarity, and hope.

Honesty with self is the goal. If in the process someone benefits from it, like, ‘I do that too,’ and feels less alone, that is as they say, icing on the cake.

Being alone even at age 70 scares me. Samuel took off at 2am to catch a flight to California with his brother and sister-in-law to visit the other brother and sister-in-law.

My world has drilled down to home, the meadow, and me. No traveling other than day trips. My sleep problems prevent it. My C-PTSD is profound, always has been, but I was not allowed to speak of it, so it has gone unacknowledged even by myself. Now I am respecting my needs, and learning not to be so ashamed of it.

I am terrified of being here alone.

Yes, at 70 fear is my shadow and has been since age 8. Even with Samuel sleeping next to me, waking throughout the night hearing unexplained noises sends shock shivers of fright through me,

Also in the meadow with bright daylight, a sudden noise or movement does the same. There is no escape from the past or the hypervigilance that comes with it. Brothers creep around every corner, even though 3 out of 4 are dead. While resting by the creek memories of different ages throughout childhood remind me of my resilience. There is a strong tree grown in me.

Curiously, my feelings about my brothers are complicated. Living with the effects of what they did makes me hate what they did, not really them. HATE was never allowed while my mother lived, dying at 91 in 2009. But poignant, loving compassion flows through my soul. They had to live with what they did shortening their lives because my belief is that guilt kills.

Hello meadow, hello nights, hopefully the terror of my nights without Samuel will be lessoned by daytime meadow joy with my friends- birds, sunshine, frogs, and every other living creature that isn’t human. Humans still feel dangerous and are mostly avoided.

C-PTSD

There is no understanding of my sleep issues, whether my doing or just decades of C-PTSD taking its toll on my old, tired body. Tears fall, then fall again during a week of sleeplessness. 

If only my ability to sleep was permanent. When deep sleep comes my life feels fairy-tale like. When not, it is hellish, and my thoughts go bitterly to abusive siblings who terrorized me. Thanks.

Even a slight thought before turning over to sleep, a refund from a store forgotten about sending a scare bolt through me having to turn on the TV again for twenty minutes to calm down. It’s OK, it isn’t the end of the world.

That’s how it is and has been. Little frights, my husband behind me without hearing him coming. SCARE. A thought about a friend who doesn’t want to be included in our monthly meetings anymore sure that it is about me and my honesty about my sleep issues and why. (even though she is someone unable to be close with anyway, so her loss is a good thing)

Any little thought or happening can set off alarm bells unnecessarily and when that happens, which is all too regularly- no sleep. Self-talk each day is so crucial, yet even success with that will not escape the grips of long-term trauma inflicted damage.

My life, no matter how much it is buffered and protected from setting off my fight or flight response, goes into survival mode without my permission, as if a life of its own. The only thing to do is what we all do, deal with the stressors of life. These are mine amidst the joy and beauty.

So, on these days when feeling tired, don’t push yourself out to walk lap after lap even if
it is a brilliant day- rest, stroll down once or twice, sit in the sunshine, or do nothing at all instead of push, push, push. Self-care, self-love, all new, but keep at it.   

 

My Thinking or C-PTSD?

How can sleep occur 8, 9, even 10 hours a night for over a week, then lie there for three hours having to get up to take a sleep med? It makes me groggy the next day feeling sorry for myself.

Maybe my feet floating down the meadow path was too heavenly? Because it did feel surreal, positive feelings flowing in each day.  

Eating healthy, exercise, loving life, the negative harsh combative voice quieted and good vibes about myself filling me up instead.

Crash. Is it my thinking or C-PTSD? My guess is C-PTSD which comes with a negative sense of self. That accepting the fact of it attacking and trying even harder to be gentler through it will help much better than the pounding given by that part of me that blames me for things that aren’t mine to be blamed for. It is not my fault that a negative sense of self became embedded into me.

Accepting that too will help through these hellish times. Nurturing self-love and gentleness offers moments of internal warmth, a place that welcomes lovingly even when sliding backwards through no fault of my own.

STILLNESS

Go gently restless spirit.

Breathe every moment on this path.

Sun warming my shoulder.

Honeysuckles blossoming.

Doves cooing.

A Bluebird pecks up a worm

with instinctual skill, its

vibrant blue body

shimmering in sunlight.

A heron glides by to

fish unaware of my presence.

Stillness seeps into me.

Photo by Patricia

SUNSHINE!

Kite flying on Mother’s Day- photos taken by grandson, age 13!

Shaking off the dust and despair of winter takes focus because feeling down became a habit over the dark dreary months.

They pull me down no matter how attacked; walking through snow even on the coldest days, keeping busy, using full spectrum lighting- nothing really perks me up except spring’s sunshine permeating my bones, blood, and brain.

The happy chemicals have come back to stay.  

Exposure to sunlight is thought to increase the brain’s release of a hormone called serotonin. Serotonin is associated with boosting mood and helping a person feel calm and focused.  (Google info.)              

A SOLITARY JOYFUL LIFE

PHOTOS BY PATRICIA

When thinking my life so odd from others then sadness and loneliness sets in. While walking on this unworldly gorgeous spring day, it occurred to me that my thoughts are making me feel this way.

Let it go. My quiet life is just what is needed. Others may travel by boat, plane, train, or automobile, and spend a lot of time with others in crowds or groups, but that doesn’t mean my life is any less of a life.

Maybe it is not attractive to others, but for me, joy. Gratitude flowed in with the reversal of my thoughts. Oh, what joy right here underfoot with the lush, lush, green grass, soft breezes through my hair, soothing birdsongs like celestial melodies, and the quiet interrupted only by the distant clatter of a train or low flying plane.

Arranging another fresh bouquet of lilacs, the Lily of the Valley have blossomed too, so another bouquet by the sink. The wild honeysuckle are blooming filling me up with their scent walking by. The sights and sounds on this little plot of land are exciting enough and fill me up daily with their splendor.

Oh, how lovely spring is! And oh, how lucky my life is just as it is.

FOCUS ON JOY

PHOTOS BY PATRICIA

The day was magical, mystical, warm breezy and full of sun. An orb around it cast a rainbow on a nearby cloud as our kites flew through it, swinging and swaying in the currents happily.

These are the moments to dwell on and cherish, not the nightly waking’s when negative thoughts implode interfering with sleep. The hate for Chet, now dead, centered in my being like a black, heavy, boulder- dormant, yet still alive. How to toss that load over the cliff, first up then out with a chisel.

Then moving onto other things, sleep becoming impossible- so it was TV, pot oil, and a cup of fat free cocoa. Tryptophan-casein tryptic hydrolysate (CTH), a component in milk, relieves stress and enhances sleep, warming it in the microwave giving it a boost.

Today a new day without the grogginess of taking a Xanax, that hateful medication which when drawn to becomes necessary more and more. Not today.

It is a beautiful, cool, spring day, with time keeping warm on the patio watering seeds, and refilling the bird bath which is widely used each day.

Two rabbits run in front of me walking down the path to the water making me chuckle. One turns to look and stare, my words of comfort making its ears perk towards my voice.

We each carry struggles. How it’s carried matters to me. My goals include focusing on what keeps me sane, the positives. Another is to show my sons how to grow old gracefully. My grandmother Pearl did that for me and hopefully some of her fortitude has been passed down.

It is good to have goals and even if never meeting them, but progress occurs eventually if persistent.

WITHIN

Change and/or growth inflict so much discomfort going backwards to what was is used as a resting place. Breaking barriers bound on to me by the ‘origin’ family even though no longer interacting much with who is left have kept me imprisoned.

To feel moments of self-love and compassion is all new and with that the need for others knowing me to look again with fresh perspective. Yet they do not.

Others want the status quo and I oblige. Going backwards feels safe. It is not. Risking the unknown, full self-love and sustaining a connection with my interior is necessary.

Once feeling it there is no going back. This new territory is scary, uncomfortable, until it isn’t, until it is my way of life.

Calling forth that deep access in times of struggle and finding solace within. That’s the place it must come, not from others no matter how many times they remind me of my self-worth.

I need to believe it. Others can lend a hand when tripping and falling, but it is from within that sustains and it is me who will never leave.

JOURNEY

We all are on a journey,

the same journey called life,

yet each on divergent paths.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.