Therapy Eve
The night before trauma therapy the day after Mother's Day; I feel really tired. Have had the heavy feeling much of the day, wading through tar pits in order to do any work, physical or mental.
It's all that and the USA death toll at nearly 80,000 and rising. Even as the rate slows, states reopen and keep the danger high.
Then there's this brave act:
I shared in an online community of adaptive teachers today that I may not return to teaching in person until there is a vaccine. I specialize in helping older adults; I can't encourage them to gather in even a small group! It's the first time I've shared it publicly. It's so sad; I miss seeing my students so much.
Self-Mothering
It’s been Mother’s Day today and a nice benefit of physical distancing is the lack of exposure to all the usual merchandise blitz.
I didn't have a meltdown today. I am grateful.
I planted Atomic Red carrots, encouraged the sugar snap peas up the trellis, appreciated the flowers, used both video games & yoga for soothing, did chores, and made us food.
So many meals made! I’ve never cooked so much! I’ve also never gone for such a long stretch without take-out, fast food, or restaurants. I find myself thinking about supply chains and what winter will look like.
Heavy
At this mourning’s yoga class we talked about depression, how heavy and slow people are feeling. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I didn’t ask it this way, but I suspect there’s a heaviness spiritually as well, for folks who resonate in that way.
I shared how hard things are. I feel like I’m wading through tar to try and do anything. It isn’t that I can’t write emails back or do the dishes, or just takes so much effort to get there.
This is normal. This heavy fugue state that hangs over the world is not an indicator that something is wrong with you, exactly. Something is wrong with the world. It’s the trauma of these times.
Seventy-five Thousand
75,477 people have died. This number is low since the CDC website is showing the Thursday tally at end of day Friday.
The lack of mourning and outcry feels increasingly wrong. This is why I'm making art every other day to show this growing number. I can't look away.
I have a friend, another yoga therapist, who had been been contacted by the Contact Tracing network that's been created in Oregon. She had a terrible virus on February, she's been in close contact with three folks who've tested positive. She'd tested negative, but that batch has had several false negatives.
I practiced saying out loud to her that I wouldn't be going back to in person teaching until a virus is available. I don't feel it's ethical to encourage my students to gather in groups. I'd rather keep getting them online!
Pride
I have a hard time feeling proud of my accomplishments. I'm sure it's part of the deep feeling that I'm not worthy of care, but in the case of teaching related accomplishments it really hits hard.
I could be happy about bonuses and raises when I was in the tech industry. There were trackable evidence that I worked my ass off. This monetary reward for good behavior didn't flip me into shame and misery.
Teaching though, humans telling me that what I'm doing is life changing is hard. Hardest still, people giving me money and wanting to support me. It creates cognitive dissonance between the evidence of my value and worth against the message that I’m not worthy of care or protection, my needs are potentially dangerous, and my opinions are subject to derision.
In Retrospect
After feeling so terrible yesterday I had some insights I’m still integrating.
Trauma Brain "works" according to Childhood Logic. Here is what seems to happen:
Students send me beautiful notes and donations for teaching online and keeping community going. Related: contribute money for my training.
I meltdown in anxiety, shame, despair, and feeling like I’m a failure and a terrible person until I'm nauseous, can't eat, & get weepy.
Further compounding the misery, I can’t ask for help. Trauma Brain is constantly reminding me that asking for what I need is A) Dangerous physically or mentally or both, B) No One Will Help, because C) You’re not worthy of having you needs met.
And then comes despair.
Today was better. I discovered a great photo I got of a bee butt in the garden and I did a hard thing successfully, I even felt successful!
Terrible Tuesday
Today felt hard.
It didn't matter that I taught and it made people feel better. They sent me money and I began worrying; will I have to give back unemployment because people give me $2.50 a class?
Food felt hard and then I burned my dinner and CK's was dry.
I felt so weepy and despairing. I'm less so now, now I just feel angry.
It wasn't even like I read or watched any news. I didn't do any errands. No anniversaries that trip me up. Nothing other than living during a pandemic with a Federal government that keeps gaslighting us while behaving creully.
Monday Monday
It wasn’t all I thought it would be, but it was an alright day for a pandemic. I believe we’ve been doing this for just over fifty days. I made us fancy dessert involving chocolate and the microplane.
I’m really glad CK is off call as of tomorrow at 10. Her 3am pages haven’t helped the tired feelings the past week.
Still making art that tracks the ever increasing death toll. I’m counterbalancing with participating in photo groups and other things, like fancy dessert and Animal Crossing.
Same Old Rage
I felt tired today and finally took a nap after lunch. We played video games, each our own, we attempted to repair the greenhouse, and I did laundry.
I feel like I need to write something insightful. That's how I get stalled blogging. No poems, no idea what to say. A title totally stumps me.
I'm tired, my head hurts, I am deeply sad, I'm furious. I'm hurting, and very angry for my child self. I’m afraid for the world, for us. I’m sad CK won’t get an amazing 40th birthday like I had.
Out front yard still needs weed whacking, we so beyond mowing. The moments we’re all ready to do it, it starts pouring rain.
We’re getting better at working together again. We’re getting caught up. I never feel like I do enough.
Raindrops on plants in the garden have me joy today.
Smoke and Mirrors
I’m realizing more and more how childhood logic created my belief that I’m utterly toxic. It explained why people left, it explained why my Mother hurt me, and keeping it propped up was less painful than confronting the feeling that I’m worthless.
This logic comes up when I find myself walking through my Mother’s last years of her life. I catch myself in the act of noting all the ways I failed to heal her. I notice that I’m sure I hastened her death.
My “core of toxic danger” is a smoke screen. Something easier to work with since I get to just blamed myself. Accepting I have this deep chasm of worthlessness is so painful that of rather be blaming myself for her death than accept that her abuse told me again and again I was worthless.
The more I keep going into it, the more clearly I see that the core message of my early childhood was that I was worthless, or, as as my Mother was fond of saying*, “You’re more trouble than you’re worth!”
*If called on saying things like this, my Mother, and other family members would reply, “I’m joking! Don’t be so sensitive, can’t you take a joke?!”