Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

Poverty in the 1970s

As I continue to work through early trauma I am connecting to the particular wounding of poverty that runs through my earliest years. There's the trauma of my unstable Mother and the intergenerational trauma of my whole family. There's my mostly absent, addiction-plauged Father.

Then there is the kinds of brutality that arises out of poverty itself. Desperation and worry recoiling out of adults like knives or whips. Other adults preying on the most vulnerable. Like me.

Then there was the time itself. Generation X remains the most under parented generation ever. Even kids from good families were getting meals together and walking home from school alone at age 6. For those of us from trauma-filled homes, we were practically feral children much of time.

Today's SAFE session was hard. I feel exhausted on multiple levels. The grief and anger feel as though they've merged into a hard, spiky mass inside my upper body.

My float after was also too cold. I need to let them know that I was really not able to relax well because of it.

I forgot my respirator mask today and it really hurt my anxiety hard! I had quality backups with me and where I was today was very low proximity to people, but it was nerve-wracking. Being out in public with that level of mask feels way too risky now.