Not All Flowers
In my SAFE sessions I’ve developed a pattern that’s helpful; a kind of signal in the processing that I’m more in control of the memory. This also indicates I’m getting closer to installing it.
Today I got to that point with the current memoryI'm integrating. I start to step outside, seeing it instead of experiencing it directly. Then I can run it forwards and backwards, like a film. Like the most terrible home movie collection ever.
So I'm glad. I also have some ugly truths about my Mother to integrate. It was a good therapy session.
These dogwood bloom right breast my therapist's office. She's moving and next session it will be a whole new neighborhood. I'm happy I got to appreciate these today.
Dogwood bracht unfold.
Not all flowers have petals.
Tiny blooms revealed.
More Naps Needed
Found myself being hard on myself for not being able to make it through most days without an afternoon nap that throws off my time table. That was after being hard on myself for sending out an incorrect schedule of my classes yesterday.
It wasn’t an easy day. It started with an email officially canceling the conference I was presenting at in June. Expected and somehow still painful. Another reminder of how sidelined my whole career reboot is.
Then I tried to teach class, which eventually happened, but only for the folks who figured out that I’d sent the wrong online class details and tried the previous week, which got them in. I spent the afternoon answering questions about what happened and sending a new newsletter.
Then I needed a nap. And a snuggle with a creature or two. I get frustrated because I want to do more house projects, more website updating, but napping it is.
Here’s today’s poem!
Tender beginnings.
Now each tiny leaf opens.
The birch awakens.
Thirty Days
Today I've been actively practicing isolation and physical distancing with CK at home for 30 days. I miss my routine. It is Easter, I'd likely have made the effort to go to church.
Apparently Day 30 is the day when the boiling rage I felt last night condenses into a terrible case of the mopes. All the fear and anger about COVID19 meeting head-on with 7 year-old grief and unresolved feelings of being a bad friend plus a generous helping of rage towards my Mother and family of origin.
It made for an uncomfortable morning where it felt like everything set tears to falling. I ended up drinking tea and playing video games for a while before tackling some chores.
While I'm not feeling simmering rage or weepy mopes, I do feel worn out by the mix of feelings over the past few days. Despite the angry kitty letting me sleep in until nearly 9am, I feel as though I didn't get any extra rest at all. The heightened hypervigilance that's part of the energy of COVID19 for me, is really exhausting.
There is still a double-whammy effect whenever IK's death anniversary comes up. I get the grief, shame, hopelessness, and anger I felt at that time. Along with it comes up the anger, shock, disgust, and despair I felt at my Mother's response to the effort we put in to arranging the memorial service (CK), packing up his apartment (me), contacting his family (both of us). She was jealous of the energy and love we were giving our friend who had just committed suicide.
Up until IK's death my Mother had been the center of attention. When we got the news, we jumped into action with a few other close friends to do the work that needed doing. My Mother pestered me on multiple occasions, asking why we, I, had to help. Why wasn't IK's family doing the things we were. Once we found IK's parents, why didn't we just step back and let family take care of everything. Family should be cleaning up the apartment. Family do the memorial service, why are you, just friends doing this?
I was, in the midst of the shock and terrible grief for our friend, horrified and ashamed of my Mother's petty, selfish behavior. It felt like everything we'd worked on to help her, to improve her health, and build a life around taking care of her unraveled at this point. She realized that our attention could be diverted away from her, she took every little dissatisfaction and she blew them up, she began really bullying me again.
Given that I was already processing a great deal of anger at my Mother for terrorizing me so throughly as a very young child that I never questioned her as an adult, this year it has all hit me extra hard. Last night I was so angry at her and the political nightmare our country has become that I could even make art. Today at least was better and I could make something!
Palest pink brushes
The edges of white flowers.
Apples begin here.
Angry
Despite teaching a class for several grateful students this morning, with a lovey cat, and having a good conversation with a friend, I’m ending the evening feeling utterly irritable.
Everything rubs raw.
Irritation arises.
There is anger here.
“Why?!” I started to think, “There’s no good reason to feel this cloud of rage!”
Then I looked at the death toll for today. There’s every reason.
I realized during my last therapy session that not only do I find anger frightening when others express it, I see my own anger as something so dangerous that I can’t let it out around anyone else. My anger can potentially cause harm to come to me if it is seen.
I’ll be unpacking this for a while. I knew how I felt anger anger in general. I tend to be conflict adverse because visible anger from my Mother signaled danger. I didn’t realize I viewed my own anger as so potentially dangerous.
The 9th Grave Precept is not not give rise to anger. Working with that helped me understand that getting angry is a normal emotion, it’s how and what we do with it that’s key. Moreover, anger can energize us to act, hold strong, or change.
Mostly though it’s a sign to rest.
The Exploding Inner World
Tumblr reminded me of this quote I posted a while back, it felt fitting to revisit today
"To traverse the exploding inner world, a person needs to be able to not only name what’s going on but to cultivate themselves to be present with whatever shows up, learning over time how to welcome the discord."
- Deirdre Fay
Although our friend IK left this world 7 years ago yesterday, it is always the 10th it hits me hardest. Almost as if it took an entire day to integrate the loss and shock. Whenever I hit this date blip I feel shame, the echo of the shame I felt when IK committed suicide over how wrapped up we were caring for my Mother.
Teaching gave me a little boost, but much of the day I was in a fog. Astounded by the death toll, the ghoulish politicians, and stewing over trauma memories. No surprise I dozed outside rather than yard work.
A haiku for a groggy Friday afternoon.
Dozing in sunlight.
Apple blossoms nod along.
This moment is whole.
Together, Just
I wake up feeling like I’m made of gravel hastily bundled up in flimsy net; weighted down by dread and barely together.
I know I’m doing better than barely together, but when I first wake up, especially if I’ve bolted awake from another nightmare, I feel the heaviness of dread. I feel clumsy with anxiety, physically, mentally, energetically, spiritually.
Today I received my last paycheck from the City until we open. Until March 14th I was teaching 14 or more hours each week. I was officially laid off as of April 2. Although I could have done it sooner, today I filed my unemployment claim.
I also thought a lot about my Mother today. There’s been some anger present today! This is for a post written at a laptop!
It also occurred to me that I did most of my early yoga teacher training before I even had a PTSD diagnosis, much less the Complex Trauma add on. I thought of this seeing people share caution for a breath practice for folks with these diagnoses.
Once again I was hauling myself through trauma without any help. I’m really grateful I’m learning to ask for help more.
I’m also really grateful for these apple blossoms in our backyard.
These apple blossoms
Have been waiting all winter
To see the sunlight.
Don’t Get Stuck
I woke up with a start at 6am. Disoriented and my heart pounding, I’m not even sure what the dream was. Bertie snorted loudly in his sleep and the Hawaiian wall hanging by my side of the bed helped to settle me.
I’m not terribly surprised that I felt uneasy all day, unmotivated and tired. There’s so much going well for us right now, and yet the world is dangerous and it isn’t my anxiety just being triggered by something innocuous.
I was surprised that I got a lot of tasks done around the house. I’m trying to focus on things I can accomplish and asking CK for support, even if it is just company to get me going
I have a new mantra, “Don’t get stuck!” It helps when I’m feeling frozen. I say it and find something to do.
Another April haiku today.
Faces turn upward.
Plants, dogs, people everywhere.
We all crave sunshine.
Twofer
Last night the site was down, so this didn't get added, but was written yesterday:
Tender greens unfurl.
Collect raindrops along the stem.
Humble diamonds.
Today's haiku accesses some of the anxiety and pain I'm feeling today.
Blooming regardless.
Flowers know nothing of fear.
They answer the light.
Finding the Earth
Unexpected flowers.
Finding the earth in the cracks.
Blooming any way.
I’m always falling in love with flowers that seed themselves in the cracks. Rose I found these lobelia while getting the greenhouse ready.
Self-care Isn’t Free Time
Scattered in clover.
Yellow faces gazing upward.
White petals unfurl.
Haiku turns us inward, teaches us to see tiny details deeply. Teaches us to pay attention. I return to it to get the pathways of poetry writing reconnected.
I started new medication to help with my anxiety; the stuff that arises out of my own special Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. I think it’s helping, although it is honestly hard to tell as I feel anxious and down.
CK and I water talking about people who keep saying online how they have so this free time now. We consider that some folks have lost jobs, which accounts for it. Some folks just were always out?
In theory I should have more since I’m not driving around, running errands, etc. I don’t have more time. It might be that the time is going to keeping myself grounded, which doesn’t leave me free time.
It doesn’t feel like abundance this time. I need to use it to stay functional. If it were truly free time, perhaps then I might be using it to tackle more projects.