The Merits of Soaking a Fuzzy Trauma Llama

*CONTENT WARNING! Common themes of this blog include, but are not limited to, PTSD and abuse, sexual and otherwise.*

[written on June 4, 2012]

Today I talked to my sister about talking to my mom and, since then, I’ve been thinking about baths. I know, weird, right? Mom always suggested baths when I was stressed, popular culture always elevates baths as these amazing, relaxing, scented, feminine, magical places. I always got restless within about 5 minutes, stressed about sitting in water for another 5, tried to just chill, turn off the lights for another 5, etc. That’s it. Done. Out.

For whatever reason, today I understand the appeal. I actually want to take a bath. Now that I’ve come to crave water as a grounding element in my life, allowing it to soak me seems…cleansing. As long as I shower first. I mean, sitting in my own water is enough without mixing in a full day of work stress.

Anyway, post-connecting dots, I feel immense sadness, yet also a very deep understanding that these connections were the first example of many to come. “The end” — whatever that is — will be a more profound, fuller sense of connection, I think. Might need to seek Z* to get there.

For now, still waiting for a solid night’s sleep. Dreamt about E again last night — this time she just tole me she was sad. Tossed and turned all night. Exhausted and ready to just crash. Mind and Body both need it.

-FTL

*Z is a wonderful friend, teacher, mentor, spiritual healer, etc. Z has a rich life history and comes from a diverse healing background, including (but not limited to) transpersonal psychology, sacred healing, breathwork, medicine work, native american ceremony… Z also takes beautiful photos, but that’s just a personal note.

Fuzzy Trauma Llama Feels All Mixed Up

*CONTENT WARNING! Common themes of this blog include, but are not limited to, PTSD and abuse, sexual and otherwise.*

[written on May 31, 2012]

This, friends, is what I like to call Sucking it Up. I say sucking primarily because I have felt pretty sucktastic the past week or so, and also because I’ve avoided writing the entire time since I fear the suckage of writing, as well. Thus, Sucking it Up. Embark:

This sucks. I know, I know, it was ~20 years ago, blah blah. This fucking sucks. This week, it’s been sadness, nightmares, disrupted sleep, exhaustion, and crying. And more crying. Including on my Wednesday morning walk to the train, which turned into a cryfest+pep talk+going back home…. In fact, I stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday this week & honestly hardly made it through today. My seemingly perpetual cycle of headache vs not headache is enough to make me crazy. I feel like there have been so many fucked up emotions this week, I’m just utterly overwhelmed.

I was searching for info about coping with a job or other daily activities today and came across this thing people who are healing from sexual assault/rape are supposed to read every morning (http://www.pandys.org/articles/readthiseverymorning.html, from Pandora’s Project out of Minneapolis, MN). At the very beginning, it says if you get out of bed, you’re doing well. If you have a job, you’re doing amazingly. It continues for a while and the very last one says (or, rather, toward the end) if you’re only able to exist, there are people waiting for when you’re ready to live again. Honestly, some days I feel like it’s enough to ask myself to just be awake. Other days, I feel like if I could just be awake, and do nothing else, it would be the most productive day. I’m having a hard time stringing thoughts together tonight.

Sometimes, and a few times in the last month, I have simply (err…) felt as though the only way to deal with the anger or sadness or anxiety or exhaustion is just to feel it all. All the weight and might and pressure — ride it out. I think that’s another component to my need for time. It’s like I need to get to a place where I can let go and have some of this backlogged stuff run its course. Sometimes it is just too damn hard to be in the same world as everyone else. I mean, sometimes it’s just too damn hard to begin with, but lately this feeling has been building, like I just don’t operate in the same reality as other people. It’s as if the sadness and pain and all this healing is just too much to fathom in most people’s reality and it is such an unmistakably huge part of everything in my life right now, I feel like I’m moving in a different realm.

Ugh, there are too many things going on in my head right now. I can’t keep my thoughts straight.

I am so tired.

Also, I read the average for this process is 3-5 years. Ok.

-FTL

There’s a Grey Cloud over Fuzzy Trauma Llama’s Head

*CONTENT WARNING! Common themes of this blog include, but are not limited to, PTSD and abuse, sexual and otherwise.*

[written on May 24, 2012]

I continue to struggle with motivating myself to write in here daily, so since I currently have the motivation & desire, I’m just gonna go with it. I have had a crappy past few days, hopefully getting some of it out will mean another turning point — or better, a break from these rapid “phase changes,” as I’m calling them. I guess the phase I’m in right now is just sad. I am sad. I feel it in my chest and jaw and fingers. It’s this…full feeling. It’s like feeling the emotion fully for the first time — feeling its Platonic essence, or something. It’s like my body feels Sad.

I can’t pinpoint what I’m sad about, and I’m beginning to think I’m not sad or mad about any one thing; these phases aren’t leading me to one specific answer. More and more, I think I’m just headed for some sort of “hmm” moment when suddenly I just know something or feel something. It’s hard to describe all of this, especially being the feelings-averse creature that I am. Anyway, I currently feel a whole lot of sadness and it’s further exhausting what I felt was already a decently high level of exhaustion. (Man, it’s SO windy tonight!)

——> spent some time being distracted by wind

Before this whole Immense Sadness thing set in, the exhaustion was the biggest of my problems. It still amazes me that I’m sleeping ~9+ hours/night (thank you, Mary Jane and valerian!) and when it gets to be about 10am, I’m sleepy. 12pm, quite tired, eye twitching, etc. 1:30pm — done. I have nearly fallen asleep at work while sitting on the toilet. Needless-to-say, no amount of sleep satisfies me and I go through every day feeling the exhaustion of what K calls “backlog.” I explained it to B using computer language — it’s like copying an old hard drive to a new computer. It takes a while for the new one to read through all that new data, sort it, match it up with duplicates, etc. I guess that since I’m open to this sort of Healing Process right now, my mind has subconsciously started doing the backlog and, as a result, my body is feeling the effects. It kinda explains why I’m going through all these phases at what feels like such rapidly shifting pace. I felt so angry for ~1 month back in March/April, then zen, then anticipatory/anxious, then alien-obsessed, then simply broken down, then tired, then enlightened/”I Am the Yogi of My Body,” then exhaustion, now deep sadness…all within a few months. I feel like I’ve been 18 different versions of myself/moods of myself in the past few months — no wonder I’m exhausted and seeking some sort of reprieve. I am simply out of energy and right back to needing time. I just need some time that doesn’t count for anyone else — freeze time for them and give me a few days…or a few weeks, to be outside, by water, with books and this journal and Mary Jane and a guitar. Mostly the tent+outside+water part. K suggested I look at Green Gulch, a zen meditation center up by Muir Woods. K said that might be a good place for me to spend a few days in silence and peace and solitude. Never thought I’d see myself writing about zen meditation centers! Well, at least me going to one…

And, I think I’m done for now. I’m taking one thing to work on in the coming weeks, days…

Patience

Clearly not a strong suit, but it is clear this is going to be varying levels of difficult for who knows how long. I need to be patient through these harder parts with the knowledge that the shit is just me winning. No matter how much this sucks, it’s better than a year ago when I hadn’t even started.

-FTL

Fuzzy Trauma Llama’s First Steps

*CONTENT WARNING! Common themes of this blog include, but are not limited to, PTSD and abuse, sexual and otherwise.*

[written on May 10, 2012]

Today’s probably the first day this week I haven’t felt totally overwhelmed. I still didn’t make it to work in person, but I was online all day and essentially worked as normal. Between breaks and work, I mostly just sat outside in the sun. During all my breaks I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. During this week of weird orb-ness*, very few things have become clear except that:

I need to have consistent, frequent outdoor time.
Water is soothing, particularly waves, and makes me feel grounded.
Meditating is totally real, no matter how new agey that makes me sound.
Therapy is awesome, everyone should dedicate this much time to knowing and understanding themselves with respect to others/society/etc. ||: above new agey comment : ||
Cook your own food. What better way to reconnect with your body when feeling lost, disoriented, exhausted? Nourish the body. It expends energy, allows you to take care of and nourish yourself, plus, the body has a natural tendency to seek rest after eating. Expend energy, eat, sleep, wake, and start again.

Despite this, I still fell just as lost as before, perhaps slightly better equipped to deal with it. I really did have to pull out all the stops to find this state of respite…or whatever it is. I stayed home for 4 consecutive days. For many of those hours, I never once looked at email. I slept during the day, at night, 20 minutes, 10 hours, whenever I needed to. I cried. As much as I could, which is at least a step in the right direction, I think. I did meditations. Sometimes I did a few meditations consecutively. I even “created” some of my own physical meditations, as I’m calling them. K mentioned that my intense love of solitaire and current impulse to play as much of it as I can stand, might actually just be an ok coping mechanism to have. I have come to realize pacing is very soothing. I also play this game where i tap each finger tip to the thumb in order from nearest (index) to furthest (pinky) and back again. First it’s one tap each. Repeat. Then two each. Then three. Up to five. Back to four. Continue back to one tap each. Repeat one tap each. If I can get through the whole thing flawlessly, it always means my mind is calm enough for muscle memory to move my fingers. I do both hands, one at a time, until I “win” with each hand. Somehow, by the end, I feel more grounded.

[…] <—- there was a break in here, a matter of hours, it appears.

Since upping the meditating, I’ve stopped the whole solitaire thing. The intense pain in my chest from the orb of somethingness has somewhat soothed, and my main remaining feelings are tiredness, residual soreness, enough herbal enjoyment in my blood to last a few failed tests …

I want to read, outside, for a few days. Living in a tent by water with enough supplies to last me at least a few nights out there. I feel like I just need time. More of it. Or a pause button for everyone else. Somehow just a way to take a break. For me.

-FTL

*I often felt this orb thing in my chest. I once described it as: An orb. It glows, in my chest, orange-ish/gold. It feels like it pushes outward, creating pressure starting in my ribs and pulsing bigger and bigger. Feels almost like I could reach in and pull it out.

This orb is something that haunted my body for a long time. After a lot of searching, and lots of different healing modalities, I can say the orb has moved to the realm of Former Friends. A painful teacher, but an important one.