It’s your experience

Too often I was told how I should feel, how long I should hurt, and ridiculed if I cried.  I learned to stuff how I felt, no longer acknowledged my pain, and didn’t cry.  I was emotionally self destructing.  I spent 3 years almost completely bed ridden.  I could be up about 20 minutes a…

Explaining Stuck

I keep doing research and reading what others write about the challenges of PTSD.  One of the more perplexing terms used by counselors is the explanation that I am ‘Stuck.’  Well great, what does it mean and how do I get unstuck?  I imagined myself ‘stuck’ in quicksand, the more I struggled the more ‘stuck’…

You don’t know

what you don’t know. This week I was reminded something taught to me by my first counselor.  I was stumbling through several counseling sessions when I first started going, confused and resentful not understanding where he was trying to get me to go with my thinking.  I couldn’t grasp what he was trying to say. …

Learning From SEAL survival

I help out in the school library/tech center.  I am help supervise students that are using the computers during one class time.  When all is going well, I get bored.  Since there are shelves and shelves of library books, I do the most logical thing and see what’s on the shelf.  Surprised me when I…

Something to work on

Every once in awhile I run across an article that hits a tender and mending spot.  For many years my emotions were unavailable to me and in extension to my children.  I didn’t do this on purpose.  It has to do with how I was raised.  I am working at changing it.  I change slowly.…

Challenge my views

Counseling was a weekly challenge to my life views.  There wasn’t a single part of my life that wasn’t pushed to the max during counseling.  I continue the process.  Before jumping to the idea that I am suggesting you doubt yourself, I learned to challenge long held beliefs. If you always do what you always…

Antidote to Hopelessness

Hopelessness is precursor to suicide.  That moment in time when nothing good seems possible.  You wake up again in pain and darkness knowing the same thing will happen tomorrow.  When I first heard that gratitude was the antidote to hopelessness it was said in such away that I felt hurt.  A glib off the cuff,…

Mourn with those the mourn

Sorrow, sadness, grief expressed and felt for those that suffer through out the world.  It is OK to grieve together.  Yes, symptoms of PTSD such as anxiety, overwhelming emotions, and nightmares, to name a few, may increase during times of tragedy.  I do not believe that grieving with France, lessens or negates, the sorrow caused…

Confessions

I share about thriving.  I share about my progress.  When I hit another PTSD flare up, I feel guilty writing about how great things can become.  Unfortunately, setbacks, triggers, and times of struggling happen again and again.  I learned this past few months that hitting a rough patch doesn’t mean I’m not progressing.  I got…