I’m making some changes to my website over the next few days. Revamping, etc. Please be patient with me.
These last few days have been rough. Technical difficulties, ptsd symptoms, unidentified back problem. But the highlights have been taking my myself out in nature and just breathing.
Yesterday I worked on a new electric fence lines… posts were already up, but the deer were chewing through the line, and the fencer itself was ancient. So, I kept trudging along, getting my steps in. Whatever is wrong with my back doesn’t cause pain when I walk, just when I bend over or try to sit up. Blah blah…getting old isn’t for wussies.
Anyway, I’m realizing that I can’t control everything… and I really shouldn’t try. I didn’t realize that I was doing that…and the tighter I’ve been trying to hold on, the less I feel like I have a grip. The ole’ “get a grip”….I’ve got mine too tight, and things are falling down around me.
Years ago I used to be less of a “get a grip” type of person.. I’m not sure what has happened over the last few years to make me change, but I have, and now I need to work on realizing that I don’t have control.
Continued Changes…next 4 days. Please bear with me! (Me⬅️get a grip!)
Last year I started learning about online business. I spent that whole year learning and expanding my techy nerd status. I also learned what I want to do, and what I don’t want to do, as far as online business is concerned.
I’ve decided to do it the old fashioned way. I don’t have the funds to run a lot of paid ads, so I’m mostly using YouTube (new channel), Instagram, Twitter, Medium and FB. I don’t do much on facebook other than cross post. Twitter and Medium is more for my poetry, and YouTube, Instagram and my blog is everything.
If you want to access any of those other platforms, you can via THIS LINK…it’s my linktree.
Anyway, just an update, my site is changing and I wanted to fill you in. Thanks for your support.
✌️
Shassy
PS. Here’s a short clip of some of the things I post on YouTube
This post is mostly for therapy today, so there’s your disclaimer.
I’m seriously considering ETC treatments, my psych med provider is checking into ketamine treatments. I am researching hallucinogenic mushroom treatments…though I think all that is really available is getting into a study. I’ll link one that I found the last time I did research.
At the present moment I’m fighting off a mild panic attack. I’m feeling shame, guilt. I don’t know why, I haven’t done anything. Though I think it’s all tied into the realization that I fell off the wagon with my binge eating….I know that sounds stupid, but that’s the way it goes. I screw up, then all the things I ever did wrong, that I can remember from 15 years ago, comes flooding back.
All the times I drank too much, and drove. Acted very less than lady-like, as my Grandma would say. The times I intentionally hurt myself because I was trying to put some kind of focus on the pain I was feeling. I know have scars to remind me daily. I even found a picture while I was learning something new about my phone…making a movie…you have to scroll through to get the pictures you want, and yadda yadda, I found pictures of my arms.
I feel the ruminants of childhood pain. That’s what it feels like. How I felt when I was a kid. Not all the time, but a lot of the time.
Logically I understand the process, what my brain is doing. But emotionally I go through it all again.. I could try to block it out, but that never works. Never ever. So I sit here and just feel it. It is tiring, frustrating, and I beat myself up for being human. It’s like a dog chasing its tail, I cycle around and around and around….sitting on a merry-go-round stuck to a plastic horse that’s attached by a pole, spinning out of control. I can’t get off the horse, or exit the ride. The times the merry go round slows down enough for me to touch solid ground, I’m wasted, dizzy, nauseous and stumbling around like a cripple. That’s how I feel… crippled.
Two days later…..
Ok, so I stopped writing this because I typing was even too much. It’s two days later, and I needed to finish.
The episode passed. I wrote a poem, and now I’m nursing my back again.
Now I just feel numb… which is what happens. I feel nothing. Well, I feel tired. So I’m being present, and just feeling whatever it is that comes around. I’ll work through it, and move forward.
As I’m reading this post, I can see my emotions, feelings and thoughts go up and down…two days ago I was feeling like the biggest piece of shit on the planet, and now I’m feeling nothing but blandness and exhaustion. I am glad that I’m feeling better about myself in general, because that just sucks. I think I’ll spend the night in the Jeep tonight, and listen to nature. I’m staying off of social media, with the exception of my own content, and the occasional checking of my security cams. I. Have. To. Take. A. Break.
I’m in the cycle where I’m not sleeping normal… then I’m tired during the day. Random anxiety attacks, and over all not wanting to deal with anything social or human.
So what. I’m sure there’s others out there going through the same thing. It’ll pass.
Plus, I binge eat. It’s something that’s just sort of manifested that last couple of years. I’ve been working really hard to not do that…my labs came back good, except my LDL was 111. Last lab I took, it was 87.
I can’t explain this binge eating, and it’s only with sweet stuff…over the last few weeks, I’ve done ok at not reaching for that unhealthy coping skill, but last night I fell off the wagon and ate chocolate fudge cake mix. Yea, just the mix. Well, mixed with some warm butter and water. That sounds disgusting now as I think about it, and it’s made my sick today, because it’s too much processed food, sugar and all of the things that my body isn’t used to anymore.
So, what now. Up all night, tired, cranky, 0 motivation, on a scale of 0-10. 10 being the bestest ever in life. (Yes, I’m being a crybabysissybedwetter…I’ll get over it).
I’ve got to get this in check. I’ve lost 14 pounds so far, and I don’t want to screw it up by getting back on the sugar shack train. Eating chocolate fudge cake batter is just stupid.
I have a body image issue, body dysmorphia is what it’s called I think. I’ve had it my whole life, but never understood it until a few years ago. I won’t go into the details, but you can read about it here.
I feel guilty..which is an important note. Back in the day when I would drink a lot to cope, a lot of times because of the situation, the next day I would wake up and feel like I had committed the seven deadly sins. I felt so much guilt for how I acted while under the influence. The stupid things I did, the times that only the good Lord above saved me, when I should have been taking a dirt nap.
The guilt is a symptom of another symptom. Addiction. I’m an addict. If I’m not careful, my go-to “drug of choice”, can and does change. Recently it’s been sweets and sugar. I’ve just transferred my addiction…to something else. I’m not drinking, abusing medication, doing illegal drugs…but I am acting like an addict.
Maybe one or two bites of the cake batter would have been fine…but my brain goes haywire and I over do it, and binge. The next day I feel like shit, and guilty, as the spiral starts.
This is what happens when I don’t keep an eye on my mental health. I mean I’m trying to do “the things”, and stay active, but addiction is a sneaky little bastard, and sometimes I fail.
I don’t know right now if there was a trigger, or if it’s the moon cycle, or if I’m just going through it again. What I do know is that my body CAN NOT handle the binge. I know this.
Ok, so I had to add in my favorite coffee as of right now. I can’t believe how great it is. There’s a video of me somewhere doing an unboxing…I’ll try to find it to add to this post. Not that that will make you want to buy some, but you should. It’s roasted in America, shipped and packaged by a small company, and I just love it.
So, I’m doing what my shrink told me to, write about how I’m feeling and learn to be vulnerable. This is difficult sometimes. I don’t want to admit that I still struggle with addiction. But I do. Time to reset and forgive myself. I am worth it. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.
Here’s me and Fletch. I was riding him with some other people a few years ago. Really nice little medicine cap gelding. Had the patience of a saint. I really enjoyed riding him that day, he was calm, eager and ready to go do something.
Me and Fletch
It was an enjoyable ride, and he never gave anything but his best for me.
He is now owned and loved by a family who has little kids. The patience he shows with those kids is priceless. Standing and allowing them to learn how to mount up and accepting their youth and learning.
Horses are an amazingly forgiving animal, in most cases. They tolerate our mistakes, our inability to figure out quickly what their language is, so an effective team and trust can be built. They listen to your heartbeat, and breathing, and can tell if you are anxious or scared. Without proper learned communication, this just makes the horse anxious, just like us.
A horse like Fletch can’t tell us what his past has been, but from when I rode him, he was accepting of this new stranger on his back, and made ME confident. It’s always a guess when I get on a new horse, to test out for someone, or just riding someone else’s horse. Fletch told me “Hi new human! I’m Fletch, and I’m going to show you that I’m good, and I’ll take care of you on our ride today”.
He did just that.
If your horse is reacting, check yourself, your feelings, and your emotional status… it may be that you just need to have a talk, and spend some time getting to know each other, at liberty.
What do you think about horses? Have you ever had any experience with them? Do you have a communication problem with them? Let me know
I am keeping my socials to Instagram, and my YouTube channel that I am building. And of course my blog. But you can access those socials via this link https://linktr.ee/hrsygirl. I’m also on Reddit, and that is a wonderful place to get advice, inspiration, and to share whatever you are going through in life. I am starting from scratch building my YouTube. Even if you don’t use those socials, I would really be super appreciative if you should share at least my blog posts, to get the word out. My goal is to get out from under the thumb of the gov, and not have to rely on $1000 a month to live on. I’m doing it the old fashioned way by picking the best platforms for that. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wouldn’t be able to do it without support, and encouragement .. ✌️💜😊
I am still testing, adjusting, and building out my #jeepminicamper. The other night I was parked away from any building, in a nook surrounded by some small trees to try to get out of the wind.
It was about 10-ish, and I rolled down the window and was just looking around. I had gotten out earlier, and just stood there and listened. All I heard was the wind.
As I was looking around a giant panic attack came over me. Why? Who knows… I found no trigger. But I stood there and realized that other than my dog, I was alone. (Within touching distance). For some reason this hit me, and the panic attack got worse.
I don’t quite understand…I’m “alone” all of the time. I don’t socialize, other than phone calls and social media. I don’t go out to events, and I’m totally ok with that. I understand that I have issues, lol, but I’m slowly understanding that even though I do my best to manage symptoms, my brain still defaults to “time to freak out” mode.
Nature is my happy place. I don’t care if it’s dark, light, hot or cold… when I’m in nature I feel my best. So when this happened, I was caught off guard, because, obviously I was out in nature.
I’m serious…the general “fear”….my brain went off the chain…my thoughts were so irrational, like “what if there’s a mountain lion out in the trees”, to “there could be a person hiding somewhere”. WTF. Seriously?
Here’s what I caught on my phone. I set it up and left it until what was left of my battery died. No edits, these are the colors it captured. Simply beautiful.
I have a big mouth dog that hears stuff way before I do. Who protects me and loves nature and being outdoors. (Except when it’s too cold or too hot….she’s a couch dog.) She’s smart. If there were a boogie man or boogie mountain lion, she would have smelled it way before I had even exited the car. This is what I had to tell myself. I had to put myself back in the present, instead of in the twilight zone, and calm my ass down.
I’ve never had that happen when I’m camping/hiking etc. Never had an out of the blue panic attack. But as I go on this journey, of “all of this”, I’m learning that the brain is tricky. There could have been something that triggered a repressed memory, and caused the switch to flip in the ole’ noggin. That’s the only thing I can come up with at this point. Fortunately, it didn’t last very long, as I went through coping skills, and looked up at the night sky and realized how calming it really is.
So in a round about way, nature brought me back and told me I was ok. That’s the way I see it anyhow.
So now we are testing the boundaries of newly found, long buried fears. Fear has always been a huge debilitating weakness for me. Ever since I was a small child. I would think something was happening and literally freeze with fear. One instance, I was living with my grandparents, and I was upstairs going to the bathroom, and I froze with fear, thinking there was something on my back. I kept whispering “Grandma!”, and somehow her radar ears heard my whispers, and she came upstairs. I told her there was something on my back, and she looked and found nothing, and she settled me back in bed.
Fear is paralyzing, and if I feel it coming on, I fight hard to stand against it. Literally, I can channel my fear into fight or protection in a nano second. Which is good in some cases…others not so much. If that transition of fear into fight, happens to be coupled with my very slowly growing anger….then I warn people and try my very best to walk away.
Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I’ve learned something new about mental illness, mine in particular.
Growth takes time, and I have to continue to be open when new things like this happen, so I don’t take 10 steps backwards, and fall into the valley of despair.
If you are going through something similar, I feel you. You are not alone.
Peace out from Daenerys… the #jeepminicamper
✌️
Shassy
The view of the moon from Daenerys, the #jeepminicamper
What I’ve learned. I’ve been converting my 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee into a mini camper.
I took out all the seats, except for the drivers… obviously… lol… built wooden platforms to create a level working space. I built an elevated bed platform and created storage by using the space underneath. I built three cabinets for the inside, one of which I ended up taking all apart, sawing in two, and starting all over again… it wasn’t working out like I thought.
It’s been a journey for sure. I started out not having a clue what I was doing, but knowing what I wanted in the end… which is not here yet. But I’m getting closer.
I knew I wanted to be able to have power. So I researched and bought a solar generator and a solar panel…note.. pay attention to what kind of panel you are buying, I bought a polycrystalline panel, but monocrystaline is said to convert a little better. All I’ll say is that yesterday, it was completely cloud covered, and my panel still charged my generator. So 🤷🏻♀️…you can choose what you want.
Anyway, it’s been a journey of discovery, and me learning more patience. I’ve had to learn how to do everything. My cabinets will not win any awards, but they will serve their function. Will I make changes later? Probably, as I learn and move along. But right now it’s working for what I intended.
So what was that intention? To help my mental status. To help with PTSD, MDD, BPD symptoms. I struggle so much that I decided to add another tool to my toolbox.
What I’ve learned so far by turning my old Jeep into a mini camper. Highs, lows and the #1 reason I would do it all over again.
It has been amazing. I feel so much better sitting here in this little mobile home that I’ve created. I feel like I have the freedom to just pull over and stop anywhere if I want… but mainly it’s to be out in nature and with the animals. Even if it’s where I keep my horse…currently I’m parked right next to her paddock, and got morning nickers…I can’t tell you how that fills my heart and helps me. (Though I will say she probably had an alternative motive…wanting me to let her out to run around…but it rained last night, and I don’t want her to leave hoof marks in the main yard… and I can guarantee she would.)
I haven’t finished the #jeepminicamper. I still need to get the sink, faucet and fresh water installed. Build awnings, and maybe add a tent that attaches to the back end… not sure about that one yet, but we’ll see.
Thus far it’s serving its purpose…helping me mentally. I can park it anywhere right now and have a warm place to sleep, and hang out, without seeing another human being, if that’s what I want.
For the longest time I’ve underestimated myself. Didn’t think I could do something because I wasn’t “trained”, or because I would succumb to other peoples comments like “why would you do that? You have a house and a bed.. why would you want to go sleep in a car?”
Well, I don’t care what people think or say about what I’m doing. The number one reason?➡️My mental state is better for it. If I’m having a rough day… I can go out in the middle of the pasture, or park next to my horse, spend time with her/fresh air and my mind finds peace.
To all the naysayers…go on and keep doing you boo… and I’ll do me. To each his own, and have the day you deserve. Bless your heart.
Today is a blog, rest and learning day. The past three days have been busy, tiring, painful, and rewarding all at the same time.
PTSD has been rearing its ugly head with my mind wandering off into stupid places, so I’ve had to deal with that.
I totally tore down one crappy cabinet in my jeep and completely built something new. With such a small space the old one was just not working. So I build a mini bench. It’s not pretty, but it’s functional and strong, and that’s all I care about.
One of the things that I rarely struggle with as a symptom of diagnoses, is irritability. I mean, I can get irritable, but I don’t like to be that way, and rarely does it manifest. But the last few days it has, and I’ve worked hard to dispel that. I have for reasons I don’t feel like mentioning, absolutely hate that about me. I hate getting irritated, hate getting angry, and work super hard on stopping it.
I think it’s a childhood thing…probably is. But I do know that when my anger has overcome me, I have a terrible temper, and can get tunnel vision with it. I don’t like that, it serves no purpose. Same with irritability, it serves me no purpose, and I know that I have failed in allowing it to get out of control in my life, so it’s something that I try to manage. I don’t like to be that way around people, or treat them that way, though I know I have failed at that during life.
I punch pillows, do yoga, spend time with nature and animals, and just basically get rid of that negativity.
Today is a blog, rest and learning day. For the last 3 days I’ve been working on my JeepMiniCamper, only posting shorts.
Anyway, today I’m waiting on a part, and there’s really nothing else I can build at this point, in my jeep. The rest will be ad-ons—-the faucet, since, clean and grey water tanks, awnings and window shades. I think I’m either going to build or buy something that I can add on to the back end of my jeep to make a covered area. I’ve seen tents like this one…
This is exactly what I’m going to use.
I’ll have it packed in my gear box, and they actually have it attached to a Grand Cherokee, which is what I have. So this will work perfectly.
For shorter trips, I’m fabricating my own awnings..pvc pipe, heavy duty tarp, guy lines, and poles. I’ll attach it to the roof rack that’s already on my jeep, way cheaper than buying them, and I’ll know how they’re made if something goes wrong. Easy peasy.
HAHA….I’ve found that not everything that I have planned has gone easy peasy. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’m learning so much.
Not much else for today. I need to do some editing for my YouTube channel…please subscribe if you can, and follow on my Facebook. I would really appreciate it.
Here’s a video of my girl running around yesterday… it was a gorgeous day and she was kicking up her heels… literally… lol
Happy Monday!
✌️
Shassy
P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to get notifications when I post.
P.P.S. I’m editing some videos and will blog abou the progress and what I’ve built so far… that’s coming up. I’m new to editing and all of that stuff.
Opossums are gentle creatures. They try to look nasty and slobber when scared, and will play “possum” when they feel like there’s no way out. This one in particular has been around a few times and is now trusting me and being brave as to interact and not play dead, or run off. (Yes, they can run off… I’ve seen it. They don’t always play dead.)
They really are an amazing animal, marsupials to be exact, and are beneficial to a healthy ecosystem. I say healthy because when humans get involved, we upset the ecosystem. If we eliminate one part, then it upsets the balance, and then it’s a downward spiral.
This particular opossum in my above ⬆️⬆️⬆️ video is a regular. I can tell by nicks in his little ears, and the end of his tail has a previous injury.
Last summer I took in a blind old opossum to sanctuary. He was starving and trying to live in one of our cats houses. When I realized something was wrong, I called my wildlife person, and took him into be transported to a safe place where he could get what he needed.
I didn’t know that when they get old they can get cataracts and become blind. I picked him up and put him gently into the carrier, and offered food and water, and he ate and drank like a champ. (This is a ranch and we have random bowls that are stored, without being used, so that’s why this bowl is so old looking, and covered in hard water stains. Sometimes the raccoons steal them and I find them in the yard, or further out in the pasture. Please don’t judge my old steel bowl). See below video. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Then, that same day, immediately after I had returned from the location for drop off for transport to sanctuary, as I walked into the barn, my cats were going after something. As I looked around I found the cutest baby Opie. I don’t care what you say, he/she was adorable.
(I don’t have my “hrsygrl” TikTok anymore, fyi). This video doesn’t show his cuteness as well as what I saw before I picked up my camera. I do have gloves on because although they rarely bite, they still can. I put him in a blanket and snuggled him up to me… and thought…. “I should raise him and keep him”… but I didn’t… he needed to be able to grow and be away from cats, so he went to sanctuary as well.
But I sure wanted to. It was hard to put aside what I wanted, and do what was right for him. Oh my heart 💜. Such a cutie.
So anyway, my point being is that I love animals and creatures of all kinds. I try to leave them be, but as you can see, since they learn where the food is… we will have interaction.
I also ran into Ricky Raccoon last night, but he wasn’t as amiable to discussion. 🤣
Please take care of this planet and all of the inhabitants. Once it’s gone, we don’t get a do-over.
THE LAST 2 DAYS HAVE BEEN A “WORK MYSELF INTO EXHAUSTION” EVENT. PTSD, MDD were kicking my butt.
The last 2 days have been a bit rough on the mental health side of my life. I started struggling on Saturday because it was my brothers birthday and I don’t know where or if he even “is”. He’s been gone for 12 years.
Major Depressive Disorder is described as having feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, irritability, and morbid thoughts, just to name a few. As described HERE via Mayo Clinic.
(click on any underlined word to get more details and descriptions.)
The mental health diagnoses that I have cycle. I’ll be good for a few days, then it’s like the dark cloud of doom arrives. I cry for no reason, feel like I have failed my family and friends, feel guilty for things that I haven’t done wrong, feel like I’m ugly, like my body is too fat, or that I walk funny. I understand where these feelings come from, logically, but I can’t stop them from happening.
So I cope. If the weather is nice I go outside. I go outside as much as possible to get out in nature and away from people and town anyway. These last few days, the weather has been nice and I poured myself into my Jeep mini camper project. I worked on hanging a new cattle panel gate that needed some adjustments. I got the tractor out and pulled up unnecessary t-posts to ready for new electric fence line. I moved a round bale in preparation for when Sadie finishes the current one.
I bashed my hand when the ratchet slipped off of a bolt… THAT hurt like a little whiney bitch…had to do some breathing to get through that. Whacked my ankle with the end of a log chain that I was using to pull up t-posts… that one hurt too. I’m a clutz sometimes.
The physical pain of those things oddly allows me to direct my emotional pain into something that I can deal with. I don’t hurt myself on purpose, but when I do, it’s like there’s something tangible for me to work through. A few years ago, I had picked up an unhealthy coping skill of intentionally hurting myself. I know, that’s not good, and I was able to work through that with my therapist and I do not do that anymore.
Working myself into a dither is a thing I do sometimes to get emotions out. It’s probably not the healthiest, but I am in fairly good shape for my age, so it doesn’t “hurt” me, and allows my mind to shut the fuck up, and my body to expend energy, and I get shit done.
The joy from these past few days? When I’m out at the ranch working on things, I let Sadie out for her walkabout. She’s got 180 acres she can run around on. I sometimes just sit and watch her, and she’s always watching me and what I’m doing. When she’s feeling her oats, she’ll take off and just run…. I love to watch her do that with her mane and tail flying in the air. One of these times I’ll get it on video, but most of the time I just smile and it fills my heart with joy.
Also all of our cats at the ranch… they are like little dogs, following me around, hanging out in my jeep when I’m working on it. That brings me joy as well. The birds singing, the crow I’ve befriended caw-cawing at me to bring him or her a snack. The other night I had my jeep set up enough for me to stay in it, and I opened the back hatch, watched the sunset with no interference from buildings, and after the sun went down, heard the coyotes singing the song of their people.
Even though I’m physically exhausted, I feel somewhat emotionally calmer. Or not as depressed and not having as many morbid thoughts, like I’d be better off not on this planet.
My therapist and I have worked out coping skills for when this happens, and these are a couple of them. In almost 8 years of therapy with the same trauma therapist, I know now that I will never be able to eliminate these mental health issues. (Ptsd, cptsd, mdd, bpd, gad, and tbi from head trauma). So we’ve set up a list of ways I can cope, with protocol when things get really bad and all of the tools in my toolbox aren’t working. I have crisis on speed dial.
And that is ok.
Accepting myself the way I am now, is something that I am still working on, but getting better. It does get frustrating to know that this is just the way I am, and that I will have to always have these cycles of ups and downs, morbid thoughts, anxiety, flashbacks, etc.
It just gets tiring sometimes. Some days I’m so tired of fighting it. So so tired.
But I’ve been given another day on this planet. So I’m accepting it with a grateful heart, and taking it one hour, one minute at a time.
If you or someone you know is struggling with crisis, or suicide, please text 988 for immediate help. 988
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Flashbacks and trauma. RE: 2017 “I’m a shitty person right now”
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2017: Sometimes I use blogging as a source to blast what is going on at the core, because it’s therapy for me. Sometimes I keep them private and sometimes I share. Not sure what this blurb is going to end up as.
I try not to say negative things about my life because nobody has time to hear that, or when I do I try to make a joke of it. I do fail though. This is going to be an epic fail I’m sure. I have made so many mistakes, and I just keep on doing them. I got into abusive relationships and blame myself for what has happened to me.
There’s still some ongoing business with the trip to Alaska, and I was reminded tonight how messed up I have become. So bad that I can’t stand to be around my own damn self. Am I on a pity pot? Maybe, probably. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am just completely lost in my life right now. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve let everyone down in my life because I’m an idiot, and can’t seem to get it right. Do I even DESERVE forgiveness? I mean really.
I’m going to have to do some serious soul searching and find out what is wrong with me.
****This post was from 2017. (Above the separation graphic of arrows). I repost it because it’s important for me to realize that I am not perfect, and I can at any time fall flat on my face if I am not careful. I vaguely remember this…only because it mentions “the trip to Alaska”.
I won’t get into that very much yet because it’s just a giant cluster fuck. Long story short I was a victim witness in a military court martial against a human (I say “human”, but really this person is a monster and a predator), that tried to kill another person, and had abused me as well. (I did not file a police report because I was afraid, instead I reached out to the military for help, and they declined because I was not married to the person.)
There’s a lot more to the story, but he was convicted, dishonorably discharged, and is now a registered federal sex offender for life. The trial is not my story to tell, I was not the petitioner, and my purpose was to support the petitioner in this trial (which I would do again in a heartbeat, I do not regret standing up for another woman, and in this case, women). But it was traumatic. It’s traumatic now to think about.
Trauma is weird. One minute you are feeling like “ok, I can deal with this”, and the next you are crying, snot running down your face, shaking, mind spinning, hyperventilating, and basically losing all functions of the body. I don’t know what’s best to deal with trauma…to look at it in the face and fight it, or to tuck it away far into the recesses of my mind until there comes a day where I can face it. This particular situation, my involvement in the trial, and the abuse I went through from this human, is in that category. The grey area.
I’ve learned to understand some of the things that have happened to me, and when I start experiencing symptoms of ptsd, I reach for my tools and coping skills. (The healthy ones). But I have yet to “situate” this instance and put it in its place. I’ve worked on it, a lot, and will continue to do so.
Today, and yesterday are days that I simply cannot deal…my mind is anxious, I’m picking at my fingernails, fidgety, racing thoughts, shaking. I hate to say that I’m used to it, when my brain cycles through this, but honestly I am…I feel it coming on. So I gear up to handle it in whatever way I can. Right now I’m writing about it. This is how I feel right now. It’s like being on a merry go round that’s going too fast, and everything is whizzing by, and you can’t get off.
I’ve been told to just “not think about it”. And sometimes that works, to not think about it. But the truth about trauma is that it changes your brain chemistry. It hides deep within the subconscious and remembers, even if I don’t.
Even if I “just don’t think about it”. There’s a trigger that my eye sees, or my ears hear, and it sets off a series of events in the brain that become physical body symptoms. Sometimes I don’t know what the triggers are, sometimes it’s a certain time of year that something happened. A trauma anniversary, for lack of a better way to describe it. That time comes around, and the brain and body remember, even if consciously I DON’T remember.
So for today it’s a Xanax, some gaba (amino acid) and literally checking out.
Gaba helps me. Here’s a publication from the NIH talking about ptsd and gaba. All I know is that I am 10 times worse without my gaba supplement. If that’s possible, and the answer to that question is yes. I have more morbid thoughts, and have, in the past become suicidal. I do my best to prevent those times from happening.
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Here’s a Story 