PTSD and Trees

[Rose White]

Inspired by @Friday ‘s post I am curious about how your experiences with PTSD and relationships with trees might have overlapped. In my own experience I learned about protection and unconditional love from individual trees in my life.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Might sound ultra-stupid, but I really feel like I get more unconditional love from trees than from humans. Not really wanting to put words to it, they just "are" there and literally don't go anywhere

 

[Rose White]

Might sound ultra-stupid, but I really feel like I get more unconditional love from trees than from humans

I understand why you would say “sound stupid”, but it doesn’t sound that way to me at all. When you’ve been abandoned, used, and/or attacked by humans who are supposed to care for you, other life forms are much less frightening and more welcoming. I don’t know if we project what we need onto them or, due to our necessarily heightened awareness of others’ thoughts and motivations, can tap into something emotional that “normies” don’t need to

 

[Friday]

TBH… Trees are a kinda sorta huge stressor. Tripwires. Lines of sight. Cover. A place to camp (few people look UP so they’re a great place to pitch a hammock tent, or tie yourself to, 20 or 30 feet up. Demarking water, even if underground. Fuel. (Both in the I need some, and run for your life, kinds of ways). Map reference. Freestyle hiking. Weyerhaeuser. Weed farms. Forests are complicated places for me.

 

[Rose White]

Trees are a kinda sorta huge stressor.

I have met lots of people in this camp. Can’t say I completely understand but I am aware. I used to be a tree trimmer (ground crew) and understand the stress. I still wince when I see a big Eucalyptus growing next to a house (they are one of the least flexible, most brittle trees and huge!—can take out half a house with a single branch). I had a neighbor from Texas who removed all the mesquite trees in his yard because they call them weeds where he came from. He literally preferred all rocks and a few cactus to a shady canopy. I met a landlord whose mom advised her to never allow trees to grow on her properties because they were too expensive to maintain. My parents cut down all the fruit trees in the house we moved into when I was in junior high (apple, plum, and orange) because “you have to prune them.”

I have a dear friend who has a giant Eucalyptus in her front yard. I told her how dangerous they can be and she said she didn’t care, and I do understand that. I don’t care if a tree isn’t native (tamarisks make some of the most dramatic and magical cathedral-like specimens, growing in washes near culverts—they prefer disturbed areas), I don’t care if a fruit tree grows too wild or its root stock took over long ago—but also I’m not a home owner or a landlord or a property manager.

I think trees became even more personal to me when I learned how to differentiate the species.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

TBH… Trees are a kinda sorta huge stressor. Tripwires. Lines of sight. Cover. A place to camp (few people look UP so they’re a great place to pitch a hammock tent, or tie yourself to, 20 or 30 feet up. Demarking water, even if underground. Fuel. (Both in the I need some, and run for your life, kinds of ways). Map reference. Freestyle hiking. Weyerhaeuser. Weed farms. Forests are complicated places for me.

I never though of it this way. Kind of interesting to hear a different perspective - I usually feel safer when there's trees around.

Trees for me represent solidity, grounding.
Standing firm. And of course there's a link to the Ents.

 

[Shaylee]

Depends on the tree… I do not like conifers. Stand offish pricks that kill the grass.

Thin spindly yet really tall trees… they don’t have enough leaves to whisper or to shade and their trunks are so thin and spindly it’s like they never grew up even though they are taller than a 2 story house…

Ash always make me think they are tree bullies. Their branches are just so thick even when small

My all time favorite tree, enormous Weeping Willows… They are like the sweetest grandmothers you have ever met. Hide from your parents if the branches are thick and long enough.

Flowering trees of any kind make me happy.

i just think trees have the nicest whispers of all living things. They are never mean, just passing along some beautiful knowledge the rest of us could only ever hope to know or understand.

 

[Rose White]

@Shaylee forgive my defensiveness!

Pine… makes food (pinyon nuts), beautiful incense and the aroma of a pine forest is heady, wood for building homes, paper for writing poems

Spindly yet tall… palm trees offer very little shade in my desert town where shade is a premium, yet they rustle and whisper to nesting ravens with pink-beaked young And the fronds can be woven into baskets but only by transplanted islanders who grew up learning the secrets

Ash… the world tree Yggdrasil, the velvet soft bark, the difference between male and female trees make them even more individual, the use of the wood for tools

In support…

Agree about willow—magical! Down a backroad at the foot of the mountains, Surrounded by old neighborhoods, mobile homes, and hobby ranches, I found an abandoned lot with willow growing over a spring with duckweed and frogs.

Flowering trees are majestic but everyone complains about the pollen around here!

passing along some beautiful knowledge the rest of us could only ever hope to know or understand.

Amen!

 

[Shaylee]

@Shaylee forgive my defensiveness!

Nothing to forgive nor any reason to be defensive. This is all about subjective opinions. You are very welcome to be different from me. Then at least the trees I take issue with get some love

 

[whiteraven]

I find my safest shelter in the heavily wooded places. Always.