Oh, thank you so much, Maddog!
It is a balance, the good with the bad. Truly, in some ways, I believe that I am a much BETTER person, than I otherwise might have been, because of my traumas and my CPTSD. I have noticed that people with PTSD and CPTSD, typically have a depth of compassion and understanding that far too many "normal" people seem to lack. I would rather be Broken, than Heartless. I would rather be the Drama Queen, than the Ice Queen.
I do want to share a word of caution, though, along with my natural optimism: as we age, life, in many ways, becomes ever more challenging. The reality is that, while we are working towards increased wisdom, insight, spiritual growth, and greater mental health, the ongoing losses and traumas of life continue to accumulate, and these events can often set a person back very farin their healing journey, if only temporarily. The older we get, the more physical health problems we can expect to have, and also as we grow older, our income typically falls, in most cases very drastically. Also, and hardest of all: as the years go by, and the further down the road of life we go, the more losses and griefs we will have to bear, some of which will seem at the time to be unbearable. When I was in my 20s, almost no one I knew died. When I was in my 30s, 4 or 5 people I knew well, died. When I was in my 40s, there were many more who died. But, in the not-quite-9-years since I turned 50, I have lost a great many dear loved ones to death. I know this will only increase exponentially, so long as I am still alive. Getting older isn't for sissies!
But truly, despite all these losses and sorrows, for me, the years since I turned 50 have been the very best years of my life, so far. I honestly am looking forward to being 60! I, who dreaded turning 30, worse than I would have feared the plague! When I hit 40, Oh my Lord I thought the world was ending. But 50 has been FUN, more than anything. I hope 60 will be fun, too. I'm going to do everything in my power to make it so!
Of course, it helps that I do not look like I am almost 60. I give credit to the antioxidant grapeseed extract, which I started taking 15 years ago... I believe I look younger now, than I did then. I also use skin creams that have powerful antioxidants in them. The photo of my husband and myself, that I'm using as my avatar here, his picture was taken on his 63rd birthday, which was less than a month ago, and my picture was taken just 6 months ago. That's what I really look like, at the age of 58! My aunt is 72, and she looks at least 20 years younger, so maybe its something in my genes, also.
If you take care of yourself, you can look better and even feel better while you are getting older, and really helps with the increased losses and challenges that naturally come with advancing age. But even so, when very dear loved ones die, that gets very hard. In just the past few years I have lost a grandson, my very precious stepfather, my extremely close uncle, who was more like a brother to me, and his daughter, my cousin, who was more like a little sister to me than a cousin, she drowned last summer, only a few hours after she and I were talking on the phone! I was writing a long loving letter to her, at the time that she drowned. I am still not over her death, I don't know if I ever will be over that.
Having CPTSD is hard on a good day. But when loved ones are dying, or someone you care very much about is diagnosed with cancer, or a grown daughter has a severely handicapped child, and goes through a divorce, and losses a job, when a grown son flunks out of college and has four bad car wreck, when your husband has a heart condition, and then he is diagnosed with diabetes, and then he has a motorcycle accident, and your house is foreclosed on after your husband can no longer work, and you lose your job ~ these big potholes in the road of life can hit you like a train wreck.
I am learning, the older I get, that I need to take extra good care of myself, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually, too, every day, so that when tragedies hit ~ and they do hit us all, sooner or later, if we live long enough ~ the weight of the new tragedies, on top of the old traumas and tragedies, might not utterly destroy us. I have found that I need to be particularly gentle with myself, when tragedies of all kinds happen to my loved ones, to my family, to my friends, or when I see horrible things on the news, like the unbelievable earthquakes and tsunamis and murders and wars, and on and on and on... this world is a wonderful, glorious, miraculous place, but this world is also very HARD at times! All we can do is the best that we can with what we have on any given day, and give ourselves a break, especially when times are really tough.
When my darling cousin drowned last June, at the age of only 38... I thought I wasn't going to survive that one. But now, I am going on, I am picking up the pieces of my life once again, and I am doing what I know my baby cousin would want me to do. I am living my life in honor of her life, and in love for my most wonderful precious cousin Elaine. She was a nurse, too. She was an angel. I told her on the night before she drowned, when we talked on the phone for almost an hour, I told her how much I love her. I said, "I love you four ways. One, I love you for you. Two, I love you because you are my cousin. Three, I love you because I love your mom, my favorite aunt, so very much. And four, I love you because I loved your dad, my favorite wonderful uncle."
We never know when a phone call or a visit is the last one. I had no idea that she would freaking DROWN the very next day! I screamed when I got the terrible news. Screamed. I miss her so much, and it just seems so very WRONG that she is dead, while I am still alive. But I am living my life in honor of Elaine. I am writing in honor of her. That's why I am now using the pen name, Elaina.
