Upside Down Eagle
Diamond Member
Hi everybody!
Lately I haven't posted much. My last post, which I wrote like a year ago (or maybe even longer) was about this huge anger issue I was having. I had been living in this sort of teraphy-home, living with two other girls and this escort of psychiatrists everyday that monitored your every move. I went completely bezerk there! Worst decision ever. Now I know that people with post traumatic stress need to seek quiet, peaceful places, they need space around them and in their head. From the teraphy home I moved on with a friend of mine, who has a rather obscure job, but who was so friendly as to let me live with him.
Still, it was a room of nine square feet and I had to share it with some vermin (mice and other smaller yet disgusting things). Recently though I found the greatest (although expensive) appartment. I wake up with the sounds of birds. All the creativity has been flowing back to me. No more uncontrollable rage attacks since I have been here, with some exceptions when I venture into the outside world. It's fifty square feet! So space, it's incredibly important, and this adventure has everything to do with it. It all started when I met this guy who was into paragliding. I was into him, as well, but it didn't work out. One thing he inspired me to do however: I was going for an even more extreme version of flying than his. I signed up for a solo (Static Line) course at a nearby skydive club.
Absolutely terrifying, obviously. I am (due to the pstd) an enormously nervous person. I'm always moving and scratching my skin and biting something, either my nails or the inside of my cheeks (hate that habit). (I took up drumming to deal with the nervosity, I recommend that one!) Well then, imagine my nerves as we were preparing to throw ourselves out of a plane at 3500 feet above the ground. But I did... and then I did twice. Last Tuesday (Queensday, actually!) third time, five times is Static Line license (Wing, in military terms). All three jumps have been amost the most enlightening experiences in my life.
When I came down from the first one, my world had been filled with sunshine. Normally when I go in the train, every sound is a threat, every stranger I mistrust. This time, nothing in my brain even cared about that -after all, I just flew a canopy to the ground and had landed on the dropzone safely! Simply put, I felt too cool to feel threathened by my own (unrational) fears. On the second jump, well, everything went wrong. I was drop-dead afraid from the beginning, for now I really knew what I was getting into. My brain really thought that this would be the end of me and resisted with all the fear it had to offer. On top of that (and because of it) I got stuck on exit, delayed everybody else, then jumped in total panic and landed completely wrong.
According to the Chinese calendar, I'm a rabbit, "luckiest of signs". Despite my insane past, that looking back at it feels like an abberation, that statement might actually be true. The way I landed (I did not flare, I forgot to roll once on the ground, I used my feet as brakes) I could have broken my legs. So after this I went home, and it came rushing back to me. All the anxiety I had kept bottled up as a kid, I could feel it all at once: I could feel it closing in around my throat, and honestly did not believe I would ever have the guts to fly a canopy ever again. Then, in March this year, I took my first Private Pilot lesson at the same area as the skydive club, maybe the best thing I have ever done.
As I saw how small the plane was, I felt like shitting my pants and running away, but it was too late now. So I just sat there meekly as the instructor explained how I was going to steer this piece of aluminium up high. The experience was just amazing. Too long to describe here, too. But I completely lost my fear of being in the sky: even when we made this crazy loop, I felt completely in control. Back to the skydive club I went with all the confidence of the world in my heart. Some days later, I ventured my third jump -and it just doesn't cease to be scary. But I made a more or less good exit, and an awesome landing compared to the last one, even though it was completely off the dropzone!
The moral of the story has a lot to do with post traumatic stress. It is about anxiety, fear and trust. Firstly, fear frequenly stops us from really being ourselves. It stops us from believing that dreams can really be achieved. That there is in fact more beyond the horizon. Which brings me to the second one -space. When we -as traumatic stress sufferers -feel that we've hit rock bottom and can't possibly stand up again, we need to look at it from another viewpoint. From above. Thirdly dealing with post traumatic stress on the long run has a lot to do with trust and forgiveness. To learn how to forgive yourself if you make mistakes (a horrible landing) and to trust yourself to do it better the next time. Most importantly, not to judge yourself too harshly.
My drum teacher once said this thing that really helped me: "learning is taking two steps back and then one forward". I would love to hear your opinions and challenges that you voluntarily faced!
Blue skies.
Lately I haven't posted much. My last post, which I wrote like a year ago (or maybe even longer) was about this huge anger issue I was having. I had been living in this sort of teraphy-home, living with two other girls and this escort of psychiatrists everyday that monitored your every move. I went completely bezerk there! Worst decision ever. Now I know that people with post traumatic stress need to seek quiet, peaceful places, they need space around them and in their head. From the teraphy home I moved on with a friend of mine, who has a rather obscure job, but who was so friendly as to let me live with him.
Still, it was a room of nine square feet and I had to share it with some vermin (mice and other smaller yet disgusting things). Recently though I found the greatest (although expensive) appartment. I wake up with the sounds of birds. All the creativity has been flowing back to me. No more uncontrollable rage attacks since I have been here, with some exceptions when I venture into the outside world. It's fifty square feet! So space, it's incredibly important, and this adventure has everything to do with it. It all started when I met this guy who was into paragliding. I was into him, as well, but it didn't work out. One thing he inspired me to do however: I was going for an even more extreme version of flying than his. I signed up for a solo (Static Line) course at a nearby skydive club.
Absolutely terrifying, obviously. I am (due to the pstd) an enormously nervous person. I'm always moving and scratching my skin and biting something, either my nails or the inside of my cheeks (hate that habit). (I took up drumming to deal with the nervosity, I recommend that one!) Well then, imagine my nerves as we were preparing to throw ourselves out of a plane at 3500 feet above the ground. But I did... and then I did twice. Last Tuesday (Queensday, actually!) third time, five times is Static Line license (Wing, in military terms). All three jumps have been amost the most enlightening experiences in my life.
When I came down from the first one, my world had been filled with sunshine. Normally when I go in the train, every sound is a threat, every stranger I mistrust. This time, nothing in my brain even cared about that -after all, I just flew a canopy to the ground and had landed on the dropzone safely! Simply put, I felt too cool to feel threathened by my own (unrational) fears. On the second jump, well, everything went wrong. I was drop-dead afraid from the beginning, for now I really knew what I was getting into. My brain really thought that this would be the end of me and resisted with all the fear it had to offer. On top of that (and because of it) I got stuck on exit, delayed everybody else, then jumped in total panic and landed completely wrong.
According to the Chinese calendar, I'm a rabbit, "luckiest of signs". Despite my insane past, that looking back at it feels like an abberation, that statement might actually be true. The way I landed (I did not flare, I forgot to roll once on the ground, I used my feet as brakes) I could have broken my legs. So after this I went home, and it came rushing back to me. All the anxiety I had kept bottled up as a kid, I could feel it all at once: I could feel it closing in around my throat, and honestly did not believe I would ever have the guts to fly a canopy ever again. Then, in March this year, I took my first Private Pilot lesson at the same area as the skydive club, maybe the best thing I have ever done.
As I saw how small the plane was, I felt like shitting my pants and running away, but it was too late now. So I just sat there meekly as the instructor explained how I was going to steer this piece of aluminium up high. The experience was just amazing. Too long to describe here, too. But I completely lost my fear of being in the sky: even when we made this crazy loop, I felt completely in control. Back to the skydive club I went with all the confidence of the world in my heart. Some days later, I ventured my third jump -and it just doesn't cease to be scary. But I made a more or less good exit, and an awesome landing compared to the last one, even though it was completely off the dropzone!
The moral of the story has a lot to do with post traumatic stress. It is about anxiety, fear and trust. Firstly, fear frequenly stops us from really being ourselves. It stops us from believing that dreams can really be achieved. That there is in fact more beyond the horizon. Which brings me to the second one -space. When we -as traumatic stress sufferers -feel that we've hit rock bottom and can't possibly stand up again, we need to look at it from another viewpoint. From above. Thirdly dealing with post traumatic stress on the long run has a lot to do with trust and forgiveness. To learn how to forgive yourself if you make mistakes (a horrible landing) and to trust yourself to do it better the next time. Most importantly, not to judge yourself too harshly.
My drum teacher once said this thing that really helped me: "learning is taking two steps back and then one forward". I would love to hear your opinions and challenges that you voluntarily faced!
Blue skies.
