I Rode Out The Storm, I Learnt Some Things, And I Am Calm

[Nishkaa]

I just feel so incredibly relieved. I was dealing with a lot of hypervigilance, panic and anger, multiple triggers, chaos.

I just let my self go through this chaos, I chose to allow it. I gave myself permission to allow my anger and to express it without guilt being an impediment.

I pulled myself away from something that was becoming destructive to me, and I pushed with all my vigor to learn from it. I allowed my anger to teach me and orientate me to my boundaries and my need to protect my recovery, and my self.

I learnt a good place for practice of Creative Visualization as an appropriate response to my hypervigilance, but without over-control over my hypervigilance, I allowed it, and I allowed myself to be fully present to it, so that I could learn from it.

I took action to seek out a safe place to express things, and to bring in new support, to protect myself from continuing on with something that was not being healthy for me.

I used my anger to motivate me to face these inner constellations of trauma and to learn from it.

And I finally feel calm from the storm, from all this intensity that was going everywhere and all over the place and across all the threads, and everywhere.

I'm going to post less next week, because I need to use this momentum to re-focus on my routines and to get out from the withdrawal that I imposed upon myself so that I could work some of these things out, instead of avoiding. I prevented some dissociation by staying present to the storm within. I'm going to take myself up further, and boost up some exercise routines, full dedication to self-care practices. I've made out a weekly plan of goals I'd like to achieve next week.

I'm feeling good about asserting my right to have needs.

I feel like I've made some significant discoveries for myself and my coping. And on the list to do, is to work on consolidating these coping strategies through an idea I received here about putting together some self-care and safety cards for myself. I put this up on a sticky note by my computer to remind me to come back to that.

I feel very grateful and fortunate to have found this site. I like it a lot, and the way it is set up, and I'll enjoy exploring it all. I'm also grateful for the amazing connections I've made here, how awesomely inspiring, this collective here of amazing Survivor Strength and Honesty and Courage to Be and to face and deal with PTSD. It's truly an Honour and I am thankful to all.

Mi'igwetch (Ojibwe for "thank you" to all),
~ Nishkaa

 

[StressyJen]

Have a good few days :) I'm thankful for you too.

Sometimes I say to myself, "Jenny give yourself a break from all of it and do some other junk today". It doesn't work very often to be honest, but the idea is a good one! Even if I get an hour it's a relief.

 

[anthony]

Nice work... well done.

 

[Nishkaa]

It's still tricky to deal with, this hypervigilance. The usefulness of hypervigilance is of course when my immediate physical safety is at risk, it's very useful there. But for a lot of situations, I think I can afford to take some moments to calm down my system. So maybe take a time-out moment for Creative Visualization and some breathing techniques, because then I can have a moment to 'gather myself', and then to decide from a place where I'm not experiencing the panic.

Still working on it, it just happens to come up for me. I know it will be possible to re-train myself; I'll get better at it, I hope. It's to also learn not to panic about my panic. But to not go the other extreme into dissociating, numbing.

So, unless my life is in immediate physical risk, I can take 5 minutes out to re-calm first, then I can proceed and act from a calmed place, not a panicked place.

Thank you so much, Anthony, and Jadebear, and James B.

And StressyJen-- too funny what you wrote, lol. It's sooo true! Very realistic :)

I'm going to try to strive forward, and I know darn well, I'll be disappointed in my performance, but I hope this all goes into learning and adjusting, and re-adjusting. I'm hoping to break out of the "spin cycle" that I find myself in constantly! :) It's a challenge. I hope for the best, expect the worst, but keep on hoping, keep positive, something will break and I'll keep trying to move forward.

I had sleep and meds issues being a barrier to what I was hoping to achieve this week, so I'll try again on the exercise routines. It's a beauty day out today, a good day to grab my neighbour and her awesome doggy (a very lively border-collie mix, super enthused and playful-- bounces like "Tigger" [Winnie the Pooh]) and get out for some walking and playing. And I can burn off the extra calories from the awesome plate of fresh baked cookies she brought over to me last night :)-- man, they were yummy! Talk about a really awesome neighbour; how many can say they have a neighbour like that--she's super kind-hearted, very thoughtful and a very relaxing person to be with. If she's not up for the walk, I can borrow the Tigger-doggy and go for a good run and play with him and that works out for all of us.

 

[Nishkaa]

I'm also just realizing that it's also an anniversary today and I would have been feeling hypervigilant for a month prior to this day, and then shock, numb after this day. I wonder if the weather changes also influence this? I'm good though. I'm calm again. Fall time, there's a couple of losses of major significant others. I should brace myself just in case.

Both instances, tortured by the wish I could have stopped things, that's the grief and the habit I need to let go of. Fairly intense in childhood, that's for sure and it affected my personality which was previous over-giving to the point of it being destructive for me.

Both loses were really beyond my control, I had no control over the choices there others made, I only wish that I had. So, there's another one, early October, when the leaves change. . . I hope I can just see the leaves for the leaves.

I should do some grounding ritual, maybe this is a good impetus to start back to early morning meditation.