Ptsd - The Hippie Approach

[Go Hungry]

Love this thread! :tup: Reading it makes me quite happy, because it's easy to feel alone when you're in a funk.

I'm kind of like @KwanYingirl in that I'm sort a hippy deep down in my soul. I don't wear the tie-dies anymore, and had to cut my hair to fit with the dress code at work, but it's still been totally there. I gave it all up and became a nihilist for a decade following my bipolar diagnosis, but recently I dove back into full-blown witchery with both feet and the feeling is amazing. It's not perfect exactly (and what is), but it's certainly fun. A lot of what drove me to give it another shot was earlier threads like this one, that spoke of spiritual approaches to life. I started praying to Sweet Kali-Ma again, making offerings to my totem animal, Snake (who is also Damballa), and practically my entire apartment is an altar to Erzulie and La Sirene. I'm quite eclectic in my faith, as many solitaries are. But they came to me in my youth, and when I looked again, they were still there waiting for me.

I've been burning incense (Nag Champa and others) at times, which smells quite nice and was recently found to have some properties that helped combat depression. I broke out my tarot cards and have done some readings, which have been insightful. I'm not sure that the cards are really a mystic oracle, or if they just help you to look at your situation from a different perspective; but once again, it's fun. I've set up my old altar again, it took some digging but I found all my pieces and components and cleared a space for them.

And then there's Westly. Westly Civilized is something of a fetish-box that I built in college long ago. He's representative of the hunger of Capitalism and Western Civilization in general, in that it's greed can never be sated. The more resources it consumes in the search for profit, the more it's desire for money increases. Told you I was a hippy.. :hilarious: This greed is very much like the Wendigo (a cannibal spirit of Algonquin myth), in that the more it eats, the hungrier it gets. (And incidentally is what the name Go Hungry is a reference too)..

But the thing about Westley is that he's very good at grounding. When I'm really hurting and my mind is consumed with anger and fear and negativity, I pick him up and hold him to my chest and stroke his head like a baby. And somehow, he eats my pain. I feel a noticeable change in my attitude and grow much calmer. I'll see if I can get a picture of him uploaded sometime. :)

I've also been looking into different crystal and herbal correspondences, and someday when I have some money I plan on raiding the local spirituality shops for those things. Until then I just bask in the great outdoors and work my spells in silence.

I will go on the record though, in agreeing with Lionheart. Spirituality has made me feel much better and life and my place in it. I think it's a wonderful pursuit and I'm enjoying it immensely. But for goodness sake I'm still planning on going to therapy and keep taking my meds. Science has great strength to deal with illness. I'd be a fool to try and deny it.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I love Reiki!

I didn't know what to think of it before I had a friend of mine send me healing energy.
The next day I could feel all kinds of rigid structures collapse within and I had this sort of laughing surge that seemed to come out of nowhere. Pretty cool.

Reciting mantras in the morning sounds good. In my case affirmations don't really work. Sometimes I can't even bring myself to say them. I go "today will be calm and relaxed and happy and ah... to hell with it" :D. Mantras seem like a little easier on the mind. Oh, I have a huge poster of Ganesh hanging on my wall, and a tattoo of the ॐ on my wrist. Long time fan of zen-Buddhism and Hinduism.

But also other disciplines like Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way" and currently reading the Shambhala which I can recommend to everybody who is into mindful living. Both basically say the same thing from a slightly different approach: the Fourth Way basically says to let go of judging (yourself, others, your environment) which applies to ptsd directly as well.

Shambhala is an approach which does the same and then says that in seeing without judging, you actually start to discover a basic goodness of life, which is in the small things. Like on one particular day there may be a bug on the ground and just the fact that it's there may fill our hearts with a sense of wholeness, and then trying to be open to that more often...

My aunt says tarot cards just reflect what you already know. Which is the same what Osho Zen proclaims, and above book. It says you already have an innate wisdom, we just haven't learned to quite listen to it yet, mainly because we've stuck so much to things that are "proven".

I was born in the eighties, but I wear those bell-bottomed seventies pants a lot. I love them.
I even have them in tye-dye, but I don't like to be the center of attention and I get a lot of stares wearing them. They're neat though.

 

[Spiderallis]

Indeed, being open to the spiritual stuff can be quite helpful and healing. The little bit of DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) I had brought up a lot of Buddhist ideas and practices- in the group sessions a singing bowl was used quite frequently. The T who I was working with at the time had a bowl of various stones and crystals in her office- it was a gift from her mentor. I told her the associations of some of the stones I recognized and added a few that I thought might be helpful- there wasn't any fluorite in the bowl, it's one of my favorites for soothing anxiety and moving the mental blocks that get in the way of healing and growing.

I don't really consider it a hippie thing. I just know certain stones and scents seem to help, and then I've got my different teas for various things. I never look up what's supposed to be associated with anything, I just go with what I like. It's usually exactly what I need- like the lotus incense and oil, it's relaxing and I loved the scent.