Life after Trauma

Balancing Act

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.

                                Maya Angelou

Balancing Act - or why I am too preoccupied right now to work on the blog posting I planned for today

I  have a 17-year-old-son, a husband and a cat - who I live with - and two aging parents, and three grown daughters, who live a long way from here. The problem is that I can only be in one place at a time. That means that I have to choose. Should it be at home, where I have a son about to graduate from high school or with my mother, who is in the hospital for at least the third time this year or should it be with my youngest daughter who is battling alcoholism and health problems?  There are no easy decisions.

And, because I am a Baby Boomer, I know that I am not alone. Many women I know face similar choices. I have a cousin in California who has spent most of the past several years looking after her aging mother who lives in Kentucky. Recently, she returned to her life in California, which includes two grown daughters, and got a job and is trying to catch up on the hard work of making money to set aside for her own old age. And then her mother had a stroke and is in the hospital, not doing so good. What now, she asked me in her last email. I have friends who also face difficult choices between the family they are raising and aging parents who live far away. It is a part of aging that I didn't prepare for or expect to be so hard. 

Feeling the Squeeze (an article on women "feeling the squeeze")

My siblings help my parents and they also have a live-in caregiver. Unfortunately, although wonderful in many ways, there are important tasks that the caregiver, lets call her Helen,  cannot help with. My sister who lives about four hours away from parents does many of these other tasks, but, in my opinion, needs a break. And, even if she could do it all, as my parents approach 80, the fact is that I want to spend time with them while I can. Loving people from a distance is frustrating when they need help, not just words. Today, my mother sounded weak and confused on the phone and my father sounded exhausted. Right now, my cousin and I are trying to decide what to do. To paraphrase Shakespeare, To go or not to go, (to be with our mothers) that is the question. There are times when no decision seems to be the right one. But a person can only worry for so long; then, they need to take a break. The lovely song below by Indiana singer/songwriter, Carrie Newcomer, helps put things in perspective. 

 

 What do you do to recharge your batteries when it's just all too much?

 

 

The Healing Power of the Blues - Part 1

Blues a healer, all over the world, all over the world.

It healed me, it can heal you.

                    John Lee Hooker 

John Lee Hooker, 1978

Labor Day Weekend, 1972. It's been about a month since my boyfriend and I broke up. Sorrow is sitting deep inside me, in a place I never go. Instead, I drink and take drugs and I'm not careful about keeping myself safe. But this weekend I'm with a new boyfriend, Pete, who is the best friend of my best friend's husband and so, at least for now I'm with someone I know I can trust. 

Pete also happens to be a musician, which is perfect because we both love music. The two of us are sitting on the grassy field dedicated to deceased musician Otis Spann, blissing out on the blues. We're at the 1972 Ann Arbor Jazz and Blue's Festival and the line-up is stellar. Miles Davis, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt and Sippie Wallace, Luther Allison, Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Junior Walker and the All Stars and many more. Pete and I are drinking Wild Turkey and the mood is mellow. I drink and listen to the blues and the blues reaches into my heart and eases my pain and gives me enough strength to go on living for a while. The blues saved my life. The blues has that power.

 Luther Allison performed that weekend and I'm pretty sure that I didn't let myself remember the first time I saw him because that would have been too painful. It was 1970 and my ex-boyfriend and I were jammed into a tiny venue located down an alley in Ann Arbor. We sat on folding chairs in that shoestring venue, waiting. I can still remember the moment that Luther took the stage and began blasting the blues out into the packed room. My boyfriend and I caught fire. (Maybe that's why some call the Blues the devil's music.) And even though I didn't let myself think about that moment in 1972, I think about it now and I am both sad and thankful. Sad that my boyfriend and I lost so much and broke each other's hearts. Thankful because he and I heard the blues for the first time together. 

 The First Time I Met the Blues by Buddy Guy. 

Mighty Mo Rodgers performing, They Took Away the Drum and Blues is My Wailin' Wall. 

 

 

What saved your life and kept you going during hard times with grief or trauma?

 

Restorative Yoga

For those wounded . . . yoga is the most healing salve.

                        Terri Guillemets

   Temple Bells, Thailand

An Evening of Yoga

Two nights ago, a friend and I went to a Restorative Yoga class together. About 15 people of all ages gathered in a soft-lit carpeted room. Music was playing softly from somewhere. Soothing, slow music without a melody, simply the periodic sounding of bells. Without speaking, everyone got their class stuff, bolsters, pads, and blankets, and chose a spot. After a few minutes, a slim woman dressed in black whose presence exuded peace, began the class.

We began with the legs against the wall pose and held it for a long time. The only sounds to be heard in the peaceful room were those of breathing and the quiet shifting of bodies. The instructor circulated quietly around the room, helping people adjust their poses. She stopped by my side and, because I'd mentioned a neck injury to her before class, made sure that my neck was supported. Then she moved on to help other people.  From legs up the wall, we shifted into a series of slow, gentle poses, each held for a long time. The only sounds were breathing, the occasional voice of the instructor, and the occasional sound of temple bells. I could feel my mind and body softening, soaking up peace like a sponge. 

Body work of various sorts can be very beneficial for those with PTSD. Meditation hasn't worked for me, because only looking into the mind can be frightening for some people with PTSD. Thankfully, yoga and tai chi, which I can do, also help reconnect the body with the mind, repairing the disconnection caused by trauma. Better yet, both practices feel good. Really good. After my second session of restorative yoga, I realized that my body craved more of this kind of making peace with my body, the way thirsty people crave water. 

All too soon, the class ended and my friend and I got up and put our bolsters and pads away. Some people sipped the mysterious herbal tea that no one had been able to identify. The instructor went to the back and returned and said it appeared to be an unusual blend of roiboos, mint, chocolate, and chai!  No wonder no one recognized it. Afterwards my friend and I drove down the street and went into a bakery and had tea and cookies. It was a good night.

Other Types of Body Work for Healing PTSD and Grief

• Tai chi
• Singing
• Walking
• Walking meditation
• Qi gong
• Other types of yoga

Here is a fascinating article about using yoga to heal PTSD. 

The Wounds of War

 Don't have a yoga studio in your community?  Take a look at this youtube clip or consider purchasing one of the resources listed below. 

 

YogaNap

 A book on the subject for those of you who prefer reading about a topic.

Restorative Yoga Practice

A great follow-along DVD for those who cannot find a restorative yoga practitioner. 

What body work do you do to help heal either PTSD or grief? 

 

Disenfranchised grief

 I saw a crow by Red Rock standing on one leg

It was the black of your hair

The years are heavy

I will ride the swiftest horse

You will hear the drumming hooves.

                        N. Scott Momaday

Disenfranchised Grief  

Today is the anniversary of the death of a man I loved very much. (I will call this man T. to protect his identity and that of his family.) We were only involved for a few months, but I almost left my husband for him. I'm not proud of the fact that I was unfaithful to my husband. But I am happy that T. and I had that brief time together because, unbeknownst to either of us, he didn't have many years left to live. T. was a First Nations Man (native man) from a community in northern Alberta where my husband and I were living at the time. Ironically, or really not surprisingly given the smallness of the community, T. and my husband were friends, and even more surprisingly, remained friends after our affair. They even worked together and I saw T., who remained a close friend,  often. When he died in an accident, I was tremendously sad. Most people knew that T. and I had been involved, but because I was married, no one spoke to me about how I felt about T's death. Thankfully, I was able to attend his funeral, and the traditional week-long wake that was a grinding marathon of grief and silence. I also cried many private tears. But no one sent sympathy cards or came on condolence visits. This is what disenfranchised grief is: grief that is not recognized by society. It is what I like to call silenced grief because the griever has few opportunities to share their grief and must often grieve alone. 

 Types of Disenfranchised grief

• Pregnancy loss
• Pet loss
• Abortion
• Suicide of a loved one
• Loss of someone in a secret relationship 
• Adoption losses 
• Sexual assault
• Loss of a home
• Divorce
• Chronic disease
• Trauma

 

Trauma is associated with disenfranchised grief. Author Judith Herman, writes that "no custom or common ritual recognizes the mourning that follows traumatic life events." (Herman 1997:70) She also writes that, "certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable." (Ibid.:1)  I have had few opportunities for public grieving for the traumatic events that I have experienced in my life. Often, my family and friends have not felt comfortable talking to me about these experiences. Therefore, the grieving I have done has mostly been done alone. This is why, 40 years after my first trauma, I am still processing my grief. Grieving alone about something we can't talk about or engage in public rituals to help ease our sorrow, is slow grieving. Can't we just forget about that grief and get on with our lives, you may ask?  Sadly, no. Herman, and other people who work with or write about trauma, agree that in order to heal, the trauma survivor must grieve their losses. 

Have you ever suffered from disenfranchised grief? If so, what helped you?

Sweet Bitter Tears

Loss is the absence of something we were once attached to. Grief is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp.

                                                Stephen Levine

 

 

Crying

Last night, for the first time since I've begun Sitting With Sorrow, I cried. Crying doesn't come easily to me these days. But, last night I felt very sad and after lying in bed thinking about how sad I was, I started crying. I cried and cried and cried. I cried so much that my voice was hoarse this morning. (It helped that my 17-year-old-son was staying at a friend's last night.) 

As I laid there crying, I was thrown back into the saddest moment of my life. My high school sweetheart and I were in a hospital room. I was giving birth to a baby who we had agreed to relinquish for adoption. My labour had begun around 6 a.m. that morning, and as evening drew closer, I was taken to the delivery room. My boyfriend was not allowed to come. When our baby was born about an hour later, I wasn't allowed to touch her - I must have heard someone say that the baby was a girl (no one was talking to be directly). I could see her for those brief moments when they must have been cutting the cord that connected us; she had dark hair and beautiful hands. I was alone, but I didn't realize it because I was out of my head from the drugs I had been given and talking to my boyfriend, who I thought was in the room with me. Then, a nurse wheeled me out of the delivery room, away from my daughter.

Thinking about that moment, I cried harder. This wasn't quiet crying, this was over the top crying. I could sense how much pain there was inside me, like a dark river winding through my heart. As I cried, one word kept coming into my mind - HELP. Looking back, I realized how much pain my boyfriend and I must have been in and I also saw how there was no one there to help us or comfort us. When we had agreed to relinquish our baby for adoption, no one told us that it would hurt this much. And, as I continued to cry, I realized that I wasn't just sad, I was angry. Very angry. The adults in our life had betrayed us and none of them were there to help pick up the pieces. (This story is not intended to be a commentary on adoption. It is my story and so, that is what I must tell. Trauma can result from many experiences: this is where mine began.)

Meanwhile, back in time, back in the No Mercy Hospital, I had pulled inside of myself, the way a fox might take shelter in its den. This is called dissociation. I dissociated and, for that reason, I cannot remember anything of what happened during the two or three days I stayed in the hospital. And that is also why, today, I still carry much of that grief with me. When I was 17 I had to let that grief go because it was too large for my boyfriend and I to handle. And so we buried it. Both my therapist and doctor say that in order to heal from that first trauma, I need to grieve it. And so, although my crying hurt, it was also sweet: a first step on the road to opening to grief. Grief counsellor and author, Stephen Levine, explains the wisdom of opening to grief. "I'm not suggesting that our grief will completely go away," Levine writes, "but rather that it can come to rest in the open heart and softening belly. . . Healing, then, becomes not the absence of pain but the increased ability to meet it with mercy instead of loathing." (Levine 2005:19) 

I start with that moment when we lost our daughter because it is the hinge moment in my life. Years ago, my husband salvaged trees that had been cut down to use in wood sculpture. The largest, wettest trees took a monumental effort to split. He used metal wedges of various weights and sometimes the wood would split and sometimes it wouldn't. Usually, he could tell fairly quickly which it would be. Either the wedge would bury itself in the wood or after anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour, a small crack would appear. Then he knew, he told me, that the wood was going to "give way." That moment when I lost my daughter was like the first moment when the crack appears in the wood. My life was going to give way. It took another year for it to completely come apart. And that, too, was something I cried about last night. And then my husband made me a cup of cocoa and we sat together while I drank it and then I washed my face and went to bed. 

Sweep floors, wash clothes

Peace is the fruit of activity, not of sleep.
            Ancient Egyptian proverb

 

Monday morning is my normal time for cleaning. The house is empty; my husband has gone to work and my son has gone to school. On Monday morning it is just me and the cat. I put music on and spend an hour or two putting the house, which can be chaotic from the weekend, back in order. Once the cleaning is done, I feel centered, lighter. I'm not talking about meticulous cleaning here. I'm talking about just enough cleaning so that I feel peaceful in the space where I spend most of my time. I work from home, as a writer and editor, and I am also the CEO of the household, as I like to put it. So most weeks I spend a lot of time at home. 

I usually start in the kitchen cleaning off the counters. Then, I sweep the floor. I have always enjoyed sweeping, but I enjoy it more now that I have a proper broom. I got this broom about a year ago at Granville Island, a popular Vancouver tourist attraction. My husband and I were strolling through a section of the island when I spotted a shop that was selling only brooms. Beautiful, handmade, Shaker-style brooms. They weren't cheap, but not extraordinarily expensive either. I had to have one. And I have never regretted that decision. Now, what used to be an ordinary task has become a kind of meditation.

For those of you who are familiar with the book Chop Wood, Carry Water this idea of the sacredness of the ordinary is not a new one. It is based on the Zen concept that before achieving enlightenment one must "chop wood and carry water," and after enlightenment one must still "chop wood and carry water." When you think of it that way, daily chores can be either restorative acts or drudgery. If you are exhausted from work or overwhelmed by grief, it may be hard to enjoy regular tasks. But, hopefully, there will be times when you can find grace in the moment, whether that is cleaning the house, cooking, or gardening or simply sitting quietly and drinking a cup of tea.  

What does all of this have to do with grief? For me, it has to do with being grounded and focusing on the moment that I am in. This is a difficult task for people with PTSD to do. Sweeping, sorting papers, doing laundry, takes me out of my head. I enjoy the beauty of walking barefoot on a clean floor or seeing that the pile of laundry in the laundry basket is clean and put away. It is much harder to "see" the progress I'm making with the difficult mental and spiritual task of processing grief and trauma. 

What ordinary tasks do you find grounding and restorative?

Sunday R & R

Keep a green tree in your heart and, perhaps, a singing bird will come.

                                                            Chinese proverb

A Golden Walk

Today, as on most Sundays, I decide to only do what I want to do and not what I should do . It is a good practice to follow. Going to church is good too, if you are so inclined and I have spent many years doing that too. Now, however, I find refuge in ordinary pleasures, remembering, however, to be thankful for the many blessings my life includes.

 

This Sunday, I began the day with a walk to the local coffee shop where I sat and sipped a latte and did some reading and writing. When I got home, my husband and I walked to the UBC Botanical Garden. The weather was glorious for late October. Blazing maples lined the street we walked along. At the garden, one of the women who works at the Shop in the Garden, told us that a Barred owl had been spotted in the area. We didn't see it, but I gazed down the hill towards where it might be, and enjoyed a view of one of my favourite trees in the world: a gingko tree that is spreading its branches further each year. Its leaves were just beginning to turn and in a few weeks - or less - it will be a glory of yellow. I stood breathing in light and cool, ocean air. The ocean is only a block or so away, but it is unreachable unless you want to risk breaking a leg scrambling down a steep cliff. The cliff doesn't stop the air, however, which drifted up the hill to where I stood filling my lungs.

Finally, at four, a good friend and her dog stopped by and we went for a long walk, talking about the complications of life in our 50s, which for her includes breast cancer and for me includes juggling aging parents and processing grief. This Sunday, we made time for our restorative walk and I was happy about that, very happy. A simple thing really, a walk.  It was on just such a walk about a year ago that my friend told me that she'd been diagnosed with cancer while I'd been away helping my mother who was recovering from pneumonia. Only that day wasn't sunny. It was rainy and I hugged her, hard, as the rain fell onto our heads and coats and we both cried. Our walk today was such a sunny happy one, that it was only as I started writing this, that I remembered how she had given me the news on another Sunday walk. And here we are a year later. I am finally finding time for my grief and her cancer hasn't progressed. For now, that is enough, as long as we can still keep taking our walks.

Every Sunday, unless I have a commitment that I can't get out of, I take time for myself. I recharge my batteries. Otherwise, the hard work of processing grief wouldn't be possible. Weeks when I don't take time to relax on Sunday, I begin to fray before the weekend. Still, it is a practice that I need to remind myself of every Sunday morning because as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, it is easy to listen to all the voices in my head saying, you should, you should, and ignore my own needs.

What do you do to recharge your batteries?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

 

 

The symptoms of PTSD are not "in someone's head" . . . Rather they are the aftereffects of an event or series of events severe enough to profoundly alter a person's thinking, feelings, and physical reactions.

                Aphrodite Matsakis

I've brought together two videos that discuss Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One is from the point of view of a pyschologist. The other is from the point of view of someone who experienced trauma, and was later diagnosed with PTSD.  The differences in the way the two women talk about trauma are quite fascinating. I've included both because the psychologist provides a good general overview. Lisa French puts a human face on something that can seem frightening and abstract.

I generally don't like labels. However, in my own life, receiving a diagnosis of PTSD was the first step on my healing path. I was diagnosed with complex PTSD in approximately 2005. Complex PTSD means that instead of encountering a single traumatic event, I experienced multiple traumas, beginning when I was 17 and not ending for many years. Unfortunately, by the time that PTSD began to enter the psychological vocabulary, I was living in northern Canada and had no access to counselling. Years later, I moved to Vancouver and had the good luck to see a doctor who specialized in PTSD.  Although she normally works with combat and peacekeeping veterans, she became my lifeline. When she talked to me about PTSD and what it meant to be a trauma survivor, a light went off in my head.  "Aha," I remember thinking, "so that's what's been going on for so many years." In future posts, I will write more about what it means to have PTSD and why, in the past two years, my need to grieve and process the hurts of the past has become stronger. "It's time," my inner voice is telling me and I am finally ready to listen.

 

Starting my journey

I have a cat who sometimes seems more like a human than a cat. She isn't very big and she has short little legs, medium-length fur and an adorable face. Sometimes she's adorable and sometimes she isn't. But when she wants something, she definitely lets me know. First she meows, then she meows louder, then she comes and stands beside me and reaches up with one of her paws and nudges me on the arm, just like a person would. And then, if all else fails, she reaches up even further and takes a little nip. (Well, maybe not exactly little.)

 

What does any of this have to do with sorrow? Well, lately the sorrows I've been carrying around for a long time are getting like Goldie. First they started meowing, now they've graduated to nipping - maybe even biting.  It's time to listen.  I've been meaning to take time for grieving for a long time. I have experienced several major traumas in my life and a number of smaller traumas. I have been sad at times, even terribly sad; however, as my doctor and therapist like to say being sad is important, but if you don't know why you're being sad, it won't help you recover from trauma.  Most of the authors I've read, along with my therapist and doctor, all agree that you have to understand something of why you're grieving before the grief can help you to live with trauma. I don't use the word "heal" from trauma because these same people agree that once you hve experienced major trauma, you will never "get over it" in the way we may think of getting over a cold.  Rather, you can learn to be aware of how trauma has changed your life and how becoming aware of both your trauma and the sorrow related to it, can help you get on with life. In other words, sorrow grows hope and learning to be mindful of both the trauma living inside and the sorrow connected with it, is no small thing.

Sitting with sorrow is a journey that takes courage and time. Focusing on the sorrow in my life, befriending it, cannot be done in between working long hours, caring for children, or whatever demands fill up my days. As my doctor said, "healing is a process not a race."  Or as poet Mary Oliver put it, in her beautiful poem "The Journey," "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice- though the whole house began to tremble. . . " I don't know if my whole house is going to tremble, but my inner voice is telling me that now is the time to sit with my sorrow. This time I'm going to listen.

The Journey

This blog will be the story of my healing journey. There won't be any gimmicks, other than getting through each day, one day at a time. Hopefully, some of what I learn and think about and do along the way will resonate with those of you that have also experienced trauma, have gone through - or are going through - grief or are just dealing with the many stresses of midlife.

Take a minute to listen to this beautiful song.

Lay Down in Sorrow

What about you?   What are some of the things that get in the way of grieving?

 

Let's walk this path together

If you put your soul against this oar with me, the power that made the universe will enter your sinew from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm that lives in us.

Rumi

Song of the Day

 One Day I Will Walk

 Sometimes, those of us who have experienced trauma or who are struggling with grief, can feel very alone. I know that I often feel alone.  Sometimes, I also feel like I inhabit a different world than other people because the things I have experienced are so different from the sorts of things my friends have experienced. And, really that is the definition of trauma, "Something outside of the normal human experience." (I will talk more about my experiences in future posts.) But, we don't have to be alone. We can join a support group or join an online community. I haven't had much luck in finding an appropriate support group where I live. And that's why I've started this blog, to find others like myself, others who know that life can be unexpected and frightening. As Buddhist author, Pema Chodron said, "We breathe in knowing that our pain is shared; there are people all over the earth feeling just as we do right now."  That thought eases my loneliness.

 

Some days we walk in flowers . . . 

Here is one of the flowers that I encountered today.  I walked up to the coffee shop near where I live. Once there, I ordered a latte, which came with a beautiful foam heart. I carried my coffee to an empty table, sat down and spent an hour reading and writing. Then I walked home again and on my way I met a man with a baby. I can rarely resist babies. This one was particularly beautiful. I asked the man how old the baby was. Four months, he said. What's his name, I asked. Novak, he said. Hi, Novak, I said and smiled at the baby until I got a smile back in return. A beautiful smile, the kind of smile only babies of a certain age can give, a smile of complete innocence and joy.

Some days we walk on stones

I'm not sure yet all of the stones I will encounter today. By noon, there have already been several and I know there will be more before the day is over. I checked my email this morning and, like all mornings during the past year, there wasn't an email from the daughter who isn't speaking to me. And, even though I realize there probably won't be an email from her today, it still hurts. I don't completely understand why she won't communicate with me (More on that later).  But it is a rare day that I don't feel her absence.

Second stone - I spoke to my parents on the phone. They are in their late 70s and live 2,000 miles away and my mother hasn't been well. We talked for a while about how she's doing and then she said five little words that always wring my heart: "I wish you were here."  I know my parents face many challenges and my sisters who live closer help them with those challenges and I can't. Not right now.

Third stone - my husband is not comfortable talking about grief and other "dark" emotions. He hasn't gone through the kind of trauma I have. He has grief, as who doesn't who has reached the age of 50? But he rarely speaks of his griefs and when I try to talk to him about my own grief and trauma, it sometimes seems like I am speaking a foreign language and then I feel very alone.

What flowers or stones have you encountered today?