Sunday, August 16, 2015
I have not written as regularly in my blog the last two months as I originally imagined I would do back at the beginning of this year. I have felt a bit overwhelmed the last several weeks. I have experienced so much positive change.
A little earlier I was enjoying the comfort of the living room sofa while listening to the purring of my landlord's cat. I suppose it was the combination of the affection of the cat and my own reminiscing about all the different directions my life could have gone that prompted the floodgates to open. I found myself welling up with tears and needing to cry. As the tears ran down my face I could feel an immense sense of relief.
I still have my moments when I find myself wishing I had discovered the life changing experience of EMDR therapy (and the shamanic journeying I did in 2013) years and years ago. Discovering these gifts after many years of my own adult life have already passed is a bit like steering a ship in one direction only to suddenly be thrown sharply off course. When you have been moving in one direction for a long time the shock of being re-directed can itself almost feel a bit...traumatizing.
Those moments of wistful sadness are growing fewer as time passes. But I still have them. I still feel that immense heaviness of what could have been on occasion. And when those moments do arise I can feel almost suffocated by the heaviness of them. Sometimes I have felt that so much of my life was...a lie. To have not seen and experienced the world in a clear way for so many years as I did was an immense tragedy. Yes, tragedy seems to be the proper word. Tragedy conveys such heavy, life-changing, dark imagery. But I believe it is correct to call what I endured tragic.
What my therapist termed "trauma resolution work" is something that belongs decidedly to my earlier life history. I have done that work. That phase of my journey was replaced by what could be called an adaptation phase. I am now adapting to the full ramifications of the life changing consequences of the treatment I sought out.
Over the last six weeks I have:
I have not written as regularly in my blog the last two months as I originally imagined I would do back at the beginning of this year. I have felt a bit overwhelmed the last several weeks. I have experienced so much positive change.
A little earlier I was enjoying the comfort of the living room sofa while listening to the purring of my landlord's cat. I suppose it was the combination of the affection of the cat and my own reminiscing about all the different directions my life could have gone that prompted the floodgates to open. I found myself welling up with tears and needing to cry. As the tears ran down my face I could feel an immense sense of relief.
I still have my moments when I find myself wishing I had discovered the life changing experience of EMDR therapy (and the shamanic journeying I did in 2013) years and years ago. Discovering these gifts after many years of my own adult life have already passed is a bit like steering a ship in one direction only to suddenly be thrown sharply off course. When you have been moving in one direction for a long time the shock of being re-directed can itself almost feel a bit...traumatizing.
Those moments of wistful sadness are growing fewer as time passes. But I still have them. I still feel that immense heaviness of what could have been on occasion. And when those moments do arise I can feel almost suffocated by the heaviness of them. Sometimes I have felt that so much of my life was...a lie. To have not seen and experienced the world in a clear way for so many years as I did was an immense tragedy. Yes, tragedy seems to be the proper word. Tragedy conveys such heavy, life-changing, dark imagery. But I believe it is correct to call what I endured tragic.
What my therapist termed "trauma resolution work" is something that belongs decidedly to my earlier life history. I have done that work. That phase of my journey was replaced by what could be called an adaptation phase. I am now adapting to the full ramifications of the life changing consequences of the treatment I sought out.
Over the last six weeks I have:
- completely titrated off the medication I was using to support what I came to describe as my "healing odyssey"
- left behind a less than optimal living environment for a much better one
- started a new and demanding job
When put together these changes represent an immense shift in my life.
I feel so sad for the person I might have been by this point in my life. But I also feel joy and hope for the person I can still be.
keep doing your work,
ReplyDeletethats pretty amazing bernd