In a Name

   "O Lord, I have come to you for protection; don't let me be disgraced. Save me, for You do what is right." Psalm 31:1

  There's a pot of leek and potato soup simmering away on the stove. A tiny chest freezer is a new addition to the household. It's great to have a place to store autumn's harvest without needing to sterilize jars. The soup base will nestle in nicely beside the containers of chili and roasted tomatoes already in there. 

  I found comfort in cooking this morning. There's something reassuring in the rhythms of peeling and chopping. It's grounding and leaves time for the mind to mull over recent events. 

  Once again I experienced a verbal onslaught in response to enforcing a boundary. The foul names tossed carelessly in my direction have struck like an arrow to my heart. Logically, I know their anger was due to the influence of drugs and alcohol but nevertheless, it's been hard to shake.

  Part of me believes what they said is true. 

  Why?

  Experience has taught me I have no right to enforce a boundary. Experience has taught me I had none or that it was my fault when a boundary was crossed. Lord, I don't know how many times I need to write this. It's starting to feel like a broken record!

  Yah...a broken record that keeps skipping and playing the same part over and over and over again. I need a penny to weigh down the needle arm so it stops this nonsense. (A well known hack for anyone who ever owned a record player.)

  Or is the record skipping because the scratch is so deep? Is it beyond repair?

  Lord, You are so good...A friend called to see how I was doing after yesterday's situation. During the course of our conversation I shared that growing a thick skin is the last thing I want to do. A thick skin is another name for numbing. It can't be done selectively. It numbs all emotions without discretion. 

  It's what I did to survive in my previous life and the Lord has helped me lose that black, suffocating armor. I don't want to put it back on ever again because not only does it shut down the heart, it shuts down the ability to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is life lived in the shadowlands of a vacuum and very, very lonely.

  So...a thick skin...

  Hmm...being punished for feelings...yet another scratch in the record. 

  This isn't about being called a name at all, is it my Lord? It's about the shame and guilt I feel for being upset about it. It's about feeling broken and "not normal" for being sad or hurt (and I am going to add in feeling anxious.)

  Maybe the people who taught me to, forced me to put on the black armor are the broken ones. It was easier to tell me I was the broken one rather than offer comfort because, maybe, they wore their own black armor and had no idea what to do. (Thank You, Lord, for helping me find grace.)

  But I still say "forced me" because they did. I learned to wear the armor the same way I learned to tie my shoes: the message, the lesson, was repeated over and over, "Stop being so sensitive." And when I felt the feels of hurt, I was ashamed.

  Where's a penny when you need one?

  Smile... I don't have a penny, they stopped making them. I have something far better: a treasure trove of gold. It is far heavier than any old, worn and tarnished copper penny. 

  The gold is God's armor. 

  So, yes, I feel hurt because of someone's words; words spoken from a place of pain and intoxication. But there's a flip side to this record...I have also felt intense compassion for them. Their situation has moved me to tears at times. It's so very sad.

  You know something? I wouldn't have it any other way.

  I can easily forgive the name caller but more importantly, my Lord, this morning I can finally forgive the ones who molded, shaped and forged the black armor I wore for so very long. AMEN!

PS. It was during a time of meditative prayer, of waiting on the Lord, when He showed me the black armor I wore to protect my heart. He asked me if I was ready to take it off. I imagined undoing the buckles, of letting the heavy weight of helm and breastplate fall to the ground at my feet. I never felt so naked and vulnerable. This was over fifteen years ago.

  Smile. A lot has happened since then.

  

  

  

  

  

Gears

  "Answer my prayers, O Lord, for your unfailing love is wonderful." Psalm 69:16

  The idea of gear wheels has been rolling around in my head. Imagine if you will, a machine that stretches into perpetuity. Some of the wheels, connected by shafts, spin faster as they progress into smaller and smaller wheels. The larger ones spin ponderously around the edges of time. 

 When I was on the farm, part of my duties come hay season was to make sure all the gear bearings on the haybine (mower) and baler were amply greased. Without grease, they would overheat and the machine would seize. It was an unpleasant job involving crawling around underneath with a hand held grease gun to reach all the grease nozzles.

  I was fascinated by the mechanics of the old, circa 1950's square baler we used for a while: how it picked up the hay, fed it into a chute where a hammer would compress it into a square. The string would wrap around it. Well greased, metallic fingers tied a knot. A sharp knife cut the string and a bale of hay was made. Whoever invented it was a genius!

  The days spent hauling it around the hayfield helped me gain an intimate knowledge of the sounds and motion associated with the task. Sixty beats a minute: that's the speed the baler was timed to. Faster and the knots wouldn't have time to tie. Slower, and the hay didn't feed fast enough to make a solid bale.

  Lord? Where are You going with this?

  I can feel the anxiety spiking just thinking about it. There's a great deal of sadness for the woman who took on so much only to discover it was never enough. It was never going to be enough. 

  

  Maybe that's why I am struggling so much to accept my mental health challenges. All the grease in the world isn't going to fix worn out, broken toothed gears. But, does this make me "less than?"

  

  (There was a long pause as this question sank in.)

  If the things I do or cannot do define my worth, then I've missed the point of Jesus! 

  It means I am not walking in the faith, grace, patience and acceptance of Christ because the "less than" gears are making a lot of noise. In fact, the "less than" gear is the one which has powered the mental and emotional machine for a long time.

  It needs to be replaced. But here's the thing, it's had lots of maintenance over the years. The "less than" gear has been polished, repaired, shored up, and greased. So Lord? How do we shut it down?

  Whenever maintenance people work on powered machinery, there is a lock switch to prevent it from being accidentally turned on when they are working on it. I like this idea. 

  It's time to lock this puppy down and reroute the power supply: the one that comes from standing secure in the belief that I am enough, just as I am. 

  

  Lord, this is a boundary thing, isn't it? Help me be quick to use the power of a lock switch whenever I start to feel "less than." Help me stand firm whenever someone's actions, attitudes or choice of words tries to grease the gears. In Your Name I pray, AMEN!

Grinding Gears

  "He (the Spirit of the Lord) has sent Me (Jesus) to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come." Luke 5:18-19

  The prayer I wrapped in packing tape has found a way to be expressed through art. Drawing mandalas is calming and as the gear teeth took shape in this piece, it seemed appropriate to illustrate some of them as broken and worn down. As I outlined the initial pencil drawing in ink, there was an audible sound of gears grinding and catching. 

  It is also an illustration of passing time and the toll it takes. The centre gear is perfect. The outer ones, not so much.

  In being so hard on myself for what happened on Sunday, I'd forgotten one of the most important things. Trauma actually causes brain damage, similar to a stroke but without the symptoms of a stroke. I am thankful to be reminded of this again because it helps. It helps to remember my brain is what is broken here, not my emotions, not my soul, and not my spirit. 

  So the panic attacks are my brain utilizing automatic responses to stress. Stress ignites the fight/flight instinct. 

  Deer are always on the lookout for danger. They listen, eat a bit, look up and sniff the air. When a predator is spotted, the adrenaline starts to build, preparing their muscles for flight. They don't run right away, though. They only run when they are the ones being chased. They only run when they know what direction the threat is coming from.

  Experience has taught my brain that a threat can come from anywhere at any time so it constantly listens and sniffs the air so to speak. I think this is why I get so overwhelmed in crowds because the auditory and visual chaos is perceived as hiding a potential predator. Crowds are the long grass tigers hide in.

  The brain has mastered touch typing. I don't need to think about the letters in a word. My fingers find them without consciously thinking about it. It's the same as playing the piano. I see a written note and my hands automatically find it on the keyboard. It took time to learn these skills. And practice. But, now, these abilities are cemented into the neural pathways of my brain.

  It's a marvelous, amazing thing when you stop to think about it.

  Smile. I know I write about this concept frequently. I need to keep hearing it. It helps. Hopefully one day it will finally sink in!

  So maybe this isn't so much about fixing the broken brain, maybe it's about treating it kindly by being mindful of how much long grass I walk through.

  Maybe it wasn't a good idea to go shopping to multiple stores the day before playing at church. One (admittedly poor) night's sleep wasn't enough to give the hypervigilance/fight/flight/yellow alert time to settle down.

  My psychiatrist affirmed that most people with PTSD need considerable amount of downtime after going out into the world simply because it is exhausting.

  I think I have had an unrealistic expectation that this will go away once and for all, or will go away if I ignore the signs. This morning came with the realization I learned to type in high school. That neural network of a trained automatic response has had decades of solidification. It puts it into perspective, doesn't it?

  Lord? There is so much to pray for this morning. Thank You for helping not hate my broken brain...actually, it isn't broken is it? It's doing perfectly what it was created to do! (Smile...I just don't happen to like it.) Help me be patient with it when it goes into survival overdrive when I don't want it to. In Jesus Name, AMEN!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Aftermath

  "Teach me Your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to Your truth!" Psalm 86:11 

  It's a mess, this trying to make sense out of chaos. I spent time in prayer yesterday trying to unravel the birthplace of panic attacks. No. It's really trying to find grace and acceptance that this is simply something I have to live with unless, of course, the Lord takes it away.

  Maybe if I explain it will help. Every day I live with the shadow of complex PTSD wrapped around my heart. Unlike situational PTSD which has a wonderful recovery rate with counselling and help, the complex version is just that: complex. It is the result of experiencing many traumatic events which may or may not be related to each other. The emotional and mental responses to trauma are usually the same.

  While the traumatic events in my life may not always be similar, without support, there was no addressing these things when they happened. This is what I prayed about in a written flow chart that revealed the interconnectedness of it all. 

  It was pretty ugly and very triggering so I tore the page from my hardcover sketchbook. This is something I rarely do. It was folded into a tiny package. On the back, I wrote a prayer giving it all to God. This heavy, heavy load was sealed in packing tape and tossed in the garbage.

  Cricket did what she needed to do to survive. The foundation was established at a very early age that emotional suppression was the only option. Emotional expression was being naughty, silly, juvenile, and it didn't matter if it was joy or sorrow. Any display of emotion was considered improper and shameful. 

  A sensitive child, Cricket learned to numb the pain and the joy. She learned to disassociate and disconnect because there was no other option in dealing with the unnamed and inexpressible feels that rose up inside. 

  Cricket had no champion, no comforter. She learned she was alone and that she had to be strong and grown up. 

  By the time we were seven, a form of depression called Dysthymia set in. The foundation for developing complex PTSD was firmly established. So were the coping mechanisms.

  The disconnect still happens when the feels get too big, when the world is too loud, too busy. Most of the time, I am completely unaware it's happening because the lifelong coping mechanisms are so deeply entrenched and automatic. Until the lid blows because I am not as strong as I used to be.

  And I am ashamed of this public display of emotion so very few people even realize I am falling apart. I guess this makes me a master of pretending everything is just fine. To do otherwise is utterly shameful...and those aren't God's words!

  What would have happened if I had allowed myself to fall apart on stage? If I'd "made a scene?" What if I had allowed people to see the real me? Why is this such a bad thing?

  Cricket knows. Being vulnerable is dangerous. The predators will pounce. That is the legacy of trauma and abuse.

  It's not being hard on myself, it's being hard on Cricket who never learned a better way to experience and work through emotions. 

  I am grateful the Lord has unlocked my heart and enabled me to experience deep and intense emotion. The emotional world is a far richer experience than I ever thought possible because the sensitive child has matured into a sensitive adult. It's why I know heartbreak is a real thing: it feels as though your heart is being torn in two and the physical pain of this runs from hips to shoulders. Without having felt this pain, there would be no place for healing to begin.

  So Lord, today I give you Cricket's emotional pain: the shutting down, the utter loneliness, shame, fear, guilt, resentment, anger, distrust, shock...but most of all I give you her acceptance of a burden that never, ever should have been put on a child's shoulders. Please, take this burden from us, O Lord, my Abba Father, because we are terribly tired of carrying it. In Jesus' name I pray. AMEN!

  PS: It's much later because I sat on this post for a couple of hours trying to decide whether or not to share. The tears came and with them, release. 

  I am also left with deep gratitude for the tremendous healing that has happened as I have leaned into Jesus' perfect love. Panic attacks used to be a daily event.

  There's another burden I'd like to lay at the foot of the cross...the fear of losing control and trust me, a panic attack is control going out the window..so while I can hide it, it takes every ounce of strength to do so. Lord, forgive me when I feel it's up to me to stop this "nonsense" because, truth be told, there's no stopping it when it happens. 

  Help me be patient. Help me not get so angry. Help me forgive the teachers whose lessons forged the chains that bind. Help me finally accept the limitations and effects of living with complex PTSD. Help me find grace and peace. Most of all, help me reach out for help, to say the words, "I am in trouble," when the panic/overwhelm starts to gather momentum. In Your Name I pray. AMEN!

  

  

  

Yet Again

  "He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; for He will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease." Psalm 91:2-3

  Another round of med reduction was finished a week ago. It's the one for anxiety that can potentially cause permanent neurological damage. My doctor is on board which is wonderful. There's only one more round to go before I am off it completely. That will have to wait for spring because this round of reductions has been difficult.

  Lowering the dose is the easy part. The body adapting to it is what is kicking up a storm.

  It was all I could do to get through church. Being on worship meant an early start to get set up and practice: organized and noisy chaos. 

  In the brief time between practice and the service, I avoided going into the crowd who were gathered for morning coffee and conversations. The anxiety was gathering momentum. Up on stage, right before the service started, the tears and shakes started. 

  Hyper vigilance mode was full on which means the smallest of noises gets amplified, the slightest movement has the ole body gearing up to flee the tiger. There's a lot of noise and movement in a gathering of people. And even though I knew there was no real threat, when the automatic brain gets going, it rarely listens to reason.

  On stage, there was no way to escape. I grabbed my music stand as a grounding object, focusing on the cool, smooth metal. I stopped looking at the crowd. Playing helped, too, as a focus other than the rising panic. There was lots of counting involved.

  It took a while to pack up everything before being able to grab my kit and get out of there. I know I talked to a couple of people but I have no idea what was said. It's hard to concentrate over the inner screaming of "RUN!"

  In hindsight, I could have left the packing up to others and maybe that's something I need to pray about because I am sure it would have been just fine to have done so.

  It was a long drive home. The six minutes felt like hours. A car passing the opposite direction would create a startle reflex. Good thing there was a road in front of me to focus on. Good thing I live in the country where there weren't that many cars.

  It took the rest of the day to recover and figure out why this had happened. The day before had been busy. We had gone shopping to numerous stores. While I enjoyed it at the time, I need to be mindful of not doing so much in a day. The primal brain gets overstimulated. 

  I also hadn't slept very well and woke to a world that was slightly surreal and loud. Yah...yellow alert had been ordered from someone else in command.

  Sunday was the overload point.

  My friend says I am terribly hard on myself about the panic attacks. What I think happens in the aftermath is a massive wave of grief sweeps over my heart. I am angry. I want to deny I have a problem. The bargaining, acceptance and depression are there, too. It's a lot of emotion to contend with at once.

  The rest of Sunday was spent in recovery mode to give my mind and body a chance to calm down. By bed time, the world wasn't quite so loud. 

  I had a good sleep last night: nearly ten hours. This sort of thing is exhausting. However, the body still isn't ready to turn off the high gear. The hum of the fridge sounds like a freight train! 

  Waking up again in yellow alert mode had me panicking about being late to eat breakfast. Yah...when there are no tigers, the mind will create them. Just in case there are some hiding in the long grass. 

  I sat on the side of the bed and prayed:

  "God is with me. Jesus is with me. The Holy Spirit is with me."

  That's way better than holding on to a music stand for dear life.

   

Further Realisations

   "But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives." Jeremiah 17:10

  Many ghosts have been stirred up: echoes of the past. They are a noisy bunch, reminding me of missed opportunities, reminding me of the decades of silence...ironic, that, how noisy silence can become.

  So I have no idea where today's writing will go. Lord, I surrender the keyboard to You...

  Let's start with a small confession. Yesterday's blog has left me rather uneasy. Cricket is waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under our feet because yesterday was a day of standing up for myself. Grown up me knows it was the right thing to do. 

  Why is this so hard? 

  I know the answer. The ghosts do, too. I wish they'd just shut up.

  Many years ago, I had a series of three appointments with a psychiatrist. This was before the Lord blessed me with a really good one who has supported me for years; one who is very, very careful using any sort of medication. 

   At the time, my medication had been changed in the hospital so these three appointments were simply follow up with the sole purpose of monitoring the situation as the dosage was slowly increased. The point behind follow up is in case there are any adverse side effects.

  The newly prescribed antidepressant had the extremely unpleasant side effect of causing suicidal ideation. More irony and is not uncommon in antidepressants. It was bad. It was constant to the point I was reluctant to slice a piece of cheese, afraid the knife would turn on me. This was one of the nicer ideas. 

  I told him about this and his response was to say I simply had to get used to it. For six months I tried. Nothing changed. 

  The third and final appointment came to a close with no resolution, no change in the side effects. Increasing the dose had only made it worse. 

  The doctor scribbled his notes and without even looking at me or saying a word, pointed his finger at the door. Our ten minute session was done.

  I staggered out of the office and leaned against the wall, utterly defeated. The tears poured down my cheeks because he had reminded me I was invisible, that my needs were of no consequence and that I had no voice. 

  I bet he treated his dog far better.

 

  If memory serves me right, a few months later I was back in the hospital. Once again, due to incompatible medication. They can drive you crazy. So can the ideation when you know it isn't you!

  I wish I had gotten angry. I wish I had grabbed the doctor's notes and threw them into his face. I wish I had...I am glad I didn't. Being arrested would have only made things worse.

  But that would have meant challenging authority and that, my friends, was a bold DO NOT DO! EVER!

  Lord, I will choose to forgive this doctor for the damage he caused and continues to cause. I am not alone in my experiences with him. He is still practicing and inflicting terrible pain on the vulnerable and sick.

  While I am still terribly angry at the injustice, I am also aware of how much I continue to justify his treatment: his culture's attitudes towards women, he was burnt out, he was having a bad day, he was overworked...maybe he had a poor sleep the night before...maybe he had to use the bathroom...

  It's what I do. It's what lets people continue to treat me with no respect. I let them think it's okay by telling myself it's okay. 

  So that's why today I am unsettled. There's a whole lot of unexpressed anger simmering beneath the surface. The hot, glowing embers of silence are waiting to be fanned into a full on maelstrom of flames.

  This is not healthy.

  Lord? Help me understand the line in the sand. Help me understand when it is okay to turn over tables. Help me understand where and when the other cheek is to be offered. Help me overcome the fires. In Your most precious and Holy Name I pray. AMEN!

God is Good

  "I (the Lord) have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for Me. I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying." Jeremiah 23:21

  He is good indeed!

  It's early and dark outside. I don't often wake up so soon but it was a restless night with fitful dreams. Moments of wakefulness were full of unspoken words, the kind not said because...well, because I have a huge flaw. 

  I find it very hard to stand up for myself. You see, I don't want to inflict pain on anyone else. I know what it is to be hurt. I don't want my words to come from that place of hurt or anger. The problem with this is that my silence ends up poisoning my heart because silence is the fertile ground for bitterness. 

  I have much to learn about what a healthy relationship looks like because, until recently, none of them were. Some of them still aren't but for a multitude of reasons, those people are part of my life. 

  Thank you, Lord, for helping me discern next steps in these situations.

  Some days, it feels as though I am about to explode. Today is one of them. I just want to smash and tear and destroy. All because of a couple of comments on the blog. The one I deleted contained one word, "die." It was written over and over and over. It echoes what someone said to me in anger a week or so ago, "You're so nasty, you should just kill yourself!"

  That jewel was in response to me enforcing some boundaries they didn't like. They have no idea what it took to do so but, based on their response, I doubt they even care.

  The person I was standing with encouraged me to walk away, "Because you don't need to hear this."

  Yah, I didn't.

  I don't understand why or how people can say something like this to anyone. As for the hurting person who posted the comment, there is safety in anonymity, isn't there? As much as I am curious to know who wrote it, I know God knows and that is sufficient.

  I will walk away.

  There's a great deal of hesitance in writing about the next comment following, "Doin' the Work." but I feel it needs to be addressed. 

  Anonymous spoke about making peace by going to someone and asking them to forgive you for hurting them and offing forgiveness for how they hurt you. 

  Today is such a day.

  I forgive you for the hurt caused by the dismissive term, "inner sentiment," used to define the deep, spiritual healing found through expressing forgiveness (and repentance I might add) before God. 

 

  It's very sad that you have been hurt. Are you waiting for someone to say they are sorry? Maybe there's a reason they haven't. Have you asked them? Have you asked them why they walked away? Can you find the place in your heart to forgive them anyways?

  I am sorry for asking these things on such a public forum but I have no idea who you are. I am only deeply reassured in the knowledge that God knows you and that's all that matters.

  And I am guilty of doing the same thing: waiting, hoping, someone would say they were sorry for what they did to me. Releasing my expectations of others is a work in progress. Every. Single. Day.

  Which also brings me back to my huge flaw of not standing up for myself. Chances are, they have no idea how much pain they caused. And that, my friends, is on me.

  Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You for Jesus because we need Him more than ever. AMEN!