Am a long-time acquaintance with PTSD, although we only started calling it that recently. For most of my life, I tried to set it right by focusing all of my attention & energy on the very things that had inflicted the damage in the first place. The fact is that nothing I do can "set it right." But i can realize that focusing on it makes it worse, not better. Can't fix it, can't deny it happened - what can I, or anyone, do? By moving past it, by focusing attention & energy on the things that promote wholeness & healing, that result in joy!
Still, it helps to acknowledging that my entire family suffered from PTSD. Ian, the 2nd youngest in the family, was killed when he was 11, shot during play at a friend's house. If that doesn't qualify as trauma, not sure what would.
No idea the individual traumas different members of my family went through over their lifetimes, but I know they did. I know of some damaging blows my parents were dealt, both as individuals - from childhood through elder years - and as a couple, but am clueless about most of the others. I know some of my own, including the devastation of being emotionally abused & not having parents who could acknowledge let alone address it. Praise be I had the grace of seeing it for what it was, instead of turning it against myself. Pretty amazed by that kid & young adult.
And my present to that kid & young adult, the ones who managed to stay on relatively even keel even while braving uncharted, turbulent seas of every sort of upheaval, is to take my own advice. To focus my attention & energies on all the things that will promote my personal sense of wholeness, of health, of fitness of every kind. Beginning with increasing my focus on mindfulness practices.
Look at that last sentence for a moment. Let it sink in. Recognize what a HUGE step forward it represents. Not, "Start increasing my focus..." It says, correctly, "Beginning with increasing my focus on mindfulness practices." I've already started, a first step that was DECADES in the making. And I did it.
It's true that some part of me will always be at risk of being unhinged by PTSD. Frankly, I had some truly horrific things happen in my life. It's the rare person who hasn't. So, being wounded makes me part of the greater human race, not a scarred, scared aberration. And each of us who reaches a greater sense of wholeness makes it easier for everyone else to do the same.
Life isn't about finding a place in any given group or community, in any sort of relationship with others or self, but about finding a sense of peace within it. What better way to address & move beyond, with all the lessons it taught, the PTSD in my life!!
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