Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Jean, my friend in Arizona, and I have started doing a daily water meditation. We each have a glass of water, hold it in two hands, and express an affirmation. We then tell the water all the ways we appreciate it and watch for a change in our vibration. I don’t know if it will help, but I’m sure it can’t hurt. It is also good to share a few moments with Jean each day as we share our hopes and dreams, trials and tribulations. She also reads me poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends to help calm my screaming nerves.
I suffer from PTSD. It is easy for me to lapse into a state of terror. Living with my mother was like living in a field of land mines. Even when I tried to please her, which I often did, she took offense if it wasn’t exactly right. She also had PTSD; she passed it on to her children. She lived in an era where trauma wasn’t considered for anyone other than soldiers returning from the front with ‘shell shock.’
In the bad ole days 200,00 years ago, there were ritualized ways of dealing with trauma, usually limited to life-threatening encounters with nature or members of a warring tribe.
If someone was experiencing trauma because of social interactions within the tribe, their life was at risk. They were on the verge of exile. If a child had an unusually harsh parent, no worries; there was the rest of the tribe to make things right. Now, we don’t fear natural threats. While some threats still come from society at large, particularly for minority groups, most of our threats come from within our own enclosed families. Mine certainly did. The world outside my home was much safer than the one inside my home. My parents were loving and caring. They were devoted to their children. They genuinely did their best. Sadly, my mom was like the barbed ‘mother’ in Harlow’s experiments, who attacked when asked for affection. The only time she was good with us was when we were sick. My sister commented it was amazing we didn’t grow up to be hypochondriacs. Neither of us did.
Some of my mom’s problems came from her traumas, and some came from cultural values at the time. The Nazis advocated showing children no affection to make them strong soldiers. Similar ideas were floating around in the US. Mike’s mom was told not to comfort him when he cried. What a world!
Lutz’s recent lecture was on survival rates for the elderly in case of a catastrophic event. If someone is physically weakened, too fat or thin, their survival chances are diminished. I am amazed at my recovery. I fell on June 13; I am approaching the three-month mark, and I can take on steep hills as well, if not better than I could before the fall. I was in good shape before the accident and a good weight. However, I was flat on my back for three weeks. Thank God I didn’t go into a skilled nursing facility. I think they would have pushed me to stay still longer than I did at home to avoid the risk of a fall.
Elsa’s skin looks remarkably good. I’ve found only a few small lesions on her neck and upper chest. I finally got around to bathing her. I was afraid to, fearing I couldn’t carry her outside after the bath for her to pee or dropping water on the floor that I could slip on and fall. It all went well.
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