Change you mind

Trauma comes in all shapes and sizes. There are no one-size-fits-all reactions. Everyone is dealing with something that will shape our reactions and when severe enough, there’s a change in our personality. It’s the change in our personality that the world around us has a problem with.

We are creatures of habit and most don’t like change even though it’s inevitable. We will fight it tooth and nail in the name of comfort. But are we really comfortable? Or are we playing up to someone else’s wants ingrained into society to aid them in their explorations?

No matter what your beliefs are, we, as the individual, are the only ones that can reprogram our reactions to benefit us. Self-improvement isn’t solely about healing a trauma but about becoming a better person than you were yesterday. Trauma incidents just tend to force us to reevaluate life and take a new appreciation for what we already have. Do your future self a favor, change your mind, explore, and be curious. Be willing to make mistakes. The changes will happen even if they are small ones. We’re in a marathon, not a sprint.

Nomenclature

I was in a class and the facilitator kept saying 1 October, 1 October. I looked at him funny. What else happened on the date of 1 October? I only knew about one incident, Route 91. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that was confused. One of the other students answers his buddy’s question just loud enough that I heard it, “Route 91”.

Why? Is there some psychology to changing the name of an incident? It’s been called Route 91 for years now, why the sudden change? By doing this, does it seem less personal? Are people able to detach to 1 October but not Route 91? Who makes this decision?

Certainly not the 22,000 people that were there. There’s been nothing on the chats about this. I felt a slight stab in my heart. Is this how others feel when an incident is simply only in the history books? The changes to the community and to its citizens just become the new way of life. The darkness of tragedy hovers like a fog that doesn’t diminish.

Misguided

A few weeks ago, a friend informed me that a mutual acquaintance had a stroke. Now, she’s screaming she has PTSD about showers.

I stopped. In that instant, I felt empathy that she was having issues with the shower and her stroke but at the same time, my blood pressure started rising. Quickly, I gained control of my responses and simply said, “If people understood what PTSD was really like, they wouldn’t just throw that word around”.

Am I wrong?

My experiences with it make me want to just hug those who haven’t been so lucky in the process. Those who haven’t found the support, those who are in need. Every day, I’m grateful to be alive no matter what happens, and have learned to make each day worth living by being the best person I can be.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the anxiety about having a stroke in the shower, but come on. Why make things out to be worse than it really is?

Blinded

In a world that’s emotional and dramatic, does anyone really notice?

Think about it. Everywhere you go someone is having a fit of some sort whether it’s a child or a couple bickering. Someone is having a meltdown. It’s become so commonplace that we don’t notice it anymore. In a way, we expect the drama to surface. Does anyone really notice a PTSD trigger?

I don’t think so unless the response is center stage. People shrug it off as someone has issues because don’t we all do that?

Whenever I was triggered, I always felt small, out of sorts, and that everyone was watching me. As I’ve grown I’ve realized no one really cares, they’re wrapped up in their own life. It’s not like the days when I was growing up, you didn’t do things in public, now it’s common.

Have your reaction. Take the moment to be able to know when the feeling is creeping up so you can grow from it. You do you, screw everyone else. The only rule is no harm allowed.

Sharing

I did something I’ve never done before, I opened up about my experiences surviving a mass shooting. To a group that I was providing active shooter training to no less.

I started a new job a few months ago and the boss asked me if I was willing to be the active shooter trainer and I agreed. We collaborated about what a short one-hour session should be like and I told him about my experience and that I wanted to change the way training was being done. To my surprise, he was very receptive and gave me free rein.

This has been in the works since I started and I welcomed the opportunity to see how the changes would affect the audience’s attention. Instinctively, I knew I would have to give some details, this was the first presentation I’ve given that actually discussed the aftermath of a situation, a topic no one wants to talk about.

First-hand experiences provide validity to the content and humanize people and the need for proper mental health care. It shows that even in supporting others, we need to watch what we say and what we think. Is it easy to talk about? Not for me. I could see that it did have a direct effect on the audience and their ability to absorb the information and its importance.

What are you eating?

There are many times through life that it feels as thought he walls are closing in on us. Nothing seems to go right and the light at the tunnel is out. It doesn’t matter what age or happens at or what the circumstances are surrounding it, it will always come down to how you handle it.

Adversity brings creativity, strength, and resiliency.

Change isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would do it. You have to choose your hard. When the pain gets to be too much and you’re backed into a corner, the roar forces change. As Elizabeth Gilbert puts it “Choose you shit sandwich”, which one are you willing to consume to get what you want.

Don’t be afraid of change, change is good. It means it’s time for the next chapter.

Head in the Sand

Your world can seem small, making it easy to believe instantly that no one else could possibly know how you feel. Guess what? Not only are there many people that know how you feel, some of them have healed from it

I recently went on a trip with an organization I’m a member of. My room mate was new to the group. One the first night, I tried making friends with her and she made it obvious she wasn’t interested and I could never understand her since she was a veteran and all. I held back the laughter, shook my head and let it go.

The next evening, there was an introduction event and she found out who I was. She spoke to the founders to get information on me and they advised her to listen and ask questions. That night as I was settling into bed, she started talking. I offered advice on how to handle the issues she was having when she agreed to accept it. The following night, the same thing occurred. By the fourth day, her attitude completely changed. Not only towards the organization but towards me.

Being wrapped up in your own world keeps you going in a loop that you can’t get out of unless you pull your head out of the sand. While everyone is unique, has different perceptions, and a variety of experiences, believing you are the first and the only is egoistic. Hurt is hurt, it’s not a contest.

Fluidity

How you feel isn’t how the world sees you. hard to believe right? I always felt that everyone could read me like an open book so I suppressed everything, every emotion because I was taught emotions were bad. ‘Crying is for babies’ my mother used to tell me. Ridicule can from my brothers. The neighborhood kids laughed. The result was, I became this person that didn’t feel, or so I liked to appear that way. It was an appearance that cost me dearly. It cost me myself and numerous people.

It’s only been since my healing journey did I come to accept that we are emotional beings for a reason. We have to feel to grow. We have to be able to release experiences in order to heal. We have to experience life and death to understand the value of things.

Yes, there is a time and place for certain emotions but being bottled up isn’t one of them. They don’t fall into a bottomless well, they fall into a boiling cauldron waiting to overflow. Emptying the cauldron is exhausting and can generate fear but it’s a darkness worth letting go of. Understanding the belief that created the scene allows healing without the cauldron tipping over.

Experience

What do you need? What do you want help with? What’s got you stumped?

Asking yourself those questions allow for the Universe to send the answers. The answer could be something like a mentor showing up in your email or random person you run into on the street.

Being open about your current situation and the difference of where you want to be can be an exciting journey if you let it. Do I know where I want to be? Sort of. In every way except a career. For some reason, that hasn’t appeared. I was told my path is the way of Dharma. I’m supposed to write and help others. Awesome! Now how do I pay my bills? lol

Everyone’s path is different. Everyone’s end game is different. Everyone’s experiences are different. Working together, everyone can excel faster.

Haunting Beliefs

Handling the causes of symptoms is a task that seems to be too much. Reliving things isn’t always the best way to heal and overcome the darkness. It’s the beliefs developed as a result of those that clash with the incident that creates such turmoil within. How do we recognize what is actually influencing the outcome? That depends on what is being brought to the surface. It can be different for each reflection that’s faced and even then vary per person.

During my healing path, I came to realize there were different causes for my symptoms. Survivors’ guilt surfaced, not only for the last incident but for things that occurred decades before. Some of the nightmares were to show me missing information that I needed to know. Some were from my personal beliefs about where I lived and the ignorance behind believing it couldn’t happen here.

As I continued to look at each case on its own merit and solved each of their riddles, more ‘memories’ surfaced. Reminding myself that this was the past and it couldn’t hurt me anymore took time to adjust to. Feeling the fear of the little girl I once was was heartbreaking but necessary for my inner child to heal.

My shrink told me that there are some things that need to be let go of, not forced to remember. She was right. The only thing is that as I healed, it surfaced on its own. As a result, empathy and sympathy for those that have faced similar predicaments have increased to the point of tears.

Wrapping the mind around the beliefs and rewriting them provides the courage to do it over and over again. Reevaluating core beliefs and rewriting how you are, creating a person true to those new found beliefs is healing in its own right.