My therapist told me that things would get worse before they get better once I start trauma therapy. They were right. I'm five months in to a year long episode of therapy and I feel like I'm on fire.
Some days are so tough that I feel like I am suspended in orbit, just outside of reality, and watching my life play out in autopilot. It's been a bit of a theme in my poetry recently. I don't set out to write with a theme in mind, I just open my suppressed emotions and let the poetry write itself.
"Trauma therapy is intense. It feels like I'm in the hot burning fire stage of 'rising from the ashes' and my therapist keeps adding more logs to the fire."
Much of my poetry is simply a description of what is going on inside my head or body. I am fascinated by details and a good description transports me back to unique moments that only happen once and I want to capture everything about it to preserve that moment in time. Strangely, this is one of those moments. The day I took antidepressants for the first time...
A sleepless prison
Kaleidoscope vision
Fragmented in triplicate
Vibrating intricate
Layers of buzzing
Indefinite fuzziness
Tripping and slipping
Depicting an infinite
Rippling, trickling
Undeserved sickening
Waves overlapping
Electrical tapping
Incessant insomnia
Quiescent inertia
Depressant suppressant
Unpleasant inerrant
I don't know if it's supposed to feel like this but it's very "trippy". The reality is that it takes a long time to find the right combination of therapy and medication when you have significant mental health needs and a pill doesn't actually "fix" anything. And while you're working it all out, you still have to carrying on living and working.
I'll be honest with you, it's a real challenge to get up some days. I feel like I'm stuck in the limbo of half awake, half asleep. Sometimes, I don't want to be awake because it's so painful to keep feeling the overwhelming emotions that PTSD triggers every day.
Permission to land
Some days when I wake
My head is full of turbulent noise
I avoid giving it any sort of attention
Even less to mention
That it’s making me feel
Like nothing is actually real
The surreal appeal of my freewheeling focus
It’s locus roaming
Unable to wield any signal in this foggy static cloud
Vibrating turbines resonantly humming
Their blades drumming my body
Suspended in orbit in the gap between reality and “landing not permitted”
Circling on hold, unable to ground
Until the interfering electrical storm has cleared
And the heavy congestion in my head lifted
Only then can my control tower call me in to land,
An uneasy grounding onto the runway
Ready for my day ahead
I am so grateful to have an employer who is allowing some true flexibility to navigate all this. My contribution and value judged as worth waiting for despite the delay.
I am learning so much about myself through therapy. The most helpful advice has been to notice what I'm thinking and feeling, both physically and emotionally, and not to judge those thoughts and feelings as good or bad. See them as valid and accepted.
Acceptance is the kindest care we can give ourselves. I tell myself that it's not surprising I feel this way because, through adult eyes, I can see how distressing that situation was. I feel so much compassion that I just want to scoop up the little girl (me) and never let her go. I cry with her as I hear her story, my story. She is finally being heard.
Unfortunately, big emotions can be pretty distressing when the underlying trigger causes trauma flashbacks. And the emotions are often so overwhelming that it causes a shutdown or dissociated state. I'm not judging these as 'bad' any more. This is just the body's way of telling me to rest and heal. My body is giving me what I need in that moment.
I think this might be what Dissociation feels like
My head feels weird
Behind my eyes, a thick buzziness
Fuzziness, so heavy my head is lolling, nodding,
Thoughts overlaying thoughts in stammered, overlapping, not quite matching images, fragmented at their edges.
I am watching from over here,
or perhaps over there,
I am seeing myself in multiple mirrored reflections,
more distant as I try to ground and presence my other-outer existence
I am a traced outline of myself, misaligned from where my body sits, just beyond reality but close enough to see through a hazy window into my other world,
The one where I don't quite belong.
Not quite here is almost pleasant,
No, it is needed,
A hypnotic state and welcome escape,
A gentle separation of self and suffering.
The buzz feels like that glitching state,
A flickering light whose electrical source trips often enough to break the intensity of anxious thoughts,
Fleeting as soon as they form,
Not quite starting, like an engine flooded by its choke on a cold morning,
moisture dampening the firing sparks.
I am stalling,
my engine slowing down,
Micro movements, magnified in my mind, painfully slow,
like wading through thick mud or walking head on into the wind,
the force of it removing gravity and making my body feel like its weight is held in a vertical hammock,
swaying and rocking as I lean into its invisible hold.
I feel slightly removed from myself,
like I am watching myself play out on a screen,
a third party observing from a safe distance,
a silent viewing,
removed from feeling the heavy weight of emotion that I can see on face of the person in front of me.
Me but not me.
The other Me.
The one who I’m watching play out their autopilot
While my script is buffering and glitching.
How to Tell If You've Experienced Dissociation, Plus How to Handle It
Images created using GTP-4 AI
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