The Healing Power of a Good Cry

Yesterday, I was trying to explain how I was attacked in college.  The question I was asked was, "how many men and what was their race?"

I went into shock and started crying hysterically.  I just could not engage in such a conversation.  I was sick and tired of talking about what happened to me like it was just a news broadcast talking about the weather or some other innocuous dispassionate topic.

I explain what happens to me and all I get is compete indifference.  One of the reasons I have blocked out memories is because the indifference is probably more painful than anything else.  It is bad enough these things happened.  However, the attitude that what happened to me is just another event with such indifference creates a blinding level of emotional hell that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

I didn't answer the stupid question being asked of me.  I simply just started crying non-stop hysterically for about an hour or so.  Maybe longer or shorter, I don't know.  All I know is the tears were flowing and I couldn't stop it.

At some point, something kicks in my brain that there is no answer or solution for any of this and I just have to simply shut it out of my mind and get on with my life.  However, the human mind mapping from this trauma on my brain remains there.

That being said, at least some acknowledgement that something actually happened to me is better than saying nothing happened at all.  

Acknowledgement of the event to prompt a good cry is healthy.  Crying is the body's natural way of eliminating toxins and bad energies.  I found after a healthy cry that I felt better.

We live in a society that condemns expression of emotions like crying.  I don't know why it is like that.  It is not healthy to hold things inside.  Crying is a way to get all the bad stuff out of your system.  If we don't get emotions out of our system in a healthy way through expressions like crying, then they will come out in an unhealthy toxic way, which is not good for anyone.  

That being said, I found it has been difficult for me to have any of the emotions that result from what happened to me because nobody wants to hear about it at all.  The most I can do for expression is an anonymous blog like this one here, and even then, I have a great deal of difficulty expressing myself here, even when I know that there is zero chance of revictimization or guilt or shame that comes from people shutting me up or shutting me out.

I have lived alone and worked alone for several years now.  I simply have no interest or desire to bother with anybody.  People want to dump their issues on me but are oblivious to my issues.  That gets tiring after awhile.  It feels like a one-way street.  

At some point, I decided to just forget about myself altogether and focus on everybody and everything else that has nothing to do with the traumas of my past.  However, even that gets tiring.  I feel like I have a boulder I have been carrying around on my shoulders for 35 years.  Why do we live in a society that promotes crimes against women and children?  How did this happen?  Why do we blame women  for "getting raped" instead of holding men accounting for committing rape?  That is the problem. 

That's all for now.  More later.

I Need To Be Better Than This.....

It was very difficult for me to start this blog, and even more difficult for me to maintain it, primarily because writing about all of this is so painful.  I still can't even write the complete story of exactly what happened to me.  I give generics.  I say I was raped.  I say I was beaten.  I don't give details.  I don't express how I feel.  Most people can't handle it, and if I try to explain anything, they can't absorb what I need to say.  It amazes me how people are so upset listening to me say anything, but yet, I'm supposed to just absorb what happened to me and have "consideration" for "those around me" who are feeling "uncomfortable" about what I want to "say".  Why is that.

I remember I went to a psychologist who was supposed to be a specialist in this sort of thing, and I said to her before I even started speaking, I said, "I don't think you will be able to handle what I need to say..." and she said to me, "Go ahead and tell me what's on your mind.  It will be fine."  She was all wide-eyed and innocent and it was obvious there was no way in hell she was going to be able to handle a session with me.  She was going to just fall apart like a dandelion in the wind.  So, I started to talk, and she couldn't handle it.  She sat there frozen with a deer in the headlights look on her face.  So, I was like, "okay, well, never mind.  I'll find someone else.  Thanks for trying...." and I left.

There was one time when I had a session with a psychologist that was better.  He was able to listen actively and not freak out.  He said to me that I was a "mismatch", in a good way.  He said that with everything that I had been through, my condition of PTSD was so severe that I should be incoherent, on medications, in a psychiatric hospital somewhere, or on suicide watch.  However, I was a mismatch.  I was very highly functional for what I have been through, and he thought that I was exceeding the curve by "millions of miles" and should be proud of that.  That made me feel better.  I have been told that my condition has a 96% suicide rate.  What I like about Tony Robbins is he trained my brain to think bigger and better beyond the box that was being defined for me.  I mean, is it really a mismatch?  Maybe the "mismatch" is the refusal to stay in the box that was built for me by society that says, "you belong in this box - stay there -and don't think you can do better or deserve better."  Why.  Why does that make sense.  It doesn't.  It doesn't make any sense at all.

I need to be better than this. 

What's the Point.....

I ask myself this question on many occasions about what has happened in the past, how does it affect the present, and what is the purpose for the future.  Sometimes I feel like there has to be some higher purpose for everything I went through.  I often fall back on the test of Job - we keep our faith when things go wrong and don't make sense.  Instead of moving away from God, we move closer to God, because that is the best remedy for getting the demons out of our world, and if we can keep our faith and trust in God through difficult times, and move closer to Him instead of away from Him, then when the thunderstorm in our lives are over, we come out better, stronger, and now we can help others.

All of this sounds good in theory, but quite frankly, there are times when I just get depressed.  PTSD cost me my relationships with my family and friends.  I live and work alone because of it.  I have a great deal of difficulty meeting people and making new friends because of it.  Even though I have overcome most of the original grip PTSD had on my psyche and soul for so many years, it still has left an aftermath of broken relationships with family friends, loss of my home, my possessions, my career, my education, essentially, so many things I had worked for that if I didn't have PTSD gripping my soul and my brain, what would my life have been like in that case.  What would have been different.  I am going to be 50 in a couple of weeks and I look back at the damage that PTSD did to my life and the life of everybody around me that was close to me, and it's damage that can't be undone. All of that is very depressing for me.

My mother was playing Chinese Checkers with me one day and she always beat me at that game.  I couldn't figure out why, but she always won whenever we played.  It was a fun game and an excuse for us to bond when I was a kid.  I remember one day when we were playing I asked her how it is that she always wins, and she didn't answer right away.  However, there was a point in the game a few minutes later when I moved one of my pieces one step backwards.  When I did that, she said to me, "don't do that."  I said, "what do you mean?"  She said, "don't move backwards.  Always move forward.  Every step you take, you always move forward, you never look back.  Not just here, in life.  Always look forward, and never look back."  So then, I changed my move.  I moved a piece forward.  She said to me, "good.  That's right. That's how you win."

I take that advice to heart and I apply it to my life when I think about the past and trying to make sense of it all.  I fall back on the advice of my mother in the game of Chinese Checkers and in life.  "Never look back.  Always move forward."  I didn't realize it at that time, but she was giving me a life lesson.  She was, and still is, a great mom.

Tony Robbins Cured my PTSD (Really? Yes Really...)

Does that heading look totally crazy?  Before I experienced the breakthrough that cured my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I would have said the same thing.  I will explain to you how the cure happened, but first, I need to explain the background of my condition.  If you have PTSD, then this probably will look familiar to you.

After 27 years of going to therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, in and out of psychiatric hospitals, on and off of psychiatric medications, and still no relief, it seemed like PTSD was the unwanted roommate that moved into my soul and was here to stay forever. 

   

I had a psychiatrist describe me as a "mismatch". What he read in my file suggested that I should not be even coherent enough to walk or talk or do anything, let along have a job or work.  I should be drugged up on medications in a psych ward somewhere on disability unable to function.  

I had a counselor tell me that my condition of PTSD was so severe it had a 96% suicide rate and therefore, if I was waking up alive and breathing and I did not kill myself that day, then it was a good day.  That was the most that I could hope for with my condition.

I was also told by psychiatrists and counselors that I could never be 100% better. I was told that I would go through the stages of grief - denial, acknowledgement, anger, sadness, acceptance. The best I could hope for was acceptance, but that would be as good as it gets.The idea that I could actually be 100% better and whole again was an idea I should not waste my time on considering.

For the past 27 years, I would wake up and feel like there was a giant boulder in my chest that I had to push uphill. That was a good day.  Other days I'd have triggers and flashbacks with adrenaline going 1000 mph through my system with blinding emotional pain that would paralyze me to the point that I couldn't function.  I didn't understand why this was as good as it gets and I had to just accept it.

Up until recently, before I learned about Tony Robbins methods, I operated on sheer will power, drive, and prayer.  But it was always like pushing a boulder uphill. I would tell myself to be a warrior and fight the internal currents and plow through anyways.  This was very helpful to a point.  The sheer determination and stubborn refusal to give up or give in to these PTSD emotions at least got me ahead of the curve to be able to function to a certain point.

This was not without any consequences, however.  I still had moments where the will to keep going just wasn't there and I couldn't muster it up no matter how hard I tried and in 2008, I tried to commit suicide but I had a friend who was there and he stopped me from doing it.  He shipped me to a psychiatric hospital and they treated me, for which I was grateful.  That was probably my lowest point.  Then I went through counseling and psychiatric meds and all of that was helpful too.  The meds helped me to get a glimpse of what normal felt like, and the counseling at least acknowledged my extreme emotional pain and suffering, so that was helpful also. 

I then had good days and bad days and I kept the good fight going but ultimately, it was still always there and always something I had to negotiate with every waking minute of my life, but the good news was that it had gone from almost killing me to a lower volume level of being an annoyance, like a dull pain that never goes away but I just got used to it.  I think that was the "acceptance" phase I had been told about by the counselors.

So every day I was always looking for ways to get better.  I still had hope that somehow I was fixable.  It was well known that some people had PTSD, but others who were exposed to similar traumatic events didn't develop PTSD at all.  So, what was going on there?  If it really was all scientific and final, then PTSD should develop in everyone who gets an exposure to trauma, not just some and not others.  That fact alone told me that there was something I was missing.  Something I needed to figure out to be free of PTSD and not have it come back, just like the people who had exposure to traumas and never developed PTSD.  What were they thinking or doing that I wasn't?

One day I was watching a Tony Robbins video discussing how to change one's emotional state.  I was fascinated with the idea that I could change my emotional state with my control by my rules.  That is the frustration with PTSD.  It feels like it just comes up whenever it wants and I have to battle it all the time.  

In the video, Tony Robbins explains that you can change your emotional state by doing two things.  First, motion changes emotion.  In other words, get up and move around, walk around, exercise, run, do something to move your body.  When you move your body, think about how you move when you are confident and you have had a great victory and you're on top of the world.  Move like you're in that emotional state.  When you move like you're happy and enthusiastic and on top of the world and victorious and confident, the emotional state comes with the body movements.  I tried this and I found it to be true.  It did work and helped me to feel alot better.

Second, and this is where the big breakthrough happened for me, is changing your core story.  Core story?  What is that?  Well, Tony Robbins explains that everybody has a story that they are running on that controls everything the person is thinking and feeling.  So, if you can figure out your core story then you can rewrite your core story and change your emotional state.

It sounded so trite and silly.  It can't be that simple.  But I was willing to try anything to not feel this way anymore, so I tried it.

I wrote my old core story.  And then I wrote my new core story.  When I did that, I got my breakthrough.  The PTSD storm was gone.  100% gone.  I couldn't believe it.  I had not felt like me with zero PTSD in over 27 years!  I had forgotten what "me" felt like,  And I had all of this energy!! So much energy I didn't know what to do with it!!! IT WAS INCREDIBLE!  

So, I want everybody who is suffering with PTSD to know that there is hope.  Tony Robbins has all the tools you can imagine to help change your emotional state and free you of the grip of your core story that is causing all of your symptoms.  I know its hard to believe, but it can't hurt to try.