the "Inside PTSD" collection:
- inside ptsd
- inside ptsd, the mad list
- inside ptsd, backstory
- inside ptsd, fleeing
- inside ptsd, two
- inside ptsd, remediation
- inside ptsd, three, rage
- inside ptsd, transaction costs
- time shift, inside the ptsd
- time shift three
- time shift two, still inside the ptsd
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode
- survive vs heal
- inside ptsd, body knows
- inside ptsd, body knows, part one
- one hour
- that same afternoon
- inside ptsd, more than a recollection
- inside ptsd, body knows 2
- acceptance.
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 2
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 3
- inside ptsd, a student of trauma
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 4a
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 4b
- inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 5
- inside ptsd, more than a recollection, part 2
- acute
- inside my midlife ptsd
- one day—the daylight part—inside ptsd
- inside ptsd, mere survival
- inside ptsd, economics
- one day, at night, inside ptsd
- on the outside, looking in
- inside ptsd, in the wind
- inside ptsd, in the wind, two
- a is for anxiety
- inside ptsd, the last match
- inside ptsd, addicted to addiction
- inside ptsd, outside looking in
- Day Three, Haunted
- inside ptsd, what it is
- inside ptsd, it takes time
- inside ptsd, the plea for understanding
- before the aftermath
survival
survival is a beautiful word, and mere survival is vastly under-appreciated... for me at least, by those i've met who've never been hair-trigger from death, who've never been thrown from sleep and violated in nightmares.
mere survival is bodymind living to take another breath—celebrate that—even when living through another terror, filled only with the undead hope that madness can cease and something better can grow up from the rubble.
mere survival
we want nothing more, please.
let us live, well if possible, but live.
until the edge is met, and even that life prayer is too little, and the desert of death beckons true.
“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
mere survival is not killing myself, not drugging myself beyond return, not violating someone else in my mad pain. Mere survival is a beautiful feeling, chemically, the body living on the edge of adrenaline-fear and then a pause, perhaps half a breath, but a standing down nonetheless and the body floods with relief, and in that neuro-chem instant, renewal triumphs and forces dedicated to continuing our existence rise to the occasion, mere survival and bloody more.
to the unbelievers
to the unexposed, mere survival seems too trivial to note: after all, making it from one breath to the next seems so facile as to be unworthy of even a passing notice. But to an insider, to a soul-fighter, mere survival is a lifetime lived every second, an exhausting romp through past and present—there is no future—all is compressed into the space between a fast, shallow breath.
undiluted
mere survival is everything—every aspiration to love, every dream of triumph, every heartbeat, every purpose under heaven all lived through and died through every moment over and over again.
mere survival is the ultimate triumph, the bodymind's prime directive undertaken and succeeded, and all that lacks is spaciousness to celebrate another ten seconds of survival.
victory
but celebration occurs, somewhere, in small tribes of cells buried deep within tissues, between neurons, b/c if there were no celebration there would be no reason to rise, or do anything but surrender, lay down, and die.
fellowship
when survivors encounter each other there is a knowing, a camaraderie even if hatred and disgust form the bulk of bodymind's awareness of the present moment, but respect. You're still here too, props, even if we want each other dead in the faint hope it eases the pain one iota more.
Consequence are the future, and the future doesn't exist, so live now, live well and survive.
make it through, and on a good day you may smile, and understand.
breathe well, mere survival, bless. we're still here.
Love, m