one hour

the "Inside PTSD" collection:

  1. inside ptsd
  2. inside ptsd, the mad list
  3. inside ptsd, backstory
  4. inside ptsd, fleeing
  5. inside ptsd, two
  6. inside ptsd, remediation
  7. inside ptsd, three, rage
  8. inside ptsd, transaction costs
  9. time shift, inside the ptsd
  10. time shift three
  11. time shift two, still inside the ptsd
  12. inside ptsd, the addiction episode
  13. survive vs heal
  14. inside ptsd, body knows
  15. inside ptsd, body knows, part one
  16. one hour
  17. that same afternoon
  18. inside ptsd, more than a recollection
  19. inside ptsd, body knows 2
  20. acceptance.
  21. inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 2
  22. inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 3
  23. inside ptsd, a student of trauma
  24. inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 4a
  25. inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 4b
  26. inside ptsd, the addiction episode, part 5
  27. inside ptsd, more than a recollection, part 2
  28. acute
  29. inside my midlife ptsd
  30. one day—the daylight part—inside ptsd
  31. inside ptsd, mere survival
  32. inside ptsd, economics
  33. one day, at night, inside ptsd
  34. on the outside, looking in
  35. inside ptsd, in the wind
  36. inside ptsd, in the wind, two
  37. a is for anxiety
  38. inside ptsd, the last match
  39. inside ptsd, addicted to addiction
  40. inside ptsd, outside looking in
  41. Day Three, Haunted
  42. inside ptsd, what it is
  43. inside ptsd, it takes time
  44. inside ptsd, the plea for understanding
  45. before the aftermath

possibly related

trippy morning, tina came down a few minutes before time to get up, i made room.

she wants me to be better which is of course lovely. she talks about my writing, how it's way helping her understand me, and she so wants it not to be the way it is, and she tries hard and gently, i give her that, and i told her i get 4-5 anxiety attacks every week, and started describing how they are this slow dread bumping into me like a mobile fog of pre-fear, and how i can't usually identify the trigger, it's just there, and the next minutes or hours of my day are now radically different, b/c now i have this crazy amorphous mass to deal with... my body is quickly on alert and looking over my shoulder and patting my pockets for my wallet and emergency cash...

and she got all sad and humbled and asked if it happened when i was coming back to the house (when i 'come home') and i said yes, sometimes, that is one of the known triggers but it doesn't happen every time, but regularly, and of course she was way sad and looking for ways out and i told her there are no paths visible to me, just today, just right now, and she asked if it was possible to experience this cutting edge beauty of now without having to be inside ptsd, and i said probably, but i have no glipse of that.

maybe you write about that she said, what that might be like and i said i have to get through today first, 14/15 hours of god knows what, and that's enough, what with all the micro-transactions i have to negotiate every hour, assessing escape routes, orienting myself to resources on hand, where in the city i am, what obligations i have and what would be the price to blow any of them off.

Some minutes, sometimes even 60 or 70 in a row, i do that scanning subconsciously, noting details, assessing risks, trying to see threats long before they materialize. We're good at it, me and me, and it makes us feel safer. In a good hour it doesn't take up that much time at all, and i can write or walk or work with impunity.

But other hours are one hundred moments slung together, each hard-won, each lived with accelerated awareness—faster beating heart, more wariness as executive functioning retreats and the survivor in me steps forward again, called to duty, always willing b/c our very existence is at stake.

But here's the thing... to survive one of those hours is such an incredible blessing. All the breathing practice i've done, all the cultivating gratitude, all the surrendering to All Love, it all swirls together in this precious moment where i am so slow-motion exquisitely glad to be alive, near tears, still here.

so yeah, 8:11am and i feel like i've been on for hours. but still, did you see the sky this morning?

it was Beautiful.

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