A diagnosis of (C)PTSD is crippling. Its grip operates like a shadow forever present in the waking hours. It is as though the trauma wasn't enough and it lingers. Forever. Awareness is key in transforming the pain to insight. Along my journey post-accident, several layers of extreme trauma were revealed after years of repression and unconscious denial that everything was normal. Utilizing a variety of approaches including CBT therapy, EMDR, reiki, acupuncture, cycling, meditation and yoga have all helped along the way. It is exhausting -- a familiar feeling for those living with this condition. Attending workshops at the meditation center planted ideas that were completely foreign that helped illuminate possible reasons for my prolonged suffering. At first it was painful. I was on the receiving end of narcissistic name calling and victim blaming by my immediate family members. Kicked out of the house with my spouse to fend for our own in the most expensive place in the world - the Bay Area - because my sadistic father couldn't bare to see his son suffer. In actuality, he wanted the basement to himself as did my sister inheriting the house (the will was changed). My mother was helpless as always and her denial and support of my father's actions to this day - as well as my sisters - shreds my heart daily. Within the immediate and terrifying experience of being tossed out like refuse, I kept asking why? Why are they making my pain about them? Why are they disowning me? Why aren't they loving me? Well, hurt people often hurt people as the adage goes. Soon all the atrocities my father committed against me as well as my mother and to a certain extent my sister erupted from the past like a volcano. My first memory is being abused. While in Tijuana, Mexico my father fed me jalapeno peppers and laughed as I screamed crying. It was such a vivid experience that I saw a myriad of colors - almost hallucinations - as the patrons of the cantina laughed. My father in sadistic fashion recounts this story to all my friends and family gatherings. I was merely two years old. Next came the sexual abuse. I was no more than five years old having terrible nightmares - a few years before I survived a pipe bomb explosion that blew out our windows from across the street. As a result, I wanted to be with my basset hound - Sugarfoot - for comfort. I would crawl into the dog bed with him upstairs and sleep by his side. Soon I would witness my father having sex with my mom from behind. He would see me in the dog bed, finish his business and beat the shit out of me. Needless to say, I was scared shitless of dad. Dad who called me boy. Dad who never remembers his son's birthday. Dad who abused mom. Dad who refuses to change. Dad who refuses to see a shrink because it would prevent him from owning a gun. Dad who contracted herpes, passed it to my mother, and claimed he got it from a toilet seat. Dad who I caught philandering the morning of my accident. Dad who I caught abusing my mother. Dad who made my mothers bipolar disorder and 30+ years of on and off again institutionalization about him. And mother always defends dad. This also played out on the psychological level. Whenever things went well for me, mother would try to commit suicide. My entire family never knew me. Never celebrated my accomplishments. Didn't even bother coming to my graduation after completing my PhD. Excuses abound. "Well, we did go to this..." As if, I the "successful" survivor was a lost cause, didn't matter, a burden. Fifteen years of academia and twenty plus years of creative work, organizing, activism all ignored and deemed irrelevant. After earning my Masters degree and showing my mother a museum exhibit that I had held in conjunction with my thesis, I took my mother to a diner in San Francisco's Chinatown. She said over the meal, "we didn't think you would make it this far." Perhaps this is why people with severe trauma are oftentimes overachievers readily available to help those in need. My reiki therapist said in one of our conversations that I was a wounded warrior similar to an alpha wolf licking the wounds of the pack. She also said that I can learn from this transformative experience and enter the world of healing arts as a shaman, curandero. This unofficial ordaining I found quite exciting and it put me on the path albeit long, arduous and painful to uncover the layers to reveal the core root of my pain. Soon my yoga teacher shared the idea of the wounded masculine - men who never learned what it is to be a man due to abusive and/or absent fathers and how it manifests in one's actions. For me, it resulted in hypermasculinity as I was enraptured by my father's outspokenness, inappropriateness and outright craziness. We used to have a pinback on the corkboard that read "Never Be Normal" and now in retrospect it was just a phrase to excuse his abuse. Soon after realizing I had qualities of the wounded masculine manifesting in toxic masculinity I encountered another concept- the wounded child. This concept is characterized by pain, brokenness, depression, sensitivity, feeling misunderstood, fear, illness identification, the inability to let go and a immense attraction to pain, tragedy and/or suffering. The archetype of the wounded child clued me into why I was attracted to such "unsavory" popular culture products of the past as well as my identities as a punk rocker, goth, raver, etc. It explained my controversial art. In a sense, I was treating my illness by keeping busy with multiple art projects, school, volunteerism, activism, work and academia just to be grounded. However, that can only last so long and I suppose it explains why many overachievers burn out, change careers, find spirituality or lead a life of drug and alcohol abuse. With this awareness, I came to the realization that trauma shaped who I am but trauma does not define me. As part of the mindfulness practice, the skill of bare-noting of sensations in the body was pivotal in this transformation. Correlating pain to a specific part of the body and not the entire self allows one to prevent trauma as becoming a marker of one's identity. In other words, one is more than their pain. Lastly, be kind to yourself. You have survived. Heal. Recover. Share. Connect. Feel. You are not in this alone.
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AuthorDarren Brown, PhD. ArchivesCategories |