Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[AphoticAtramentous]

Hey Papa Coco, I hope you've been doing alright.
Your ketamine experiences sound terrifying indeed, but I hope in the end that they are enlightening. Wanting all the best for you, been missing your company (but don't take that as any pressure to post if you don't feel like it!)

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Larry]

 

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Wednesday, November 13, 2024

I've been off the journal for quite some time now. The world here is very somber since the election. Nobody is really talking much. The grocery store is quiet. People are just walking around like zombies. While the calm is nice, the reason for it is suspicious.

And for me, self-torture is as easy as it's always been. In fact, I can't stop thinking about all the things that are wrong in life. I struggle impossibly with an ability to let go of the past and the people who've led me to where I am now. I try SO HARD to stop thinking about the people who've bullied me. My family. My church. My schools as a kid. And politics. I want to forgive and forget, but my brain won't stop thinking about them.

It always baffles me that we have enough on this planet to all enjoy ourselves. But we don't. I held a job that paid well for 42 years. I didn't like the job. It was a good job. It just wasn't what I'd wanted to do with my life. It was what my parents guided me toward and forced me to apply for. I had money. I had friends. I had health. And I had misery. Why? Why do we have to live in this misery from our pasts, and from sticking our noses into drama. Trauma and drama. Two things that have kept me from fully enjoying a simple life. It's not just me. I know SO MANY PEOPLE who are healthy and intelligent and making money and having friends, but who are just as miserable as if they were starving. Just like me. I was living a good life but struggling to enjoy it. It's midday. We're between rain showers. I could do a quick bike ride or a run to the store to find someone to talk with for a few minutes. But what am I doing? Nothing. I'm sitting in the house. Waiting to die. Why am I doing this to myself? (That's an actual question: I really don't know for sure why I am sitting around bored in a world filled with things to do).

In my morning meditation, where I like to reach out to the spirit world and ask if anyone has any guidance for me, I heard the words, "You get tangled up." As I heard the words, I knew that they meant that I get tangled up in everything I do. I overthink. I over worry. I pause with second thoughts. I try to find every possible outcome so I can prepare for anything. I can't say no to people, so I end up tangled up in their dramas with them far more often than I need to. I get tangled up in my inability to know what I want for myself. Getting untangled is my current project. Stopping, every so often, and asking myself, "Is this what I want to be doing right now?" If the answer is no, then I need to stop doing the things I've gotten tangled up in and I need to release my grip on the leash that holds me in decision paralysis.  So, physically I have NO REASON for not being happy right now. It's all about past pain creating future fears, and allowing myself to get dragged into too many dramas, some mine, some are other people's dramas.

IN the end, that's the part that gets me. Physically we can have good lives. But our brains, our traumas, our wiring, have created in us an unseen force that keeps us from enjoying the simple things of life.

It doesn't matter how dim our global future looks, at this time we don't live in the future. We live in the present moment. Our pasts bring us pain. The future brings us fear. But right here and now we are in the present moment, and right now, I'm in a safe place. I have food in the fridge. I have heat. Winter is coming outside and I'm warm and fed inside. So, why am I so unhappy?

I wish I knew why we are like this. The ancients taught us that we think too much. If we could live in the moment more like the animals do, we'd be more relaxed and authentically ourselves. Animals only stress while they're hiding from hunters. They go right back to enjoying their meal as soon as the danger leaves. Wouldn't that be awesome? But we're not like that. WE COULD BE! But we are not. I'm not like that. I stress over things that might not ever happen. I still feel pain from things that happened 60+ years ago. I worry about tomorrow like my life depends on it. I keep emergency food, water, medication, electricity, propane, power generators, and more, around because I'm so sure I'm going to need them in the future. I'm letting my pain from the past and my fear of the future darken the fun I could be having today. I KNOW I'm doing it, but somehow, I can't find my way out of this emotional cycle of self-torture.

I've told this to the forum many times: I wasn't allowed to want anything during the first decades of my life. I was to want what my family was kind enough to decide to give me, and nothing else. I wasn't even allowed to talk about my future. As a boy, I wanted to be a general contractor and land developer. In my city, anyone who did that when they were my age, is a multimillionaire today. AND I LOVE Working with tools. I love it, I love it, I love it. I feel invincible when I have a firm grip on some good tools. My dad scoffed at me anytime I ever said, "I want to be ___ when I grow up." He did this right up to my 18th birthday. Usually, he'd scoff and say, "You can't do that." Or "You need to be smarter if you want to do that." He literally told me that I wasn't smart enough to do most things. Or he'd just repeat that famous family line that was used on me thousands of times over the years, "You don't want that." Then, ON the morning of my 18th birthday, after 18 solid years of telling me I can't be anything when I grow up, my father stormed into my room and screamed at me: "You're 18 now. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" I leapt out of bed, put on my clothes, and hit the highway looking for anyone who would hire me. I wasn't allowed to go to college. Dad said, "Anyone who goes to college is just doing it for four more years of free childhood." I wasn't allowed to start my own business, or contract myself out, even though I'd been doing it for years as a teen who would take on any task in the yard for reasonable price. Rather than pursue my own desires to build homes and own my own business, I ended up going to work where he worked. The factory was hiring, and they knew my dad to be a hard worker, so they hired his son in hopes I'd be like Dad. I was. I worked very hard. For 42 years I worked hard at a job I didn't like because I wasn't allowed to want to follow my own heart. Fast-forward to today--I can now make my own decisions, but wait...no...I can't. I have to torture myself by still being unable to know what I want in life. So I'm paralyzed by the decisions. I'm sitting around the house waiting to die while the world is offering all sorts of fun things to do just outside my door. And I can't decide what to do, so I don't do anything. Decision paralysis.

Yep. I'm good at making up ways to torture myself so that I don't enjoy what's right in front of me.

And yes, I know: This is trauma. Trauma is what does this to us. So, on some level I DO know why I torture myself. But on some other level, I still see it and go, "DUDE! The cage isn't locked! You can leave if you want to!"  Or can I?  My son deals with traumas from his childhood too. When people ask why he can't just get past it and go on, he responds with, "When I find out why I can't let go, I'll let you know."

The ancients might have been right about how thinking is our downfall. Ignorance is Bliss. The less we think, the less we stress. If we lived in the moment, and allowed ourselves to be led by our hearts and the wind, we'd all love and care for each other, and we'd all be managing stress very well, enjoying our lives and being happy for more hours a day than being miserable. Even when we don't have much money, we can still go for a walk with a friend. I am 64 and have lived a pretty complicated and fast paced life. I've been on a few fantastic vacations and have had some very big experiences. But when I think about the things that I miss most in life, it's sitting around the campfire with Coco, and my son, his wife, our grandsons, maybe even a friend or neighbor or two. Sipping on hot chocolate, snacking on chips, and talking about every possible topic we can come up with by the firepit in the front lawn of our broken down little beach hut. I don't lament over not going on expensive trips or accomplishing big things. My fond memories are of playing with my sons and my grandsons when they were little. Throwing them in the air onto the couch while they laughed so hard that everyone within earshot laughed with them.

When my sons were boys, around 10 years old or so, there were 26 children in our neighborhood, all roughly the same age. I came home from work one day at 3 PM. Parked the car. Opened the door and had a line of neighborhood children lined up to take turns giving me a hug as I got out of the car. They were all trying so hard to not giggle. The smiles on their faces were unforgettable. These kids thought that was so funny. If I had to choose, I would keep that memory and give up my memories of our two weeks on the Carribean in 2018. For me, 5 minutes in my driveway with two dozen giggling kids is far, far more memorable than a 2 weeklong expensive vacation. In my own personal life, it is true: Connecting with other people means everything to me. I'd rather hug a line of giggling kids than go on vacation somewhere for two weeks. I'll remember the first one far longer than I'll remember the latter.

IN summary: I'm miserable but I know I don't need to be, and yet I know I can't stop it. I'm frustrated that knowing how trauma has messed with me isn't enough to cure it. It's good that I know what CPTSD is now, as it explains most of my medical and emotional downfalls, but DOG GONE IT I'm so tired of being unhappy in a world filled with things I could be doing. I just want to know: What will make me happy?  I like riding bikes. But I don't like riding with other riders. They go too fast or too slow. So I ride alone. And that is sad. I go out and ride for an hour and when I get back home I'm just sad. I rode my bike alone as a kid to escape my family. I would go out after dinner every night and ride for hours so I could avoid being home with my family. Somehow I can't get that lonely boy out of my head. He still lives in me. He still likes his sad bike rides. The only place he felt he had any control. I couldn't ride just anywhere, but I did have a fairly nice sized play area. I could go into the school yards. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the US. Mostly it was still all woods when I was growing up. So the school was built deep in the woods and I could ride trails all night long uninterrupted. Other kids were playing ball with other kids. SO I was the only loner out there looking for quiet solitude and nobody telling me what I'm allowed to want.

I'm so frustrated. I want to have fun while I still can, but I can't think of ANY activity that I want to do. I'm trapped in an invisible cage that I can't escape from, even though it's unlocked.