Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Papa Coco]

StartingHealing,
I couldn't agree more about our modern life. I truly believe that we have created a culture that is totally unmanageable. I've started pretending I'm ready to give away all my possessions and join a monastary where I can live completely disconnected from all of it. Of course I have NO intention of acting on it. But today, I did tell my wife that I'm declaring myself to be a Part-Time Urban Monk. LOL. It's a comical comment, but it has a serious intent. I am rapidly losing interest in my possessions and clutter and chaos. I'm not planning to go into a monastery, but I'm now practicing a couple of hours a day doing what Monks typically do: which is Pray for peace, meditate for wisdom, study spiritual truth for emotional stability, and perform social service anyway I can. Helping friends, perhaps volunteering, or just being kind to everyone I meet on the streets and in the markets. It's making me feel less like a victim of the new world.

It's no secret that the US is falling victim to its own shame, but as the world crumbles around me, I'm moving my heart to Love and compassion. Those two things cannot be taken away from me if I value them strongly enough.

I've been telling friends that I don't want to hear the news. I don't listen, read, or watch any news anymore, because it robs me of sleep. Up until this last week, I would get frustrated at friends who would hear me tell them that I want to stay blind to it, only to have them start telling me what I have been trying to not hear. But last week, when a neighbor did that to me, told me all sorts of news items about how bad things are getting, it hit me that if I want to be a compassionate friend, that I need to lovingly let them express their terror to me, their friend. I grew up with secret stresses that nobody would let me talk to them about. My mother told me "don't bring your little school yard problems home for me to deal with". 4 suicide attempts later, I realized that all I'd needed was for someone to listen to my side of the story. So when a neighbor unintentionally unloads their terror onto me, I can love them and let them do so. My new policy, as of last Friday night, is to do my best to focus on my Monkish prayers for peace while still compassionately letting people be heard by me, their friend.

I can balance this. I can stay off the news, and I can still let them tell me what their greatest fears are. I'll hear what I don't want to hear, but in so doing, I'm helping carry a burden they can't find a way to let go of themselves. I don't have to respond by joining into their anger, but I can respond by letting them know that I'm as afraid as they are, and that I'm more concerned with comforting their pain than I am with the news stories of the day. I've learned that no matter what horrible situation a person finds themselves in, if we can find a sense of purpose, even in famine, and war, and imprisonment, that our sense of purpose can carry us through the pain of the situation. My sense of purpose is now to comfort my fellow humans in their fears of what is coming.

DesertFlower,
I have heard stories like that all my life, about how people casually blame women for being raped and targeted. I just can't believe people still do that, but they do. My daughter In Law once told me that she wished she could dress up to look pretty and go out with her friends to enjoy a nice night off, but if she does, too many ugly old men target her and ruin her night with lewd comments and very, VERY unwelcome invitations. It simply isn't fair, and it shows how far from reality too many people have gone. Why can't a young lady go out with her friends for a dinner and a few drinks without people saying, "She was asking for it"?

I am as disgusted by it as you are, but I do admit that I've walked a few miles in those shoes, which means I have an empathetic connection to the same type of disgust. In my teens I worked as a busboy in a lounge restaurant. More often than I can count, old men tried talking me into coming home with them after closing. I have always had a genuine smile and an interest in anyone who wants to talk with me. I guess that meant I was inviting them to tromp my boundaries also. And then, as a young adult, I had to quit using public gyms because too many times, I'd get phone numbers stuffed into my pockets, or invitations to go "skinny dipping" with other gym members.  It infuriated me that I couldn't just be a teenage boy with a job and a gym membership, but I also had to be a target for these old guys who had NO boundaries they wouldn't cross.

The more I learn about trauma disorders and how many people find their solace in addictions, sex addictions, drug, alcohol, even a desperate need for wealth and status, the more I see that this is how people hide from their own pain.

It's easier to blame victims than it is to stand up and admit that the bullies are the problem: NOT the victims. And what you said in today's post is that the politician in your country who said that IS A BULLY! And he bullied your entire country with that unconscionable declaration that women just need to stop letting men rape them.  We have those same lost, insensitive, selfish, narcissistic bullies running our country also. I do remember a year or two ago a high ranking official said that women can get raped and they won't get pregnant if they just don't want to.

We have a standup comedian here who lost my following when he said of 12 year old boys who get seduced by their 6th grade teachers, that we need to stop punishing the teachers because "boys want sex, so it's a fringe benefit." My God, How can people become so jaded?

Chart
:  Right back atcha! Thanks for the hug. They actually help.

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for today (Note: Two posts here. One above and this one here)

As mentioned above, I can feel the helplessness that bullies are running our world now, and that, even as they take and take and take, all I can do is move into a more spiritual sense of constant prayer for Love and Acceptance. SOME of my fears and EFs are legitimate because bullies really truly are taking my life away from me one hateful law at a time. But also, a great deal of my anxiety comes through EFs from having been raised in bullyish institutions. The present is reminding me of the past for a one-two punch and double the emotional duress. Having all my rights stripped away from me today feels just like it did in my childhood. That's where CPTSD is making my EFs worse than they need to be. I can't do much to stop my terror at losing our freedom, but I CAN continue to give my childhood EFs over and disconnect them from my memories.

The "real world" isn't making sense to me anymore, so I'm a parttime Urban Monk now (LOL). For a few hours a day, in prayer and meditation and in the books written by these experienced trauma therapists, I'm finding myself a little bit better each day at disconnecting my emotions from my memories. I'm getting much quicker at recognizing a trauma EF versus a real-life threat. And, as I practice allowing my emotions to talk to me, and I give my fears the love I wanted someone to give me the first time I felt them, the more I'm feeling able to handle the REAL threats in life without the Trauma attachment making the anxiety exponentially worse.

Coco had her hands full with me today. Every year I pay all of our taxes on our home, cars, and whatever else during the first week of April. My strategy is to get it all done at once and off my mind. Today I did it all while also updating all our car insurance paperwork. Long-story-short I got really confused with too many papers being handled at once. I started angrily yelling at my printer because it wouldn't scan properly. All my license tabs for my car's license plates came in the mail on the same day. My wife and I both drive Jeeps. Different years, different models, but when I got done tagging them with these expensive license tags, I realized I'd mixed them up and put mine on her Jeep and hers on mine. Panic just sent me into outerspace. I was angry, ashamed of myself for being angry, frustrated at my own stupidity for mixing up the tabs, and feeling afraid that my wife was going to be angry with me for my behaviors. The license bureaus are so busy they wouldn't answer their phones. Embarrassed, I had to get Coco out of what she was doing so we could drive into town to find out how to fix it. The fix was simple, but not until after I had burned up about 3 of my 9 lives. She took me out to lunch later to try to get me to calm down. While waiting for our food, I literally thanked her for loving me even in my skyrocketing anxiety episodes. She smiled calmly and said, "You're worth it."

Man, I got lucky when I met her 42 years ago.

I'm not immune to EFs. Probably never will be. But I'm getting through them faster now. Coco loves me and calms me down now in ways she couldn't have a year ago. I'd have been a ranting maniac and then a depressed sad sack for days if today had happened last year.

More and more, real life is confusing me. I'm contemplating having a doctor somewhere test me to see if I'm getting dementia or something. My therapist believes it is the state of the world along with me having to deal with so much pain and loss lately that he keeps saying, "You're just processing too much right now."

I see him tomorrow. I'll tell him the story of putting the wrong tabs on the wrong cars to see if he still believes I don't need to worry about my mental acuity.

CPTSD is a monster, but there are some truly good people trying to help us right now. I won't stop pursuing them. I read their books. I listen to their podcasts. I stay on this forum because it helps. It truly helps to reach out to kindred souls and feel the connection with my peers.

I'm getting a tad better because I'm finding connections with others who share in my burdens.

I can't do this alone. I just can't. I owe my gentle movement toward peace to the people who reach back when I reach out.

Thank you everyone.

Papa Coco: P.T.U.M. (Part Time Urban Monk) (with CPTSD).