Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Thanks to all of you who encouraged me on that DS PTSD thread I started to come on this trip from the US to Mexico again over Spring Break. What with having fainted and gotten a concussion that put me in the hospital overnight the week before the trip and then the onset of this coronavirus outbreak, I really doubted whether I should come down this time.
But today the visit came to a head. I'm planning to retire from my community college come July 1, 2021 from 40 years of teaching. Because of the cost of living, all alone I can't afford to retire in the USA, and my health is so bad at 61 years of age that I need to retire at 62. So since I grew up as a missionary kid in Mexico and Uruguay, from 2016 to now I've been coming to Mexico preparing the way to retire here. I bought books and read up on retiring in Mexico, and from what I read I tried Cancun, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and San Miguel de Allende before settling on San Cristobal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas by the Guatemalan border. It's the cheapest city in Mexico to live in, it's safe, and it was founded by the priest who came to America with Columbus, so it's got lots of history.
I spent this week riding all over in taxis looking at apartments to rent. I plan to rent it now, then bring stuff down to it on trips down for the summer and winter break, and then move in come that blessed retirement date of July 1, 2021.
It didn't go well all week. Last night I complained to a friend that I was going back to the US empty handed, and he said to try an apartment I'd looked for this past Tuesday but had been unable to find.
I did what he said, and lo and behold, I couldn't find it because it was on the grounds of a convent. I worked once as a Protestant hospital chaplain in a Catholic hospital in Chicago. So though I'm not Catholic myself it's perfect for me to have an apartment on the grounds of a convent. I was concerned that leaving any apartment empty for months at a time would invite burglars or squatters. Plus, I want to buy a little motor scooter to keep in an apartment down here, and that could invite theft.
It's a tiny one bedroom house in a ground level duplex, which is important to me because I don't do stairs well due to neuropathy in my feet due to kidney damage when the Seroquel I took for my war child combat PTSD nightmares met my diabetes. I've lost over 100 lbs in the last year and got off of the cane I used for walking for 8 years, but it would be best to live on the ground floor.
Not only is this apartment at the right level for me not to climb stairs and not only is this apartment so safe that I can store a motor scooter in it when I'm away, it's also cheap. Get this: I'll be paying US $159 per month, with electricity, gas, water, and Internet included. Oh, and it's FURNISHED. The nun who handled signing the lease with me asked me what dishes and pots and pans I wanted (!) and what bedclothes I wanted, too (!). Holy cow!
Once again, I'm deeply grateful to you all for encouraging me to come down on this trip to Mexico in spite of my hospitalization the week before Spring Break and in spite of this coronavirus outbreak. I had a hunch there must be some reason I was supposed to come anyway, and call it kismet, karma, luck, fate, God's will, or what have you, this is reason aplenty! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
I paid my rent in advance up to my next trip and bought a plane ticket to return from May to August. For that I didn't need to ask your advice, I got this. Thoughts and prayers that this coronavirus outbreak calm down by then are welcome still, though, for us all. As for me, I thank you all truly for your encouragement here. In spite of the coronavirus outbreak, I fly back tomorrow with a song in my heart and a smile on my face about my new holy home. :-)
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Lately I've been feeling scared and full of anxiety. I recently found a lump under my nipple. I hurt my back too. I'm in the process of moving. I'm run down. Everything is hard
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Well, our drought isn't broken but our gutter is. Got two big storms rigth after each other and, wait for it, a tornado warning.Now, I was already running for my go-bag when I heard thunder. The air felt wrong. The sky was getting a color to the west. Been there, lived that, time to hide.No funnel touched down but the radar indicated rotation, and boy was it visible from the ground. Different...
With all of the coronavirus outbreak uncertainty, I locked in a commitment there to Mexico for myself. I may not get to go to Mexico come May using the plane ticket I've bought for going there then. Yet to me it's worth USD$168 a month to know my little casa awaits as soon as conditions permit me to travel again. It's a form of insurance I'm paying monthly, insurance to remember my dream and not to give up on it.
When I was 15 in my suburban neighborhood I accidentally crossed paths on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a military "death squad." It was patrolling in Uruguay on the day they killed the country's union leaders. It had orders to be cruel to anyone on the street who might be part of a protest. I was with 3 high school friends. Like the rest of the country, we boys were unaware of the murder of the union leaders, but that didn't stop the death squad from being cruel anyway.
That day after I got up off of my knees in front of the officer from his torture leading that death squad, I had to set a goal for myself. His gun had jammed twice when he tried to shoot me. I had to set a goal to live for, or go home and finish the job and kill myself for him. In that case what I had before me was the reverse to what it is now for me in getting to retire in Mexico. At that time it was to get from Latin America to the US in the first place to go to college.
It took getting through two more years of torment for me to reach my goal. I had no support at home because my parents just went bonkers with untreated PTSD. To the contrary, they became very violent toward each other and toward me. So as I worked toward my goal of getting out to college in the USA, the danger wasn't just on the streets, it was in my home, too. My dad got a shotgun. My best friend's mom had gone bonkers and had shot his dad dead with a shotgun, so I was wary of how dangerous my dad's bringing a shotgun into the house was. My dad got crazy and tried to kill our family on a trip by driving our car with the entire family in it into a river. We were rescued by baffled farmers.
It took 2 years of constant danger both in and out of my house, but I did act on my dream asap. I got to the US to start college early, starting in the USA's mid school year in January 1976. I'm telling you all of this because you wrote here " I’m feeling a bit stalled and trapped." I was trapped for 2 years, I really was, no denial.
But I made it. It may take just a year for me to get to Mexico. But it took two years for me back then to get from torture in Uruguay to escape to the USA to college. So now I'm literally going to pay my dues (USD$168 a month rent for a year) to be sure I'm living for that Mexico home as my goal, to be sure I keep working on that dream day by day no matter what.
That's how I roll, anyway. I'm incredibly stubborn when I set my mind on something. You can literally torture me or threaten me with a shotgun, and I'm still going to do what I planned to do anyway. That's been a liability in resulting in two divorces, I'll admit, but that stubbornness is also my PTSD strength. Nothing will stop me from Mexico now, nothing.
So to all of us here at DS PTSD I say, hang in there, everybody. We are indeed stalled and trapped, it's completely true. But that stall can be restarted and as soon as the trap relaxes its grip we can slip out of it to reach our goals. For you, that's your upcoming wedding, right, AJ?
Wedding is june 20th but is only tentative right now. My dr just put me on total quarantine only my parents can visit and my Fiance lives with me :( I am going to go stir crazy! Before others could visit!
Fingers crossed, AJ. June 20 is far enough out that hopefully the quarantine will be lifted by then. Me, I'm hoping the border will be open for me by May 19th, too.