Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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the anxiety surges from the latest round of school shutdowns seem to be easing here onboard my little ship of fools. just another day in coronaville. today's school holiday was scheduled from the start of this academic year, so it is not quite so nervousy as friday's unscheduled shutdown, beyond the newly normal anticipation anxiety of wondering if school will resume tomorrow. those last minute closures and never-ending mandates have become part of the new normal. thursday's notifications were uncomfortable, but nowhere near the shock of the first round in march, 2020.
today's read from "hope for today" is a timely reminder for me. i don't get to control the new normal **out there**, but i do get to choose how i respond to the masked madness. just when i think the world can't get any crazier. . . it is what it is, whether i understand it or knot.
begin quote
i meditate frequently on the meaning of letting go. now and then i think i comprehend it until yet another situation challenges me to broaden my understanding. again, i ask myself, "what does it mean to let go?"
recently i reflected o a beautiful bouquet of flowers. while inhaling the exquisit fragrance of the open blossoms, i found myself wishing the closed buds might open, too. then i recalled occasionally seeing flowers whose buds never opened or unfolded.
sometimes i have trouble opening up and unfolding --letting go-- into my true magnificence. i often restrain myself for fear that others will misunderstand and criticize me. applying this idea in the context of flowers, holding back might mean i'm trying to hide my yellow, thick, round bloom behind the facade of one that appears red, slender and elongated. when i look at it this way, holding back seems a sad misuse of energy.
in any spray of flowers, all appeal to me --each one as an individual bloom and all ot them together as a beautiful sympthony of color and fragrance. they remind me to relinquish false reserve and to allow my own particular bloom to develop to its brightest and most fragrant so that i can joyfully claim my rightful place in the bouquet of people around me.
thought for today
am i hiding or holding back some part of myself? what beauty can i release or embrace today?
"by learning how to loving "let go" i have been given a wonderful gift: a life of my own." ~homeward bound, p.4
end quote
i know, for certain, my current paranoia over the cultural instability has me terrified of showing my true colors, especially when confronted with covid masks and mandates, but? ? ? all this safety is killing me. think i'll try just letting myself bloom. from a safe social distance, of course.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
i miss my alanon family more that i can say. hearing impairments make the zoom and tele boom impractical for me. at the time of the shutdown i was too new to this area to be established here and i'm no longer quite sure how to find live, unmasked meetings, or if such is even available.
https://lois.groups.io/g/main
It's fun hearing all the different perspectives from others in the group; helps me see things in a new light.
And hey, no human being is physically ugly-You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of a God who says you're beautiful!
trying to sort through alanon's on-line options has been causing me to short circuit on the feelings of isolated desperation.
beginning my life as a reasonably attractive child prostitute has given me a very dim view our cultural take on beauty. "pretty ugly" is beautiful in my book. my conversations with god are a different subject, entirely.
I can, unfortunately, remember times I either acted or felt 'pretty ugly' too. When I think about the expression, it does sum up human nature pretty well.