Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
I am in the neighborhood my parents were raised in. They began their life of flight when I was an infant. I have no viable connections to the place. There is a reunion of my mother's family there this weekend. It is a BIG German Catholic family with a smaller Lutheran branch on the family tree. I suspect I am not the only member of the bloodline who is lost in the Schism of the Isms with no formal affiliation, but I am only guessing. Not sure I care to do the research today.
Technically, I am a member of that family, but I never really met any of them until I was in my 50's. Blood may be thicker than water, but it is not thick enough to provide functional bonds. None of the relatives I have met so far measure up to the demon scales of the stories my parents told during my childhood, but I remain leery of testing the waters too far. Still waters run deep. It is already too late to RSVP for the reunion. None of my mother's family members know I am here, lurking, watching and still debating whether or not to crash the reunion.
I feel like I am holding steady through the contemplation, but I am being extra gentle with myself and plying lots of extra self-care, just for the extra insurance. Will I go or will I won't? Giving it the ol' soft chew. . . Small steps, big faith and lots of prayer (by whatever name).
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Welcome to the Perseid meteor showers, the "biggies" usually every year. (The Leonids beat 'em one year IMHO).AND today much of the northern hemisphere will see 5 to 99% solar eclipse. How cool is that? Your best bet is to be in the UK or norhtern Spain, where totality is excellent before sundown. Me, I'll get a super duper tiny itty bitty slice of it, so little that it won't be noticeable. New...
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... observed a solar eclipse.
Hugs my friend.
J.
I've avoided family reunions with my dad's fam b/c I do know them. If I did not... Well, I've seen enough of them in the "police blotter" section to have a pretty good idea anyway. And I can't crash mom's side, b/c everyone is welcome no matter what, sooo... I have no practical advice. Just the puma support.
I believe similarities are my greater PTSD trigger. E.g. My light trigger. The bulb in a table lamp isn't that different from the bulbs on a child pornography set or the farm light beneath which I was gang raped. Scientific proofs of that claim are an easy surf away. The unshielded bulb of a security light, even more so. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!! Ditto for all my trauma scenes. I don't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of finding the physical locations of most of those scenes, but. . . Still they haunt from some of the most unexpected locations.
Dunno what to call this one, but "Exposure Therapy" doesn't quite seem to fit. In my childhood, these folks were more like the Boogeymen. The actual people were never close enough to do anything, whatsoever. The place is as familiar as the uncounted agricultural communities I have passed through in my wandering ways.