Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.
Sleep. Eat. Breathe.
It's so much more than that though, right? To live is to be awake. Awake. There's where I consistently fall short. Opening my mind in the morning to a new day. Smiling in the morning. Tasting my food. Looking my children in the eyes and meaning it. Speaking my truth. Passionate love for what I do and who I am. Falling asleep at night because I have lived so much in one day that I can't possible keep my eyes open anymore.
This is what it is to truly be awake. I am capable of partial existence. Nay, I am capable OF existence. What I lack is the motivation, the energy, to be awake.
I have been reading a book entitled, "The Body Keeps the Score." The context centers around trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder. Since I began reading this book I have experienced some form of enlightenment. It was as if I had spent my life wandering in the dark alone and suddenly the sun came up and I could see for the first time. I realized why existence has been so difficult and why a struggle to be awake.
I wish I could sum up all I have learned in a few brief sentences but it would not suffice. I will do my best though.
- Prolonged trauma in my childhood led to deficiencies in my biological and emotional development, essentially, leaving me crippled in the aftermath.
- Due to the nature of trauma, I lack the capacity to shut down my stress response even though the danger has passed. It is as though my system is on high alert at all times.
- Dissociation was my safety net during traumas, offering me a place to escape and survive the unbearable aspects of inescapable horror. Unfortunately, dissociation is how I cope with the hypervigilance that is so common in PTSD. It also means I spend my days in a distant fog, far from the realities of the present.
- Lastly, a most unfortunate symptom of prolonged trauma, I feel that I am alien to my life. I recognize the surroundings and people in my life but I am unable to connect emotionally to my life and therefore, feel a sense of counterfeit in the most basic and treasured aspects of my life.
So, here I am, wondering how to awaken, if there is merit for hope. And I keep breathing because if I can somehow find my way through this existential crisis, if there is a chance I can find myself, I want it.
