Trauma healing

I am coming up with a list of trauma healing techniques I want to incorporate into my healing:

EMDR
Equine therapy
Sound therapy
Dream journaling
Meditation (oh, I forgot about this one somehow, but I just added it!)

That is what I have so far. I will incorporate more into my list as I discover more things that work and that interest me. Journaling will maybe be healing again when I feel like my journals, however I keep them, are safe and secure from snooping. Dream journaling feels safer, I haven’t done it in forever, and when I stopped for a while I realised how higely beneficial it was for me to write down my dreams. Anxiety would build up when I did not write them down and it cleared me out and cleansed the extranneous stuff inside me somehow in ways no other practice has.

That could be a huge piece of the puzzle. I want to get back to that practice. Right now general journaling just feels like a maintenance practice and I have guilt around how I have used it in the past and it is a beloved practice for me and I feel like I tainted it by being irresponsible with it, so it is hard time experience deep healing with it these days. Still I don’t know if I could function if I did not do it.

Last night I was listening to a sound therapy playlist and I kind of felt my energy field for the first time in forever. I also realised that one thing I have not focused on at all in all my trauma and despair: positive vibrations. I want to be more aware of the vibrations I am putting out there and receiving from the world. I have not been very good at shielding myself from negative vibrations and I haven’t thought in a very long time about living with positive vibes. So, goal.

I had some interesting images come up and it wad almost like I was entering into a dream. It was powerful but so opening that I felt so, so hurt and heartbroken and in despair. I texted my mother again about my hurt around my dog and she was mean and dismissive to me and my inner child just broke… she makes me fear that he will resent me and criticizes the simplest phrases I use, like mocking the way I talk. I did EMDR after that and processed in the numbness. I wrote about that as the root of so much of the not good stuff in my life in the last fee years, the root of so many of the ways I have been that I am not proud of at all.

The thing is, I am slightly hopeful, though it feels a bit too late. It sort of feels like she is slowly getting it. She mocked me last night when I told her one of the ways she was hurting me was the tone she was using. It is true, I often put this stuff on her in the middle of the night when she is tired and wanting to sleep… but that is often when I miss my dog most. She so often thinks that when I express being upset I am not really upset, I just want to hurt her, and I told her it hurts for her to think I wouod want to hurt her. I sent her an article today about heloing people with trauma that included a bit about how a gentle and supportive tone can be so important. She said it makes sense and she will look at it more later. It’s like the amount of time she spends being hurtful and triggering around my dog when I bring up the trauma has been decreasing, and her capacity to try to understand and be supportive is increasing.

I spent so much time in powerlessness trying to get her to understand that this is not how you treat someone with a service dog; but then today I realised, he is also my emotional support animal and that is something she can maybe wrap her mind around better. When she tells me things like my emotional support animal isn’t going to like me or remember me or whatever, that is taking away my emotional support, the emotional support I relied on and the reason I got him in the first place. She told me she will do her best to help me with Otis in a tone that was not dismissive and I can tell is genuine. She has gone through her own stuff, her own process, whatever it is and I kind of have no idea, and we were both in a place to be extremely triggering to each other. Now I think she is in a space to try to be more supportive more of the time or at least *something* tends to resolve and it doesn’t spiral downward like it used to. She expresses genuine desire to be supportive more often which is at least hopeful… and yeah, I think she just generally does not understand trauma, and I have not had the spoons when I am in it to try to it to her. But she expressed willingness to try to learn which feels good.

I am also kind of scared the last couple days with me being really sensitive and my trauma coming up that I might be taken in the wrong way when really all that is happening is me being sensitive and guarded and stuff from trauma. Every time I get reassurance thatbthat is not happening, it feels good. I couldn’t take social tension here caused by a misinterpretation of my trauma, getting more scared and wanting to hide but not being able to explain it and feeling ashamed… so I am glad things are going well, life just feels precarious when I don’t have my own place, and I don’t have much social support when the social support I do have takes a downturn. And I will soon, probably when I get to Colombia. In Guatemala I think I will just mostly stay in hostels since it’s a shirt trio but I’m not really sure. I am thinking more and more about investing in this online writing course and the idea that Inwill have my own place and my own space to write makes me lean more towards doing it. Yesterday I thought I would not sign up and save the money but today I am considering the investment and maybe I will regret not doing it. This will give me a foundation *and* an online social community to be a part of which is something I have been lacking. I can do a $100 a month payment plan for six months. Even if I don’t make money I will learn valuable skills and grow. I think it’s worth it, maybe, but I am just leaning iver the fence, and I have 3 days to decide. I think I might regret it if I do not make this investment in myself.

I am grateful for all the support and kindness I have received and so much of that has come feom the world of Quakers. They are good people, and it is always nice to be part of a society of people where you don’t have to worry about them not sharing your basic values. I don’t think about war and peace as much as most Quakers seem to do, but nonetheless, their basic compassionate stance around that and seeing the Light in everyone really puts me at ease, and from these very basic things I don’t have to worry about all sorts of social exhaustion I could experience otherwise. Like, sex positive communities or LGBTQ communities or whatever, it is nice that LGBTQ communities are generally affirming of sexual and gender identities, but that doesn’t necessarily put me at ease or make me feel like part of a community because we could have some really major differences as far as other basic values. Quakers may not be quite as affirming or adept at navigating the specific converns of LGBTQIA+ folks as LGBTQ specific spaces and there may still be oppression and microaggressions and discomfort and lack of understanding from some Friends but they really work at it and it is clear that Quakers really do their best and I applaud that. There is a gay couple that attends the meeting I go to and we are friends, but I haven’t opened up at meeting about my pronoun preferences even with them. It isn’t really a problem but it isn’t really worth the anxiety it might cause me and the not knowing how other people may see me. The retreat I am thinking of going to next month is led by someone who uses they/them pronouns and that is nice, I think it would be my first time experiencing a gender variant person taking such a leadership position in Quaker community. I guess what I am saying is I feel more immediately comfortsble and grounded in Quaker spaces, that value peace and the Light in everyone, then I would in LGBTQ spaces where I don’t really necessarily know what their values are otherwise.

Dream: I am in Colombia. It seems to be some kind of courtroom (maybe a play on words with District of Columbia?) I am standing there for some reason but it is not any kind of bad thing at all and it is very relaxed. A court clerk or something or other, because of something related to my being there, decides that they are going to recruit a judge from one of the top law schools in the world. I have a memory of University of Oxford or something. I am quite happy that theynare going to do this, and sure lawyers from top law schools are a dime a dozen, but I feel like I had some influence on this decision and it will affect some kind of social change, like it was a Supreme Court pick or something. Then someone starts dancing with me and I feel so awkward and shy and think, wow, I am even awkward and shy in my dreams! I really like this person and it feels good to be with her. There is no problem with dancing in the courtroom.

Then I am on some kind of vacation package somewhere or other and whatever it is kind of bores me. I get a plate of vegetarian food and have to look closely to make sure there is no meat in it. There is not, but I take a few bites and it is very bland. Then I walk over to a room that is offering massage and again though I am there I am not really interested in it. I consider shiatsu but I can’t decide which kind of massage would be therapeutic and zi know nothing about the massage therapists. I feel like I am there but not really engaged with anything. I don’t know if my grandfather shows up or this is another dream but he ends up driving and I don’t know where we are going. I don’t want to tell him that his driving when he is old makes me nervous, but I notice he follows all the rules of the road and is being very safe. I still feel like I have to watch and be on guard in case something happens. I feel sad and don’t know why. (Sometimes he would scare me by not driving very well and I remember him missing things like stop signs and traffic lights. I think this happened when he got older and it scared me. It may not have happened very oftrn but it was enough to make me scared because I felt like Incouldn’t tell anyone and ai didn’t feel like Incould tell my mother that I was nervous driving with grampa.)