Settling In...PTSD

1 Sam. 10:26  "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched."

Settling in...PTSD

Settling into my home was not as easy a task as you’d imagine. Happy-go-lucky Joni was a shell of a being. The nurses had noticed in the hospital and nursing home, and they didn’t even know me, the physical therapists saw it, and my family just assumed I was sad. No, the trauma I had experienced was a little more than depression or sadness, it had all the earmarks of PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not a light analogy of depression or sadness, it is a severe trauma that is triggered ever so lightly by sounds, pictures, faces, or names. It is a fear so intense that not even the Light of God Himself standing beside you can wash away, it is THAT severe. People who don’t have PTSD will never comprehend the magnitude of pain a person suffers through.

Last year is almost a complete blank to me, except for the trauma. Have you ever opened an MS page and saw a blank screen staring you straight in the eye and you felt a trembling panic for a few seconds not knowing what you were there to write? Every morning I open my eyes a blank page lay before me; what I put on that page shapes my day physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What people say or do become triggers like a bullet waiting to be tapped and released from the barrel, words can shoot a person down. Without even knowing the triggers, friends, and family set off a ticking time bomb inside the psyche of a person suffering from PTSD. Anger, fear, frustration, guilt, and shame all become an open floodgate in the way of tears streaming down my face at any given time. At home, the doctor's office, the physical therapist office, or even in the food store, tears unleash without warning.

When my home health nurse noticed my PTSD along with my physical therapist, I was put in touch right away with a counselor. While I liked Dee, she was more about telling me her story than hearing mine. It was fine because that is the kind of front I put up, I’ll help you, you can’t help me; it’s an unbreakable barrier. I basically thanked her for listening and sent her on her way as I cringed inside. I was broken.

I could see the pieces of myself scattered on the floor. I wanted ever so much to take a whisk broom and scoop the particles onto a dustpan and toss them in the trash but I was immobile, disabled. There was no scooping going on any time soon. I would sit in the silence of the house, meditate in the quiet of aloneness, and pray to the only God I know and worship. Only He could get me through this, in time. HIS TIME, not my time. Here we go again.

Settling into my new surroundings would have me fearful of nightfall. Sounds would ricochet off the walls while shadows would pirouette. You would think that home was familiar surroundings but to me, I felt as if I was an orphan dumped off to this house with a family I didn’t recognize.

As the fragments of my life lie on the floor, images of last year shine like a mirror swaying in the sun, blinding me as I see good and bad portions flailing about. This trauma was not a phase I was going to laugh my way out of as if nothing bothers me. Each step I take would be like tiptoeing in a minefield, a trigger to tears or to laughter, to pain or to joy. I don’t have a choice in the matter, I just tread lightly and make every day a new day, every step a step toward healing.

God's time is not my time as I stroll along the healing path. I’ll endure the steps I needed to take to get me to the healing sea where I will eventually take a luxury dip and swim like a fish in open waters. Right now I’m still in an saltwater aquarium awaiting release in the open sea. God tells me ‘patience’, ‘faith’, and most of all ‘TRUST’, and in Him is where I’ll find my healing. The Joni I remember is still there in the windowed world… it's just going to take some patience, faith, and trust to find her again.

Lam.3:23 "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

Gateway to Health: Meditation

John 15:5, 7, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing … If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (NIV)

Gateway to Health: Meditation

I’ve covered a lot of ground with my Gateway to Health series. While I weave in my illness, it is not the central focus as last year. I was finding my feet for the year and needed to throw the journey out for my spiritual family who is standing behind me with their support. Their support means everything to me as I heal. I’ve shown you how your diet and change all leads to healing not only for me fighting the Big C but for you who might be fighting another form of illness.

Here’s a simple thought for you; if you’re overwhelmed by stress you will NOT lose any weight no matter how hard you try changing your diet and lifestyle. Stress hormones have a nasty habit of programming the body to store fat, especially around your beltline.

According to the statistics floating around out there on the web, chronic stress is the root cause of 90% of your disease and weight gain. Stressing and worry cause us to blindly eat, turning to sweets or alcohol to try and soothe what is in our overactive minds. Anxiety robs our attention from all of the good energy that we used trying to change and makes it so by the end of our busy day that we have nothing left to motivate us into continuing our healthy eating habits.

There is some good news people, you can unleash years of stress with meditation and restore some semblance of peace to the body you overwork with a kaleidoscope of thoughts. Relaxation of the mind will allow you a better nights sleep and essentially allow you to be strong enough to face the changes you're trying so hard to implement into the new you as you embark on the Gateway to Your Health! Meditation has helped me throughout my life and has been an essential part of my healing this current illness.

Put quite simply, meditation is breathing, releasing and focusing. I assume people hear the word meditation and think that it’s not within their belief system as only Buddhist adhere to meditation. You would be 100% wrong in that assumption!

1 Tim. 4:15 “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.”

Pss. 119: 99 “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”

Meditation is a relaxation technique of the mind. It knows no religion or belief system. It takes practice but as you master stress releasing, you’re guaranteed a new way of thinking, a promising way to fall asleep, a comforting woven blanket of protection when you’re cold. 

People often say they don’t have time to learn meditation. That is so ironic to me because they can find hours upon hours to sit on the computer searching news, spewing hate, being a part of a collective conscience of similar minds achieving nothing of quality in their day, yet they have no time to meditate to de-stress their mind? Ironic.

You have time to read your bible right? You have time, maybe an hour or two to read a book on your Kindle? Find time in your day to just release the stress, relax and breathe. Nothing else. No clouding thoughts allowed into this room. You’re emptying the closet of all the unneeded baggage you have piled up. Slowly cleaning out piece by piece each article that holds your attention during any given day.

In a sitting position, back straight, ears plugged as you close your eyes, listening to the sounds streaming in from your earphones, let the days clutter float away. Visually watch the garbage be carried off. No thoughts of bills or what you’re going to do tomorrow, or what’s for dinner, or worry or stress is going to surface. Nope, all those thoughts are not allowed in here. You are going to think of NOTHING for ten, twenty, thirty and eventually forty-five minutes. When you do this as a daily routine, a relaxing habit you will form and look forward to at the end of your busy exhausting day. 

Life WILL change. You can’t give up because meditation didn’t work the first time. You’re going to push on, days into weeks, weeks into months will have you cherishing this one quiet time in your day. You’ll come home after a long hard day at work, settle into the sounds of nothing and wonder why you haven’t done this for years. 

Rom. 8:5 “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”

If you meditate on the word, a change of your perception will take place as your negative thoughts turn into positive. Your pessimism will be shifted into an optimistic approach to life. If you meditate to music with no lyrics, tones, and beats with no instruments, all are part of a meditative technique. Close your eyes, breathe and focus on nothing but the sound coming through your earbuds. Start a short session of twenty minutes until you have them lasting thirty to forty-five minutes. Find parts of yourself you thought you lost in nothingness.

Ezek. 24:25 “Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,”

Find a balance. There are times to worry, times to over think your plans for the future, politics, crime in your state, the craziness of this country. Meditation time is for YOU not for thoughts, not for worries, they’re gone, if only for that one moment in time. Allow yourself a peace you’ve never known before. Allow the window of your conscience to be clearly seen through, not washed over by dirt and debris that has built up over the years. Free your mind of clutter. I can guarantee, as time goes on (not a day or two of trying) TIME goes on, eventually, when you try to fall asleep at night, you’ll remember taking out that rag during your meditation time. You’ll pull out the Windex and begin cleaning up your thoughts of the day, leading you to some form of rest, and eventually a good nights worth of sleep.

I find a nice warm cup of green tea also helps before bed. Alcohol stimulates the brain activity, tea calms it, sugar awakens the sleep you so strategically misplaced along your lifetime. Eliminate alcohol, regulate your sugar intake, know what causes stimulation and save that for morning time, but the nights, they are yours and yours alone, stress and worry are not permitted.

Take the time to take care of you! Your mind is an essential part of any healing that will ever take place from ANY disease that ails you. If you can’t find peace of mind, plan on being sick for a very long time. THAT will be your life. It’s not a picture I see ever and if I’m diagnosed with an illness, I know my MIND played a big part of bringing it to my doorstep; change the mind, change the outcome, point blank!

Isa. 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Lam. 3:21 “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”

Poetry Sunday~ Sounds of the Season

Sounds of the Season
***
The trees they shiver in the cold
as Christmas day draws near.
Crunching of the fallen leaves
that continue to linger here.

Aromas of pine crawl throughout
the embers of fires aglow;
the season is touched with tidings
as we welcome new fallen snow.

Many people gather
in the shelter of a breeze;
Whistling winds shudder the bones
as forms begin to freeze.

Carolers having made their rounds
in the magic of the call.
Lifting spirits as they go
blessing one and all.

Allow the moment to take you away
where joy and love abound.
The blessed world comes alive,
in the harmony of all sound.

The time draws nigh unto us,
to remember the very reason,
we yearly come to celebrate
this glorious Christmas season.

Poetry Sunday ~ Nightshades

Ps.146: 8 The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:

Nightshades
***
A parade of silence fills the air
the night is cold and dreary;
light it dances on my face
my legs are getting weary.

Christmas holds no magic
the sight of me took flight;
it left a somber stillness
in every bleeding night.

The tree it has a presence;
the lights just sit and stare.
I touch the piny needles
Yet no one knows I’m there.

Another Christmas is coming
the holiday creeps right in.
I’m standing here left gazing,
at the windows I have within.

Will the season show its mystery
to me as I muddle through
I’ll cling to all the sounds I hear
and memories of you.

My joy is in the musical notes,
the sounds of bells and song.
I’ll find that during Christmas

it was with me all year long.

Poetry Sunday~ A New Year!

Galatians 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
14) And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

A New Year...

On a wayward breeze I caught the day
it surfaced once again.
Something was different, the air was fresh
a new year set to begin.

The fragrance of the rising sun
washes over me;
it tells me there’s a new year
that’s fighting to be free.

The sounds ring out in a clamorous wave
that carries round the world
it moves in gentle elegance
as flags are yet unfurled.

I sing a song to the new date
receiving it’s blessed presence.
The lion will lay with the Lamb
and cleanse my very essence!

The Sounds of Christmas

1 Cor.14:7 And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?
***


The Sounds of Christmas

The year has been new and wrought with change
A blemish renewed a life rearranged
What I have, is sounds of my heart
they give me a stir with love to impart.

The lights draw dim no longer a pleasure
the music now holds the sounds that I treasure.
The presents they sit but who knows where
it’s as if my Christmas tree is bare.

The sounds of Christmas are what I have now
music,chimes,bells, the crackling bough.
The snow is cold, wet and a bore.
My eyes can’t see the white stuff no more!

The joy and laughter is what I’ll hold close,
the family around me with hugs I suppose.
The light will be bright right inside my being.
Until the day comes when I’m once again seeing!
***

author's comment: Did you ever hear the saying, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone?" Or something like that? I guess, just guessing here, that that is what it is like to lose your sight. You kind of appreciate the sounds more.

Merry Christmas to all!