Alexis Rose's Blog, page 35

Self-doubt; My Unwanted House-guest

A  familiar knock on my self-esteems door seems to happen when I’m making a big change, taking a risk, sharing my writing, speaking in front of groups, or I have accepted another layer of learning to live with the limitations of PTSD.

I would like to say that self-doubt comes uninvited to my self-esteems house during these transition times, that wouldn’t be honest. I don’t believe Mr. Doubt (as I call it) would come calling unless it was invited. It may be unwanted, but since it arrived with hat in hand, I ask it to come in for tea and tell me what it thinks of me.

Outwardly, to others, it appears I have no problems learning, growing, changing, taking risks, writing books, writing articles, speaking in front of groups about living with PTSD, and working very, very hard on living with the deficits that plague my mental health. Outwardly, I look strong, and determined.

I am strong and determined; But as self-doubt sips its tea and begins to play the old tapes and drones the familiar chants of, you’re not good enough, not worthy, not well enough, smart enough, you’re a poser, and lists all the reasons I shouldn’t try or that I should give up, fear and rejection hang in the air between us.

Somedays I listen, with respect, compassion, and a loving ear because I know self-doubt doesn’t  come uninvited. But, there are other days when I’m tired, or triggered and have a lot of symptoms, that I can feel the sinister dark-dread begin to blacken and shred the self-esteem I have worked so hard to foster. The grasp of my thinly held mantra, that my inner beauty, strength, talent, and goodness far outweigh any deficits I may have, begins to fade as self-doubt tries to extend tea time into a meal and a nap.

I’ve eventually heard enough, felt enough, and acknowledge that this is a pattern. Self-doubt comes when I’m on a precipice and I can choose to entertain it longer or thank it for the visit, tell it we’re done and show it the door.

As soon as it’s gone, it’s easier to take control of my internal thoughts about myself and how I’m navigating the world around me. I give myself room to breathe, change, grow, share my experiences with others, emerge from the shadows of shame of living with PTSD. It’s not comfortable a lot of the time, but that isn’t because I’m the terrible (fill in the old-tapes) person. It is simply because that is where I am at this time in my life.

As this bout of self-doubt fades onto a distant shore, I understand that I may hear this familiar knock on my door again, and if I do I’ll invite it in for a cup of tea and listen with a loving compassionate ear. For, I know, self-doubt does not come uninvited.

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©Alexis Rose, image: pexels

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

With Friendship you can Face Anything

 

Shaking off the morning dew, a friend is soaring next to you.

Their encouragement helps you rise above adversity

giving you faith that with friendship you can face anything.

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Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

 

 

 

 

Therapy Ends; Now What?

There was a time before I was diagnosed with PTSD that I didn’t need a therapist. I didn’t need support and a bevy of distress tolerance tools to help me get through endless hours of crisis. I didn’t need reminders that I am safe from past predators sneaking into my present, and I didn’t need a safety plan from untangling the 20 plus years of programming that became my fight for life when I went against the rules and talked. 

That was the time before my snow-globe illusion of control smashed into the ground and my repressed past came exploding to the surface. The same resilience that kept me in survival mode no longer served me and my psyche demanded that I face the truth of my past. 

From the beginning, the goal was to have an end to therapy. To gather enough tools in my toolbox, to have processed the dark truth of my past and then be able to employ what my therapist taught me in my everyday life. Whatever that life looked like. 

The first few weeks of therapy I was willing to give it one year. My goal was to get my shit together and get back to work full time. I sought therapy because I thought I was going “crazy” and assumed that if I could just control my universe again, that I would be fine.

It didn’t go the way I planned, but it did go the way it was supposed to if I was going to have any chance of survival, a life, some peace. 

After eight years, I have graduated from therapy. We had been talking about ending, on and off for about 15 months, but I wasn’t quite ready. Then as it all unfolded organically, I found I was ready. I began to understand that while I’m still living with debilitating symptoms of PTSD, I don’t necessarily need therapy to cope with the discomfort.

I have the tools to help with the distress, I know what to do when the panic and fear sets in, I have a support system in place that I can reach out to, who are at this point well-versed in what to say and do to help me through bad days or moments. In short, My therapist has taught me the things I need to get through my days. He has completed his job as my therapist. 

But now what? 

I still live with the effects of my trauma that has left me with complex PTSD.  In my mind, I thought I would be cured when I stopped therapy. Maybe, that is the end result for some, but for me, it is not the case. I still have unrelenting symptoms, but now I know how to deal with them.

Therapy did not cure me, but it did give me what I needed to cope with this miserable illness.  I haven’t quite come to terms with my PTSD, and in all honesty, I still get angry and frustrated because the life I want to lead and the life I am able to lead is often incongruent because of my symptoms.

What happens now that therapy has ended? I’m not sure. It’s still brand new for me.  I will continue to work on accepting where I’m at every day and go from there. I’ll live in the present, while I fight the skeleton hands of the past so I can have a future. 

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Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph (very special sale today)

After eight years of intense therapy for my PTSD, the past two weeks have me settling into a positive, new phase on my healing journey. To celebrate, I am offering a special sale today on the ebook version of my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph. 

Enjoy this excerpt from the first chapter…if you would like to read the book follow the link at the bottom of the post to download it from Amazon. Thanks, Alexis

What’s a house got to do with it?

Most of us remember the nuances of the houses we grew up in. We know the nooks and crannies, and the sounds the house makes when it settles and groans. We know the clicking noise of the furnace kicking in, the whistling sound of the wind blowing through the windows, and how the gate slams as someone makes their way to the door. We can trust our way in the dark during power outages or to sneak food from the refrigerator at midnight because we know where the furniture is and where the stairs begin and end.

I lived in three different houses growing up, the first two in Michigan and the third in Minnesota. Each move brought more carpeting.  I lost the early warning system that wooden floors and creaky steps gave me as the carpet grew wall-to-wall.

The first nine years of my life I lived in Grant. I remember everything about that house. I could draw it in great detail; actually, I could draw all three houses in great detail. I liked this house the best, not only because the floors and stairs were wooden and creaky, but because I shared it with all my siblings at the same time. My parent’s attention was divided between the four of us children. When I was nine and we moved to the suburbs, the attention shifted away from my siblings and the spotlight fell directly on me.

Inside that first house, my bedroom was my refuge because of the windows. My sister and I had beds beneath the two windows looking out towards the front of the house. There was another window with a window-seat on the side of the room that faced the neighbor’s house. During the day, I would sit on the window-seat and read. Most nights as I lay in bed, I would turn my head towards that same window and imagine fire consuming the side of the neighbor’s house; intense bright orange flames licking high into the air. I was young but I was already finding ways to externalize the pain that was coursing through my body.

The living room was large and filled with gray furniture covered in thick plastic that you stuck to in the summer and froze on in the winter. The dining room had a fireplace along one wall, double glass doors leading to a porch, and a swinging door leading into the kitchen. That swinging door would make an earsplitting banging sound when an angry parent would smack it open when coming into or going out of the dining room. The kitchen had ugly dark green linoleum and two steps leading from it that either led you outside or if you turned right, led you down a steep set of stairs into the basement. The basement had a large room where the boys would use their wood burning sets and a corner where my father had his easel set up, a place where he would draw charcoal portraits of the family and neighbors.

Aside from the linoleum in the kitchen and the concrete of the basement, the rest of the house had hardwood floors and stairs. A few area rugs covered the center of the rooms but they did nothing to mask the sound of people walking or climbing the stairs.

The backyard seemed huge to me as a little girl.  We had a few apple trees, cattails growing behind the garage, and a round swimming pool. I remember the wild raspberries that grew against the chain link fence.

I played alone in that backyard for long periods of time. My refuge was behind the garage in a corner along the neighbor’s fence. There I stayed hidden, out of sight from all the windows on the back of the house and the porch. Standing behind the garage, hearing my heart beat like a hummingbird, I petted the cattails that grew by the fence. I picked the tiny purple violets to make bouquets that I would grip as tightly if they were my last friends in the world. I didn’t care that they wilted with the heat of my hands; I just wanted to look at the delicate petals and drink in their color. It was a solitary existence but solitary was far better than any kind of attention that I received inside of that house.

The energy inside our house was super-charged. Tension crackled in the air like electricity, no matter how many of us were inside. If there wasn’t some kind of abuse going on, there was a silence that hung so thick and heavy that I would find myself looking down at the floor, or fidgeting, not knowing what to do with your hands. Opera or classical music sometimes blared from the stereo, a macabre contrast to the silence. At other times the volume of the music would alert us to what was going to happen next; the rising crescendo seemed to egg my parents on and steel us for explosive abuse.

excerpt from chapter one, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

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https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Mother Nature Smiles

As Mother Nature smiles upon the Earth

the frogs sing their songs of love

the woodpecker sounds his drum

and the flowers rise up with explosions

of color to join the chorus. 

[image error]©Alexis Rose, image: Pixabay

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

A Metamorphosis of a Healing Journey

The topic of transformation, metamorphosis, growth, change, (insert whatever word works for your personal journey) has been front and center for me lately. I like to bring up the things that are hard to talk about. Most of us want to grow and change.  It’s hard, no one said it was going to be easy. But rarely do people talk about the absolute pain one feels when emotional wounds get ripped open in order to process, heal and grow.

It’s a lonely journey because no one else can go inside of you and heal those wounds or take away the rawness.

You have to be the one to do it. However, it certainly doesn’t have to be an “alone” journey. We can find therapists, support groups, friends, family, books, even blogs so we are surrounded by the support we need. In fact, I think it’s imperative to find people who absolutely “get it” and can relate with empathy when we are in the process of transforming, and becoming the person we want to be.

It doesn’t have to be a shattered past that motivates a person to grow and change. Growth and change are important to do for the rest of our lives. Some people may find themselves in a spiritual crossroads, some people may find themselves feeling empty after years dedicated to a career, and some people are simply unable to feel content, knowing that there is some road not yet taken that is calling for them to explore. Whatever the motivation, the transformation to a new way of being from the inside out is painful and sometimes scary.

I have said to a few people, that I believe if we could interview a caterpillar as they transform into a butterfly and ask them, how it feels, they would tell us it is excruciatingly painful. They are completely changing from the inside out. The end result is beautiful….Butterflies are beautiful!

I know what I had to do in order to heal the wounds of my past. I knew what I wanted my internal life to look like, and I made a commitment to myself that I was going to do it. I wasn’t prepared for the loneliness of the journey.  But that’s okay with me. I understand it, and I want to talk about it. No one can fix it, it’s part of the deal.

When I felt that pain of loneliness, I remembered why I chose to dig up the past, process what happened, understand my PTSD, find others who are also on a healing journey, and remind myself, the metamorphosis of a healing journey begins when you accept who you were, who you are now, and who you will be.

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©Alexis Rose, photo: Shelley Bauer

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

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The Quiet Descent to Tender Ground

Eight years, 2 months of muscle straining, oxygen deprived, mind exploding, grief-laden work to manage the grip of the skeleton hands of the past.

The rocky terrain and deep crevasses that held the traps of programmed words ready to pull me down into oblivion.

Deafening winds, echoes of the past knocking me down, pushing me sideways, making it hard to grip the rope. The storm passes, allowing rest in the snow caves of acceptance.

So many times, wanting to give up, give in to the beast of symptoms. But trusting, knowing, that my Sherpa would guide me through the sharpest peaks and deepest valleys.

Summiting many times, thinking there were no more hidden mountains. Then catching glimpse of the last, gnarly climb looming just around the bend. Everything inside me screams, “No, leave it,” but I realize that climbing all but that last steep incline would leave me stuck, and breathless. Allowing space for the blinders to slowly creep back into place.

I push through. One last climb to release the locked, cold grip of the past.

Then quietly, I make a gentle descent. The thick, foreboding, dangerously tricky mountain range emerging steadfastly behind me.

Scar tissue replaces open wounds. I work to try and accept my abilities in the wake of my past. A sense of accomplishment for not giving in to the siren call of hopelessness fills my fragile, yet strong newly whole self.

The arduous climb, the trust in a committed therapist, the quiet, gentle descent, calloused feet on the tender ground, the exhalation of living fully in the truth.

 

Thank You for reading my memoir; Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

One with the Wisdom of Nature

In this moment the only thing I heard

were the birds happily singing

The only thing I saw

were the leaves gently swaying on the branches

The only thing I smelled

was the earthy moss growing throughout the woods

I was one in the moment

with the wisdom of nature

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©Alexis Rose, image source: Pixabay

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

What Does Wisdom Mean to You?

Someone recently asked me, “What does wisdom mean to you?” I understand how vague that term has become, but, the definition that came to my mind was, wisdom is the ability to be present. When possible, to try and take a holistic view of a situation and see it from a well-rounded, compassionate perspective without initial judgment.

Of course, there may be, or have been situations in our lives, where we need to trust that what’s happening is dangerous, listen to our innate wisdom and protect ourselves so we can survive. That’s the beauty of inner wisdom.

The times when people have said to me, “you are wise” it was because I was responding to them in a fully present state. I was listening to what they were saying both verbally and non-verbally. I wasn’t thinking ahead to what I was going to say next, I wasn’t distracted by the noises that were external or internal. I was simply able to hear what they were saying and/or asking and respond in a way that was thoughtful and respectful.

Truthfully, sometimes the wisest thing I have said to another person, and to myself, is I’m simply not able to be objective, or helpful.

There are still some topics that when placed in front of me, I will react from a purely emotional place. No objectivity, compassion or understanding anywhere in my realm of consciousness. I understand that’s an effect of my trauma.

Sometimes, I still have to work hard at staying present. There are times when it is one of my most frustrating and biggest challenges living with PTSD. When I’m dealing with flashbacks, and triggers, staying present is often that elusive tool, that I know I have to employ. I think a lot of people, especially those of us who have been through trauma would say that staying present is a constant work in progress.

I believe as time goes on, I’m able to be present more often. I notice the birds singing outside the window, the wind gently blowing, my neighbor’s lawn mower, the noise of kids playing at the nearby playground and the sky. I love the sky!  It’s paying attention to the present that keeps me grounded in the wise place where I continue to heal, grow, change and live.

What does wisdom mean to you?

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Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856

Finding Peace in your Inner Landscape

An inner landscape is a life you lead inside of yourself; a place no one else can go unless invited. Although it looks different for each of us, all inner landscapes have this in common: they are a place of refuge. If you look deep enough, you will be able to find the images in your mind of your inner landscape; your own place of power and peace.

Today is a day where being able to tap into my inner landscape and find peace is how I need to stay grounded.

My inner landscape is multi-dimensional and serves more than one purpose depending on how I need to restore, rest, empower and breathe. One part of my inner landscape is a field of flowers. That’s where I go when I need to feel at peace. It’s a place where I can rest and restore my inner resources because I feel safe and protected there, with very little noise coming from my busy monkey-mind that tends to nag at me during the day.

Mostly my inner landscape is peaceful, warm and sunny; although, I also have a cliff I go to that is rugged and barren. There in one leaf-less tree there with a few wisps of grass growing up around it, but otherwise it is bare. The cliff is jagged, gray and very rocky with the sound of a turbulent sea splashing thunderous waves against the rocks. That’s the inner landscape I go to when my life is stormy and I’m dealing with challenges that I’m not quite ready to confront.

When I’m there, I hear my inner voice of self-doubt, self-judgement, and shame. It’s a place I go to when I know I need to look at things about myself that are comfortably uncomfortable but I’m not yet ready to change. I sit on the edge of my cliff and listen to the water crashing up against the rocks. Even though it is a place I go to when my life is stormy, I love my rocky cliffs and the crashing water that surrounds me.

My inner landscape is different from my happy place.

My happy place is where I go to help me face the typical stresses of daily life. Sitting in a traffic jam, going to the dentist, standing in a long line sends me to my happy place. That quick take a deep breath to stave off the frustration place that we go to. My inner landscape is a place I go to for reflection. A place where I go deep inside of myself.

Can you visualize your inner landscape, your own place where of power and peace?

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photo: google images

 

Thank you for reading my memoir, Untangled, A Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

http://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph/dp/1514213222

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-story-resilience-courage-triumph-ebook/dp/B013XA4856