The Healing Work.

I am continually amazed by our minds and bodies and all the things that go in our “self” without our awareness. Under the urging of my doctor I have been seeing a therapist who specializes in trauma and PTSD. Little by little she is teaching me things about myself, my body, and “coping” that I never known.

At any given moment if you asked me how I’m doing I would answer fine, good, I’m doing really well! And it wouldn’t be a lie. I am doing well, I’m doing good life seems to be getting back into a normal routine, I’m being productive, I’m getting a lot done, I’m seeing a therapist and doing her homework, I can talk about the incident of Well’s drowning without having much for flashbacks. I’m doing good!

I entered into my therapy appointment wondering what we were even going to talk about this week, I’m healed. I’m pretty much over everything that happened we but a in place a bunch of things with the kids to put my mind at ease, Wells survived and is doing well, how could this still be affecting me? I had been doing my therapy homework of a time limit journal every day about the events that happened that day. The goal was to cement the narrative in my memory so I wasn’t filling it in with negative self talk and blame overtime. It sucked but it got easier throughout the week. Since I did the homework and feel better this will be a quick session!

I entered confidently into the session, sharing how great the journaling was going and how well I was doing. My therapist was happy and asked me to share some of my entries. After I shared she gently asked if I had written of the event in the perspective of any emotions I was feeling during the time. I paused, flipped through the pages and pages of words, every detail I had scribbled from one solid week of journaling. As I looked I began to realized there wasn’t a single emotion in any of these words. My therapist again gently asked if knew what I was feeling during those moments in time. Tears started flowing as emotions I haven’t even thought about acknowledging bubbled to the surface. When I thought I was “healed” is when the true wounds I wasn’t even aware of came to the surface.

My body’s reaction to the the feelings of finding my Well floating lifeless in the water were so intense that my body’s defense was to wall them off in a place even my conscious mind wasn’t aware of. But even when walled off, they were - or should say are - seeping into every part of my daily life. And are going to keep contaminating my subconscious until I work through them. My body did this because these feelings of heartbreak and hurt were deeper than I anything I ever dreamed possible. I don’t really have descriptors of these emotions except that I don’t know if I could survive feeling them again, especially if they occupied a permanent place instead of the the six minutes of time two weeks ago. My heart is so heavy thinking of the dear ones who do have to let those feeling take up a lifelong spot.

In my head I was doing fine, but now looking back through a new lens there is a lot to work through still. The shock from the event tripped my body into a fight or fight mode that it still hasn’t worked its way out of. There is a constant buzz of anxiety that surrounds every minor decision as if it were a life or death choice. My body’s dump of adrenaline helped saved my son, but two weeks later in my body’s heightened state, it is still giving every small decision a similar dump of adrenaline.

I’ve been slightly oblivious to this state, recognizing that I can’t focus or settle in and relax, but attributing it to my busy season. I have been remedying by making myself ultra productive and busy - anything to avoiding feeling these feelings.

To wrap up the point of this entry is just to be open about what is going on over here, not searching for sympathy but instead sharing some more “True Blue” perspectives and experiences. Sharing my experience in hope someone else needs to something relate to with their own. Things are going well, we’re doing good but at the same time I’m working through some stuff. The flower fields are doing well, I have lots of help and it will be a beautiful summer! But we are working through the season week by week with life’s ebbs and flows! Thanks for coming along on the ride, happy to have you here