PTSD & Anger, Part 1: When We Hate Happy People

There’s been a big debate in one of the PTSD online support groups in which I participate. It all started around the Thanksgiving holiday. It began like this: S. asked,

Has anyone been through this? I mean, seeing everyone happier than ever (of course, it doesn't mean they are) while you are struggling at ground zero.
I've been through minor but several traumatic life events which accumulated to a greater sum and my coping mechanisms failed after the last event. It's been now more than a year and my soul is still not at rest.

It just seems to me like everyone around me is achieving everything they want and ask for contrary to me who lost almost everything. Is this jealousy normal? It is extremely painful and instead of concentrating on myself I examine other's lives and can't take myself out of it. And seeing people happy makes me misarable and leaves me with the unanswerable question, "Why?" I believe maybe it is a way of keeping myself out of the original problems, I don't know.

There ensued a lot of agreement from the group that, yes, they do feel jealous of people who do not have PTSD, and they are angry at others for not suffering, and angry for the things others have achieved and angry for… the list went on and on and on. The discussion became heated as people vented their frustration in increasingly vehement @$&%! terms.

And it got me thinking, what if everyone took that angry energy and used it for something positive? What if, instead of railing against those ‘happy’ people (or, as I used to do, the unfairness of fate), we harnassed that energy and used it for our own good? When we manifest pure anger all we do is drain ourselves of good energy, literally.

I started researching this whole idea of anger and found an interesting article by Kathy Wilson. Entitled, ‘Anger: The Greatest Motivator of All’ she talks about ways to channel angry energy. Actually, what she says is,

When you experience the emotion of anger, you create one of the most extremely powerful energies that we humans have been given to work with.

Although powerful, the energy of anger isn't bad or good. It simply exists as energy. What you choose to do with it determines if it's bad or good. As with any energy, you can choose to use it in harmful ways or in beneficial ways.

This idea perfectly illustrates the point I made in the group, which was this:

What about looking at the whole topic another way? Instead of being angry, how about thinking about how much we deserve to be as happy as they are? How about getting angry that we aren't happy and deciding to fight as hard as we need to in order to achieve a happier, healthier life?

I used to be angry at my own PTSD suffering. I used to be angry my trauma happened in the first place; no one shielded me from harm; no one could stop the horrific event from continuing over a period of weeks.

On a bad day, I could add to my already deep depression with a powerful dose of anger and then -- watch out! I was really a sight to behold. That depressive anger I usually turned inward came out with a ferocity that flayed anyone around me. I feel sorry for the people I directed it at, particularly my family.

But two years ago this new year's eve I decided to take that angry energy and use it in a positive way: I decided to pursue joy and ... it worked! All of that antsy angry energy spilled onto the dance floor and out of me. I became more peaceful, more tolerant; less angry, more... well... happy.

Being jealous of others is useless. Being angry at them is a total waste of time and energy - time and energy that we really need to be channeling toward healing. Using that energy on ourselves can bring relief, so we shouldn't so easily give it away. Don't you agree?

(Photo: Amir el Mayordomo)

PTSD: Holiday Recovery, Part 2

A holiday may end, but the stress it induces can continue. The emotionally draining weekend can leave a person unequipped to cope with the week that lies ahead. Well, get ready, there are more holidays to come!

What to do to get back (and stay) on track? Try this nifty trick which, despite it’s in-the-moment benefits is actually at the center of beginning to heal: BE BUSY.

“Sure”, you say, “the holidays are busy!” But that’s not the kind of busy I mean. I don’t mean the got-to-keep-up and for-everyone-else kind of busy. I mean the kind of busy that engages your heart and mind. Be busy with something about which you feel passionate. Add something to the busy mix that is just for you and totally engages your mind.

One of the best ways to move toward the future is to distract yourself from the past.

One of the best ways to bring about change is to refocus.

One of the best ways to define a post-trauma identity is to develop who you are outside of trauma.

Remember J., my vet friend whose path to recovery was stimulated by doing magic tricks and editing a newsletter? He found that being busy was a great way to distract his mind from the past. I agree, but just being busy for the purpose of being busy doesn’t work. The running-around-busy that you do doesn't count. I tried that. Take my word for it, if the busyness doesn’t entrance and focus your mind then it’s useless for healing purposes. As J.'s story illustrates, this busy has be to busy with a passionate purpose – this is the key to redirecting the mind and also: constructing a post-trauma identity. Who are we, really? Beyond our traumas and responsibilities there lies a whole, deep self. Cultivating that self, encouraging it to develop and come forth can be critical to PTSD healing.

So, what really gets you jazzed? What gets your mind going? What do you do that the time flies by? Find a way to incorporate that into your daily or weekly routine. The result will be twofold. First, you’ll actually spend time doing something that invigorates your mind, body and soul. Second, you’ll be developing a part of yourself that feeds your mind, body and soul, which means you’ll have energy and nourishment provided by and to a part of you that is trauma-free.

Does anyone remember Nancy Makin’s story? Nancy weighed 700 pounds, and took off 530 of them when she discovered the internet. “I was so busy and happy to get up every morning that I like to say I lost weight in my fingers first,” says Makin. That can work for us, too. We’ve been gorged on trauma and PTSD until we’ve blimped up with psychological and physical problems. My own symptoms drastically reduced when I started to dance – when I incorporated into my busy mix something that I loved and that focused on and developed the non-trauma part of me.

Focusing on a passion opens us up to a redefinition of who we are post-trauma. It opens us up to new experiences, new friends, new loves. Directly pursuing your passion, either in the work arena or in your private life has this added advantage: For the time we spend being joyful and passionately focused, the demons evaporate. Sure, in the beginning they come back when the busyness and joy high end, but the more time we spend feeling passionate and joyful, the more time we spend on things that captivate our untraumatized attention, the more often the demons recede into the background, the better we get at interrupting and exiling them. I know you’re in the midst of a struggle, but when we’re struggling the most is just the time to actively find some way to refocus in order to interrupt those dark feelings and direct us toward another path.

So, this holiday season if you spend a lot of time watching TV, get up off the couch! If you’re already busy, incorporate into your busyness something that really gets you jazzed. What hobby do you love? What cause really gets you going? What makes you feel joy? What activity makes the hours slip by? Take a class. Join a group. Volunteer. Get your mind focused outward instead of inward. Look at this sort of busy as a vacation from your life and PTSD issues. (I think you deserve it, don’t you?)

Make the commitment. Follow through. Reap the results.

PTSD Testimony

Yesterday a retired marine officer told me that my 25 year struggle with PTSD and my work with it now qualifies me “as an honorary Marine because,” he said, “you adapt, improvise and overcome”, which is the Marine mentality, too. I can’t tell you how, well… Honored that made me feel. The work we all do is hard and can feel so isolating, but we are all, civilian and military alike, facing the same struggle, feeling the same symptoms, wanting the same relief. I salute all of us struggling to improve. Every small victory is one in the overall battle. Fight on!

Which reminds me…. Have you decided to pursue joy? Have you been considering it, just a little? At least tell me I’ve got you thinking.

If you’re still not sure you can trust me, how about testimonial from someone else? J. is also a vet and someone who has made great progress in his own healing partly by following something that brings him joy: magic.

J.’s Desert Storm tour of land duty ruined his feet so that he can no longer bear weight on them for any extensive period of time. After 6 years and 11 surgeries he is disabled and PTSD, and yet: defining a new life for himself. He has used the pursuit of his joy of magic to progress his PTSD healing. I’ll let him tell you in his own words:

I was a magician and asked to make a trip to two VA hospitals to do magic for the veterans. It was more or less close-up magic and going from room to room. I thought the idea was great and I can do comedy like you would not believe. The first hospital we went to we visited a hospice unit, spinal cord unit, and a unit for veterans that were ill and too old to be at home because they did not have anyone to take care of them. That was one of the biggest emotional roller coaster rides of my life. I noticed when we went room to room that the folks were enjoying the bed to bed magic and laughing. That was like a major turn on for me. I left the hospital that day feeling better than I ever did. Since I was in the middle of all these surgeries at the time, my comrades pushed me around in a wheelchair. I was not allowed to place any weight on my feet.

The next step was to go to a hospital where I knew was going to be a lot different as we were going to visit the warriors that lost legs and arms. For me it was both educational and once again, the magic proved to make these folks laugh. I was doing very blue humor and some great close up magic and these folks were eating it all up. As selfish as it sounded, the magical entertainment was as therapeutic for our warriors as it was for me and I was getting a real boost.

Inspirational, no?

One of the major impacts of the pursuit of joy is the fact of its ability to distract us from our PTSD demons. It's not enough just to be busy. We're all busy with work, family, friends, etc., but it doesn’t always do any good. Sometimes the stress of being busy can complicate things further. For myself, I was on a crash course of busyness for a long time, thinking that if I kept running I could leave the demons in the dust. Let's just say, that didn't work so well. Demons are faster than the speed of light. And they're tireless, so while I crashed and burned each time and then sank deeper into PTSD, they shook with hysterical laughter that I actually thought I could escape them.

Stop running. We cannot escape PTSD through a score of medications and destructive behaviors. We can escape it by transcending it; that begins by finding another focus for our minds. It begins with turning our attention toward the present and the future in a positive, self-supportive, joyful way. It means engaging with the untraumatized self. That self can be brought back to the forefront of who we are. It lurks there, in the shadows of fear and it is up to us to coax it back out into the light. Joy can do that. Joy is like offering a kid a lollipop – the eyes light up, the mouth waters, there’s an uncontrollable energy that bounces in the body.

Do something that reminds you who you were before the trauma occurred. The pure you. The unafraid, inexperienced, uncynical you who looked at the world as if it were good and held tremendous possibility. Can’t think of anything? No problem. I can't remember much of my pre-trauma self or my life before either. In that case, it's time to construct the new you. Do something that brings you joy – pure, unmitigated, face-stretching smiling joy. Walk toward that other self you know can - you want - to be.

Move toward the experience of that ascent of the spirit, even if it’s just for a second. What will you do? What makes you feel giddy and indestructible? Take a (small) step toward that. Act on it. Begin NOW.

Good News for PTSDers

So… Yesterday did you find some one act to affirm your desire to be well? I’m thinking about you. I’m hoping you’re at least thinking about doing something that can facilitate a positive attitude toward wellness.

Even though I’m healed, I still reinforce this attitude on a weekly basis. I’ll give you an example: John and I dance 3 – 4 nights a week. It’s part of my joy habit. It’s part of my commitment to being well. The upcoming weekend looks like this:

Friday night: La Fonda in West Palm Beach; a delicious Cuban restaurant that turns into a latin nightclub after 10pm with the best music mix of salsa, bachata, merengue, valenato, cumbia and tropicale.

Saturday afternoon: Salsa Fest! An all day outdoor salsa party with such greats as Victor Rojas and Eddy Herrera; an event that combines my love of dance with my love of community events that bring together so many different people for one shared passion.

Saturday evening: Milonga (Argentine tango dance party) in Deerfield Beach. Our favorite Argentine tango instructors are teaching a class and then hosting a party until the wee hours of the following morning.

Sunday: We’ll drive down to Pompano to dance in a 10,000 square foot ballroom; 5 – 8pm is all latin, 8 – 11 is all ballroom. What a spectacular 6 hours!

OK, maybe dance is not your thing. And maybe you don’t have that much time to devote to joy. That’s just fine. It isn’t the activity or amount of time spent, it’s the quality of joy you derive. You can do something for an hour a week and that will be enough to remind you that joy exists. You can do something for ½ an hour and that will be enough to ignite the desire for more. The main purpose here is threefold:

1) to remind you that you can feel joy (I know, I know, it doesn’t seem possible, but just try it. You’ll be surprised how possible it is).

2) to begin developing a habit of joy that increases your positive attitude, which will in turn support your PTSD healing.

3) to ignite that spark - that I want to LIVE! spirit – that DESIRE to be well that is the crux of PTSD healing.

Don’t tell me it can’t be done. I know it can because I have done it. It was tough. It seemed like an idiotic, insurmountable, useless task I put before myself --- until it worked.

And don't tell me I was not as badly PTSD as you, because I was at least as bad as you, if not worse. Don’t be fooled by my positive attitude. For 25 years I was (to put it bluntly) a mentally and physically dysfunctional mess. And then I decided to do the work.

I’m asking you, I’m begging you, for the sake of your own happiness – DO THE WORK. Make the commitment. We can get there together.

Wouldn't it be great to be part of a community of healed PTSD experiencers instead of a group of PTSD acceptors? I think it would. Let's shoot for that.

Bad News for PTSDers

Oh, yes, very bad news indeed. I’ve been conducting a rather informal poll in all of the PTSD forums and groups in which I participate and with all of the practitioners with whom I'm friends, and hands down, from those others who have achieved healing (because it is possible), the answers are all coming back with the unfortunate fact that regardless of the various therapeutic components, HEALING BEGINS WITH US. It is not bestowed upon us and it is not doled out to the most deserving souls. Healing is won, fought, struggled for, demanded, coaxed, wooed, summoned, begged, prayed and hoped for – and then rained down upon those who want it most.

It begs the question this morning, How badly do you want it?? For a long time I would have said that I did (and I sort of, halfheatedly, would have meant it), but it wasn’t true. I didn’t really feel a burning desire for wellness. I wanted relief from the pain, but I didn’t really care if I was PTSD-free. Largely this was because I didn’t even know I had PTSD. And also, because in the state of my mind at that time, I really didn’t believe I could feel completely better.

But what I’m discovering from all of these other sources is that I’m not so unique (as much as my ego hates to admit this) – none of us are. I am not the only one who is healed, and I am not the only one who believes healing must have a source within. The cat’s out of the bag, my friends. There are other PTSD soldiers who have come off the battlefield knowing it’s their own strength that got them there.

So there’s the secret, underpublicized fact about healing. You can’t solely purchase it through therapy or medication. We can talk about our traumas forever. We can wail about the unfairness of it all. We can demand validation, remuneration, and exaltation for our suffering. We can cry for someone to do something to deliver us from all this pain (and for a time we should, we absolutely should!!). We can pop a mixed cocktail of pills, but in the end no one and no thing can provide the final relief if we don’t do something first. Before there can be the ultimate healing, we must develop desire. A burning desire to be well is the first step toward finding freedom. Desire is our battered soul striving toward the light of a joyful day. It is the powerful strength that fuels our progress toward the ultimate PTSD liberation.

Do you feel that desire? Today you must consider this question.

Sit very still. Listen for that small voice that says, I do! If you don’t hear it, sit still longer. Listen harder. Speak to it and don’t move until it answers. Ask yourself, Do I like the way I feel? If there is no answer, or if the answer is (gasp!), Yes… then go back and read my October 27 post, ‘Are You Ready to Let Go of Your Trauma/PTSD Identity?’

Consider whether or not you feel that burning desire to be well. If you do, decide what you can do to give it breath. What action can you take to honor, develop, support and entertain it?

If you don’t feel that desire, then spend a long time taking a good look at yourself in the mirror and demanding to know why it is that you do not want to be well, healthy, joyful, happy and free. What is PTSD giving you that you don’t want to let go? How are you benefitting from it? How good is it making your life? How much is it enhancing your experience on earth?

If you can really come up with some good answers to this - ones that have true, substantial merit - please email me! I would love to hear them.

If you cannot honestly say that PTSD is making your life so much better than it could be without it, then you need to take stock and decide: Am I going to live this way forever? Am I going to let the trauma win? Am I going to remain a prisoner of experience? Or am I a hero? Am I, by myself and/or with the help of others, going to pull myself up out of this rotten, dark hole and get out into the light? Am I going to wallow in this post-trauma trauma forever, or can I today begin to define a new way of living? What one thing can I do today toward a new, PTSD-free self?

In order to heal we must ACT. Thought follows behavior; emotion follows thought. We must act in a way that fosters the right thoughts to foster more positive emotions to foster courage that fosters healing. It’s a simple equation. And it’s not that tough to do. I do it through the pursuit of joy, which I find in dance (See the posts labeled ‘Dance’.), but there are other ways. Find your way.

What can you do today? What one action can you take to honor and develop, support and maintain your desire to be healed, your wish to escape PTSD?

Go do it! And report back, you soldiers of freedom!

Are You Ready To Let Go Of Your Trauma/PTSD Identity?

We all want to be healed, right? We all would do just about anything to live more happy, PTSD-free lives, wouldn't we? .... Or would we?

I'll tell you a little secret: For a long time, even while I felt controlled, manipulated and devastated by my extreme PTSD symptoms, I wouldn't have given them up, not for anything in the world. Here are a few reasons why I loved my PTSD:

#1 PTSD made me feel safe.

a) The illnesses, emergencies, depression, symptoms, anxieties, all of it made me feel as if I was involved, as if I was connected to the moment and myself, even if it was in a negative way. I existed so dissociated from everyone and everything that the minor traumas that kept occurring bridged the gap between me and everyone else.

b) The symptoms made me feel awake and aware. If I was already always feeling in danger that meant I was paying attention. No new trauma could rise up and surprise me. If I was constantly feeling threatened then I would not be caught off guard when a new, cataclysmic trauma presented itself.

c) The symptoms made me feel powerful. In the moment of my original trauma, I had been completely powerless, and in the wake of PTSD symptoms I was powerless again. But in my management of those symptoms, I regained some sort of power. I could decide or not decide to pursue a treatment, a therapy, a practioner. (I'll get back to this idea of power in another post because I believe that as trauma survivors it is critically important to regain a sense of our own power.)

d) The symptoms made me feel stoic. I was constantly suffering and enduring, as I had throughout my original truama. The continued extension of that act guaranteed that I was keeping up my strength and my ability to endure again. If another major trauma occurred I would be ready. I would not have gotten soft, I would be primed like an athlete for an event.

#2 PTSD gave me an identity.

a) After the original trauma I lost a sense of myself. I split into selves (I'm not talking personalities here, just sensibilities). Where there had been one united entity, now there were three, a self for each phase: Before, During, After. Each self had strong opinions and experiences and wanted to run the show. I was completely at the mercy of the motivations of them all as they fought for control, which only made me dissociate more, which only made me feel even more lost. Galvanized by PTSD symptoms, however, I could muster a single, overarching identity: patient; trauma survivor; PTSD sufferer, take your pick. I could choose to be someone instead of a plethora of people all at once.

b) The original trauma so decimated the real me that I became someone else. I was a new person. That original self, the one who had not suffered, was dead (or so I thought). This new identity, Survivor, was very much alive and living a life that celebrated not survival of the truama, but survival of every moment afterward. I no longer saw myself as a regular person, but a 'special' person. In her book, Faith, Sharon Salzberg writes that “sometimes… I secretly build a monument to [my distress], as though I am really very special in [it].” Ring a bell? That was me, and I'd be damned if I was going to give it up. If I had suffered this life-altering trauma, it damn well better be good for something.

#3 PTSD reinforced how I had come to see the world and my experience of it.

a) Every minute holds the potential for trauma. Oh, yes, it does, especially when you've got a bad case of PTSD!

b) The original trauma stunned me and changed my entire outlook on life. Afterward, I made some startling life decisions (i.e, about my purpose, philosophy, religion) and set about living accordingly.

I decided the world was not a safe place and I must guard against it in every minute.

I decided it was not possible to enjoy life because that was distracting. How could I prepare for another trauma - how could I be sure I would be ready to survive again - if I was off having a good time? I couldn't, so better make sure my focus was on trauma all the time. It was not OK to be OK. How nice of my debilitating PTSD symptoms to comply!

So there I was with many reasons why, for all that I railed against it, on another level PTSD was really working for me. It was not until I took a really good look at who I was, what my identity had evolved to be, that I recognized the fact that it was not at all whom I wanted to be. I did not want to only be a survivor. There is so much more to me than that! I did not want to be a PTSD sufferer. I can be so much bigger than that!

At the nadir of my PTSD struggle I sat myself down and looked at who I was Before, During and After, and then I decided that I wanted to be someone else Now. This is what brought me to the pursuit of joy, which gave me the courage to bridge the gap between who I had become as a result of my trauma, and who I really wanted to be. I wanted to be well. I wanted to be healed. I wanted to cured and PTSD-free. I wanted to be happy and adventuresome and unafraid. There were so many ways that PTSD was preventing me from becoming a post-trauma person. My Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was really Prevalent-Traumatic Stress Disorder and it was time for it to end.

I decided to pursue joy to eliminate the dark psychological stasis in which I lived. The resulting flood of joy gave me the courage to imagine a life that was both trauma and PTSD-free. The more joy I felt, the more close and attainable that new life felt. Joy gave me the courage, too, to feel I would survive if I left my trauma behind. I would be able to define a new identity for myself, even if I let go of what had defined me up until then. I would be able to carve out a new philosophy, purpose, etc. even if I released my grip on what had formed me up until then.

The constant experience of joy brought me to a place in myself where I was ready, truly ready, to bridge the gap between trauma and a happy life. And that's when I discovered I didn't know how to make that final leap. If I wasn't so entrenched in this trauma life, I might have been able to do it myself. If the PTSD habit hadn't spent so many years digging its way deeper and deeper into my pysche the joy alone might have formed a new joy habit that freed me. Indeed, I almost did achieve the conversion on my own. But then I hit a wall, and that's where hypnotherapy came in.

I meant to post more about hypno today (I will tomorrow), but it seemed important to note one thing: We can only be healed if we want to be. Before hypno is approached as a panacea, it is important for us to do the internal work that smoothes the land in which hypno is going to work. We must accept that we have suffered, and commit to moving beyond it. We must love who we were Before, celebrate who we were During, and respect who we became After. We must want to choose who we can become Now.

The degree of success of any hypno experience relies on the strength with which we want to be free. I wanted it desperately. Do you?

Feeling Free From Trauma & PTSD

Yesterday I was thinking about that October 1998 Depeche Mode concert in Manhattan because this week I've been thinking about how far I've come because this past October weekend I went to another concert and right from the very beginning I danced and sang (what few choruses and phrases of Spanish I actually know) for over three hours in the heat of the Floridian fall afternoon and into the sweet breeze of a yellow-mooned evening.

My dance partner, John, and I are big Latin fans. We love anything Spanish. It begins with the music and the dances and extends to the language, the food, the culture, the people. We are slowly (very slowly, in the few minutes of free time we can capture off the dance floor) teaching ourselves Spanish. We can now say, I want to dance (Yo quiero baillar), which is a huge improvement over our first Rosetta Stone sentence that explained the fish is blue. At least now we can say things that actually pertain to us.

Our favorite dance is salsa. I won't go off on a riff here about why, although I probably won't be able to stop myself on another day. But it wasn't salsa that brought us to downtown Lake Worth last Saturday night; it was bachata, another Latin dance that is, hands down, the most romantic, sexy, fun Latin dance possibly ever. When I first began partner dancing a little over a year ago, salsa's complicated jazz-like rhythm was too difficult for me to be proficient right away, but bachata -- well, I took to it like the blue fish into water. The music has a slow, dependable beat that just gets into my soul and takes over. (Here's a great clip if you're curious to see what bachata looks like. The couple are not professional dancers, but you'll get the basic idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyaxbEcvu9k).

Anyway, after Aventura, Monchy y Alexandra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWcZBy_mDEQ) is our favorite bachata band and they were playing a farewell concert in an amphitheatre in a park on the Intracoastal. It was a concert not to be missed. This duo is legendary and after many years are finally splitting up. Their performance would be the peak of Hispanic Fest de Lake Worth, which is a big party in Bryant Park that lasts all day and deep into the night. In addition to booths selling Spanish goods and foods, the amphitheatre has a full list of hourly bands. John and I went early in the afternoon so that we could salsa (because I am now, finally, really good at it!) before the bachata concert.

The salsa band was large, about 10 musicians and a great singer. In front of the amphitheatre a concrete area serves as a dance floor, behind which are about 30 rows of benches and then the park beyond that. It was so crowded that for a little while John and I kicked off our shoes and salsa'd in the grass. But then we moved up into the dance area. We wove through the crowd of young and old, fat and thin, proficient and learning dancers and found a small space for ourselves. And there, with the sun beating down, the crowd moving close and the music blaring we danced and danced and danced. That familiar joy high came over me, I rode it, I looked around and saw how many other people seemed to be feeling the same thing. There is not a single unsmiling face on the floor. There is not a frown or unhappy, sad-eyed look. There are only smiles and laughter and this is partly what I love about dance: that everyone is so joyous when they are doing it.

By the time the salsa band ended we were drenched with sweat and thoroughly warmed up for the concert. Here's the funny thing about Florida -- or maybe many places are like this, but as a New Yorker I'm not used to it. If this $5 concert with one of the top bachata bands ever had been in NYC the crowd would have begun assembling early in the morning, if not the night before. In FL, however, the crowd for the concert showed up only about 20 minutes before the band took the stage. I'm always surprised by this. No one in FL seems stressed by time. In NYC if I wanted to see the free, celebrity-studded Shakespeare in the Park I would have had to sleep in the park the night before to get a ticket. In FL, when I wanted to see Shakespeare by the Sea I went 2 hours early to get a seat and --- I was there all alone, until 30 minutes before curtain, and even then the crowd, which did eventually pack the park, didn't really arrive until 15 minutes before curtain. It's such a much different life here.

So, the salsa band had a crowd, but the bachata frenzy didn't begin until about 15 minutes before Monchy y Alexandra took the stage and then the crowd flowed in and pressed forward and John and I, who had been dancing right in front of the stage, suddenly found ourselves surrounded and cluttered by a mass of people. Everyone jostled for position, but in a polite way. This was not a crowd that would yell or push or shove. Everyone silently and with a smile snaked their way around and through to where they wanted to be.

John and I decided to remain standing by the stage instead of seeking seats. When Monchy y Alexandra took the stage we cheered and clapped. They spoke mostly in Spanish, welcoming everyone from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Mexico, Dominican Republic... the list of Latin countries went on and on and its representatives roared their heritage. Eventually the concert began and in the now very tiny space we had, John and I danced an abbreviated bachata for an hour and a half.

Every now and then, I still dissociate. I still split off from the scene and recede far back into my own head. Having so long ago developed the habit, maybe this will always be the case. In the throes of trauma and then PTSD, this was the state in which I perpetually lived. It was safer, easier -- and above all, not really a choice I made so much as a sort of survival mechanism that kicked into place and I didn't have either the strength or the desire to grope back toward the surface of life. It felt so much better to split off, in which case I only had to hold myself together, rather than attempt to hold myself together and also participate in the world.

Now, though, when I split off it is for a different reason. Since my PTSD has been cured, the habit still remains, but its use is changed. I split off for a moment of thankful appreciation, for a few seconds of gratitude. And then I come back. My selves are whole, so they don't splinter and then it's just impossible to regather them. I split off, the whole Michele, for a second or minute of reflection, and then I pick up time right as it is continuing along. This happened to me a lot during the concert. John's and my bodies are moving in rhythm, the music sounds wonderful, Alexandra's voice is crisp and clear and so beautiful, the breeze off the Intracoastal is a warm caress, the smell of the not-too-distant Atlantic Ocean wafts over us from time to time, the palm trees reach their fronds up and wave them toward the sky, the moon hangs low against an indigo background, this crowd around me pulses with joy and life and I split off for a moment and transcend it all to realize that life has become good; very, very good. That I am well, that I have suffered and endured and wandered through a Sahara of trauma and pain and I have finally found an oasis where the joy of life freely flows and it is my right to drink it. Here I am, finally, able to dance for over 3 hours without a single pain, without thinking about my body at all except in terms of pleasure. Here I am, wholly connected to myself, my partner, this crowd and this evening without any little bits of trauma creeping in to ruin the party.

I come back into the present moment where John's hand is on my hip leading me into a tiny turn in this little space and I think, It is really over. I am free.

PTSD & The Power of Joy

For many years I lived in New York City, that thriving metropolis that teems with life and crowds. And although I was often out and about in what the Italians call, the corsa della gente, I felt so alone, so isolated in my trauma, my PTSD, my continuing pain, depression and angst. I saw all of these other people leading happy, productive lives and that only made me feel even more alone and cut off. You know what that feeling's like. It's pretty grim.

It's hard for those who love us to watch our struggle. We're in it, so we don't always look outward. But they're out and always able to see into the shifting plains of the desert in which we wander. Once, in an effort to cheer me up, my brother, Bret, took me to a concert at Madison Square Garden. First let me explain: Bret and I are still stuck in the 80s when it comes to our musical nirvana. Oh, we appreciate the rock of today, but it's Depeche Mode, INXS, Ministry, New Order, Thompson Twins, Erasure and that whole set of imported musicians that still gets us at the heart.

So, when Depeche Mode came to NYC on October 28, 1998, Bret got us great seats and we went down to the Garden for the show. At the time, my PTSD symptoms were so bad that my body was weak, unreliable and always in pain. I could not dance. I could not sit still for very long in one position. I could not stand for excessive lengths of time. The very idea of being at a concert almost overwhelmed me with fatigue. But Bret was so excited to take me, and I love the band so much that I went determined to enjoy what I could.

When we arrived at the Garden the opening act was just about to begin. The place was packed, every one of the 20,000 seats were filled. We filed through the crowd and found our seats in the 7th row. The band began and: within a few songs my body was aching with the volume of the music and the tension of standing in the crowd. I took a bathroom break and as I wandered through the long hallways, jostled by other people scurrying back and forth, I wondered how I would make it through the concert. My body was already in so much pain I was on the verge of tears.

But then I resumed my seat and Depeche Mode took the stage and -- I forgot about my body entirely. I was swept up in the music and my passion for it. I began to sing along with every song. I stood up. If I couldn't really dance, I swayed to the beat. Infused with the joy of the sound my body relaxed. The pain became a vague nuisance but not the focus of the moment. The past became an unfortunate memory, but not the headline of the day. This joy, of being with my brother (one of my favorite people in the world), of seeing one of my favorite bands, of being surrounded by this mass of humanity all of whom was feeling the same excitement I did, was evolutionary. It reconnected me to a pleasurable side of myself, and also, to the world at large. For an evening, it bridged the gap between me and the rest of the universe.

It's so easy to forget that a whole world continues outside of our PTSD world. And so important to make sure that we do remember that it does, every now and then. It's so easy to get lost in our own isolation. And so necessary to take the action that bridges the gap between us and the corsa della gente. Identifying something that makes us feel joy can do that. Pursuing it as much as we pursue some end to this constant PTSD suffering is a valuable, necessary, imperative ACT. If we hope to develop a life that looks forward instead of constantly being dragged down by the past we must commit to doing something ourselves. For so long I looked to doctors and therapists and said, Heal me. And some were helpful, and some were not. No matter what they did, they did not cure what ailed me. Therapies alleviated the intensity of my PTSD problems, but did not eradicate it. And now I know why: Because healing begins within ourselves, within the real, tangible desire to feel something other than what we do. It's hard in the midst of PTSD defeat to imagine that things could be otherwise. The experience of joy reminded me that it could.

For weeks after the concert I thought about that night again and again. I thought of the joy I felt and how close it seemed. I was surprised that in the emotional coma in which I lived any experience could actually engender such a strong and pure response in me. I thought of how terrific the band was and how much fun it was to share that night with Bret. I thought of how I seemed to shed my PTSD self and participate like every other normal concert goer. I thought of how I wanted to be that person again.

I kept the ticket stub on my desk so that on all of the future bad days I could look at it and remember that, even if only for one evening, I transcended all of the bad and found something really, really good. The ticket stub was my talisman of hope. It gave me the idea that there might be a very small light at the end of the long, dark and windy PTSD tunnel.

What's your joy? Go find it. Participate in it. Take an action toward the future you.

The Importance of Joy In Healing Trauma & PTSD

There I was, about to turn 40 and the thought of living the second half of my life unhinged by what happened before my life had even really begun was more depressing than the depression in which I generally lived. So, I decided to finally haul myself out it: I decided to pursue joy. I decided to dance at least once a week, and then I decided to learn to partner dance. One year later, here's what I've discovered:

1. The role of joy in eradicating trauma is paramount to moving forward. Trauma causes a break in the narrative of our life's story; joy heals it. That is, how we perceive ourselves, how we envision the present, plan for the future and participate in the world.

2. After trauma it's easy to separate into a slew of selves (the Before self; the During self; the After self). Where there had previously been one united entity now there are several trying to inhabit a single space. A sort of gridlock occurs as they all jostle for position to protect us and move us forward. It becomes critically important to find a way to unite all of these selves into a single, strong force; a Now self. Joy can do that.

3. We must discover a throughline, some way to reconnect with that former part of ourselves who has not suffered. Otherwise, we will suffer every minute of every day. Joy is the key to that throughline.

Don't panic - the point is not to recall some distant pleasure. For myself, I don't remember much before my trauma. Bits and pieces, yes, but a vision of my whole, happy self, absolutely not. If you asked me to name one thing that brought me joy before my illness I could not name it.

But it isn't necessary to remember a pre-trauma joy. The point, actually, is not to spend any more time ferreting through the past. Today, it is only necessary to use some joy (any joy!) to woo that original self who wishes to be trauma-free. That self is from the past, but we have little ability to access him or her. How could we? The break in the narrative is vast and wide.

However, we can use the present day experience of joy to stimulate a reconnection with that past undistorted self. The important factor is not the source of the joy, but the feeling of it. You cannot be high on joy and also in the midst of a dark depression. The two cannot coexist in the same moment. Try a little taste of joy, and then fall back into the dark. And then another small taste of joy, and return to the sadness. The joy will linger, it will call to you, you will want more. This is the beginning of healing. That untraumatized self is waiting, curled up, asleep in the depths of the subconscious, waiting for joy to filter down like a song and woo it back to life.

The goal is to use the experience of joy to foster the dominant return of the self that has not suffered. Joy engages that part of ourselves that remains trauma-free because joy engenders pleasure, hope and an environment of peace, love and freedom.

Although it may not feel possible, that unscarred self does still exist. Joy, in its alchemy of purity, provides a bridge for that original self to cross over the gap in the narrative. Joy is the elixir of the self. In its ability to transform, joy is a powerful voodoo magic of the soul.

More PTSD Joy, Or: The Night I Realized I Wanted to Learn to Partner Dance

There are four of them approaching the dance floor, two women and two men, all dressed in black. One woman is lithe and petite. She wears a black skirt about calf-length and a black tank top. The other woman is taller, a little plump. She wears an unflattering black wrap dress and a basic black pair of shoes that are round-toed, low-heeled and have a T-strap across the ankle. The men both sport black pants and black button down shirts. One couple looks American; the other looks Latino. All four look unremarkable and uninspiring and self-contained; they do not blend with the crowd, which is chic and self-conscious and needy.

I see this little group, these four people, come to the edge of the dance floor. They do not, as most people do, stand and survey the crowd. They do not study the geography of the floor as if looking for where they might slip in unnoticed, or noticed, depending on some personal agenda. They do not appear to have any agenda that includes those of us already dancing. Instead, they advance to the edge of the floor like a small battalion, sure-footed and disciplined. Then the women turn toward the men, and the men hold out a hand, and the women place their palms inside the offered hands and the four of them step onto a corner of the dance floor and begin to dance – not like any of the rest of us are dancing, but really dance. The song is a disco which, in the world of dance, translates to a hustle.

Based on older dances such as mambo, the hustle originated in Hispanic communities in New York City and Florida in the 1970s. Originally, it was a line dance, but after a fusion with swing and some alteration of the count, it became a ballroom and club dance. Think, Saturday Night Fever and you’ll have a clear idea of how this partner dance looks. There is an ease and flow. There are simple turns and windmill arms and the steps are just that – steps. On the most basic level hustle is really just a matter of a syncopated stepping to the &,1,2,3 beat, and making it look cool.

These two women syncopate and turn and hip-swivel. The men lead them through their moves with a simple rotation of the arm, a soft caress of the shoulder and the women spin around and around. These couples glide over their small corner of the floor with grace and uninhibited restraint. While the rest of us are stomping and shoulder-shifting and wiggling in place these couples move around each other with the energy of tightly coiled springs. They are units of precise and fluid and unpredictable mechanisms. I am mesmerized. All of the longing I’ve ever had for dance, for freedom, for that high I always feel when I dance – for joy – wells up and says, This is how you can possess me!

The men are styling, their hands and arms perfectly placed, but it is the women I can’t stop watching. Both of them are incredibly light on their feet. The illusion is that they are skating over the wooden floor following an undetectable lead. There is no obvious communication between the partners, yet they dance flawlessly. They are a synchronized extension of the music. Each pair is the ebb of the music’s flow.

Bret and I take a break. We sit at our table, faces flushed and moist with sweat.

“Watch them,” I say, pointing to the two couples.

Bret turns and observes. The Latino leads his partner into a series of five successive, individual spins. She comes out perfectly on the beat into a back break without looking the slightest bit dizzy.

A small voice in me whispers, I want…

“Cool,” Bret says, nodding his head.

The man leads her into a dip and then out into a diva walk. She is wonderful and fluid and beautiful. As we continue watching them, the small voice becomes louder and louder until it unexpectedly erupts from my lips.

“I want to dance like that!” I shout over the music.

“You could!” Bret answers.

“I want to be that good!”

Juliette laughs.

“I want to look like her,” I say, pointing to the taller, plumper dancer. She moves with an unusual ease in her body. Her face is focused but at peace. There is a genuine softness to her movements, as if she sinks into each step as an afterthought and expects to land against a feather pillow. A small smile plays at the edges of her lips as if she harbors a secret only her partner might guess.

“I want to look like that,” I say aloud to myself. “I want to be able to dance like that.”

We watch the dancers for a while and then Bret and I get back on the floor. Suddenly, freestyling seems amateur. How difficult is it, really, to flail your arms about or gyrate your hips or shift your weight? How difficult is it to stand opposite someone and do your own thing? There’s no finesse, no style, no communication. Freestlying suddenly feels lonely and disconnected and boring. I am still high on the music and movement, but suddenly, not high enough. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach a small coil of joy has begun to stand up like a snake being charmed in a basket. It hums and thrums and writhes. It is a very small sensation, but I sense its great desire and potential to grow. I steal a peek at the two couples again and again while we dance. Each time I do, the coil in my stomach tightens and springs. Each time I watch them spin and wrap and lollipop something in me reaches out to touch their image on the floor.

But Enough About PTSD; Let's Get Back to Joy

The night of New Year’s Eve 2007 remains on my mind as life resumes its post-holiday routine. I decide I need at least a weekly dose of joy to buoy me through the upcoming year. It’s January 20, 2007, a Saturday night, when I take Bret and my friend, Juliette (an English teacher for gifted students at BAK Middle School of the Arts), to Noche, a new local dinner/nightclub in Palm Beach Gardens. The space is only about six weeks old and I have heard there is a good DJ, which is a rarity in Palm Beach County; I don’t quite believe it. As a New Yorker transplanted to Florida, I’ve learned how easy it is to be punk’d here. Things aren’t always the way they’re presented. A restaurant boasting “Asian fusion” really just means they smother some dishes in soy sauce. A museum’s “Premiere Matisse Exhibit” really just means they’ve hung six of his least known works in a very small back room. A public garden’s “Japanese Inspired Display” really means there are some bonsais planted in a corner. In the case of Sonny’s ‘BBQ Pit’, it really just means that a machine is pumping the smell of ribs into the parking lot. In Florida, you learn not be believe the hype. You hear the description and then scale down your expectations.

Noche, however, has gotten some pretty good independent press. The review in the Palm Beach Post (written, as a matter of fact, by an ex-New Yorker) opened with, “Let me start by warning the staff at Noche that I am moving in,” and went on to describe the hi-tech dance floor and sound system and the wonderful crowd. I think maybe this time I can take the credentials at face value. Try not to be so cynical. At the very least, it will be a fun night out with Bret and Juliette.

Located in a marina in a cove off the Intracoastal Waterway, Noche is owned by Carmine, a short, unattractive Italian man with a permanent scowl who, it is rumored, had and then broke ties with the Mafia, who then broke one of his knees in a late night attack he escaped with a knife. The space – including a lounge, a bar and a dining room – is beautiful. Decorated in bronzes and golds with soft yellow lighting, it is both trendy and homey with a working fireplace that divides the lounge from the dining room. Word on the street is that the building is cursed. Not one single restaurant has lasted a full year. But Carmine owns two other successful Italian restaurants nearby, so he’s tapping a new market with this Latin fusion menu and the variety of music. On Thursday nights there’s a live Latin band that plays salsa, bachata and merengue. On Friday and Saturday nights a DJ plays everything from 70s disco, to Top 40, to rock.

The article highlighted the wonderful outdoor patio and I particularly want to sit out there for dinner, but the temperature is too chilly and the breeze too strong, so Francisco, the gorgeous Latin lover-looking maitre d’, seats us at a table beside the dance floor.

“The perfect table so that later you can dance, no?” He winks as he holds out Juliette’s seat.

Juliette hates to dance.

“No!” This is Juliette's favorite word. She loves to punch it out with the official force of an agent stamping a passport. “I’m only here to watch,” Juliette says, as we settle into our table.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Francisco croons in his Italian accent. “The music will be very good.”

“That won’t matter to me!” Juliette says with a sort of sing-song lilt. She has a habit of speaking like this when she’s being particularly snooty, which happens whenever she feels self-conscious, which happens a lot. Juliette turned fifty-four this year. She’s a tiny woman, with straight, shoulder-length brown hair that she streaks with tones of warm blonde. She’s slender, a little hippy and slightly pockmarked. She wears a lot of Capri pants and camisoles. The single mother of an arty daughter she doesn’t quite understand, Juliette has parented alone since her divorce from Mark after he and a local cop were caught using a small commuter plane to fly firearms from Florida to somewhere deep in the rebel hills of Columbia.

“We’ll get you on the dance floor,” I tease her.

She laughs a haughty, sort of condescending laugh. “Oh, no, you won’t!”

“I bet we will,” Bret says.

Juliette shifts uncomfortably in her seat. She lowers her eyes and sets about deliberately arranging her napkin in her lap.

“I doubt it.” Juliette always likes to have the last word.

We order a smothering amount of tapas. The conversation is slow going. Juliette is clearly out of her element and feeling anxious about our proclamations for the rest of the evening. She constantly looks around the restaurant and lapses into deep silences at which Bret and I uselessly try to chip away.

Around 9:30pm we polish off the remaining bites of a shrimp quesadilla just as waiters and busboys begin clearing dinner tables from the dance floor. It’s like this a lot in South Florida. You think you’re in a restaurant, and then all of a sudden the tables are removed and the space transforms into a nightclub. At 10pm Noche’s DJ appears and music suddenly erupts from the speakers mounted around the ceiling of the dining room.

A few people immediately step onto the dance floor. The clientele is older and wealthy. They wear Chanel suits and cultured pearls, Brioni ties and Gucci loafers. Their generation doesn’t really know how to freestyle. Like my parents, they learned to dance at sock hops, so mostly they partner dance, which means a sort of East Coast Swing, no matter what the music is. After a minute or two of watching, Bret and I can no longer sit still. We abandon Juliette who shoos us away with a flick of her wrist.

Within an hour the crowd becomes younger. Hipsters in their thirties and forties take up residence at the bar. They wander around the space. They lean against the walls and sip mojitos while observing the dance floor which has now filled with a younger element that, not knowing how to partner dance, bops to the beat in a wholly other fashion. The music is good, the crowd sings the chorus to popular songs; everyone is friendly and everyone is having a good time.

I get caught up in the music and the freedom and the flow of unstructured movement. That familiar energy surges through me the minute Bret and I step onto the floor. The music enters my body through my feet and squirrels up through my limbs and my spine through my neck into my head where it whirs around like a mental massage releasing some sort of joy endorphin. I am consumed by sound and a happy feeling of excited freedom. No thoughts exist, no determinations hover, no decisions linger, no problems await. Everything is transcended in melody and harmony and movement so that I am transformed from someone struggling with the past to someone who lives only in the present, from someone who resides solely in her head, to someone who is fully in her body. My history, my depression, my physical symptoms are all neutralized to puffs of smoke that curl up to the ceiling and disappear.


A huge smile involuntarily curves my lips. I’m having a good time. I’m wonderfully moving and grooving to the beat. I’m allowing the music to infuse my soul. For once, my body and mind are not suspicious of each other, are not fighting with each other for control, are not about to deceive and/or betray each other. Instead, a temporary truce has been called and my body and mind are actually uniting for a little fun, which, as the night goes on, becomes a big fun and I’m filled with a sort of energy that makes me levitate to a plane of delirious freedom. I’m released and cheerful and content. I’m feeling like I can dance! Like I’m sexy and divine. I’m rocking my hips and shaking my ass and feeling invincible. I own the floor. I’m some kind of fabulous. I am good out here!

And then they arrive.

Even with PTSD Some Days You Find a Gift

It is New Year’s Eve 2007 and my thirty-ninth birthday is only one month away and I am such an emotional PTSD wreck that I am about to burst into tears in the middle of a massive New Year’s Eve party at the Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach Island, Florida.

The Breakers on New Year’s Eve is a rocking, international, black tie, high society party. Mom, Dad, and my brother, Bret, and I attend every year. There is a large floor show, fabulous band and five course meal. Dressed in their finest tuxedos and ballgowns everyone is dancing and tooting horns and throwing party hats in the air and there I stand, surrounded by falling balloons and confetti and happy faces fighting back tears that threaten to stream down my cheeks like their own New Year’s Eve display. It’s pathetic. I can’t step out of the PTSD grip for even just this one night.

Somehow, it’s always when I reach the seemingly lowest point, when I see myself and cannot stand what I see, that I find the strength to decide to pull myself out of the hole I’ve sunk into. Tonight is no exception. It’s New Year’s Eve; resolutions are in order. As I wipe a stray tear I resolve: By the time I am forty, I will be finished with all of this.

I have no idea how I am going to satisfy this mandate. Nothing has changed. I am as confused and distraught as ever. But something about making the resolution gives me a clear focus. Now, I have a deadline and a view toward the ultimate freedom. It makes it all seem plausible, even if I don’t yet know how to make it possible.

"Let’s dance!" I pull Bret from the table. "Forget about dessert!"

Bret has been my steady dance partner since I was six and he was three. We shared our first dance in a restaurant at the top of the Polynesian Hotel in Disney World. I vaguely remember holding his hand and showing him how to (sort of) bop to the beat. There was one other couple with us on the floor. In their forties, they had obviously been dancing together for quite some time. They partner danced and moved together in one seamless flow of body and beat. They took a shine to us. They asked my parents if they could invite Bret and me to their table for a drink. My parents allowed us to sit with them a few tables away and Bret and I chatted them up as we sipped Shirley Temples.

Since then, Bret and I have danced all over the world together. On beaches in the Caribbean, in nightclubs in Israel, Italy, France, England, and of course, our hometown, New York City. We slip into a simple symmetry when we get on the floor. Give us a beat; we’ll give you a groove. We dance with each other although we are each on our own. Sometimes we mirror each other’s style; sometimes we do our own thing. The three and a half years that separate us are purely chronological. We look so much alike many people mistake us for twins which, in spirit, we are.

Since we began dancing before Bret was old enough to lead, whenever we do any partner dances – which we do sometimes make up on the fly – I always lead. This has made me very aggressive on the dance floor and Bret pretty laid back. When we got old enough to be equal partners, we tried to get out of the habit of my leading, but it’s been a tough habit to break and since Bret doesn’t mind, I still pretty much control our moves no matter what the style of dance.

On the dance floor tonight all of my pent up anxiety pours forth into a transformative freedom. Something about moving my body to music is magical. It settles my soul with a subtle strength and veracity. My body relaxes and my mind suspends until I become only the feeling of every dance, only that soaring, surging feeling of liberty that courses through me when music demands a partnership with my limbs. Suddenly, everything else ceases to exist and the present, happy, carefree moment seems all that survives in the wake of traumatic experience. When I dance, pain and fear and depression appear wholly within my capability to transcend – as if all I have to do is give myself up to the magic and then embrace and embody this way that I feel.

So now Bret and I are dancing and I am floating in a bubble of this unfamiliar, surging emotion. When I dance I usually enjoy drifting on it while it lasts, but I don’t think twice about its ending. Tonight, however, is different: I am enamored with the magic and I don’t want it to abandon me. I cannot remember when I last felt this excitement to be in my body and in the present moment. And then I do remember: it was last New Year’s Eve, when I was dancing here with Bret.

Tonight, I listen to the music with extra attention. I feel the beat in my bones with added clarity. Something strange is happening. I am waking up from a very long, deep sleep and the phrases of music are luring me back to consciousness. I want to run and leap and shout and laugh and sing. I try to calm down and describe to myself what it is that I’m feeling, to give it a name, to pinpoint exactly what it is so that I might find a way to grasp and hold on to it because whatever it is, I NEED MORE.

Can I choose to feel this way more often? Can the simple act of deciding to do something that will make me feel this sort of crazed freedom unite me with a new self? I am tired of taking things apart, of analyzing and researching and dismembering what went wrong and how it has distorted me. For a change, I’d like to put things together, to feel a definite wholeness rather than a complete separation.

The band is banging out a Black-Eyed Peas song and I burrow into myself to consider this dancing sensation. While my body sways and moves I allow whatever emotion this is to nestle up to me and it is then, when it climbs into my lap and rubs itself against my chest that I recognize exactly what’s brewing in my heart: I feel an exorbitant joy. I’m not used to this feeling. I’m not sure what to do with it.

And just at that moment I realize that this is the answer to how I will fulfill my resolution by the time I am forty. I will free myself from the angst of the past through the pursuit of joy in the present. Not the same maniacal sort of pursuit I’ve been waging up until now, but a sanguine, languid focus that will, if it works, allow me to release yesterday because I have found joy in today. Perhaps it is time to define my identity as who I am not and then allow that to lead me to whom I am. For example, I am not an invalid. I am not a patient. I am not a thirteen year old girl. I am not a victim. I am not only 'a survivor'.

I am a woman on the verge of becoming purely herself. I am a woman taking charge. I am a woman strong enough to set herself free. I am a survivor who has moved on.

It is after midnight. 2007 has begun. If I am to replace all of this bogged down fear and depression with the thousand unbound effects of joy, I will immediately need to find a way to bring more of this joy into my life. I will need to dance. A lot.

THE PROBLEM WITH TRAUMA SURVIVORS

"When Charcot (1887) first described traumatic memories over a century ago, he called them ‘parasites of the mind.’ Because [some] people … have a fundamental impairment in the capacity to integrate traumatic experiences with other life events, their traumatic memories are often not coherent stories; they tend to consist of intense emotions or somatosensory impressions, which occur when the victims are around or exposed to reminders of the trauma…. Years and even decades after the original trauma, victims claim that their reliving experiences are as vivid as when the trauma first occurred. Because of this timeless and unintegrated nature of traumatic memories, victims remain embedded in the trauma as a contemporary experience, instead of being able to accept it as something belonging to the past."

This quote appears in Bessel van der Kolk (the current guru father of truama psychology) and Alexander McFarlane's article, "The Black Hole of Trauma".

I don't know about you, but this passage describes me exactly. For 25 years I didn't know what was wrong with me, and then I read about 'parasites of the mind' and it all became so clear. My dissociation, the dysfunctional fog in which I lived, my constant fears, illnesses, depressions, emotional coma -- all of it came from these parasites that leached my ability to lead a productive life.

It all began in 1981 when, at the age of thirteen, a rare allergy to a medication plunged me into Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Syndrome (TENS). This life-threatening illness turns victims into burn patients almost overnight. By the time I was fully recovered I had lost more than just 100% of my epidermis; I had lost all sense of myself as anything other than ‘survivor’.

For over two decades I wandered through the darkness of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not that I knew that. Although I saw a multitude of professionals for relief from various, typical PTSD symptoms, not one single care provider (and that included several therapists and other medical staff) suggested that the fallout of trauma could lead to physical and psychological symptoms that would impair my ability to live a full life. Instead, they all scratched their heads when I turned up in their offices begging for help. Countless medical tests to define the cause of (what turned out to be psychosomatic) symptoms left my body bruised and my bank account incredibly depleted. Years of psycho- and cognitive behavior therapy did little for me. I would experience a temporary lift, and then a triggering event would occur and BOOM! I'd be right back where I'd started -- sick again, anxious, insomniac riddled and unable to see straight from fear, illness, depression, dissociation and sleep deprivation.

But that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about surviving survival. Coming out of the fog, swimming up to the surface of life and breaking through with strength, force and joy.

When I turned forty I decided it was time to change everything about the way I approached life. For over 25 years I'd lived in the shadow of trauma, consumed by a panic of fear, isolation and depression, suffering nightmares and flashbacks and a whole host of other physical and psychological disorders related to the trauma. In an effort to finally free myself from the past I determined to pursue joy in the present. I decided to get rid of the parasites once and for all.