PTSD Interview with Eddie Black

 

 

This is an interview my friend did a while back.  He has been a true inspiration to me and one of the reasons I had the courage to finally accept help.

 



Day 8

I bought this cross for myself many years ago at Wisteria during Autumn Fires. It has equilateral arms and spirals. I thought long and hard before I bought it but it just kept speaking to me. It is my favorite piece I own.

Day 7

Today I had a fascination with my feet. I use to dance ballet en pointe. I usually run around barefoot a lot. My toes are long and my nails have been painted only a handful of times. Overall, I think they are good feet. Don't try and tickle them though. They kick like a mule.

  

Day 6

Me at work. I found the webcam feature.

Day 5

Day 4

A horrible one of me giving Coyote "the look" while at church

Day 3

Those sparkles in my hair aren't glitter. That is my silver white hair. I am fortunate in that my hair isn't going to be icky non-descript gray. I don't dye my hair anymore though I could. It would make me look younger I am told. I don't know why I should though. I am not young. I am not old either. What is the song lyric? "Old, but I'm not that old. Young but I'm not that bold."

CPT -Trust

Today in therapy we are on trust, trusting others, trusting yourself, trust before and after trauma, etc. I have many issues regarding trust in its many different forms. I was asked though, what does trust look like.

Crap.

So I tried to go about this logically. First. What is trust? Define it? HAH!

Crap.

So during my after therapy treat at Ghostlight I ended up doing this:

I started making notes, looking for definitions and keywords. I'm trying to break down what issues I have with trust.  If you deal with the small shtuff, the big shtuff will take care of itself right?

So my notes consist of: (things that I connect with)

Card 1

Trust: State of readiness for unguarded interactions with someone or something based on three components.

1. Capacity for trust - total life experiences have developed current capacity and willingness to risk

2. Perception of trust - the ability of you and others to trust

3. Perception of intent - the perception that actions, words, directions, or decisions are motivated by being mutually serving rather than self motivated.

Card 2

Trust: A firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something

:Believing in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of

:Believing that person will do what is expected

Look up article on oxytocin and trust.

Card 3

Trust: Words that pop up during research 

Reliability

Truth  ?? (What is truth though?)

Ability

Strength

Honesty

Fairness

Benevolence

Security

Value Similarity

Expectations

Assured reliance

Confidence vs. Belief

Card 4

Self

Do                                                       Don't 

              Work                                           Relationships (w/men)

Choices I make raising Princess

Money

Self-Care

Card 5

Where/How do I trust others:

Influence on Princess

Intimacy (physical vs. emotional vs. spiritual)

Physical contact (casual vs. intimate)

Private personal information

Money

Help do things (activities at church, home, personal)

At work

Ok enough with the words. I need pictures!





Day 2

Day 2. Therapy was rough. Lots of things I didn't want to admit I took responsibility for.

Growing hurts.

Day 1

Today is the first day of the fortieth year of my life. I plan on taking a picture of myself in some form every day for this year. I am embarking on a new journey and am excited and scared at the same time.

This year I will celebrate me. 

Right now though, I spent my birthday in bed. Undisturbed. Blissful.

Spirit Images

An End to a Beginning? (or "On! to the next food-booth!")

Luc Clairmont: Happy birthday, Grandmère.

Armande Voizin: The invitation said five o'clock.

Luc Clairmont: I should have read it more closely.

Armande Voizin: If you had you would know 

there were supposed to be no gifts.

Luc Clairmont: Don't worry so much about supposed to.

J'adore Chocolat. The movie is such one that I feel it mirrors a part of me. Same with Amelie and many of the newer versions of Jane Austen. Just one side of my many. This scene I love for it is of community celebrating together. A family celebrating together. Those are my favorite moments. The simple ones of togetherness with food and laughter.

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.” 

This past Saturday I had a lovely day. I slept off the remains of a migraine and felt wonderful. The Princess and I did some housekeeping including using hydrostatic cement in the basement where water had come in during the rains. That enabled me to start other projects like putting the rug down as well as made me more comfortable putting boxes and other items down there for storage. Then it was time for a long and wonderful hot shower when Coyote got home before we went out to a nice dinner. 

Where I chose to go was outside some comfort levels but the Princess enjoyed trout with cold roasted veggie salad and amaretto cream pie while I ate a salad with an amazing roasted lemon vinaigrette, cod, shrimp and scallop platter with roasted potatos. The Coyote had Dragon's Milk with his kobe burger. It was higher in price than I thought it would be. It will be a while before we get to do that again.

They went ahead and gave me my birthday gifts that night too, an impromptu upcoming birthday celebration. The Princess give me a carved figurine that reminds me of her and myself together while the Coyote gave me a picture that I had admired several times in a store. It made me feel ........appreciated. They weren't just things to be gotten because it was my birthday, these were items that they connected with me. Things I wanted not what they wanted for me. Does that even make sense?

Soon I will be 39 and I am having problems with this for some reason. It has a vestige of college days when I KNEW there was a test coming and I hadn't studied for it. I feel this waiting for something to happen. Something big. I'm am wary of it. I'm suppose to have done something by now but I don't know what.

Don't worry so much about supposed to.

Part of me feels like it is the end of an era. I guess in a way it will be. I won't be going into my 39th year. I will have survived 39 and going into my 40th. 

Thursday begins my 40th year of life.

Looking at the last sentence my stomach dropped.

What now?

“Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.” 

So how shall I celebrate?

CPT VA Manual and Randomness I Created

Cognitive Processing Therapy VA Manual

Veteran/Military Version

Little Red Riding Hood

 

 

Facing fears is hard. Putting myself out there is very hard. One of my stuck points (which I'll explain what are later when I talk about cognitive processing therapy) is that "if I trust and show my authentic self I will be hurt". Also included in the stuck points is "if I am vulnerable I will be hurt". Sharing my thoughts will hopefully help this concept go away.  Controlling who has my blog address is one way of feeding into it. Baby steps.

 

 

Here is to plunging deep into my fears and hope that it will be shallow waters.

 

“Fear isn't so difficult to understand.

After all, weren't we all frightened as children?

 Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf.

 What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing

that frightened us yesterday.

It's just a different wolf.

This fright complex is rooted in every individual.”
― Alfred Hitchcock