Last year, I lived in Haiti. I resigned from my nice, safe job in a hospital in the States and shipped off for a year of volunteer work in a hospital down there. The devastating earthquake of Jan. ’10 that took the lives of 250,000 people occurred after I had been in the country for two months.

As a medical provider, I had the privilege and heartbreak of arriving in Port-au-Prince early to provide medical care. I drove down a street right after someone had been murdered for looting. I took care of babies who wouldn’t eay because their mom was dead. I debrided dead tissue off of people’s limbs without anesthesia after we had run out of it in an effort to reduce the risk of gangrene. I got trapped in my mosquito netting tent the morning of the largest aftershock and couldn’t get out of the building.

It’s been almost 2 years, I’m back in the States, and I still occasionally get nightmares. Sometimes the train going by makes my heart race. If someone taps their foot on the leg of table and it makes the table shake, I sometimes have small panic attacks and start looking for the nearest exit.

Most days now I feel healed. I feel like for the most part I’ve moved on. And then there’ll be a train, or something similar, and the fight-or-flight response rushes in again.

Thank you for sharing these practical steps for rest and recovery. And hopefully I’ll be a little less freaked out the next time the PTSD returns.

I still love your blog

As a child, I lived years and years thinking I was all alone in the world but for my daddy, and everyone beside him where my enemies (esp. teacher) and I couldn’t trust anyone or turn my back to since they obviously hated me and than (and that was the worst part) my daddy always went away for work, like ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE and left me. there. all. alone. And I was only a child and terrified, and I got into fights and was bullied by other children and was all alone.

It got better when I was 17 or something and was diagnosed with mild authism and add and social anxiety and got therapy and everything.

Now I am 30 and most of the time okay, but I still get depressions every three years or so and I am still in therapy and I still hurt. Sometimes.
It’s been so long and it still hurts.

And last week my Gentlemanfriend and I where at a supermarket to get some food and I sort of lost the sight of him and totally freaked out.
I cried and screamed for him and only saw bright lights and loud sounds and freaky people staring at me in OBVIOUS disgust or laughter and I could not see him and I was. all. alone.

Then he found me and hugged me and I was all like WHY COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE AGAIN and he was all like wtf I was only around the corner at the chocolate, do you prefer this one or the other? 
And I was all like, how CAN you even care about the stupid chocolate, I am hurting and you left me alone on enemies territory and he laughed and hugged me and said this is a supermarket, dearest, everything is alright.

And I felt so stupid.

Havi, I totally hear you. And I love your blog :)

Ask for what you want
Notice what you get
Celebrate the k(no)w

Beth was the counselor who gave me the tools to start getting unstuckified; hers is the voice of wisdom I still hear when I have none.

By faith, I finally paired the above with the concept of three answers to prayer: Yes, Maybe, and No I’ve got something way better in mind. The more I trust it, the greater things happen.

So in faith I’ve found the k(no)w is the greatest thing of all.

Much love to those places within you. I have a fire cracker trigger too due to an armed robbery at a place I worked years ago. A loud bang and my body remembers. Even over a decade later and much internal stuff processed.

It’s still there. Maybe not as potent as it once was, but enough to make my body go to the same place again. Then the mind tells it it’s alright, I’m safe, I breathe. Have to keep breathing.

I’m checking locks, windows, doors where ever I’m staying, even throughout the day sometimes. Especially when I’m going through other emotional stuff this feeling of being unsafe and not having my own life in my own hands bubbles up. Interconnected somehow in this brain with other stuff. And then it gets really messy.

But being human allows us to anchor both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ in our system, our cells, and we get to live all of it. Transforming the bad is an ongoing mystery in which I’m sometimes successful and sometimes it will take me years to plough through it.

And here we are; breathing, ploughing, yuck, bliss, doing, undoing, being… breathing, ploughing…

Life is goodness.

Much love to all.

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I’ve been in some relationships in the past that were not very safe so I have some trauma responses. A few weeks ago my partner reached out to me from behind playfully, I think to pull me into a hug. I was tired and distracted and hadn’t heard anyone approach. I flipped around raised my fists and screamed at him to stop it and leave me alone and for a second I didn’t know who he was. I cried for an hour afterward because I felt so guilty. I kept apologizing and he kept saying there was nothing to apologize for, that it was just a triggered response, nothing more. The permission thing is really, really hard for me. I feel such intense shame whenever I get triggered and can’t control my reactions.

I like reading your blog because you help so many people, while still having stuff. I always thought I had to work through my stuff first before I could be of use to anyone, but you’ve changed my mind.

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I find it a bit discouraging to think that the old hurts will continue to resurface, but from experience I know it to be true. However, your post made me realize that I need to be better about recognizing the progress I’ve made. It may feel like the same things–trust issues, being overly self-critical, what have you–coming up again and again, but it’s not always the same. There are different flavors, and that’s progress of a sort too.

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You inspire me to be more honest, more open and more naked. (Yeah I know that last one is impossible, but you know what I mean…)

You make me wish I was a big hippy too!

Basically, you rock.

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