Fog...

'When you are traumatized, the feeling that you have about it becomes the reality that you live in. The core imprint of trauma is in that core part of the brain having to do with survival.

SO YOU CANNOT TALK YOURSELF OUT OF FEELING THIS WAY. So its very important for traumatized people to have experiences that directly contradict the helplessness and the despair of trauma.' Bessel Van Der Kolk - 'The Body keeps the Score.'

Just get over it...

Just leave it behind...

Leave the past behind...

Forget it ever happened...

Move on with your life...

If any of these seem familiar, whether you've uttered these words or heard them ad nauseum; please, please, please, educate and inform yourself.

Trauma is now a PART of a survivors nervous system, a part of their core memory, and overlays every and all activities...EVERY part of the life of a survivor is met with memory, met with resistance, met with fear.

This Doctor (Psychiatrist) speaks with wisdom and experience of decades and decades of research and actual hands on experience dating back to Vietnam vets diagnosed with PTSD (late 60's, early 70's) and resulting drugs, shock therapy and some pretty intense methods of approaching the mental state of traumatized patients.

There is no erasure my friends.

No blocking, no scrubbing of events imprinted upon the minds and spirits of those who have undergone horrific situations and circumstances.

Take today for instance...

There is a fog that surrounds my brain as I sit in my First Aid office and walk the grounds of this beautifully set construction zone. As I walk along a lake shrouded in mist, as I spot geese and ducks swimming amongst the mists and cat tails.

The belief that something is wrong, not quite right, off in some important way...

Hyper-vigilance takes over...

Heart rate escalates and blood pressure soars...

Pupils dilate and the moose I call a dog prances alongside in tune with my every emotion.

This is a survivors daily log replete with unseen dangers and fear of an unknown hammer about to fall.

'Just move on with your life!'

Oh, it simultaneously irks and humours the mind.

How each survivor would LOVE to leave it all behind!

Here is the irony...the more we struggle, strive with everything we have to put it away, the worse it becomes. Why? The past cannot be left behind or pushed down, when it is imprinted upon your psyche.

It can only be walked through; not around, not under, not over....through.

Through the mud, the sweat, the tears, the sorrow, the agony, the fear; each and every moment of every day. Sound dramatic or over the top? If so, be grateful you are not in their shoes, for it is the reality of each and every person ever in a position of being victimized and surviving to tell the story.

The brain fog is real...dissasociation for protection...it is NOT a conscious choice dear treasures, it is a symptomatic reflex. Like the percussion hammer a doctor uses to test your reflexes; the body responds without your input.

So too the mind...

Let that sit for a moment and sink in for all those who wrestle with understanding, with finding sense in how they view survivors; and for those who are going through it each and every day, week after week, month after month.

I pray for your grasp of trauma and how best to love those going through it.

As Dr. Van Der Kolk states, 'give them experiences that directly contradict the despair of trauma.'

Love saves...

Love has kept my feet planted firmly on terra firma, yanked me back down when I felt my feet beginning to falter and looking to the heavens for an end to the madness my mind was left in.

Love gives time, it comes alongside and sits with and in the cesspool...it embraces the lost, wraps arms around the forgotten and holds on tight.

Every kindness was tallied and written in stone for later contemplation when sunk below the waves, drowning in memory and sorrow...taken out and studied, held close and used as a reminder of being worthy, being accepted.

Love and only love penetrates the fog dear friends...