Mind Body and Trauma

[oak]

My boss really let rip with anger at the hospital for many reasons. I don't like raised voices and i don't cope well with that sort of mood from others.

As well you shouldn’t.

I’ve been working 30 years (!) as of this month, and I’ve never seen a reason to raise one’s voice at work.

Your boss needs to change careers. This one is not a fit for her. You deserve better, and unfortunately things situation will only get worse.

Get out as soon as is practical.

Somewhat off topic:

If you haven’t yet, please watch the movie “Get Out”.

I think it is one of the best movies of our generation, a work of genius (yes, I use that word intentionally) on par with “Hamilton”.

Besides directly facing a critical issue, one of its many layers is an allegory of getting out (hence the title) of a nightmare situation.

It is a heavy film, to be sure, but one very much worth watching.

Edit to add:

Regarding its content warnings, you may want to review its trigger warnings. A horror film, it has non-graphic (but nevertheless disturbing) violence.

[Mental Fairy]

Thank you Oak i will have a look.

I went home at lunchtime and made some dinner for the boys, i won't be home till late. I feel like i am walking on eggshells at work today. Very little communication. I understand her being angry, as our medical system is in massive trouble here. My boss is in need of retiring and i think with the loss of Lisa and then the baby it has all come down on us. I have another patient under my wing currently awaiting her fate, i feel like i am walking patients down the green mile.

My headspace is foggy with tiredness currently. I look at the pile of files beside me and sigh. I have to call all these people.

I have set a time with therapist, i feel like i'm just floundering trying to work out the pattern of emotions.

When i got into the ice bath this morning i noted that the deeper i went the more emotion surfaced to the top. I stopped as i didn't want to feel the emotions bubble over. I didn't feel i could cope with it. I think this has been my pattern in the past when i didn't have an ice bath. I allowed myself to feel a little then found something to distract me.

I think this makes sense.

Yesterday i also noted i couldn't for the life of me work out how to spell basic words. It was like my brain stopped working, he kept telling me i was wrong. How nuts is that!!

[oak]

Mental Fairy, two thoughts of how we are similar:

1. My mind has spells of “tip of my tongue”. I’m meeting with my neurologist next to discuss this (and my sleep apnea), but I wanted to let you know that you are not alone.

2. I find it charming that we’ve both found, in 2023, unexpected and physical ways to experience ourselves and our relation to the world: you with the ice baths and me with barre. We found our niches, or more likely they found us.

[Mental Fairy]

I so very much agree.

Beany and his insights have helped me look at my own. We all are in the same boat, paddling in many directions at times. On the plus side there is no hole in the boat!

[Mental Fairy]

Had debrief with the boss after work, seems to smooth things over. Doesn’t change our outcome of the days been but it’s taken the sharpness out of the air.

Time for book club.

[snoringdog]

Book Club, never joined one, but maybe I should....

Just picked up a poetry book at the library by Joy Harlo called "Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light" (50 poems for 50 years).

Reading the intro by Sandra Cisneros, there's this natural-world gem that they wrote together-
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"Permission to Speak"

lately

i've turned to the river

to the starlings gathered there at twilight

moon in their throats

all i want is the music

anything

to keep me breathing

this dancing

this whirl of my heart

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Wow. Just wow....

(Or am I just a little weird )

[snoringdog]

Hello Mental Fairy,

Just picking up on your June 9 & 10 posts about the neighbor. (But so much *real* stuff has happened since then!)
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About your run with your relative a month or two (?) ago -

SD - Feeling watched and feeling exposed. I’ve posted about experiencing this. Just my amygdala on overdrive for whatever reason, I think....

But people are so caught up in their own inner worlds and monologues (same as we are! ) that they’re not paying much attention, if at all, though we think they’re fully focused on us and taking notes!
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The girl with the dog turns to me and says ‘well ya know what they say, owners are like their pets ah Gia’ .

SD - If you don’t know each other well, the comment can’t mean much. Sounds like she was just trying to get a rise out of you for whatever reason.
You don’t have to provide it. (You *could* act dumb and pretend -you didn’t catch what was said.)
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I almost lost it. Rage ran from my hands to my head and down to my feet. I excused myself and left.

SD - Why do you think you reacted so strongly?
Were you shamed and belittled as a child? Why should you feel inferior to your neighbors?

Today I have thought of a million comebacks I could have said but I’m not that person. How is it we can take a passing comment to heart like that and let it grow into something truly horrible to sit in.

SD - Yes, been there. But rumination and obsession aren’t worth the energy. What do we get out of that? Is there some reward mechanism that we've learned?

SD - Quotes
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Care about people’s approval and you will always be their prisoner” – Lao Tsu

I can say for sure now I will not attend ever again.

SD - You can do that, but that may not be the best way to deal with it. It means you’re being unnecessarily brittle by holding on to the memory and giving it more weight than it deserves, no?

I still feel angry and defensive.

SD - Try to let it go. (You may have, given the real-life issues that have transpired in the meantime.)

Wishing you the best.

SD

[Mental Fairy]

Hi SD

Thank you for your thoughts, really got me thinking,

Why I reacted so strongly I think is because I give my everything to everyone every single day at my work. If I do go for walks or runs I don’t focus on anything other than the breathing. She said she was walking towards me a couple of times and I never noticed. Honestly, I have such focus when I’m out and about trying not to climb back into my house I don’t acknowledge people unless they physically touch my shoulder. Plus I hardly know her, that’s the third time I’ve seen her. Yes, I was spoken to badly as a child. Told I was never good enough, never smiled and hardly every interacted with other children. More so because of the level of fear. I have this partial memory of when I was dropped off to kindergarten and the gate at the entrance. The gate made the same noise ours did at home when I was being raped. He heard that sound and stopped and the simple noise of the kindy gate and the feeling of being left still to this days sends me into a tailspin. I actually drove to the kindergarten last week as it is right by our city park. I saw the gate and the building and felt physically sick. For some reason I get that feeling at all the schools I went too apart from college.

I have let last weekend wash over me but Joe hasn’t.

My book group I have grown to enjoy, at first it terrified me as we do discuss the book we have for a month in great detail. There has been a handful of books that have caused amazing conversations. Our book this month is The Seven Moons Of Mali Almeida. It’s the winner of 2022 Booker Awards. Written by Shehan Karunatilaka. No idea how to say it!

Two more weeks and I will be taking some time off while boss is overseas. I will endeavour to trip around some more and do some walks.

My miles have increased with the morning runs so super pleased with that. Noticed I have my old legs back! Been doing a lot of hip focused yoga to get the joints well maintained.

My nightmares have been explosive over the last week and booked for therapist in a few days. I have worked out some are due to trigger moments that may happen the day or week before.

The week just been has reminded how grief floods over us in strange ways. Very different when it’s a patient. The constant argument in our heads on if we did enough, could we have saved her or what other options could we have her have taken, investigations and therapies.

I was in a shop today finding some socks and I saw one of my patients whom is 13weeks pregnant. She came up and I saw immediately something was wrong. She pulled out her phone and went to her photos and showed me some beautiful photos of her and her husbands recent professional photos during pregnancy. She started to cry and I honestly starting thinking the worst. I sat her down and asked what has happened and why so down. She informed me between sobs that her horse was put down last Friday due to breaking its leg. Immediately I wrapped my arms around her and shed a tear or two. Her response was to lean in and say ‘I knew you would understand, i wanted to call you and talk it out but I was too embarrassed.’

It wasn’t until I got into my car I broke down. I wish I had my twin to carry some load. I was left speechless and upon returning home I was unable to talk to the boys, I kept my head down and went upstairs with the groceries and unpacked. I wasn’t grumpy I just wasn’t able to communicate. I starting to make a pie filling that takes four hours to simmer and put my earbuds in so I didn’t have to hear anything. I just shut down. Now I am sitting upright in my bed after cleaning the house from top to bottom, dinner for pie is simmering and I have some books to get through. My cleaning is a sign I don’t have control and I need to gain some. My shutting down I don’t understand.

But SD I have learnt something, what happens in chapter one of our lives will affect the end chapter. And your name will be in my acknowledgement section as a huge thank you, as all of you on here will be. You and everyone else make me think about things a little differently and help me rewrite the next chapter.

Thank you

[Mental Fairy]

https://www.staykind.com.au/who-we-are/about-us/

Just wanted to post this link. I listened to a podcast today about a family who really are amazing. This kindness July looks really beneficial for everyone.

https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/i-catch-killers-with-gary-jubelin/id1506667049?i=1000568638019

https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/i-catch-killers-with-gary-jubelin/id1506667049?i=1000569018555

[snoringdog]

Hello Mental Fairy,

So much to catch up on, but spent the last week on the road, and kinda burnt out just now.

Will take a look at the podcast links....

SD