Dear Cat:

Wikipedia’s entry on Psychological Trauma states: “Psychological trauma is damage to the mind that occurs as a result of a distressing event. Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope, or to integrate the emotions involved with that experience… The person may not remember what actually happened, while emotions experienced during the trauma may be re-experienced without the person understanding why… This can produce a pattern of prolonged periods of acute arousal punctuated by periods of physical and mental exhaustion… Emotional detachment, as well as disassociation or ‘numbing out’ can frequently occur.. Exposure to and re-experiencing trauma can cause neurophysiological changes like slowed myelination, abnormalities in synaptic pruning, shrinking of the hippocampus, cognitive and affective impairments”.

You may want to read the part under Treatment, there is a list of “psychotherapy approaches .. designed with the treatment of trauma I mind- EMDR, progressive counting  (PC), somatic experiencing, biofeedback, Internal Family Systems Therapy and sensorimotor psychotherapy”- I don’t know what these are, but Wiki has an entry on each one.

I hope you let me know how your search for trauma therapy goes. I hope “Everything” gets better soon!

anita

Dear Cat:

I know of a young medical doctor living in New York City who thought highly enough of EMDR that she thought an EMDR therapist for her distress. I hope it works for you, let me know.

No, I didn’t know the care home wants you full time. What kind of hours did you work so far there and how many more hours are in a full time position, and how do you feel about it?

anita

Dear Cat:

I think it’s admirable, what a hard worker you are, but I  understand over working is not a good thing, and I understand your need for a long break from work altogether. (I remember you having a debt, I am not sure. that’s one thing to consider before taking a long break, to be debt free first, or to have a very small, manageable debt).

Quitting the art place and working full time in the care home reads like the reasonable choice because you will have less paper work, less stress,  you have the staff’s support and the residents like you (and you like them back),  and every day you’ll have either the morning or afternoon to do what you want to do, which is to write songs, play the guitar, read and overall, “to be at peace with myself and create”.

Down side is that you have therapy scheduled Saturdays at 2pm which means you’ll have to work in the care home Sundays, if I understand correctly.

Overall reads like the care home is a better choice. Please keep me updated from time to time. I want to know how the therapy works, how work.. works, if you get the chance, when you do (I know you are busy).

anita

I believe your depression is trying to tell you something, if you have the opportunity open up your arms to you depression, feel it, try to communicate with it and see what comes up. I am so sorry to hear about your story, you come from a tough background, know that YOU are strong! you have endured this pain, and your soul has immensely strength and you can use this and grow even stronger from all of this! and it is also not easy to cope with life and what happens around you when your foundation as a child was as brutal as this. My experience is that trauma colours your daily interaction with people from the time the incident happened, and does something with your perception of other humans, and yourself as well. There is nothing wrong with you!

Spirituality has been in many ways a saviour for me, and it opens up your energy so you attract likeminded people and situations so you can learn stuff, and sometimes life feels amazing when this happens, my take is that don´t get lost in this chapter of your life, it is temporary and a relief from the pain you have been carrying. The trauma you have experienced is still there in your roots and your upbringing. And seeing numbers like 11:11 can be a meaning for something but it is easy to get lost in it and thinking life will always go it´s way when you are in that experience, it is a temporary breathing space for us to fill up for our next encounters with darkness. Take what you learned with this guy and move on a always love yourself, cause this soulmate think is in my opinion just a temporary bliss.. A real relationship takes years to build and something one commits to together to get a stable foundation.

Remember your life is a long slow journey, you have opened up your energy centres and have had intense spiritual lessons and experiences, take them as grist for your soul mill. I would advise you to lay of the drugs for a while, get into a healthy daily habit of exercise, sun exposure, healthy food, meditation and get to know all of the aspects of yourself. Love every bit of yourself that comes up (even though this is freaking hard sometimes) And be patient with yourself.

And if you sometimes think that you need to know more about yourself, you can observe yourself when you are around your primary caregivers mom, dad, siblings and see how you behave.. that is your inner child which was abused, bullied and did not get the love which it needed, take those aspects of yourself and start loving every part of it.

Much love to you, and wish you good luck.

Dear Cat:

I am concerned about you. Please reply soon.

anita