Today marks the halfway point of my 12-week
PTSD/trauma focused program. I’ve written less in my blog than I’d prefer but
my mind has been everywhere else. The tools and skills I’ve learned cannot be
measured. The one thing that sticks out the most is avoidance. I can’t count
the times I nearly quit the program. Not because I thought it was too hard, but
because I was afraid to face what I couldn’t see. Funny thing is, the more I
stopped avoiding, the less afraid and more confident I’ve become.
Last Friday I threw my hands in the air
and walked out the door. The struggles I’ve been enduring were weighing me down
so much that I had convinced myself the program was a joke. Thinking that everything
I was learning was just making me worse off and the time and effort was
meaningless. Why go through all this pain just to make the pain worse, I
thought. I mean, I was indeed getting worse and the exhaustion alone was enough
for me to call it quits. All I wanted to do was sleep. Who knew mental work
could be so draining? Wait – law school comes pretty close.
I took the weekend to make up my mind
and consulted with a couple friends. Regardless how many worries I have, none
of them compare to living a life lacking the necessary tools to cope. Today I
went in giving 110 percent. To my surprise, it was the best day I’ve had so
far. Holding back judgments and invalidating thoughts, I began to mend
differences with another group member I thought I would despise to the end.
More significantly, I made it through my trauma exposure exercise and was able
to recall pleasant memories from Iraq. Most notably, the singing and dancing
camel adorned with a military shirt.
This camel has a name but I can’t
recall it now. It’s one of those toys where you push a button on its foot and
it starts dancing and singing. He grooved to Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby”. He
was shipped to Iraq by my co-worker’s mom. We had him in the office chilling on
top of a bookshelf just outside the boss’s door. Some days the boss would walk
out of the office and push the camel’s foot as he busted a move while exiting
the office. Rarely, he’d yell at us to “shut the damn thing off”. This camel
survived through the harshest of conditions. My co-workers decided to strap the
little guy on the back of an MRAP for a seven-day mission up and down Iraq.
Whenever we stopped at a base someone would run to see if the little guy was
still dancing and singing, he always did. The MRAP suffered some serious
injuries but the little camel never stopped dancing. After the mission he was
completely covered in mud and needed a bath. I fought, whined and argued but lucked
out and ended up taking him home. To this day, he’s still singing and dancing.
He doesn’t have the spunk he once did, but he’s still got it nonetheless.
Though just a stuffed animal, Mr. Camel
never lost hope. Although he’s been through quite a lot and suffered some
pretty bad injuries, he has never given up. Today I pushed his foot while
reminding myself that no matter how beaten and wore down I am, I’ll never stop
dancing.
Love To All,
Jamie
