[birdpumpkin]

I think I've figured out that all my anxiety is stemming from a complete lack of sense of safety. It's like maybe in my subconscious my brain is in the mode of "If a fire can come up all of a sudden and wipe everything out, what will happen next??" Thus my constant fear state. I wake up shaking every morning - have for 7 months now since the fire. Worry about things I normally hardly thought of. For the first time ever I'm dreading my son going back to school because I will be totally alone all day again. I used to relish that. Looked forward to it so I could spend my days doing what I enjoyed with quietness. Now I can't bear quiet for too long. I'm going to therapy now thanks to charity care and hopefully will help... Coming upon the anniversary of the last months in our house and of my kitties' lives and dreading this fall. It used to be one of my favorite seasons with all of the color and seemed more peaceful than summer. Last September I saw my favorite band, but the fire wiped out any joy that brought to me. It all seems another life. This different house, the yard a mess, 2 different cats is all still messing with my head. Just on edge all day long which is no way to live. Would be great to feel some peace or relief or something.

[MotownJohnny]

Birdpumpkin, the way you describe your feelings and thoughts about the fire, and the way you feel about upcoming dates/anniversaries is so very typical of this. I feel exactly the same way about my life, and what I went through was a very different type of experience than yours.

I have been in these very dark places emotionally when it all felt very hopeless, like I would never be able to have a happy moment again. It's rough, I won't sugar coat it. But I think it's important to recognize that other people have come out of this, and gotten to places in their lives when the pain of the past has diminished so that living day to day is no longer a struggle.

I wish I could offer you more, I am still "seeking the path" myself. It is not an easy journey, but there is no valid alternative.

[birdpumpkin]

Thanks Motown Johnny. I just keep wondering when will it end?? Does it ever end?? I know of people who have gone through fires, also a woman who lost everything in a tornado. They all seem fine. I have to admit I don't know the details of their lives when these things happened to them, but they say nothing about struggling with emotions. It's as if they've just wiped off the dust and moved on while I'm cowering in a corner. As you say, other people have come out of this. Why does it seem so easy for them, though?? It makes me wonder if I'm super weak or what is wrong with me?? I'm trying to carry on daily, but every day has its hurdles, and then there's just that anxiety buzz looming in the background constantly. The on edge what is going to happen next that won't let me be at ease. I have irrational fears that I'll be homeless one day because I'm afraid I'll end up being alone and not able to take care of myself. I'm actually wanting to get a job now JUST TO BE SURE we have enough money, and extra, to cover our bills and everything. It's like I'm just waiting for the next bad thing to come around the corner and want to be prepared somehow - whatever it may be. It's scary. I don't know what you went through, but it does feel that way. I often wonder if I'll ever feel happiness again, or is this going to be my life now??

[MotownJohnny]

I have no concrete answers, for either of us. I know that people have gotten beyond PTSD to places where they have a greater degree of normalcy. I am just not sure of the path.

[birdpumpkin]

Me either - hopefully we'll find it - sooner rather than later...

[Teacake]

One way to look at it is that trauma is a reality that shatters the illusion of safety. Our challenge, which people tend to perceive as "spiritual" becomes to find a way to tolerate living without illusions of safety.

Idries Shah has collected sufi stories and tells the one of the sufi who boarded a cruise ship. It was customary for people to ask a wise man for words of wisdom. This sufi said, "keep your death always in mind". Naturally, the cruise passengers thanked him and avoided him. He sat alone in meditation.

A storm arose and tossed the ship about, and the passengers screamed and shrieked and carried on, except for the sufi who sat calmly looking out to sea. Someone shook him in anger and shouted, "boy, what's wrong with you, don't you know there is nothing between you and death but the rotten boards of this cheap and crumbling ship?". The sufi shrugged and said, "but before we boarded the ship, what was between us and death then?".

The man punched the sufi in the jaw OK? Because no one wants to know how precarious life is. And yer If we just scan our memories we all know families whose lives have been radically changed by a car accident, a Medical anomoly, a war. We keep them marginalised in our minds because we dont want to be frightened by our common vulnerability. We find ways to blame them. Then outrageous fortune makes collateral.damage of us and we are the ones marginalised, and naively shocked to have been the victim of misfortune, trauma and neglect.

Trauma takes us to the big questions, the deep questions about purpose and meaning.

I wake in terror and.have dificulty controlling my heart rate. I feel death in the room. Then I wake and eat something andbfeel ok. The reductionist in me says prozac
Yanks blood sugar and I will improve when I can eat regularly again. The mystic says when death comes to look at you you better look back and make friends. I do both.

We all belong to each other and the meaning of our individual traumas occur in the context of the world. Our world is dying. Our society is collapsing. We are collectively in crisis. If we choose to survive we will need to make radical changes in the way we live. My suburban childhood was really optimal, but really unsustainable and even as i child I understood something was very wrong about some of us having spacious air conditioned homes and plenty of cheap fruit we didnt pick while other children died of thirst or disease stemming from lack of drinkable water.

I know our first world trauma is real. I feel it in my body. I wake in horror. I feel like a truck has run through my middle. But, we arent in Gaza. We are prisoners of our mind's habits, nothing else. Our trauma isnt happening now. We have choices. Our individual survival is no longer in direct jeopardy and it may be self indulgence to dwell on our traumatic losses when sometimes a simple exercise of will can bring us back to present.

[MotownJohnny]

At times, I feel very guilty over the thing I view as the defining tragedy and trauma of my life. It wasn't war or natural disaster. It felt just as threatening though. But yes, it is very "first world". I had lunch one day and overheard a woman at the next table complaining because she couldn't get her hands on a certain Louis Vitton bag. And I thought "she needs to know real problems".

[birdpumpkin]

I feel like I'm one of the passengers on the cruise ship screaming and shrieking and carrying on right now. But the sufi is right really. Before the fire, it was a concern. I had 10 cats, and sometimes I'd think what would I do if we had a fire?? How would I save them?? I only had 2 carriers, and how are you going to catch cats when they're panicking anyway?? I know I don't even recall seeing my cats as I grabbed my birds' cage and took them outside as smoke was rolling in toward them. I was on my way back in - I'm not even sure why, but it must've been to get my cats because as the neighbor took my arm, I protested, "I have 10 cats inside! I have 10 cats inside!" He wouldn't let me go back in, but he kind of had to pull me as I froze not knowing what to do. And that's when I just started sobbing and panicking as he led me into their yard where I watched my house burn for 3 hours. But I probably wouldn't have known where to look, what to do anyway. They were all found under the couch by firemen later but the 2 that somehow escaped - my Tadpole and James. (Still missing - I still have my signs hanging around the area here. Real nice reminders of the whole thing as you drive by leaving or coming home daily.) But then, it's something you push to the back of your mind and think, "This probably will never happen anyway." It's always something that happens to the people you see on the news, but somehow you're immune to it - til it happens to you. Strangely I don't wonder about purpose and meaning in all this. You can question, "Why??" but there is no answer. My mom is a Christian and thinks all bad things are from the devil, so she thinks the devil did it. I just see it as one of those things that just happens you have no control over. It's called LIFE I suppose. There is no one to blame. Our car caught on fire soon after my husband returned from being called out, parked a little too close to the garage door that night, and up it all went. He tried beating it out with a towel. I brought out a bucket of water but spilled half of it en route, so it was no help. It was just the perfect set-up that night. You can think so many different things that would've changed everything. Why did he park so close to the garage door that night?? If he hadn't gotten called out and hadn't had to leave... Why didn't we try the hose around the corner?? Just... All you can think is it was supposed to happen this way evidently. I have no reasons. There are no reasons. You just deal with the aftermath. And now that we have home again, that's pretty much dealing with myself. Missing my home, my cats, mourning my life pretty much. I'm scared of everything now. That feeling of anything can happen at anytime is on my back at all times. When I go somewhere, I could die in a car crash. When my husband is late from work or has to go out on a call, you wonder if he'll come back now. You hope nothing will happen. You feel insecure. No, it didn't before - but that was before. I panic about bills. I don't want to lose my home again. I don't want our electric off. You're right about society. I couldn't agree more. And my panic about the bills all the time now has made me realize this even more. There are some people who probably don't even see their bills because they're so loaded and have other people deal with that. While other people get termination notices and scrape and scrounge to be able to eat and have water. My husband is a water operator. He's had to shut people off. Some people are the elderly who just can't pay. He tries to do what he can to keep those people on. My son's ADHD meds were $349 the other day. If we hadn't had insurance for him (we have none for ourselves cuz can't afford even what Obamacare offered us) we would've had to say forget it. Impossible. Yet my millionaire several times over uncle in CA wouldn't have a worry at all. That would be pennies to him. His bills are probably nothing. It's frustrating.

[birdpumpkin]

Motown Johnny - I've done the same thing... Not about feeling guilty about my trauma. I don't. Be it first world or not, it was traumatizing for me and I'm having a hard time dealing, and the same goes for you. But yeah, I've been out and heard people or have read things on the internet - people moaning about stupid, simple stuff, and as you, I think how it'd be nice if that were my only problem. I'd mentioned this before to an internet friend who is a widow; and she told me that stuff like that may actually be big problems to others, like I wasn't being considerate of others' woes, but I mean, if a Louis Vuitton bag is a big problem, I'd switch lives any day... I don't even have a bag. It melted in the fire. I carry my wallet around, and the clasp is rusty from fire engine water and has smoky smell. Thank God my driver's license and cards were all safe in it, though. Small positive there. And I had a little change inside.

[MotownJohnny]

Your tragedy was anything but trivial. I totally understand second-guessing, I have done that a million times in 2 years. But we can't change the past, we are trapped in linear time.

[birdpumpkin]

So true. How many times have I said to myself, "I wish I could just go back to last year when everything was okay and stay there." Or, if I could just go back, knowing what I know now, and tell my husband to park way back down the driveway because there was going to be a fire under the hood. The mind goes everywhere when things like this happens. But all we can do is move forward the best we can. Most of the time I have a hard time with that. I keep wondering if by thinking of it so much, am I keeping myself in the past?? Or is it something I have to do to deal with it?? I feel as if someone picked me up under the arms like a doll, lifted me from the little box that was my life, and put me in a different one with all new things. I'm still in the "Where did everything go?? This isn't my life!!" mode trying to work all this out. Even though we're back on the same spot, which was my decision because I thought it'd help, our yard looks like a nuclear bomb site, and more and more of it washes away every time it rains. So not quite the same. Where's our grass and our bushes and our sidewalk and steps?? It's going to take a LOT of time to adjust to this. But then, linear time - moving forward I suppose. Just going to be really slow going. You've gone through yours so much longer, though. Going on 8 months for me, though feels like an eternity.

[Teacake]

Originally Posted by MotownJohnny

At times, I feel very guilty over the thing I view as the defining tragedy and trauma of my life. It wasn't war or natural disaster. It felt just as threatening though. But yes, it is very "first world". I had lunch one day and overheard a woman at the next table complaining because she couldn't get her hands on a certain Louis Vitton bag. And I thought "she needs to know real problems".

You must have some idea what Freud would have to say about the handbag...

But for whatever reason the woman is putting her effort and energy into a quest she enjoys in the present. She isn't mourning the Louis Vitton bag she lost. She is living her life in the moment, if the search for the bag brings her pleasure.