Very recently, I went to the hospital for two scheduled procedures. One involving a probe to check out my heart function; the other being a heart catherization. Turns out I was told I had the arteries of a 15 year old, so no stents required. However, the process of being hospitalized and treated on the day I was there ended up being extremely traumatizing. Without getting into the gory details, let's just say that giving birth to our daughter was MUCH easier than getting a 20" sheath pulled from my groin for 20 minutes straight while in a completely sober state of mind. I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy, but then again, I am not into pain unlike some....
As an aside, the most recent issue of Psychology Today magazine showed up on my doorstep this past week. The cover story was about Everyday Triggers: What Sets You Off and How to Get Past It. What timing! I even brought the magazine with me to the hospital to read, but never got to it irony of ironies. All I know is that I've been pretty much living in a functional freeze state all weekend since returning home....with hopes of getting my mojo back sooner than later. (Note to reader: It's back since wrapping up this blog post a few days post return from the hospital!)
Everyday triggers indeed! Gotta love them. While I was in the hospital, I ran across a young nurse who was closely connected to someone I knew from my childhood growing up. This person she is connected to...he was about 25 years old when I was a high school sophomore. He didn't like me. I can say that because my friend and I used to interrupt Friday night choir practice with our inside jokes about his authoritarian style of choir directing...and his change in speech patterns whenever he became frustrated or angry. He would stutter. For a couple of high school sophomores, that was all we needed to start mimicking him when he got on our own last nerves.
Meeting this nurse got me thinking about my history at the place of worship I attended as a kid/teenager...and how invalidated I felt there. With the exception of a single older girl, I was persona non grata to the "it" crowd of parishoner families with peers near enough to my own age. I could excuse the constant invalidation by stating it was probably because my family lived on the opposite side of town from the church and where most of the parishoners resided---but I knew even then that was too simple an excuse. For whatever reasons, my family's presence within that particular "body" of believers was merely tolerated. I, myself, was invisible. I knew it. The kids my age and older knew it. Consistent rejection has a funny way of inspiring us who are being rejected to believe we ARE truly rejection-worthy. However, I had too good of a life at my own public high school to believe that how I was being ignored at church had anything to do with "me" personally. (I was Class President of my high school class, and I knew how to make friends and keep them oh by the way!)
But I digress. Those everyday triggers associated with my growing up in a church "family" that was no family to me personally taught me more good than bad ultimately. I learned that being "woke" doesn't matter when enough others choose to remain unwoke and proud of it. Nobody can solve the real problem of real prejudice and real polarization that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. If you aren't enough like me, I don't have to like or accept you. Period. In fact, I can persecute you in case you dare to believe yourself as being anywhere near "equal" to me as a person! That's the ugly truth about human beings. How do we wake up a person from that state of mind? There have been many attempts over many centuries to do so, and still we remain fools as people. We traumatize and trigger each other constantly. Our nature is to be more bad than good. Face it. It takes real work to be open, willing, and kind-hearted to those who we personally feel "repel" us. Once I left that church and became involved with others over these many decades since...the same ugly truths remained. When we don't want to welcome those who are different from ourselves, we are experts at it!
In the end, everyone is seeking unconditional love and acceptance. Haven't we learned that yet? When will we stop being so nasty and so unkind to those we don't understand---and have zero desire to understand?
Moving past our everyday triggers and traumas starts with ourselves. Peace begins with me, just as peace begins with you. In spite of whatever it is that we have been through, hanging onto our past traumas, disappointments, anger, and resentments will only lead us to live in a bitter state of mind. Towards life and the universe, towards God if we still believe in One, and towards other people. When we get to functioning in this way, no One and nothing can help us. We have lost all hope and whatever light was shining within us, has been extinguished.
Don't let your own inner light go out. You are worth saving. It starts with you. Don't give up on yourself. Seek the right kind of help that is out there for you to obtain. It won't come in the form of the vices you have become comfortable with pursuing as your treatment of choice. Treating yourself with respect may be the first lesson to learn as you begin to look upward from the pit you have inhabited for so long.
Until next post....