Living in Four Rooms: Emotional

Showing posts with label Emotional. Show all posts

Tea and Sleeping Kitties

01 March 2013 7:53 PM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

This is my favorite time of night... hubs is asleep, the house is quiet. The cats are all sleeping on and around my desk and I finally feel like I can breathe. There's no errands to run, cleaning to do, phone calls to return, prescriptions to pick up,projects to finish or anything else. It's just me and the cats and iTunes and a pot of tea.

I've always been a night person.And I've had trouble sleeping most of my life. But this feeling of deep peace at night didn't come until DH's second deployment. It was almost always late, like 2 or 3 AM, when he would get to call or get to be online. After hearing from him and knowing he was ok I could finally pass out on the couch for a few hours. My most beloved cat, my little kitty soul mate, passed away from congestive heart failure a few months into deployment #2. She died in my arms on our bedroom floor and after that I couldn't sleep in the bedroom anymore so I slept on the couch until the deployment was over and DH came home.

When the house is quiet, and I have great music, hot tea, and purring kitties I can finally relax. Those are the rare moments when I am grateful for all I have without thinking about what I don't have. That's when I find the strength to keep going. What do you do to renew your spirit? How often do you do it? Are you visiting that room everyday? Start tomorrow if not.

The Benefits of Massage

28 February 2013 7:34 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: Emotional , health , Physical

This article on Huff Post is a great overview of the many benefits of massage. Do you give yourself the gift of massages? I have a hard time spending money on myself but I do love to get massages.

Choices

4:59 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: Choices , Emotional , Inspirations

You may not be able to control what happens to you each day, but you can control how you deal with it. Everytime you have to make a choice there is a healthy choice and a less healthy choice. Value yourself enough to make the healthy choice. Even though it can seem like you don't have any control over you life, especially when you're a military spouse and/or living with someone with PTSD, you always have the power over your own choices.

I had a rough night. Last night I found a message to my husband from one of his poor choices, a woman he had an emotional affair with after his first tour. Even now, 4 years later, she won't let go. I could choose to let that derail my day but instead I am choosing to move forward and not get stuck in the past. I'm going to take the two Snowshoe Siamese cats outside because they love to go outside and then I'm going to make a healthy breakfast. I choose to move forward today. What choices are you making to move forward today?

Somtimes Nights are the Worst

27 February 2013 5:26 PM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: Emotional , Inspirations , Living with PTSD

Hands up if you have felt like this lately: forgotten by the world and by your soldier, unloved, uncared for..... yeah. Me too. It's so hard for me to conceive of how a simple, "I love you" or a simple acknowledgement of my existence is too hard for him when all day everyday I do anything I can do to show him I care. Yesterday he had 24 hour duty and I stayed up too. I made sure he had healthy hot meals when he could get home. I made sure there was plenty of hot coffee. I sat up with him to help him stay awake until he had to go back after a break. He said to me,"Well you could have gone to bed."I wish he could emotionally connect again and realize that I stayed up because I wanted to help him, but that I would have appreciate a hug or a "Thanks hon, I love you" as an acknowledgement. I know he struggles with emotional connection so I told him that I was feeling bad and needed a little emotional support from him. I didn't drop some passive aggressive bomb. I didn't yell or scream or blame him for not picking up on my silent cues. I told him exactly what I needed from him. And he still got irritated with me. It's so hard to keep going through this for someone who I know would never do the same for me. Not anymore anyway. The man I married would have. Sometimes I really don't like this new guy.

Living a military life is isolating enough. Adding in the PTSD makes it practically impossible to connect to my family and friends. They can't understand what it's like to live like this and I can no longer relate to how they life. It's too painful to see their Facebook posts about happy family outings, holidays, birthdays, weddings and other joy filled occasions. But the hardest is to see the small celebrations of intimacy between friends and their spouses. I remember what it was like to have a spouse who was kind and generous and loving. He still is that way, to other people. But it seems impossible for him to be that with me again. I don't know why. I do know he may never be able to be that way with me again. I don't know if I can re-frame my expectations to allow for his PTSD and not resent him for no longer being the person he was when we got married. But until I figure it out I have to keep going. Someone has to do the laundry, feed the cats, make sure the bills get paid and the house gets cleaned and he gets to his appointments and takes his medications and buy the groceries and make the meals and so on and so on. Tomorrow will be a better day. Right? I hope it will anyway.

Starting the Conversation

25 February 2013 5:26 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: change , Emotional , healh , new life , relationships , transformation

The hardest thing to do sometimes is to start a conversation like that. Whether it's telling someone you love that you are noticing they are struggling again, or telling yourself that you are on the wrong path it's not easy to do. But nothing will change until you do. Remember that one act of bravery, starting a dialog, can transform your love and the lives of the people you love. Is there someone you need to have a conversation like that with today? Do it. Don't put it off. Let positive change start today.

Be the Change You Want To See (In Your Soldier or Vet)

21 February 2013 4:54 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: coping , Emotional , Physical , treatment for PTSD

BrainlineMilitary.org had an excellent guest blog this morning that featured this paragraph which really hit home to me:

"As a community, we do however, also have a responsibility – as individuals who have sustained injuries; as family members, friends and caretakers; or as the support network of those individuals with disabilities, to encourage positive attitudes and promote best practices for rehabilitative outcomes. There still exists a stigma about mental health problems and readjustment after combat – but these conditions are treatable! The work of therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists is amazing and making a real impact on people’s lives. Let’s help build an environment that is supportive and prepares our injured colleagues for success"

As the main source of support for our soldiers and vets struggling with PTS/CS/TBI our attitudes about treatment are critically important. Sometimes you may want things to be normal again so much that you ignore signs that your soldier or vet is struggling. Or you may be overwhelmed by all the additional things you need to do that your soldier/vet can no longer do. I completely understand how hard it is to have to take over all the household duties, work, do the bills, do the shopping, and try to keep track of medical appointments and therapy appointments and treatment plans and other tasks related to your soldier or vet's care. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming you want to give up. Or, you stop taking care of your own needs to focus on the needs of everyone around you. But that doesn't help anyone.

But you can take care of yourself and encourage your soldier or vet to take care of themselves at the same time. Meditate together. Try making healthy dishes and discuss what you both like or don't like. Cultivate a focus on health at home so that your soldier or vet is encouraged to look at new ideas and new methods of treatment. It's been proven that alternative therapies like meditation and art therapy can have profound effects on soldiers and vets healing from PTS/CS/TBI. But as caregivers we need to embrace those ideas and therapies so that our soldiers and vets will embrace them also.

So make time to meditate. Go to a holistic health center this weekend to get information on meditation classes, Reiki and other treatments. Go to a yoga class. Your soldier or vet will follow your lead. You can take better care of yourself and create a healing environment at home to encourage your soldier or vet to take better care of themselves.

How to Handle a Bad Day

19 February 2013 2:07 PM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: bad days , coping , depression , Emotional

Bad days are certainly par for the course when you're dealing with a loved one's PTSD. This blog post from Psychology Today has some good advice on how to get through a bad day and move on.

One of the most important things mentioned in the post is to remember that it won't last forever. Bad days will come and go, but tomorrow is always a chance to start again.

One of the best ways I have found to handle a bad day is to make sure that you are surrounded by things that remind you of good days and good times. Don't stick photos in albums or scrapbooks - post them near your workspace or in a place you can see them often. Hang up the cards that your spouse has given you or that friends have sent you. Those little reminders that you have people who love you and that there are good times as well as bad can be a lifeline when it feels like your whole world has been taken over by your spouse's PTSD.

The Cure for Everything

30 November 2012 6:39 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: Emotional , Meditation , Relaxation

Have you heard that saying that, "The cure for everything is salt water: the ocean, or tears"? It's really true, as I recently found out.

The last few years have been rough, to put it mildly. My husband is an active duty soldier. He's a medic. He deployed twice in the last 4 years, with a break in between for surgery and treatment of his wounds from the first deployment. On his second deployment nearly two dozen soldiers from his unit were KIA, and many more were injured. Immediately after he got back from the second one we moved to a new base in a new state. There has been a lot of chaos, a lot of loss, a lot of PTSD and TBI related issues, and a lot of stress. So when we got the chance to go away on an Army sponsored marriage retreat at an ocean front hotel we jumped at the chance.

Spending two hours walking on the beach, even though it was freezing cold, was the best therapy I could have gotten. The entire weekend was quiet, and peaceful, and surrounded by the ocean and calm tranquility. I felt years of stress and sadness and other negative things lifting off my shoulders. Of course, as soon as we got back the whole stress cycle started up again but now I have my photos and videos of the ocean to bring me a little of that peace when I need it most. So here's a little of that peace for you too, for when you need the healing power of salt water.

Peter Murphy | Portrait of a Sufi Artist from West

05 February 2011 6:35 AM Posted by SKB , 0 Comments

Labels: Emotional , Music , Spiritual

Great piece from the Inspirations and Creative Thoughts Blog:

Everybody's born surrendered
Everybody from the same place
He picked you out of the mud
Everybody's born surrendered.

Everybody got a mother woman
Maybe you treat her like a fool
Heaven under the feet of her
Everyone comes in place.

We all got problems
And that's good too
They can turn you inside out
It's Hayy, that's Hu.

- lyrics of Surrendered by Peter Murphy, in sufi influenced album Dust
.. the song is a tribute to Sufi Saint, Sen Ahmedi Mahmudu Muhammedsin Efendim, may God sanctify his Sirr.

Peter John Murphy (born 11 July 1957, near Northampton, England), is the vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus who later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Deep and Love Hysteria. Thin, with prominent cheekbones, a rich voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, Murphy is often called the "Godfather of Goth."

Although he had grown up in an Irish-Catholic household, Murphy embraced Islam in the 1990s, eventually moving to Turkey with his wife. A subsequent Middle Eastern influence can be heard in his later albums. In particular, Murphy has been inspired by the mysticism of Sufism. 1992's Holy Smoke mixed some traditional Turkish influences into the music while continuing the sound pioneered on Deep. He is well known in Sufi circles in turkey where he lives with his wife Behyan.

The bio section of Peter Murphy starts like this: "I don't care that you know nothing about me, he said, I'd rather have someone write about me who knows nothing, because I'm sick of these biographies that just repeat the same old simple things, and that attatch me to the same old simple past, and that repeat the same old half-truths about who I am and what I do...."

Read the rest of this piece here...

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