I'd always assumed insomnia came from a busy mind, and that once I learned to quiet mine of incessant anxiety, planning, wishing, that sleep would come easy.
I've come a long way. I've come a long way, baby.
I wasn't planning on saying baby.
But I did.
You'll understand in a minute.
I'm no master of mindfulness, though I've been a lot of places and faced a lot of fears and abandoned any sense of control I thought I might have over other people. Over crows. Nature. My own thoughts and emotions.
I've done a lot of therapy. Told myself more truth than I believed I could handle.
My mind does feel quieter.
I'm learning to pull myself away from creating when the hours grow late. To lay down and turn off the lights and just be tired, so tired, goddam I'm so fucking tired. I do all the things. I don't think about much.
And yet...
Sometimes I can get an audiobook to lull me to sleep. When that doesn't work, I listen. I listen and I hear something I don't like, so I listen deeper.
Fuck it, I'm awake, might as well try and apply this to my life.
There was this person... I shared more than 8 years of my life with him. I talk about him sometimes. He hurt me. I stayed. One of those stories.
Every day I do something to heal my past. Somehow. In some way. Still, the memories of his deeds and his very existence burn, hurt, reach me.
I close my eyes. With a small broom in one hand, I walk backwards along a path, sweeping away who he is today, who he was with me, who he was before I knew him. Sweeping away every trace of his life until I find myself present with the fragility of his infancy.
I hold him in my arms. I don't want to hold him. I don't want to care about this baby, who will grow up to hurt others. Hurt me.
But I do.
I hold him in my arms and he cries. Screams. Grabs at the cold black void in search of warmth. He is colorless. Empty.
I don't want to love him.
But I do.
What did you to to this baby?
What the fuck did you do to this baby??!!
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge, held daily in the Black and White Community.
Give it a try. The contest. Or forgiveness. Contest is easier.
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Awesome photos... Thanks so much for share and inspired...
By the way... have you ever tried to take some pills or a tequila shot before going to sleep?
For me works great and usually fall sleep pretty quick...
Thanks @neuerko!
I've tried it all. Alcohol actually keeps me awake even longer. And tequila makes my stomach lining fall off.... lol.
I don't suffer from insomnia, I'm kind of fond of it actually, sleep is when the nightmares come.
Some lovely shots you've got there, which neck of the woods are these from?
Are you familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy? My partner is working on getting certified to practice it for insomnia and it's actually kind of fascinating. Supposed to work better than just about anything else and apparently comes with the side effect of improving depression.
Let's see, first shot is in the Yukon somewhere just south of the Arctic Circle,
second is a patch of moss in the woods of Scharbeutz, Germany
third and fourth are San Juan Island, Washington
fifth and sixth, also Scharbeutz
seventh and eighth taken from the peak of Mt. Elinore in the Olympic Range.
God I'm such a fucking showoff....
CBT is great stuff, congrats to your partner! I did a lot of it in the beginning of my therapy journey about 9 years ago. It got me through some really dangerous and difficult times, and gave me awesome tools to use as I go through life.
As for the insomnia, I don't have insomnia when I get to be my natural nightowl self and go to bed at 4/5 and wake up around noon. But unfortunately that leaves the window of money-making hours too narrow for a massage therapist. One day when I'm a super famous published writer I can go to bed whenever the fuck I want and only do book tours after 8pm.
Sorry to hear about the nightmares. Have you heard about or looked into any of the eye movement therapies like EMDR or ART? My therapist got certified for ART maybe 8 months ago and we've been doing sessions almost every time. It's seriously amazing shit that uses a process that mimics REM sleep to reprogram the brain, which really, really, wants to heal and feel safe. It's not like hypnosis or brainwashing because it's just a guided therapy process using the cues of your own mind, your lizard brain, and bypassing the inhibition/rationalization patterns of the cerebral cortex that created the original trauma response as a means of protection.
I cannot shout its praise enough. It has done so much for my trauma, as well as pain and tension in my body (it's all connected). And even if I do get nightmares (since dreams are a form of processing info and trauma, etc), they are generally empowering. For example, some dude in a dream is taunting me and hurting me but then suddenly I'm beating the shit out of him and he disappears. Poof!
Anyway, I am such a different person than I was before these sessions. I noticed huge differences even after the first couple. I still get negative emotions, it's a part of life, but very rarely do I have a trauma response anymore. And if I do I know it's a trigger I can work on in an ART session. I can go on and on forever about how amazing it is, and have, but so few people actually want to try it. I think sometimes people get stuck believing they deserve their trauma responses (or PTSD, but some people are sensitive about using that term), anxiety, etc. I can relate to that, too. But my god, man, try it!!!
Ok, speech done.
Isn't showing off half the reason we take photos?
I'd read a bit about CBT in relation to PTSD treatment (also EMDR) but wasn't really familiar with the details until my partner took the course on it. It was interesting, a good bit of it is quite similar to the stuff I'd stumbled upon dealing with addiction.
Ah, I gotcha, that's pretty much the same schedule I'm on, although when I was out in your neck of the woods the time difference almost had me on a 'normal' schedule for a while. One of these days . . .
Thank you. Lol, as soon as I wrote that it felt overly dramatic but it's not untrue. I'd heard of EMDR but not ART, will definitely have to look into that further, it sounds amazing.
Side note, it's amazing just how much the treatment of PTSD has changed in the past 15-20 years. Had a friend come back from Iraq with TBIs and a nasty case of PTSD and in the late aughts the VA was just giving him adderall and klonopins.
Yes! Even the recognition of it and how it presents itself, how it can be complex ptsd .. when I was a kid I just remember hearing about "shell shock" and that it made people crazy. There wasn't any compassion from the outside looking in, culturally.
P.S. I'm always happy to give out my therapist's ART info for anyone who wants it. I even give it to patients I treat who were in car accidents. She works remotely, though I don't know about insurance stuff across states if that's a concern. Sometimes people can get amazing results from just one session.
They called it 'soldier's heart' with Civil War veterans, but yeah nobody understood it. One of my uncles fought in Vietnam, from the sounds of it he likely had PTSD from that but nobody talked about it until he'd been dead for twenty years.
Thank you, I'll keep that in mind. Not optimistic that'd work from this far away but we'll see once the new year is here.
Wow, very deep.
Thanks, yeah. It opened up some stuff for sure.
That was an intense read. You reached out through the screen slicing my insides to sinewy curtains.
Your photos in this...just exquisite. All the moods, feelings. The second and fourth resonated on a personal level for me.
!heartdropblack
Second is Germany, fourth is San Juan Island.
And thanks! I've been feeling a bit raw since that happened. Can't quite explain it. Probably healing an open wound I didn't know was under the bandage. You know, speaking of sinewy curtains and such.
Every time I hear that something I wrote resonates and reaches, it's the greatest greatest greatest compliment. Gift, actually. (Not gif.) All joking aside, really, thank you.
I find that happens,sometimes it sneaks up on you and peels off a bit, gets crap in it and you have to crap it out the crapulence of it all.
You're welcome but I think a meme, not a gif is in order in response.
Amen.
Gah.
Awomen.
No.
Ahuman, sister.
Ugh.
You know what I mean.
Thank you @innerblocks and @thekittygirl!
Congratulations. Today's #monomad first place is yours.
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FIRST! Me first me first me first!!!! I mean, thanks so much!!!
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