Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[SenseOrgan]

So....late. I had even brought a small foldable keyboard with me to connect here (I properly dislike typing on a smartphone), but ended up never using it. Just too busy. And when not busy, too exhausted. It's an odd thought that a tiny pill every evening enabled me to do this. Good enough sleep equals good enough functionality during the day. For various reasons I squeezed every drop out of it when I had the chance. Work all day. I have the most peace of mind at home when I try to get things done over there as best I can. During the last week or so there wasn't any sun to speak off, so I severely limited the use of my phone too. 

Desert Flower
And carry water... Literally did both 

sanmagic7
Sometimes when I'm over there I get in the zone, so to speak. I remember when this first happened, it felt almost as if I was dancing with the trees and the environment. I wish I could be there more often and shorter. But it's also highly taxing, so that's not realistic. It's always an odd mixture of wonderful and horrible to be there. People usually think it's due to the rough circumstances I live in over there, but that's not it. The same would apply if I had a nice, cosey house there. Anyway, I do very much appreciate I have the opportunity to go here every once in a while. A lot has happened to me personally on this land. It kickstarted a deep personal transformation, years ago. I feel a connection with it, even though it never fails to kick me in the teeth too, since so much of it is overwhelming. I shouldn't be doing this. And I absolutely should.

Papa Coco
Yep. That's it. Or at least it was for the first week or so. It was great to experience that on the land, especially considering in what state I was here years ago. This time, slowly, contraction started to replace more and more of this expanded state. The beingness while working morphed into more mind identification and the internal pressure to get certain things done within this limited time here. I also had some bad nights, on meds, that had a bad influence on my energy level and mood. By the end, I felt a deep sadness often. But I kept going, because I know this is what I wanted to have done when back home. And I feel good about it now I am actually home again.

This time I wasn't there all by myself the whole time. I did meet up with a new neighbor and a guy I know from years ago. Both were good experiences. I also kept in touch with a good online friend the whole time. All of this is new for me. So even though it kicked in quite heavily eventually, I did manage to stay away from my tendency to tough things out on my own more than ever. And I reaped the fruits of my previous efforts here. Quite literally. I never imagined it to get to this point. Since the jungle grows back so aggressively those 49 ish weeks a year I'm not there. I work insanely slow, compared to how things are done nowadays, and part of me really is okay with not achieving anything, so I'm a bit surprised to start seeing results. I kinda don't know how to deal with succes, if you can call it that. This is a side of long-term C-PTSD too, I think.

My journey back home was rough. I was in an EF when I actually got home. Coming back to an empty home was triggering. I guess this makes it relatively easy for me to go to this off grid place for a while. The loneliness hit me hard at home. It landed on top of many triggers during the return journey. Since my triggering encounter with the police, going through customs at airports has become a lot more triggering for me. Also uniforms and sirens on the street. It was bad this time. Once I arrived in a city, the sirens landed me in a paranoid state. I knew it wasn't realistic, but I was actually afraid uniforms were coming for me. It's shocking to see that I've typed this. It's actually what happened. I had a small walk to do and some time to kill, and decided it would be good to try to relax in a pastry shop, upon exiting the bus. It went so far as expecting uniforms to come in there to get me. Pretty paranoid, even though I knew this fear was irrational.

This hatch in my subconscious had been opened with the previous incident, and a crushing sense of guilt pours out sometimes ever since. It doesn't become concrete. But it's definitively not the sense of shame I know so very well. It's a different kind of ugly, terrifying, and overwhelming. Being in a foreign country plays a heavy part in this. Part of me doesn't want to travel anymore. Especially not by plane since the customs procedure is so triggering. It makes going to this plot of land such a risky endeavor to me. More than it already was. And yet it's not entirely new, this guilt and paranoia. It has come up more often, also during experiences with ayahuasca in an unsafe social container. It used to be buried deeper inside, but it's more on the forefront more often. My hunch is that it's preverbal, attachment trauma, manifesting through these symbols that feel similar.

Since it's so specific, I thought about trying EMDR for it. I feel like this fear is making my life yet smaller than it already was. I don't want it to limit my options even more, and I also really don't want to keep pushing myself through this without it getting any better. I wasn't planning to write such a negative entry. Definitely not all of this trip was. So I'll talk about it later. I'm still landing a bit at home, so it's still fresh. Yet I'm also largely out of of the storm with the help of a good friend. So the perfect moment to take some notes, because I know I can have forgotten this in just a week or so. I'm happy to be back here for sure and I hope you're doing well.