I am so triggered tonight. I can feel everything happening to my body. I haven't felt that way in a long time.

I am a survivor and I have healed a good deal. But some nights are still hard, hard, hard.

It's been almost 10 years. One of my students is harassing me, following me, and it brings me back to 10 years ago, when things were starting to escalate...the media today, portraying Steubenville (more coherent post about that some other point!), saying all the horrible things I said to myself in the days, weeks, months, years I did not report or talk about it.

It gets easier but dammit, it just doesn't go away.

I am safe and taking care of myself, but feeling too many things to process them.

[Edited to add: it's morning now, and with the help of a few good friends and one squishy orange cat, I stayed grounded all night. It was surprising and scary for me to feel so bad, after so long - but I am OK and going to distract myself today with work, as a form of self care]

Adventures in mindfulness, part...I forget

Oddest injury ever, and one that ought to only happen in movies:

I was doing a body scan (mindfulness exercise) yesterday morning, when my foster cat came to check out what I was up to. When he snuggled against my face, I sneezed, prompting him to swat at my nose. I am now sporting a cute little scratch on my schnoz.

There are certain things that it's hard to be mindful through, and that was one of them. I had to stop my practice for the morning and go and do first aid. Dang. Mindfulness and cats can only mix to a certain extent.

Mellow Yellow: Adorable, but too inquisitive to be a good mindfulness buddy!

Adventures in Mindfulness (part 3?)

Not much to reflect on today - I fell asleep!

My conclusion is that if my body wants to sleep, rather than be mindful, I shall let it. So I had two brief naps this evening, in lieu of body scanning. Oh well. I did also go for a lovely run.

Adventures in Mindfulness, Part 2

Just some short observations today. I've found that when trying to do things mindfully, rather than doing them mindfully, I find myself thinking quite intently about the need to do them mindfully. It's like there's a layer of wrapping around whatever activity I am doing, that I have not yet penetrated. This also means that even when I am not intending to do things mindfully, I find myself thinking that I should be.

Seeing as mindfulness is meant to be an intentional activity, does the very fact that it's intentional mean that we're thinking about it, and therefore, is that a problem? I've created a circle in my brain here.

Still the same deal with texture and food. I can eat, but not fully mindfully. It's weird now realizing that I've been neglecting a sensation for so much time.

Dancing

Second post of the night - but more thoughts about engaging with my body and physicality and movement coming out of mindfulness, since one of the exercises we do is a body scan. I've devoted this evening to self-care, and out of self-care comes thinking, and out of thinking comes blogging.

After being asked the other day whether I enjoy dancing, I've given some thought to it. I've been uncomfortable for years with dancing, since I'm clumsy and self-conscious. Ballet teachers as a child had little to say to me that was positive, and I stopped dancing unless required to for some reason by the time I was about 10 years old. Dancing became something that was forced out of me, and an activity in which my control over my body was taken away from me. It was something exposing, and where I was almost invariably criticized and made to feel uncomfortable.

I danced willingly when I was 17, at camp, and enjoyed it, being in a very safe space and knowing that I was not being looked at. I've danced willingly at some queer and feminist events, when the vibe is right and where safe space is very engrained. These days, I dance only in specific situations. I have to feel very safe to willingly do so. There is something too sensual about it, and it draws attention to my body and how I move, and dance seems to always have an implication of sexuality which is often discomforting. I find it exposing and it makes me vulnerable. Sometimes, I dance anyways, even though I don't feel comfortable, because it draws more attention to me if I am on the sidelines.

The image here is something I made as a backdrop for a university production of the Vagina Monologues in 2008. It was my attempt at a self portrait. I am still quite attached to it.

These Scars Cannot Stop Me From Dancing

At around the same time as I drew this, I was on a Melissa Etheridge kick and listened on repeat to her "Dance Without Sleeping" quite regularly.

I danced at a conference last weekend (it's the sort of conference where one dances). I felt very uncomfortable at first, particularly being sober when most others were drunk. Even when someone drunkenly groped me, I kept dancing and did not leave. I was proud. I will never be a dancer, but I will still dance. I will probably not dance well, but I will dance without fear. Here is a new goal, a new mantra.

Adventures in Mindfulness (part 1?)

So, I'm doing a mindfulness program through the health and counselling services at my university. This is the second mindfulness-based therapeutic program I've tried out through the same service, and I'm feeling optimistic. The previous one was helpful, to an extent, but there were things that didn't sit right with me, that I won't get into here and now.

Back to mindfulness. I've tried meditating before, but it hasn't been good for me. Clearing my mind of everything has sent me into a dissociative spiral, and/or brought up things that are too scary for me to handle when I'm in the vulnerable space that meditation seems to put me into.

Mindfulness seems different, though. It's about being physically aware, from what I can gather - the opposite of dissociation. Knowing where my body is, how it feels, and how my feelings manifest themselves physically. This particular program asks for a lot of homework, meaning that aside from sleeping I'll be spending more time on mindfulness than on any other single non-academic activity in a given week.

It's very odd being aware of my body. I've spent years and years trying to shut it down, because of the memories attached to it, or because of physical pain of various sorts. It was actually surprising to find that engaging with my body was not a painful experience. I can feel things, physically, that are not pain, without having to do anything to feel other than think about feeling. As in, in the past I've only felt non-painful sensations in my body if I intentionally work to bring them on, such as through exercise. Perhaps this is something that most people take for granted; for me, it is not. This sort of connectedness has stayed with me for a few hours after I do mindfulness exercises, so that I have a non-painful engaged body for extended periods of time.

People who have read far back on this blog remember my rants about how academics detach bodies from people. I'm beginning to rethink that approach, seeing how detached I've always kept my body and my mind, and how marginalizing that is. I am not entirely sure what I am trying to say here, but I am trying to say something about reconceptualizing interactions between the body and the mind.

Mindful eating is another battle. It seems that I have for years shut down to some extent if I have anything in my mouth, to avoid triggering myself. One part of our homework this week is to eat one meal mindfully. I hadn't even realized how detached I was from touch-related sensations when I was eating, until on successive days I had to mindfully eat a raisin, then an M&M. I've always tasted what I eat, but somehow I think I haven't been feeling the texture of foods, or acknowledged that something is touching something in my mouth. I'm not sure how to explain it.

I haven't had PTSD triggers in quite some time, but eating mindfully means engaging with how things feel in my mouth, which is triggering. I became very triggered after eating an M&M in the Thursday group - the one that isn't working quite as well for me, for other reasons - then had to run to class. It wasn't a good way to work through the day, and I may leave the Thursday group, partly because of needing self-care time afterwards and not having a chance for that with my class schedule.

I suppose I've buried lots of memories in my mouth. I'm working very slowly on this. Very slowly. Today, I ate a corn chip mindfully, then had to stop. I'll work up to bigger things, I suppose. We'll see how it goes.

An odd thing came up in our group session on Wednesday. We did an exercise where we had to visualize a well, drop a (visualized) stone into it, and see what came up, in terms of our reasons for being in the program. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this particular exercise very well. At any rate, the purpose I assumed I came for - the stone I dropped in - was healing. I'm on a healing journey, right? That's why I signed up for mindfulness. Ultimately the word that came out of the well was, oddly, productivity. At first, I thought that was a sign from my subconscious, or something, that I was done healing, and now had to channel my healing energies into more productive things, and focus on my work. After trying some of the exercises at home, especially the mindful eating, I've realized that there must be some sort of blended purpose. Part of me is obviously aspiring for greater productivity - that's obvious. I am often stunted in my work because of my anxiety, and mindfulness will help me focus, academically. But the healing isn't over. I'm not sure whether healing ever will be over, whether it is finite. I am hoping this is the last painful bit I'll have to uncover, but I am not certain. There is a lot of uncertainty here.

At the very least, I am accompanied in my at-home mindfulness practice, for the next week or so, by Mellow Yellow, the Laziest Cat in the World, who flops down beside me and imitates my posture when I do body scans. It is comforting and brings a sense of camaraderie.

This has been a lot of navel-gazing, and I feel like writing a post to publicly muse as to why I feel a need to make all this healing public - I do know that I feel a need to, but haven't put it into words. That's for another night, I think.

Toenails

Another old piece of prose from camp. This one's kinda gross, really. 

*triggers for gross mentions of feet, and other stuff*

I am a piece of toenail. If I swallowed myself, I would feel myself scratch against my esophagus, and my tongue would scream the taste of toe. I am a piece of sharp shell that once was alive and a part of me. When the sun comes out, toenails dance and separate themselves, leaving behind deserted homes: the empty, bloody sockets. But toenails are dead, perpetually death. They are a piece of life that failed and grew into a protective death-shell. Nothing tastes good on fifteen-year-old toenails; not mayonnaise, not guacamole, not whipped cream.

I am broken and ragged and sharp, a fragment of my shattered toe. I will visit reality, piece by piece. Life will mean more than broken nails. The world must accept this and refuse to put up with toe stubbing. Nails can hold the world together. Caked blood seals the crack between the fifteen-year-old toenail and the world.

Bodies

One of the key equity notions this year was giving agency, countering hegemonic oppression, thingification, and the erasure of history. When, then, do we keep referring to people with the term “bodies?” Yes, we are discussing oppression as it relates to how one’s body is treated and perceived, and this term recognizes the power of oppression that is perpetrated based on simple physical characteristics.

I feel, however, that this term works against a lot of what we strive for. It is a form of synecdoche, reducing people to their bodies. Without recognizing the individual who lives in a body, what is the point of doing this work? If people talked about my body, rather than about me as a whole person, I would feel medicalized and stripped of my identity.

Talking about people in relation to their bodies removes their histories, which are only complete when the human details – perceptions, thoughts, emotions – are included. If violence is committed against a body, regardless of its characteristics, it is a benign event. “Body” is just an object. As a word, it does not imply humanity. Bodies do not resist, because they are objects, not subjects. We talk about bodies passively, as though they do not belong to people who feel fear, pain, and anger. The body may be a physical manifestation of humanity, but it is not humanity itself.

Bandaid solutions...

I wrote this in 2005, and just found it now. Kinda sad, now. And less real now.

I can feel it here. On my arms and shoulders, not in my head where the memories hurt, or the rest of my body, or anywhere else. Just here.

It’s easier like this – bandaids, blood, long sleeves. You can’t put a bandaid on your memories to make them go away; they haven’t invented that kind of brain surgery yet. You can’t bandage up my mouth to make the bad taste leave it. But you can clean up your arms, take care of yourself. Weird, just attacking myself more, but it’s the only real way to live my life; let it leak out with my blood, then smother it in a bandaid until it isn’t even real anymore; it’s not emotion, it’s matter. It’s blood. And it’s leaking out of me this way. I can talk like this for hours, because it isn’t really me. It’s a haunted voice in a bleeding broken body without a future. The real me went down the toilet with the bloody towel that I didn’t want anybody to see. The real me isn’t here anymore, this voice isn’t mine. The real me went somewhere, one day, into another world where it can enjoy things, and it left this flat and fractured soul in this bleeding, broken body on the earth to suffer but refuse to feel. Maybe the real me will come back to that body once the scars have faded away and the stars come out to replace them.

The Ocean in my Mind

I just got back from camp. I wrote this on August 9th. It's a bit different than everything else on here. But that's good, right? It means I think about other things.
*******

75% of the world is water. 75% of my brain is water. I can therefore safely conclude that the world and my brain are one and the same. My brain has many parts. Some are packed tight with ideas. These ideas come in many colours, shapes, and sizes. The ideas have ideas of their own, and form powerful thoughts when I listen to them. Other parts are oceans. On the surface, they are vast areas of emptiness where I can’t push my thoughts above a crashing wave. But underneath, the holes in my brain are teeming with thoughts, colours, energy, and excitement. Trouble is, these ocean-holes are the best parts of my brain, but my own personal aquatic life needs air to breathe but can’t crawl up on land. All the colour fades away and dies. 75% of the earth and 75% of my brain is essential and beautiful, powerful and large, and never does what it’s supposed to do.