Liberation

September came and went in a flash. Time certainly speeds up as you age but right now it feels as if we are in over-speed or doing double time.

Long gone are the childhood days when waiting for summer holidays seemed endless!

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On Tuesday we were on the road again.

In those few short days, how the trees had changed!

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Usually Fall is just coming into its full glory at the beginning of October.

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But as you will see in this sequence of pictures, this year is very different.

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Many years of therapy taught me how to deflect triggers and to avoid becoming upset by reminders of past trauma. When I sense myself becoming agitated, I take a deep breath and ask myself where it is coming from. While the feeling may still be unpleasant, I can avoid the sort of panic attack that once overtook me.

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What I was not taught is how to defend against triggers that come to me in dream form.

Since last year’s disastrous election, current affairs have intruded into my dreams with increasing frequency to the point where I find myself startled awake trembling and feeling sick to my stomach.

Luckily, I’ve been able so far to shake it off quickly.

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In 1964, aged 16, I was sent to America to live with my mother’s sister Kay who had married an American serviceman at the end of WW2. I adored Kay who quickly became my best friend that I loved more than anyone but her troubled husband was extremely difficult to live with.

What I needed was to get away, but having no funds and no place to go, nor anyone to confide in, I was trapped. When previously I’d told my parents about being molested, they had failed to respond and in any case, by sending me to America they had basically passed on responsibility for my protection.

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In any case, if I sought help it would be very painful for my aunt. I couldn’t do that to her and I knew that there would be vehement denials, causing more trouble than I’d know how to deal with. I would be tarnished for life because no-one would know for sure whether I had told the truth. It’s not the sort of thing you want to live with. So I spent very many years oppressed.

And that is why our current government upsets me so.

Once again I sense myself without escape. I remind myself that this is not the same.

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During the day I can distract myself, but those nightmares will not be held at bay.

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This area must have been subjected to a particularly harsh wind.

We’d been this way only days before and it had looked nothing like this.

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While there is a stark beauty to it, I was not yet ready for this!

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The woods are not so dark anymore.

More light must be a good thing, I tell myself, yet the days are growing rapidly shorter and the nights feel so very dark now. Nostalgia always visits briefly in the Fall, but it doesn’t usually take up residence the way it seems intent on this year.

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But Spring will come again and I am a fan of Winter. I’ll focus on those.

One thing this dark period has proved to me is that depression no longer holds me in its power. I had been convinced that deeply black moods were due to a chemical imbalance.

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Over the years, a series of physicians prescribed anti-depressants and anxiety medication which, combined with pain medication, were a powerful cocktail that kept me functioning for decades, or so I thought. About five years ago I began weaning off them. I had wished to do so for a long time, not wanting to be dependent on those substances, but I became easily upset even while using those drugs, so how would I cope in stressful situations without?

What I ended up discovering was that those medications had become themselves a source of anxiety. I had become enslaved by them. Any substance that so alters you that in their absence you become unhinged is not a good thing. Withdrawal is awful, but once I recognised it for what it was, I couldn’t wait to get the stuff out of my system.

And once I did, my nerves and my moods normalised. Despite the constant barrage of bad news I am not a nervous wreck, nor particularly depressed. For now!

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While there is no doubt a place for them, I believe those medications had been prescribed far too liberally and without very necessary regular re-evaluation.

If any of those doctors long ago had warned me about the dangers of addiction, I am sure I would have turned down that medication in the same way I resisted “recreational drugs”, but I was only ever encouraged to take more until:

OMG! The Oxy-crisis!

Whose fault was that exactly?

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Getting off all that stuff was liberating.

The man in The White House may remind me of my tormentor and he can impoverish me, but he cannot touch me and is unlikely to harm me as he has countless others, which does not mean I will not continue to RAGE against him and his despicable team of thugs.

And pray that we all may be liberated.