It Has Been Worth All The Hard Work....

I see it’s been 4-5 weeks since I have last posted. What can I say it’s been a trying and tough few weeks. 

I have worked a lot with my therapist on the issues that came up during “my discoveries”, and like my last post, I did not go it alone. As I said in my discovery post, I now know one of the first, if not the very first time I fractured into an alter state and what caused it. I have been spending time working on that and like any great journey there have been times when I found it a tough slog.

I have found it harder to keep up my normal activities like dragon boating and golf, and found that they took more out of me then they normally do. I found it harder to read, keep up conversations, and I have been forgetting to do stuff  and all the other challenges that come up when I am not fully functioning. This is no different from every other time I have had issues I had to deal with. The difference is that this one has taken me so much longer to work through.

 My therapist mentioned that it seemed to take me longer to get back into the swing of things from other times I was in the hospital. This is true. I told her that because it was one of the first times I split it reaches right back to the very core of me. 

It’s like when you hit a cymbal, you may no longer hear the sound but the vibrations resonate for a much longer time and you can feel it. This has resonated right through me and every one of my persona's. And it is also the story of my oldest persona-(meaning this one has been with me the longest) - so she has waited the longest to have her story told, and it’s a very ugly story. But the work has been worth it. 

When I finish working on issues I have more energy than I had previously, and fewer PTSD symptoms etc. It’s kind of like when your computer is overloaded and running slow and it’s got all different programs running in the background and it’s just not working as well or efficiently as it was or could. When I work on my issues, it’s like someone has come and worked on the computer, de-fragged and scanned it and put in a much more effective and efficient operating system. This frees up more RAM and space on the hard drive. It takes less effort to run the programs….I guess I am feeling like that.

This past weekend I took two writing workshops at a readers and writers’ festival.  The one on Friday was with Mark Leiren Young-“Tell Your Story”, and Nikki Tate, “Creating a Good Kid Character”. These were two amazing workshops and man what  can I say. It was an amazing experience to be in a room where each person had an amazing story to tell, and my muse was and continues to work overtime. It was also great confirmation that what I am doing is on the right track. 

It reminds me of the times when I was working with kids and I would go to an early childhood educators conference, and it would be re-affirmed that what I was doing with the kids- which I was working more intuitively then anything- was on the right track. These workshops showed me that what I am writing and the presentations I am doing are on the right track. I will never be famous or rich but I now know that yes, I am changing the world for the better one bit at a time.

There were many wonderful workshops, readings and panel discussions and I wanted to take more but I knew with my condition I needed to test the waters and not overdo it. So what does having to do all the work have to do with this?

Let me tell you…..

Taking those two workshops has got the creative juices going and I have been writing like crazy, and when I’m not writing I am thinking about things to write and composing in my head, and have had tons of ideas come up. I was so excited that on Friday night I did not get to sleep until 3:30 and had to get up at 6:30 to get myself going to get to the next morning workshop. It was and continues to be an amazing experience.

 I have never experienced anything like this before. In fact, I have to take care not to drink too much caffeine, remember to eat and ground myself. It’s like the writer in me that was squashed so many years ago has been set free and wants to do it all now. I now realize, she was not squashed, she just hid away until it was safe to come out, and she had the room to do so.

She-(I)- has the room because I have defragged and have more space on my hard drive. My system is operating more efficiently and this is indeed a wonderful feeling. Now I know what writers and other artists mean when they say ideas just come to them.  This is just so amazing. As my friend said to me today when I was telling her about the workshops and how much writing I have done and how inspired I am etc..she said..” you were ready for this.” 

Yes, I was ready and I had freed up the space to do so.

I guess that’s it for now, I’m getting tired and I still have stuff to do as my son and I are going camping tomorrow for 4 days. I am looking forward to it and imagine I will continue to write during that time. It will be nice to get away from it all- (that’s not just in my head ;)- and be away from the phone and responsibilities. I have a feeling this is going to be a much different camping trip then any I have had, and have a feeling I will be talking about it in my next blog.

I guess that’s it for now, until then

Happy defragging

Be well

Suzy