A Conversation On Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Panic Attacks, and more
Hey,
Years back, I was interviewing a man.
What a sniveling wuss I will tell myself. Your situation is beneath this man. He was shot, killed, and resurrected. His situation is an optimal definition of trauma, so I thought.
Here is Josh explaining bits of his situation.
To display how severe my injury was I was one of the only ones in that entire hospital that was expected to make a full recovery. And the image that I will never forget, and I and I never want to, is, I walked around a corner one day. And saw this beautiful young blonde girl in her early 20s.
Pushing around her new double-amputee fiance in a wheelchair. It’s an image that just riveted me.
So the guilt I was experiencing. Wasn’t grounded in losing staff sergeant Marlon Harper. The former survivor’s guilt where he died, and I lived.
The guilt was in my ability to heal when others couldn’t, so that’s a very distinct difference.
It may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but when it comes to resolving trauma making that distinction is crucial.
We as human beings have a natural tendency to compare our experiences with other people. And when it comes to trauma I encourage everybody to avoid the urge to do that.
Years ago when I started speaking.
The very common response I would get after a talk. If somebody will come up to me they will be hit by the talk in a positive way. But they will start their conversations by saying you know Josh I haven’t been through anything you’ve been through but and then they tell their experiences.
But this is precisely what we wanna try to avoid.
The point is when I start to compare myself with other people. I am almost minimizing my own experiences and my pain.
You don’t need to be resurrected from the dead to be in pain. For all of us healing is a journey never a fixed point in time.
When it comes to integrating these experiences into our lives. While it’s crucial to depend on the support of those around us in difficult times. It’s a very internal journey it’s a very internal process and that’s needed because. All of us are different.
All of us have been raised differently.
Trauma’s very cumulative.
What I mean by the accumulative effect of trauma is when we move forward in our lives without resolving or integrating past traumatic experiences, it’s almost like we’re trying to build a house on a cracked foundation.
We don’t necessarily know that there’s a crack there at first.
But the more that we continue to build upon that house without repairing the crack.
We never really know what type of experience or situation is going to cause it to collapse one day even if it’s something insignificant or seemingly insignificant on the surface.
So regardless of how we’re responding to the present moment.
There’s usually much more behind it than what’s in front of us.
The process here is being able to do that investigative work into our past lives to understand.
Not to fault not to blame, not to make excuses, but simply to understand why we’re responding the way we are in the present moment.
And that knowledge when it’s integrated can give us the power to transform and to move forward.
There is no amount you must suffer to have permission to heal.
If you have pain, you deserve to heal. If you have anger or guilt from the past, you deserve to heal. If you are protecting yourself from past pain in ways that are causing you, even more, pain in the present, you deserve to heal.
Yes, there will always be a greater horror story. But your loss is not negated by someone else’s.
You deserve to heal.
The thirteenth issue is released today click here to learn more, not for everyone, it’s to those who believe they will enjoy their lives despite that it’s bad, it’s calamit we live to fight another day.
Until next Tuesday.
— Joel
P.S.
I run a community called Buibui. It’s a community that gives the courage to speak up to the horror-stricken. Extending options to survivors. Benefiting the outcast. Shelter to the hushed, ignored and oppressed. Not a perfect community but a home. If you’re looking to support a community like this. Consider paying $7.99 per month and joining the community. You get extra features. But the community stays free for everyone else. Click here to learn more.
Did I have panic attacks for no reason?
“It looks like your son’s having a heart attack”. These were the words I heard from the paramedic as he spoke quietly to my parents while I lay across our sofa, frightened and afraid. It’s hard to convey what it feels like to have a panic attack to someone who’s never experienced them before. It might sound completely illogical to think that you are about to die, when in fact you’re not in any real physical danger whatsoever. However, if you’re the person to whom it’s happening, it’s exactly what runs through your mind at that moment. It makes logical sense that something is about to go wrong, and you are on your way to meeting your fate.
Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Symptoms: A Day in My Life
I wake up and feel like my entire body has been hit by a bus. My muscles are stiff and sore, and quite frankly I can’t be faked to move. My head is fuzzy, the never-ending hangover continues and my joints click, cluck and crack beneath my feet. My eyesight is a little less blurry today, hallah bloody fucking looyah. The pressure in my head and ears is pretty intense. It sounds the sea is swirling in my right ear, swooooooooooosh swoooooosh. My jaw is in fuking agony.
Six wisdom on how to be a person
In this commencement speech, given on December 18th, 1988 at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Nobel-prize winning poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky, shares 6 kernels of wisdom on how to be a person in the world. The speech is included in the 1997 collection On Grief and Reason: Essays by Joseph Brodsky.
Quote
“My approach to what I do in my job…and it might even be the approach to my life…is that everything I do is the most important thing I do. Whether it’s a play or the next film. It is the most important thing. I know it’s not going to be the most important thing, and it might not be close to being the best, but I have to make it the most important thing. That means I will be ambitious with my job and not with my career. That’s a very big difference…because if I’m ambitious with my career, everything I do now is just stepping-stones leading to something…a goal I might never reach, and so everything will be disappointing. But if I make everything important, then eventually it will become a career. Big or small, we don’t know. But at least everything was important.”
— Mads Mikkelsen
What is Buibui?
Buibui is where the conversations from Beyourself publication are taken further — with in-depth stories with some of the beyourself authors, more personal stories, and relevant courses for Beyourself readers. Brought to you by the same people behind beyourself publication. Will you give it a try today and read from there too? Click here to head there
Disclaimer
The Note — is a manageable selection (3 items) of engaging, practical, and personal stories that make your day a little more pleasant.
Unless marked as sponsor/advertiser, I do not receive compensation for any of my recommendations.
Hi, I’m Joel. I write this letter to you every Tuesday. My goal with this simple letter is to present you by way of email. A manageable selection of engaging, practical, and personal stories that make your day a little more
