How are you?
A simple and genuine question, with such a complicated answer.
This morning out on our ritual constitutional with the dogs I noted that I was feeling pretty flat. Monosyllabic, a touch dismissive and most certainly not the best version of myself. I opted to mute, rather than react. I could feel that my patience was eager to depart at short notice and the brewing storm was ready to rain down.
As we walked, I tried searching for honest answers to simple questions, “how was the funeral”, “how are you feeling”, “what’s going on” and yet each time came up wanting, unable to express myself. It is worrying to both myself and my better half when I am short on emotional capability. Yet today, there was none attainable, it was a barren of enthusiasm and a plentitude of meh.
Finally, after an hour of very little meaningful chat, and the husband had comfortably ascertained that he wasn’t in any kind of dog box, we shuffled along resigned to the unusual peace and quiet, but enjoying the mutual solitude and sun warming our shoulders. We rounded our last corner, the home straight across the lagoon, through the creek, up the grassy knoll and towards our long, steep driveway. Typically, as we start to cross the grass next to the road, we put our little guy onto his leash, taking back control before the busy cars appear. Today, as our usual routines were a bit thwarted, we didn’t do it “as usual” and as I trailed behind I realised that Rua was off leash and next to the road and a car was about to fly past him. Instantly, panic rose in me and with zero capacity to reason it off, I found myself going from zero to one hundred in a split second. I turned myself around so I couldn’t see what was (in my mind) happening, as my husband calmly wrangled the dog back under control and out of harms way. Crisis averted, for both of them. Me, however, well, I was an entirely different story.
The unnamed feelings previously bubbling below the surface were now well and truly out and loud — I was a puddle, tears flowing down my face, arms crossed gently trying to self soothe and get a grip. A perfectly innocent situation in any other context or time, but for someone with PTSD, a layered emotional setting meeting a potential threat is like my polyester PJ’s meeting a match. It is hardly surprising that I combusted in that moment, and I am entirely grateful that my husband didn’t minimise me, but instead pulled me closer and held me whilst I let it all out where it needed to be. No longer pent up inside, but provided a release. I cried it out right there on the grass.
Only then was I able to socialise what was happening, both with myself and with Scottie. I acknowledged that I have PTSD from my last few years of crisis upon crisis and that 24 hours of difficult challenges were an understandable gateway to this moment in time. The previous day I had driven 4 hours from Blenheim to Christchurch, discovered on route that my body was suffering from a bacterial infection (transitioned through Kaikoura to get a mega dose of antibiotics), attended the memorial for Jake Millar, traversed a brief altercation with an ex husband situation, and then listened to the bravest mother you could ever imagine, stand up and talk about how much she’s going to miss her beautiful soul of a son, who quite frankly was too young to be shamed into thinking he shouldn’t be here anymore. By day end, I just wanted to be home, so rather than stay the night in Christchurch, I made the pilgrimage back to Piha and to the safety and warmth of my own bed.
Pre Covid, these things would have been manageable and I would have been more capable. I miss being 100% capable all of the time. But in a “post Long Covid” world, my operating system has changed. When I am asked “how are you” nowadays, I respond with a simple, “good, thanks” and usually that’s 95% true — typically I am well enough to enjoy a normal life. Exercise is back on the agenda in small doses, sleep is better than it was and whilst I feel a bit too inflamed and creaky currently (getting out of chairs I still look like I’m 70), I know part of the answer is to stop allowing errant gluten into my life and cut out every single bit of sugar and it will come right again (easier said than done, I might add).
The one “lingering” aspect is the PTSD. It has led to a type of hyper vigilance that means I startle easily. You could be standing in front of me, telling me very clearly that you’re about to make a loud noise, and then when you do it, whilst I am watching you prepared for it, my body still reacts as though you pulled a tight prank off. It is tiring constantly reacting to everything around me and try as I might, I can’t seem to ‘just stop it’. Whilst it’s “in my head”, it’s not just “in my head” and I remind people often that we have to be super careful not to invalidate the real trauma of those who have experienced the long covid realities and the impact it has on their neurological pathways. Saying something is psychological, doesn’t mean you have access to turn it on or off as you please.
I have hope it will improve, and like many I have taken on a number of approaches to calm the farm and give myself space to heal. Sometimes it gets so much better that I don’t think it’s affecting me at all anymore, and then other times it feels like it’s right back at the beginning and I have to slowly step myself through my programme to a better space. Knowing that we’re all about to be hit with omicron doesn’t help one little bit, being prepared helps a touch, but mostly I have to check out and not engage in discussion. It doesn’t help turning up to things and the one thing people want to ask me is “how are you”; a clearly loaded question that should really be the simplest of greetings on any other ordinary day, time and non pandemic situation. People mean well, I know they care and I am appreciative of the check-in.
But here we are and we do what can do, with what we have. I am trying to turn up authentically and use words when I can to explain the very real humanness of the condition I am experiencing, without gaslighting myself or sending myself to the worst case scenario. Simply taking each step and day as it comes, letting myself off the hook when it’s all a bit much, allowing the tears out when necessary (and oh the sweet release when it happens, almost like a reset in my brain), taking the meditative moments to rebuild my strength, comforting others and providing support when I feel capable of it and opting out of the constant stream of news and connectivity that threatens to load me up again.
Isn’t traversing the world and how we show up in it, such a tight rope to navigate now? It can be exhausting and it’s when it feels that way that I become ever more mindful to look where I step. But look I must, without over analysing, nor ignoring what’s clearly in front of me. In the simplest of forms, it is has forced me to take it day by day and I can’t help but feel that’s exactly what we’re all being asked to do; to simplify our approaches and take care, looking out for each and being kind to ourselves. When all of the silver linings are collected and counted, this one will be a useful one going forward to keep doing. I may on occasion yearn for the way it or I was, but equally I acknowledge that each experience here on PE is made for me to learn more about me.
So, I lean into that. We’re not made to keep quiet about our pain; we need connection to overcome the self isolation that comes with trauma. I look back at generations before us and can see clearly how we ended up with a silent one, unable to use their words to escape their enormous pain that came from extraordinary events (the impact of war is mind boggling to me). We don’t have to be that way any more given we have built so many more ways for us to express ourselves in the modern world. Whilst it can be deeply uncomfortable at times and not everyone will react how you might want them to (they too have their own journeys, some may not be ready for your vulnerability), it is vital to our futures that we embrace and accept the things that have happened to us (or because of us) to keep moving forward. There’s no “getting over it”, there is only “getting through it”; understanding the impact it has had on us and allowing us a way to grow in spite of it (growth can be through trauma too) and get up again in the morning (metaphorically speaking sometimes) again in spite of our wounds.
Showing up with authenticity and vulnerability. That’s really all I ask of myself. I don’t ask myself to change, I accept that change has happened.
