Welcome to day one away from the comfy frozenness of the castle in the lovely tropics. To say that this was an easy journey, it is not. PTSD doesn’t pack well and landing in a country where you have a somewhat aversion to the spoken language, because your rapist spoke it, is a tough bug. I am however endeavoring to persevere. All in all I am not to doing poorly, but then booze helps. I know that sounds super unhealthy and maybe it is, but what is the picture of health?
In the whole process I thought I would try mindfulness. The hubby doesn’t always travel well so traveling for nursie poo is a double whammy. Add part 3, no little red nose pibbers (also fuck Micheal Vick I have had to look at all the abuse again with him being some big time football heeeero again) to guide me through this and you have a recipe for disaster. No, he’s fine but I think he and daddy miss each other about as much. Well, back to mindfulness, and I realized why people I have talked about using it to have looked at me like I am fucking high. Sure its easy until the stress hits high levels and then…boom you explode or shut down. I just shut down.
The concept of mindfulness is wonderful, ya know being in the present, but it can be very tough when put to stress (I don’t give a rats ass what a therapist has to say about it, it is). Vets have a tough time with it since we really aren’t usually wired that way (go figure).
In all I have managed and that is a small triumph but not through mindfulness, cognitive process therapy, or even immersion therapy tricks. I really think I hodgepodged it together and threw in some tequila, lime juice, and made it work.
Visiting a foreign country is always an experience. Its funny to meet genuine people with genuine lives doing their day to day thing and realizing just that, it is their daily gig. I think that (taken from mindfulness in a away) is how I am managing being present at the moment and hell that is ok. The people here in Cozumel have been very gracious and genuine it is easy to feel this way with people when you aren’t surrounded by Karens.
Ok what does this have to do with anything? Well PTSD is a shitty travel companion. Imagine leaving your normal comfy environment where you know all the threats are, you know what to avoid, and you have real tools there to help and dumped in an environment where you have nary a clue, looks a lot like a middle eastern city, and now go and “relax and have fun.” My startle reflex doubled and my hyperarousal is at feaking DEFCON (holy shit) just from going to the store with my hubby and mother in law. This has started to ease and I am hoping it will normalize before I head home. Am I being a drama queen? Probably and I know I am exaggerating (more to make a point than anything else). It is rough to assume how someone with PTSD will react to travelling. For someone with PTSD it is often the assumption “it is vacation” and things should be fine…and they can be just that, until they are not.
What do you do about it? Well dragging a companion with PTSD is a daunting task. The honest truth is that sometimes you have to congratulate them on the little victories of getting up, getting out, talking to strange people, and watching for signs of decompensation. Bottom line dude or dudette you went to a war zone, you can survive and enjoy this too with care.
I climbed a personal hill for this trip I am on (no I don’t want a cookie) and I have been working on this very hard for my hubby who really needed his time away from his stress, and I really need to put this behind me. So sheer will and some cocktails are holding on to this.
The sun is nice, the water is warm and there are Christmas decorations on the palm trees and Christmas carols in the lobby of the hotel (freaks with your melon). Oh well thanks for listening to this part. Tomorrow I will tell you a fun place I visited called the Pharmacia and why you are a bad person for coming to Mexico just to go there.
Anyhow be the kind of person your dog and mom hope you are.