Tag: Mental health

Happiness “my #1wordpoem for me”

Happiness is now, not just a word

it is not a far away place

somewhere in no one’s land

happiness is now, a concept that makes perfect sense

it is attainable and it has always meant

to be the state we live in

from moment to moment

happiness resides now, in my soul

it lives in all the little nooks and crannies

left from all the broken pieces

that have now been glued back together

and the mosaic

is bright,

colorful

trimmed in gold

in the places where trauma left it’s hole

happiness lives and dances in all of my dreams

all of my expectations are of happy everything

I swear I never thought I could exist

in a state of happiness

from moment to moment

I am not going to lie

I have my moments when I remember and I get sad

but I now know

how to not let the moments last

I honor my soul’s brave journey

if tears are in order I respectfully cry

but even in the memories I will be alright

cause I know that I now live in the light

this light that I can intentionally share

I am not looking for anything out there

because healing has brought me

to knowing my own worth

I truly love me and am okay with self

it feels wonderful to just be

and breath in peace

knowing that happiness

is always available to me

and now I don’t have drudge through shit

to see that if I live moment to moment

happiness is free

my one word poem for myself mozayik “the souls’ poet”

Group Therapy

it is, has been and always will be the words that save us,

all of us,

any of us can be affected

by words we speak and the ones spoken to us

I love them so much

with out the words we would not be able to create new realities for ourselves

all of us are essentially the sum total of words we have thought, spoken, written or heard and seen

 

I heard some words on Sunday that changed my whole perspective

it had a ripple affect

I called my mother and our words helped us heal and reconnect,

but that phone call was the result of many words

along this journey to healing

words have taught me about myself and the world around me

words have shown me where the pathology is rooted

words have given me solutions and testimonies of others

words have inspired courage to continue working on healing

even when the words were to traumatizing to be spoken

except in the heart and mind

 

words have been gleaned from my sisters

the ones that have chosen to share this part of our journey together

we have spoken the words that have healed and supported

our words have been used to say “I feel you sister”

sometimes those words were spoken with a nod of the head

or a look in the eyes with tears as the only evidence of words

that say, I understand

 

I will miss my sisters, we have changed together right here in this room

thank you for using your words to help me grow, heal and know I am never alone

there are women who really understand my pain and that heals us all on a lot of levels

let us please continue to use our word to heal

I have been in group therapy since January for childhood sexual abuse.  We have only a couple of weeks left.  It has been nothing less than grueling WORK.  I am blessed to be a part of a group of women sincerely dedicated to healing and moving on to inspire others to heal.

I will miss us and the place we shared the deepest parts of ourselves that had been buried.  I am grateful for the safe place at the YWCA Women’s Resource Center.  I cant find the words to express my appreciation for the support and guidance received at the center not just from my individual therapist but also for my group therapy facilitator.  The biggest contribution to my personal healing though, are the women who were brave and courageous enough to share their words with me through telling their painful  stories and their deliberate commitment to healing.

It has been worth it, we are better.  We did it and it is one of the most loving things we have done for ourselves and those that are watching and cheering us on so they can believe in the trans-formative power of Understanding self.

It is healing time

I have taken the time to be still.  In the silence I commune with God.  My love for self-motivates me to take my healing to the next level.  I am not afraid.  I have lived all these years in a prison of fear and now that I have an opportunity to be free, I am going to choose Love.  I am reminded of the words from that old gospel song “I have come to far from where I started from.  Nobody told me that the road would be easy, but I don’t believe “She” brought me this far to leave me.”
I have worked hard and it really is showing.  I hear it from those that know and love me that they see a definite change for the better in how I show up in the world now.  I feel better.  My therapist has helped me navigate through things I thought I would never be able to do, but I did.  I will make it through to the other side.

“healing time”
my soul may be a little weary
my eyes are tired of crying
i still know i have what it takes to keep on fighting
when i look to the left
or even on my right
it appears it is just me
but i feel the presence of my ancestors
telling me
weep in the night
but don’t give up
trust
the law says
you will have a season of reaping
what has been sown
now it is the season for healing
be still
until
you have grown
“whatever it takes to make it, I am going all the way, I may be down sometimes, but I won’t be down always”  

mozayik “the souls’ poet”

A letter to survivors (originally posted 4/2014)

If you had told me that I would I be living this free two years ago, I would not have believed you. Two years ago, events happened that triggered my healing. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is a result of surviving childhood sexual abuse, abandonment, neglect, and rape before the age of five. Five is the age of the first rape memory at the hands of my mothers’ boyfriend.

Writing saved my life. Words were my saviors. This is why I am compelled to tell my story. I do not tell it to gain pity or fame. I tell it because I was born to tell it. So I tell. Everywhere I go I tell.

I want to tell my story of PTSD because most of us do not know what that looks like on an African American girl or woman. The number is many but until we start talking about it, most will suffer in silence, and ignorance. The majority will be miss-diagnosed with a mental illness or written off as just an angry black woman.

Be clear that PTSD is not a mental illness. It is how I respond to stressors in life after some trauma. My brain is wired differently, when it comes to how my body and mind react to stress. Knowledge about this disorder has been the single most important piece of my healing outside of my willingness to heal and therapy. I was able to function in society but the evidence showed up as “angry black woman”. I married, had children, went to school, worked, and to some had a pretty good life but PTSD affected everything. I will talk more about it in my book.

The story was telling me. I was angry and spiteful. Guarded was the aura I wore. I had to wear a mask that made you want to stay away from me. It served me well as a child but, as an adult, it robbed me of everything good. As a child, it kept me safe. If I came across as angry and hard then you could not interact with me. You just left me alone and that was how I controlled my environment. Of course, all of what I know about how I used to be is the result of a lot of therapy and my soul’s persistence to heal itself. I say used to because I have worked hard to change. I am not that woman any longer.

I am who I always knew I could be. I did not have the tools to let her live but I always knew there was a beautiful sweet woman inside of me.

I want to tell you, whoever may be reading this and experienced similar trauma that you can make it. You are a survivor and you will thrive. I know you feel like you will never be happy. I know you feel the weight of all that has happened to you. You get tired of trying to be happy. I know you are tired of people telling you to “get over it”. I know you want to be over it so badly it hurts.

You may have even learned, as I did, to give the appearance that you are okay. Believe me I know that feeling of being two different people. You have the functional face and energy that has served to get you through until this day. However, you also have that little child inside that needs nurturing. She needs rescuing and you know you are the only one to save her but you feel like you don’t have enough to even save yourself. I am telling you that you can and will heal.

It really does get better. Like I say in my poem “survivor” whatever it took to get you through until this day, it will take you further. You are not what you are feeling. You are strong and courageous. If you are reading these words that means you survived and now you can choose to do the work and start to thrive. https://thesoulspoet.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/survivor/

I know it f***ing sucks that you have to heal yourself. You did not do this shit to yourself. I look at it like this I had two choices. I could stay in pain or I could heal. Either way, I am in pain. So, I told myself if others said they made it over to the other side of healing then I am going to try it. It is true that the day will come when healing is the only choice you really have because the alternative has become unbearable. Trust that your body and mind know when the time is right. If you are suffering, it is time.

The most loving thing I have ever done for myself is do my work in therapy. I swear there have been days when the fear of healing took my breath away. My mind hid those things away to protect me until I could fully comprehend what happened and go through the healing process.

It has really become a spiritual journey for me because I know that my personality is only the tool my soul uses to heal itself and everything that has happened to me was for the elevation of my soul. Looking at it in this manner does not lessen the pain it just helps me to accept it as a necessary part of my journey. I hope my words have helped. My purpose is to use my words to help.

Mozayik “the souls’ poet”

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ample example

how do your grieve without being sad

when your tears are all you have

the people who say they love you

have suffered long

their limit is full

healing the mind and repairing the soul

take a lot of tears and screams from your soul

i can only give you my example

for you it may not be ample

but this is my journey

and this how i have chosen

to purge my psyche and make whole my soul

by mozayik “the souls’ poet”

I was feeling kind of sad today for many reasons and beating up on myself about this down mood.  I have committed to healing from my childhood trauma so I can’t expect it not to hurt.  My best friend told me today that anybody would be angry about what happened.

This all came up while trying to complete my homework given to me by my therapist.  I am to write about one incident of rape.  I had no ideal it would bring up so much emotion.

I just dont want to be the victim.  I dont want to be stuck in the cycle of victim thinking.  I survived, but that does not change that fact that I am pissed that I have relive this shit again just to be done with it.  It feels like rape all over again.
Unfortunately that is the purpose of therapy.  I have to process those emotions that were pressed deep inside me over and over for decades.

Now is when my mind and body have chosen to heal itself and I am grateful.  As a child I had no frame of reference to deal with this, but I have all the support that is required to navigate through it, so I know it will be okay.
So the most loving thing I can do for myself today is to be proud of my courage to heal.  I am brave enough to move forward towards a more healthy mind, body and spirit.  It may not be what others would do, but this is what is needed on my journey.  Only I get to decide what road I must travel and in what vehicle.  My destination is Whole.

ramble #1011

Today is one of those days where madness comes to taunt me saying “it is too hard, too heavy, not enough of whatever is needed. You just do not have it and although you are giving your best, your best is not enough. I have been spending a lot of effort to not think about the trauma and the apathy of the adults around me, some of them had to have known.

I am giving my best today.

I am deciding to not take it personal.

I will not assume.

I will be impeccable with my words to myself.

I realize that the words I use to deflate and destroy my positive energy can be replaced with words that inflate and build or repair my positive energy or my soul or my highest good or my renewing of my mind, or my positive affirmations’, or whatever you want to call telling the past to go the hell back where it came from.

Because today, now, I am okay, I am enough, I have given my best, and I realize none of it is personal because we all have our own custom-made teaching experiences. It only means our souls have agreed to cross paths to hopefully help each to evolve to another level spiritually.

I cannot assume and it is not because my thinking is dysfunctional it is because it is never wise to assume without asking questions to avoid misunderstandings.

My real challenge is the words, the words I use to talk to me, the words I use to talk to my friends, the words all have to be on one accord, then I will be empowered to change. #isaidit

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Emotional Boundaries? Girl,I am doing my work!

It has been a while since my last post. I have been putting my mental and physical health first. I seek to be whole. I am ready for truth. I await my teachers. Bring me my answers, show me how to go in and bring out the gift. This is my prayer.

I have been reflecting because my homework from my therapist is for me to look at my emotional and physical boundaries. All of my relationships with men and women have been abusive in some way, except for maybe two, and those two people are still a part of my life.

I am asking myself some hard questions lately. Why do I partner with abusive people? Why do I partner with people who need me to take care of them? I am seeing the patterns. I am committed to taking the time and energy to do what is necessary to change my thinking so I make better choices. My relationships have not been healthy but that does not mean future relationships are doomed to be a repeat of the past, especially if I do the work.

So much has happened since my last blog post. This journey is mine uniquely. Others may have been able to endure what I have and not be as affected. Others still, did not survive and have severe mental illness, addictions or have committed suicide. We do not know why some are affected more or less than others.

I have given up feeling guilty because it appears to have been harder for me than someone else “getting over it”. We all have own limits. PTSD is Post/After Trauma Stress Disorder the very name describes a disorder in the way a person handles stress physiologically, psychologically and certainly emotionally get so tired of people saying, “Let it go, it happened so long ago, get over it, and move on”

I am now finally learning how to move on. I started taking care of people at the age of eleven. I married at 17, again at 25 and again at 38 along the way having twins and triplets. This is the first time in my life the only person I have to take care of is myself. Now is the perfect time to devote to “getting over” this. I am creating my best life. My likelihood of having a healthy, loving, and honest relationship increases every time I go to therapy even when my body is taunting me with pain.

Any way I may have digressed, I think one main reason that my partners turned out to be abusive, (they did not seem abusive in the beginning), is I do not have well established emotional boundaries. I never even considered this concept until my therapist brought it up.I am an open book and I was proud of it until now. Being too emotionally open has allowed people into parts of me they did not deserve access to. I gave them a map to my buttons by telling all of my darkest secrets and fears. All the things I felt guilty about or felt ashamed of were deliberately used to their advantage. Well, not anymore. I am a survivor. I always figure out the way through difficult situations.I am strong enough to write about the past and still live in the now.

I still have some work to do, but the hardest part is over. Now I can work on the side effects. The images, memories, and the feelings that accompanied them don’t take me hostage while robbing me of my breath.

I will definitely tell y’all about it when the time is right. But, it will be soon. I am now working on the final touches for the book. I have a feeling that now is the time to give my gift away to the world.

by mozayik “the souls’ poet”

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Repeat

you see I am holding on the best I can

but I don’t see you there extending

the hand that rubbed my body

and released it from pain

the hand you held out to me

has now changed

where it was smooth and healing

it is rough and cutting and cold

tearing my secrets apart

I have to take care of me

I was wrong to offer myself incomplete

I will go to make myself whole

but I know I wont need your hand anymore

I want and deserve more

I will never change you into what I need

you will forever let me chase and bleed

I am strong enough now

so go ahead take your bow

out of this, is what I need

if I am ever going to get back to me

I was born with what I need to take care of me

my biggest red flag should have been

“Baby, I want to take care of your every need.”

silly ole me

tired of the trickery

no longer able to see the difference

between me and we

again

here I am

with me

and I’ve learned the hard way

this is the safest place to be

ill be glad when I stop trying

to recreate what she

did to me when I was three

so off I go to therapy

by mozayik “the souls’ poet”

I am learning much about myself in therapy. I am looking at my patterns and why they are there. This therapy stuff is no joke if you really do the work.” I am doing my work” (in my Iyanla Vanzant voice). I go every Monday now since school started. I have not been able to really get into the Childhood Sexual Trauma therapy yet because I had to deal with my family crisis. My assignment this week is to take an event that was abusive and write about it. This is going to be hard because just talking about in therapy I started to hyperventilate, my heart started racing and I had pain in my chest. If this is what I need to do to stop repeating the same scenario in my life then I will do what needs to be done so I can have the healthiest relationships I can. Especially the one I have with self. I will keep y’all posted. I am finding my truth in therapy.

 

“Triggers” of PTSD

I must move forward.  Staying stuck in the past has not served me well.  It is a hard reality that all of your life you have been telling yourself lies about YOU.  I am doing CBT Cognitive Behavior Therapy and have learned that 90% of the negative shit I have been telling myself is absolutely not true.  My mind has been playing tricks on me but I have served it notice that we are doing some renovation.

It is grueling to monitor your thoughts after the fact.  Gleaning through every nook and cranny looking for a “trigger”.  It is like recreating an accident and walking through the steps to find out the point of impact.  The wreckage that has to be disposed of is my life and all the things I told myself I was not worthy enough to have.

I have choices.  I can continue as I always have and keep telling myself the same ole lies and getting the same result.  I can basically go insane, or I can love me enough to heal.  Even if healing means letting people go because allowing their presence in my life is actually self-abuse.  Even if it means I walk alone because others want to stay in darkness.  Sometimes in order to be whole we have to remove the diseased member.  I have realized that their presence in my life is why I have not healed.  I have been putting band-aids on an open wound.  And if the wound would heal in the least, I would reopen it with dysfunctional interactions with unhealthy people that have no intention of changing.

I know they will say I am being selfish and I am all about self-preservation only.  I let that guilt trip work for too many years.  If I do not preserve self, I will self-destruct.  I have no more energy for people that want to stay in denial.  I have no choice but to let them go.  I have to give up on the unrealistic dream of the big happy family.

I know what I need and it is time to stop pleading with those around me to understand or empathize.  Or even give me permission or support.  I know I am rambling.  This therapy stuff is rocking my world and shaking me to my core.  They say it will get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel so I hold on to that hope.

I want to say to people that have the audacity to say “just get over it” that if you only knew how badly I want to be over it you would weep for me.  PTSD is an insidious and horrific condition.  I am grateful for the knowledge and awareness I have about my condition, but I think about people (especially women) that are misdiagnosed or even unaware of why they act like they do.  I am starting to think that maybe part of my purpose in all of this is to be an advocate or educator.

To be honest with y’all I do not want to be the poster child for this or any of the other conditions I deal with on a daily, and sometimes moment-by-moment basis.  I just want PEACE in my MIND.  Ignorance is not bliss it is death.  TOO MANY PEOPLE DIE through either suicide or homicide.  Or, they die spiritually and just exist, going through the motions.  Others numb out with sex, drugs, food, or gambling.  It really does take courage to face your demons.

I would not be me if I did not think about others that suffer because our society does not understand all people really need is LOVE.  It is tragic that we have been conditioned to believe that serving others is a weakness.

Understanding of self leads to acceptance, which leads to compassion for others.  Thanks to whomever read my ramblings.  #iwasjustthinking

Hope……………………………………….

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I wont abandon me. (ptsd)

If y’all remember, I had to stop editing my book because of the memories and flash backs I encountered.  It was very puzzling to me that this was happening to me now.  I have worked on this book in some form for the last 12 years. So I wondered, why now?

I immediately found a therapist to help me cope and process the feelings that seemed so over whelming.

Along with the flashbacks and memories came intense emotions.  I would resist the feelings.  I would find distractions so I did not have to experience this stuff.  I had some events happen in my life that triggered my mind and body to relive one of the most traumatic experiences that happened when I was five.  I had not dealt with this in therapy because I had forgiven the people involved.

I learned I still have to process the emotions that are buried in my psyche.  Now is the time my body and mind have chosen to deal with this at this time in my life the only thing I have focus on is myself.  No more hiding behind children and spouses I am ready to create and reveal the life I deserve.

I am at a place where I can move forward to complete this book.  I am still in therapy dealing with my abandonment issues and working diligently to find  peace with the memories.  I am going to start a new page as I go through the process of dealing with these issues and how they have showed up in my behavior and my relationships.

I am striving towards healing to allow me to have more healthy relationships.  It is not something that can be dealt with quickly because i have learned that the mind will bring these memories and flashbacks to surface when i am ready to deal with them.  As i have learned the hard way, if i don’t deal with the feelings they will deal with me.

As i continue on my journey to healing and mental health and stability hopefully someone will be encouraged to start their own healing.

I promise the little girl in my that I will not abandon her and will stay with her for as long as it takes to learn how to live with PTSD.

Thank you for going on this journey of my soul with me.

 

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