Healing Feels Weird

Hello Friends:

We all want to heal, of course, however we individually define that term.  But as you may know from personal experience, or the reports of a friend, healing can feel ... weird.

The post yesterday on one of the regular sites I visit for PTSD was Can We Plan for Healing PTSD?   The issue in question for that post was - healing can be strange, so how we can anticipate and plan for it so that we have a smoother transition?  This reminded me of a few things I've read recently about the out-of-kilter feelings that healing can bring.

From my perspective, this sort of parses into three different issues, which I think are all related.  The first is that healing itself feels different and therefore weird.  Nothing feels 'right' even though you may now feel 'right' for the first time.  The second issue is that fear of 'losing' the healing.  We might not know how it was we really started feeling better, anyway, so what's stopping it from going away?  Third issue is the identity crisis.  We often identify ourselves with our feelings and our experience.  So if I'm not the person feeling angsty all the time, then who am I?  

In Prozac Diary, the author Lauren Slater recounts her early experiences with the drug.  The sense of things feeling more right, and therefore 'wrong'.  She says to her doctor, "I don't feel like me.  I mean, I feel more like me in some ways and less like me in others.  I'm scared.  I'm really worried."  I resonate with that sentiment.  I now have transient times of calm and peace.  Which last until I realize I'm not worried about anything.  But that's too weird.  Feels wrong.  So even though I don't want to, I immediately spin my wheels looking for something else to worry about.  Shouldn't I worry about something?  I'm always worried about something.  Apparently I don't know how to ground myself without worry.

The 'fear of losing the healing' thing is one of my favorite anxieties.  Or at least it should be if statistics alone determined 'favorite'.  The author of the post above, from Heal My PTSD writes, "I didn’t believe this relief would last. I expected it to go away at any minute. I waited for it to abandon me."  Yep.  Whenever I am happy in any way, I have to stop and try to figure out WHY.  I need to know what caused it, and how I can keep it.  Which is folly, since nothing lasts forever, and a lot of the time there is no 'reason' we are happy.  Like any emotion which can come and go, sometimes you are happy or not and you have no idea what's going on.  Also, if you haven't been happy much, the feeling of happy is like a drug shot right in the vein.  Wow.  The need to grasp it and hang on to it is intense, and so with it the fear that it'll slip away.  Which is exactly what it does when you start obsessing about it ...

As for identity.  I've seen myself as a combination of the tortured artist who 'feels deeply' and the crazy-clever scientist who 'knows things'.  I learned how to use some of that mangled and crazy energy to produce writing and work.  Well, some of those feelings are gone now.  I just don't feel quite so drama-queen anymore.  Again to Prozac Diary, where the author asks, "Do you think (Prozac) can take away your creativity?"  I happen to think the answer to that is no - I've been plenty creative since I've been coming through this last depressive episode.  But the tenor has changed; the nature of the creative urge.  I'm not very tortured or crazy right now, and so who am I, exactly?  Tortured artist is cool.  Occasionally put-out or moderately miffed artist is not so very cool.

So this brings me to my point.  I think.  (Did I have a point?)

What I think it means (at least for me) is that there is, in fact, some grieving of past self to be done here.  Oddly, I think I'm actually sad for those parts of me I've managed to heal.  In order to make the continued journey on the healing path less scary for myself, I need to acknowledge that I need to grieve for what's gone.  For example, I need to accept that I can't be a tortured and bleeding artist at the same time I'm a balanced and mindful meditator filled with equanimity.  Doesn't mean I can't make good art anymore, but it does mean I have to find new avenues for channeling my creative energies other than a downpour of emotional screed in the form of ink on a page.  So I need to grieve that loss.  The requirement for that change.  The need for that adjustment.

But as I've said before, change is good.  I love change.  Something new and different.  I'm a little tired of constantly unearthing new things to grieve about, but I suppose the act of doing that at all is already a change for the better.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image is 'Hand to the Ether' from Orin Zabest on flikr via Creative Commons.