An update on the last entry I wrote in here - that uncomfortable state only lasted for a couple of days, and in the past month and a half I've come to terms with this new way of existing. I've been able to find a comfortable compromise between the old and new. It's been particularly interesting bringing the changes into my dancing. Turns are a completely different creature than they were two months ago, as I learn how to keep the line of my body directly over my foot throughout a turn instead of falling in without realizing it.
The other new realization I'm figuring out right now is that I do, in fact, have some form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Granted, I have not gotten an official diagnosis from a professional, but there's really no doubt in my mind that it's what is what going on. The idea first showed up near the end of last segment when my mom suggested that I might have it. I kind of blew off the possibility at first, but I asked a friend of mine who has been diagnosed with quite severe PTSD what she thought anyway. She suggested I read Peter Levine's Waking the Tiger to help me figure it out and for my mom to read as an explanation of why conventional therapy might not help me right now.
I spent a few afternoons last week reading that book, and yep, it's true. I do have a minor case of PTSD. I related very easily to Levine's explanations of how the human brain and body react to traumatic events, how that reaction can manifest as symptoms, and what can be done to help those symptoms. Basically, Levine says that while an animal can literally shake off the energy burst that happens during a traumatic event, humans can get stuck in the emotion of the event and are not always able to have the energy release needed to go back to regular life. This can result in any number of things - panic attacks, denial of the event or the importance of the event, dissociation from regular life, anger problems... The list goes on for a long time. Levine's way of finding a way around those symptoms is to let that energy release happen that did not occur at the time of the event.
Translation? In my case, each of the breakdowns I've gone through in class has been a piece of that energy release. Each time, I learn more about what happened to me when I was 11 and how I respond to it emotionally as something lets go physically. The more I think about it, the more situations I can remember where a bit of that energy release has happened.
Letting go, particularly of control of my body, scares me. It's good to have a context to put that fear in. I'm also realizing why "Let Go" by Frou Frou grabbed me so hard the first time I heard it, although I couldn't figure it out then. Ignore the video, just listen to the song. In case you can't understand the words, here are lyrics. That is someone's mind trying to overcome my version of PTSD.
