PTS

Without the D?

I had the pleasure of meeting Rachel Rae Assana when I was serving in Indonesia. (https://linktr.ee/erotic.earth.embodiment?fbclid=IwAR0mqHdjkE08F22PA1es3qK_UJZLBpxg8pV_fS1cK8mPEthJIrhsS8U2FIU)

She does some pretty amazing somatic trauma healing work. You all should check her out and follow her.

I read the following on her Instagram post and started to think about the role of trauma in our lives, those of us with PTSD.

She asked: “What if the D is totally irrelevant? Because your experience isn’t a disorder, it’s a reality. It’s a natural process of what your body is moving through, based on what it’s been through… It’s actually what a body should be doing under these circumstances.”

Wow. Shit. Indeed.

It humbled me and inspired me, as I am a rhetorician and I think about the meanings and connotations and associations of words, a lot. I never thought about that.

But it made me pause, to consider—

Why do we think of PTSD as a disorder?

To label me or myself as having a disorder is pretty astounding and perhaps to pathologize in an incorrect way, to put it on the wrong person.

Isn’t it more the disorder(s) that my family members had? That affected me? Isn’t my horror and trauma that two members of my family died at their own hands a perfectly reasonable response to such tragedies and life events?

Rather, would I not be a sociopath and unable to feel if that didn’t phase me in some major, embodied, trauma-induced way?

As Rae points out, isn’t this label gaslighting yourself? To be kind of mean and bully yourself?

And in my case, to hope for some impossible and un-human response to my story and my family’s tragedies?

None of this is to say we shouldn’t work towards healing and help with addressing our grief and trauma. Not the point. This is not the be-all, end-all of the conversation.

However, I appreciate Rae’s insight as it helps me to take another more step to extending kindness, love and gentleness with myself, given what I’ve been through, acknowledging my body and mind’s physiological response to it.

I don’t have a disorder. I may have trauma, but it’s understandable. It’s post-stress trauma, but I am working to heal.

Especially now, in the light of a break up and more trauma, I own my power, coming into myself, embracing my own experiences and story.

And I give myself the space to grieve, to set with my trauma and to allow it to be.

In doing so, I invite my body to cooperate with itself rather than fighting or labeling or judging myself. I will absorb the trauma and move from it. Or at least, find a better way to carry it.

I am treating myself more kindly on my journey.

I am gaining my voice and starting to own my power and… I’m amazed by what I have endured and excited by who I am becoming.

In claiming this, aren’t I empowering myself and re-establishing agency?

Post-stress trauma. Fuck yeah, Rae.