It Was All Grey

COVID times where difficult for everyone. For me it was a time of trauma and trauma resolution. As defined by the American Psychological Association trauma is,

 

(Get used to the definitions...I find beauty and understanding in them.) 

 I was like a frog in a warming pot of water. I had witnessed so many unjust and awful things happened during this time. It seemed as if the good in my world had slowly vanished. People would ask me how was work? At the time I worked COVID ICU. I started flat out lying because everything I said was morbid and depressing. But the reality of what I saw was morbid and depressing, every patient had their own heart breaking story and I witnessed them.

I didn't realize how broken down I was. How hurt I had been. Until one day out riding my horse. 

It was probably what you would call a beautiful day, a little windy but it was supposed to be beautiful. There was an anxiousness in the air. Maybe even a fear that I couldn't explain. I ignored the anger I felt in the wind and saddled up as a thing of routine. There was little emotion in my soul. Numbness had slowly creeped in over the last two years. So what did the anger in the wind mean? Nothing, I didn't recognize it to mean anything. I ignored the wind as if it wasn't even there. 

I gripped the rains and swung my leg over my horses back and planted myself in the saddle. A place that was always so comfortable was now foreign. I stood and shook the saddle into place, that ought to fix the problem -yes, I really thought that would do it. I then gave my horse Z a soft nudge and set off down the road. 

She was excited. She loves to go, to move. She danced down the side of the road, stopping occasionally to eat some grass. I should have looked at her and smiled. This was what she loved. This was what I was supposed to love. What I did love. So she danced. But I just braced myself for the fall. 

What fall? I had no idea, but I was sure it was coming. Everything always fell. I had experienced the worst outcome so many times and that's all I expected. So I road my trusty horse, but did not trust a singe footstep, even though she never missed a step. 

 Anxiety was over taking me, but nothing had changed. Only that I knew I was supposed to be having fun doing my favorite thing. So I sat in my saddle, took some deep breaths and tried to relax into my ride. I tried to feel Z, like I had so many times before, but I was devoid of feeling. 

I began to get frustrated with myself that I could not feel her beneath me. She was magnificent. My companion her whole life. We were a team. She was the one who caught my tears on bad days in college or soothed my new nurse heart after my first couple grueling night shifts on my own after my orientation. The one that helped heal my heart after my first patient that coded. I knew she was still there for me. That's who these Egyptian Arabians are. They are their for their rider. It's been that way for generations. But where was I that I couldn't feel her loyalty anymore? This was my first clue. I knew what I was supposed to be feeling, but I couldn't feel anything at all.

I kept trying to sort myself out. I started trying to be mindful. The wind seemed angry. I'd never felt such an angry wind before. It wasn't that it was particularly strong or cold, but it was angry. I noticed the grass on the ground. Where Z placed her feet on the dirt road. At this point I was just hanging on forcing myself to trust her feet by the grit of my teeth-no she never took one bad step. The place I was riding was familiar, beautiful, and peaceful. A place I had found solace before. I looked up trying to find comfort in my surroundings. But as I looked around all I saw was gray. 

The mountains that were supposed to be dotted with green trees. Gray. The red cliffs that I had spent hours looking at because they are beautiful to me. Gray. The beautiful fields and farms, their beautiful green pastures and white fences. Gray. The sky was supposed to be crystal blue. Gray. The sun yellow warm and inviting. Gray. Gray. Gray

It was all gray. 

Nature was supposed to be a beautiful, healing, and peaceful place. Why did everything I saw look gray? Why was all I felt form the earth anger and anxiety? Why couldn't I feel my horse carrying me?

All at once I felt lost. I had lost all connection to the earth, to my horse, and to so many people around me. I had lost connection with God. The way I was living was incongruent with peace. Incongruent with the earth. Incongruent with the ways of God. It was if the conflict I felt between my soul and the world was a conflict with God and I had no idea how to get back to a place of peace. 

At that moment I finally started to feel the heat of the water around me. 

The next week I started therapy. I was not going to live in conflict of nature, or her God. I had to find peace in it all. I had to find peace no matter the cost. Even if that meant making peace with a God I had lost trust in. 

At the start of therapy I was diagnosed with PTSD and it was only then that I started to realize that I had not processed anything from the last two years. My relationship with God was broken and my heart was suffering from wounds that  had "healed" wrong and were festering, not just form the last two years, but from many overwhelming experiences I shoved under the rug. 

I'm grateful God opened my eyes that day. I don't know how others experience PTSD. I knew the symptoms, I'd heard about it, but the way I experienced it seemed different from my knowledge. I'm sure personal things are always different when experienced as opposed to being read about. As I dug deep into the soul work my therapist presented to me my view of trauma and my experiences changed. My opinion and understanding of who God was also changed, again. 

Stay tuned for Part 3.

If you are suffering mentally or emotionally I encourage you to find someone, a therapist, counselor, whoever you feel you can trust or help, to guide you. It is the hardest and the best work I've ever done. It was a painful journey taking my wounds that had healed incorrectly and festered to the master healer. Its an incredibly hard road but it is worth the journey. Keep in mind it's your journey and your healing. It's you that has to do the work. But you deserve peace. God has promised you peace. He is called the Master Healer for a reason. Peace and happiness are always worth the work, pain, and discomfort you might have to travel to get there. Again, stay tuned part three for more on this. 

This is part two in a series of posts. To find part one click here. BREAKING POINT