[In an effort to use FB more for socializing and my blog more for my writings on my life, I am copying old content from there to here with the title prefix "Archive:". This was originally posted to FB on 19 November 2018.]
Postcard from Walkabout
For the past few months my state has had a high day-to-day variance, but usually I could detect slight improvements, baby steps, in the averages when I've looked back over about a two week period. There are always so many variables that I can't separate them. Which things are really helping? Are any of them really helping? Did one thing get fixed a while ago, and I'm simply healing regardless of continued effort? Am I just climbing a staircase of placebos?
Lately I've been hiding far away from California. My instinct was telling me that I wasn't going to complete healing there. Viewing that environment from over here, I can more clearly make out a baseline level of alarm: the problems of our world are all so real there. My empathy for the moral urgency around me keeps me constantly in a state of stress and fear, which, over time, inflames my trauma and excites my demons. (I wrote this paragraph before the fires started.)
A large piece of my life is in California, so I'll surely have to learn how to function within such an environment, and doing so is one of the aspects of my future that I'm most nervous about. If I believe that the work I've been doing has indeed been responsible for my improvement, then I should suspect that the continuation of this work should provide some defense of my sense of proportion against this Californian onslaught. But is such success attainable? Is it sustainable? Surely sometimes I slip, or lose steam; what would the consequences be?
In other news, in the last few days have I felt like my triggers are manageable enough that it's safe to catch up on Internets. Predictably, I've binged on news, FB, and Wikipedia, just like old times. It is as if my mind were a great mansion that had been locked down due to roving monsters, and I, having stayed in one or two rooms for safety, were finally wandering about and opening doors and turning on lights. The monsters seem smaller now when I encounter them. But they're still a drag, so I'm trying to put the brakes on my media consumption again.
Daydreaming about my career, what really speaks to me is a high-end emotional labor consultancy. Somewhere between a therapist and a chaplain and a management consultant. I come in and get to know your situation intimately, and I advise you on how to think about it and how to find healthy ways forward. This could involve getting to know a team and creating good communication and empathy patterns. Or it could be individual coaching, or bringing someone on an emotionally educational journey. Or it could be helping disconnected groups coordinate on a solution plan to a complex problem. To be clarified by trial and error, and I'm also seeking guidance, but the hardest part is getting my foot in the door. What I like about this idea is that in it I'm being paid to promote my values.
That's what's ready for sharing this time. Yall keep your masks on, ya hear?