[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 22 December 2018.]
A few days ago I returned to the Bay, optimistic after some good healing on the road, and since then I've experienced a roller coaster. The distance and resilience gained during my travel have allowed me to see more clearly than ever: my root problem is fear response on a biological level. It affects my body in many ways, from my posture, to my ability to handle sound and light, to the pain and dysfunction in my gut. And, my brain makes existentially frightful meanings and shitty dreams out of it.
Most of the fear is externally driven: interpreting world events as spinning out of control. Seeing how educating myself has empowered me to understand the train wrecks of the environment and American society in exquisite slow-motion detail, but left me powerless to change it. I have a powerful drive to make meaning in things and find empathy with them, with other people and with entire systems. It is too easy for me to form attachments to ways that things are. In addition to fearing a world where I am not safe, I fear the mourning to come.
I used to hold myself responsible, but I see that now as unnecessary self-flagellation. In general, I now understand on an intellectual level setting boundaries with the universe, and I can even accept it emotionally when the fear isn't active in my body, but it's hard otherwise.
Most other sub-issues and manifestations have been worked on successfully, to the degree that they are in the margins and manageable. If I can get the fear reaction to heal and return to normal levels, then I fully believe can manage the rest and live a reasonable life.
What has been helpful? Being outside the Bay, definitely, because so much of this helplessness about the world was learned here, and my body recognizes it. Avoiding media, when I've succeed in doing it, just letting myself be an ostrich, because I can't help what I see there. SSRIs, which we don't understand but we think it has something to do with serotonin levels in the amygdala. Mindfulness, especially vipassana, keeping some distance between me and the perceived realness of the thoughts my body extrapolates from the biological feeling, and putting brakes on the automatic associations. Yoga and physical activity, for giving me other bodily sensations to focus on. I have tried several other tactics and integrated many other lessons, but these are the ones I will continue using effectively. The main clinically proven technique I have not tried yet is EMDR, and I hope to try that soon.
I'm trying one more time to exist in the Bay. The first few days have not been encouraging, bedridden for hours at a time with fearsickness, but it is easy to speak too soon and maybe I'll overcome it here. Otherwise, the last couple months have given me hope that I can thrive elsewhere.