PTSD...it's personal

 PTSD...it's personal

PTSD, I heard story after story and I was empathetic...first responders, combat, ER... they all live with that horrific memory of seeing someone die, often in their arms without being able to save them.  The grief and the guilt haunt them.  I did my best with those who told me their stories, I listened,  and often I cried with them and I offered them the best wisdom I could with all the love I had in my heart.

Then it happened to me...  awakened in the middle of the night with a man I had shared most of my life with...seemingly endless moments of me doing CPR, trying to save him...and I couldn't.

The night terrors started, I would awaken at  night and my bedsheets would be torn in shreds, sweat would drip off my body and the sounds I was making came from a place so dark  it had to be the depths of hell.

Scenes of that night play in my brain like a horror movie, and the guilt...oh god the guilt...what could I have done differently, what if I had done this or that .  Why wasn't it me, why was it him?  My life could not have been more important than his.

That was the first couple of years and there's way more than that, but not going there . 

As the third year came around, and I had done all the work on myself I knew to do...I decided to teach yoga again.  It had been a part of my life longer than he had been, it had been a part of civilization for thousands of years and I knew... yoga heals.

 Teaching one class a week and beginning to think I am ready to do more.  I prayed for my creativity to come back, prayers to the universe, to the dead, to anyone who would listen...it has slowly.  It's been months since I had a night terror, I am grateful.

Yesterday there were moments...a friend texted me they were sick...and suddenly out of the blue, I was haunted again.  This morning I am good, today I will take it hour by hour,  one breath at a time.

So I have shared this to tell you, if someone in your life or or if you have  PTSD, get help ,talk to a kind loving therapist...you are not alone.