EMDR is super legit - much more legitimate than it sounds. I really does work for a goodly number of folks dealing with PTSD.

Oh yeah. I don't know anything about it other than what I've seen it do for others. One of my best friends suffered so much severe sexual trauma as a child that she developed dissociative identity disorder to contain the memories. When we met she had 13 distinct personalities, and had been on a continuous medication merry go around, and couldn't find a therapist who could help. Until she met a professional pioneering the use of EMDR in this state afaik, that is. Now a few years later, she's integrated over half the personalities and doesn't suffer continual suicidal ideation. No, it's good therapy and from what i understand, it makes perfect sense to me as to how and why it works.

I'm excited about therapy. Is that not normal?

edit I'll try to keep this thread posted for progress. I'm taking tiny little steps, and fortunately there all landing solidly still.

It's really amazing to me, seeing things this way after so long. In a lot of ways i feel like a child, seeing with my heart, not through a blinder of fear and approaching the world with hate and anger. It's sooooo much easier this way, but again, is a lot to process.

Anyway, i thank all of you in this thread and the nexus as a whole for something i can't even put into words, since i joined this place shortly after having my world split asunder by a golden lightning bolt i feel I've experienced more growth and more understanding than in any other period of my life. It's not that this place is responsible for that, but you've all been a part of it, and have helped me in so many ways. Now, I'm extremely fortunate to have begun finding the individuals locally that are making up my local network, but without what I've learned here about this path, that never would have been. Thanks, traveler, nexus, the whole freaking lot of you. I love you all.

Thats really great man very pleased for you! Theres a crowd funded project on at the moment that you may me interested in https://www.indiegogo.co...s-on-trauma-ptsd#/story

Null, It truly is a horrific experience from what you have said. The best thing I have to say to a fellow friend is im glad your still here man, don't let idiocy from stupid individuals ruin your life. They are the ones at fault not you at all man, keep being strong you made it through it, and soo many after! Dude, i gotta say, keep being strong. Much love man,

My best to you bro!

dls

You learned that the world is made up of rapists? Everyone is a rapist?

Try to move past that line and see what I'm saying. I'm not calling you one, don't get upset. When i had been put in a position of no doing of my own in which i was violently and brutally victimized, all the people and systems in place that were supposed to help me not only feel in succession, but a couple only wanted to victimize me more. So yes, in the sense that a they prey upon the weak to gain what they want, i felt that the world was composed of rapists. I'm sorry this upsets you, I'm not sure why. (that's rhetorical, i really don't care)

Your comment has made me react, because you read nothing beyond that one line. It's a long thread, but i said ALL of this in the OP. I didn't say it was rational, in fact i made it very clear that that was a self composed lie that i did considerable damage to my own life with. It was a defense mechanism that made it possible for ne to stay alive and not commit suicide immediately, only get strung out for decades instead over.

It's my pain, my lie, my life, my history. It's personal, you don't need to understand, but it is not very constructive to question the veracity of someone's pain.

just hold on strong brother ,

life is ...........

dont really know what to say

Life IS suffering..and it tests you. Mysticism is not for those into ideas like the secret. The clouds will not part for you alone, and just because you awaken to the deeper realm of the self does not mean that the world will not continue to F you. The world around you does not shift, you do. There are all kinds of scumbags in the world, but we have to go out there and navigate the place all the same. At the same time, much of it is just traumatized people doing the only thing they understand.

Hey Jamie. I hope i haven't given the impression that i feel either buffeted by the waves of reality OR that i can somehow change it. I approach life neither as a victim nor a manipulator, but am just trying to manage it to the best of my ability to move closer to what i envision as the best version of myself, with all my history and experience intact.

That said, i intended to post to this thread to update this continuing saga. Through the local entheogen community here, I've met people that share my world view that are in positions to help and I've availed myself of that, to my extreme gratitude and hopefully great benefit.

Through one of those connections, and without whom I'd never have even known about let alone access, I just moved into a respite home. This is a (how do i put it) "lightly-institutionalized" home where people in crisis can go to, well, get respite. I'm not being made to take meds, but just have access to regular meals, rest, bathroom and shower facilities, laundry, a internet connection and phone. In other words, respite from the full time hustle for basic needs that homelessness is. I've been unable to process anything that's happened really, since i don't want to break down or cry in public and that's where i always am, on disply. I really think that distance from basic human needs is the invisible wall nobody really sees that keeps most of us out there on the street and that drives many totally insane.

Seriously, think about this: from the second one wakes up and has to meet the need of taking a morning crap, with the only public bathroom available being located within a Starbucks that requires a purchase to use. If i don't wake up with two bucks in my pocket... Well it isn't fun. The hustle goes on through the day and doesn't end until whatever time one can get back to their spot and find out if their sleeping bag is still there or has been vandalized or not. If it's all good, then one can lay down with one ear and one eye open on the lookout for pigs, drunks and tweakers, all of whom get off on screwing with the homeless. So yeah man, how do you think it feels to hear "get a job, you're arms look fine to me", or "pull yourself up by the bootstraps". What i hear is, "go perform an impossible action", and that somehow fills me with shame to know i can't do it. People don't give a crap. I know a guy who had kerosene poured on him and lit while he slept. By kids. The only thing that saved him was the six layers of sweaters and hoodies that kept him warm. It sucks, man, it kills souls, destroys people and is unnecessary in this kkkountry.

So, yeah, I've been inside for two nights now, been eating solid for a couple weeks, free of meds, and now can focus on the things that i have needed to do for some time but literally been too exhausted, paralyzed and depressed to do and too ashamed to ask for help with. My insurance will pay for up to a month, and by the end of that time i hope to have a primary care doctor, and begin making the appointments to correct the cataract blindness in my left eye, set up a start to therapy with the person I've been referred to, develop an income source so i can be assured of being able to pay rent, and finally, have a place to go once i leave. That to me, is helping myself, and i couldn't do it without this simple hand up I'm receiving.

I'm very glad i found this place, the housemates i currently have are, as i said all dealing with stuff, but that just helps me work on developing empathy and compassion, as well as exercising establishing boundaries, in other words it allows me to practice. There are also not pushing meds on me in any way, and as long as I'm using the time to my benefit,i don't have to pretend to be in more crisis than i am to be able to stay.

The universe provides. I'm only posting all this deeply personal stuff because i know I'm not the only one who struggles with mental health. I want people to know that healing can happen.We are not our diagnoses. According to commonly held belief in the drug treatment community, i suffer from an 'incurable, progressive, terminal disease'. A magic illness i never caught that affects nothing but behavior. In other words, what I'm doing is akin to having cured myself of cancer just by thinking about it to these people. I have just gone through one of if not the biggest crisis of my life and nowhere in that period of time did i consider injecting heroin to ameliorate the pain, confusion, fear, anxiety and terror i was experiencing at any given time. That way of thinking needs to change. That kills people outright.

They are lying to you, you can be healed. May you all find peace, and lift from your shoulders that which holds you down. Love and be Free!

Mental health is, in our culture, a highly relative term.

I don't view our culture as one that exhibits a rather impressive state of mental health. The west is in many ways a disgusting mess which violates the lives of innocent peoples around the globe on a regular, ongoing basis. It has been for some time the cesspool of our world when it comes to many issue. All cultures seem to have they're faults. I don't know what it is like to live in Iraq, or China etc. I only know what it is like to live in ours, and a large part of what I see is a disgusting display of unsympathetic, self congratulatory high fiving, back patting gluttony.

It's the(in comparison) sane people who seem to have the most trouble in our world. That is also, I find, the hardest for people raised in our culture to accept.

I don't wish to paint everything negative. I also, however don't wish to paint over my eyes and pretend everything I see is good. That would be delusional.

I think it was sadhguru who said "the world is made up of two kind of people, there are mystics, and there are mistakes".

Im still not entirely sure what that means, but I feel we live in a world of mistakes.

I'm with you there, Jamie. It's not nihilistic, it's realistic. If it was all rainbows and unicorns, the rainbows would be radioactive and the unicorns top predators.

How this country managed to convince the world that it promotes equality and freedom at the same time that it is the largest promoter of slavery and slave trading ever to exist confounds every sensibility i have. What goes on here in the land of the jailed and home of the scared is, yes disgusting to a large extent.

Are there enough of US yet?

yeah..the west promotes political correctness, which is not the same as equality and has nothing to do with freedom. Worlds apart. One is a surface level joke that honestly just dis-empowers people and leads to a sterile existence, the other is a reality that is not congruent with our current social, political and economic climate.