Love, Trauma, and PTSD
19 year old Jenevie in her first official Restaurant job
I’ve been having the dreams again. It’s always the same. I am in a restaurant kitchen and the clock is ticking down. Service is about to begin, and I have zero prep. Some of the details will change, like maybe I am responsible for setting the menu that night, maybe I am new to the line, but the rest is always the same: tickets are rolling in, diners are waiting for their food, and I have no mise en place—there is nothing to cook with. (*Amendment* Sometimes, less frequently, I will have a Front of the House nightmare. In real life, I was an even worse server, so these dreams can be even more disconcerting, and leave me feeling even more powerless. Those are pretty standard. I start my shift, usually as a newbie, then I look around and the restaurant is full. I have no idea what my section is, and the patrons have been waiting for a very long time. I can’t get to anything that they want, I can’t figure out how to put orders in the Point of Sale system, and food is piling up in the window. You get the idea)
As I write these few words, I can feel the stress response in my body. My breath is drawn, my palms start to sweat, my chest and throat tighten, and my entire body has stiffened. In fact, I walked away from the computer for a full half an hour after writing that first paragraph just so I wouldn’t dissociate completely.
My mother has been encouraging me for years to write about all the weird, funny, and fucked up things that happened to me during my 20 year career in that profession. I have never taken up her suggestion. It wasn’t until this recent spate of PTSD dreams that I realized exactly why I had never pursued that particular inspiration. The theme is too painful. I have too many overwhelmingly difficult emotions associated with that entire chapter (perhaps chapterS is more relevant) of life. But now, these dreams have again become persistent, and I feel I must face those old Demons. They are, after all, now just constructs of my mind. I am technically freed. It is time for my psyche to catch up to the present, and I suspect that I will unearth some gems along this path.
In normal times, I have about two of these dreams per week. I have become so used to their presence in the background that it has little effect on my waking life. It’s only when they ramp up to their current incessant repetition that I start to feel something needs to be done. I can’t even nap these days without being plagued by these stressful dreams.
So, I recently took to the Hive Mind on Facebook to ask for suggestions. I am involved with many different circles of healers, therapists, medicine people, and the generally traumatized. I figured between those who have gone to war (literally), those who have survived abusive relationships, those who have been in the service, music, corrections, and film industries (professions notorious for abuse), and anything else the people in my life have been forced to live through, there would be abundant and productive answers to this current quandary.
And there were!
Even with the annoying algorithms that only allow for about 25 people to view any given post, I received a bevy of unique responses to how folks have successfully recovered from their own PTSD nightmares. The answers included prescription drugs, EMDR, various and sundry supplements and teas, psychotherapy, Frequency Specific Microcurrent, Neils Eje and his sound healing work, energy work, and Psilocybin. Quite the diverse chorus of suggestions to explore.
Did I mention I am also enrolled in a weekly, year-long shamanic journey work apprenticeship program? Hank Wesselman and Jill Kuykendall were my original teachers for this material way back in 2001, and in recent years I started to feel the pull in my heart to revisit their material. I recognized how much time had passed since we last worked together, and that none of us were getting any younger. Until the shenanigans of this year, they primarily taught at institutions like Breitenbush (RIP), Esalen, and The Omega Institute—all super fabulous establishments, but functionally prohibitive for the mother of a young toddler. One of the silver linings (tarnished, though it might be) to this Covid debacle has been their decision to create an online platform for their work.
Anyhow, I have decided that these stupid dreams are trying to tell me something, and that it will simply require the hard work of excavation. I have been called to release so many of my personal crutches this year, that the one option that appealed to me the most—microdosing psilocybin—is currently off the table. I understand the science, and if I don’t find success using my journey work practices (along with a few of the other modes previously mentioned), I will employ this plant medicine. But, for now, we dig.
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My relationship with food service has always been tied up with my intimate partnerships, both the sultry Love, and the abusive Hate. I have for so long now also lived with the incredible shame of not completing college, and felt desperately trapped by the choices I have made. As I have actively reflected back on those formative years of my adulthood, I see how the challenges played out.
My maternal (and the most recent generations of my paternal line, come to think of it) family doesn’t really do college, so I never felt the expectation, or obligation. Junior college or trade schools were about the height of suggestions for my life’s navigation after high school. Since I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I decided I would pursue those classes that were engaging, studying things like theater, history, philosophy, and art. At the time, I was also involved in a progressively more abusive relationship with my lover. Not having a direction with my education combined with the distraction of intensifying drama at home resulted in increasingly spotty attendance at school, and I’m sure you can see where that led—not far.
I moved out with The Boy after having a couple of incomplete semesters, and things quickly took a turn for the worse. After he dangled me over the top of the stairs threatening to throw me, and then later being punched in the face while driving, I decided it was time to make a change. I moved in with my Chef, and fell into an even more abusive relationship with my Sous Chef that persisted for two and a half years.
At work, I learned the skills for the Back of the House that were to include sixteen hour days while only reporting eight, working weeks on end with no days off, learning all aspects of the line from dish pit to saute´, how to compete with intense levels of sexual abuse, and how to effectively terrorize the service staff—in effect, The Pecking Order. In those days, this was commonplace for restaurants, at least, any that I had ever experienced. But, cooking was a medium at which I excelled, and the voices of my abusers were the externalization of what I suspected on the inside: I had no other options, and I wouldn’t make it without them, or anywhere else.
My good friend who has known me for almost 30 years was talking with me about all this recently, and let me know that some folks find motivation through adverse situations like these, as she had done. What I felt compelled to remind her is that we are all wired differently. Our hardwiring is not the only factor to consider, either. There are millions of external factors in how we are raised that contribute to one’s response to any situation. After so many moons of self-flagellation for the paths I chose, I am desperately trying to find compassion for myself. We all do the best we can with the materials we have at the time.
My mother, too, has been an example of one raised in adversity who used those challenges from early life to lift herself out of the muck. She was a born pragmatist who used early motherhood as motivation for a better life. Her example, instead of being an inspiration for my own life, helped cement the shame spiral I acted out for so long, and it helped reinforce what these men—both romantically and professionally—were telling me. I wasn’t worth much, and I couldn’t make it on my own. I hadn’t been raised to be “this kind of woman”, therefore I was the one who was defective.
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Fast forward to today. I am in a healthy, loving, and supportive marriage with a man of the highest integrity. His support has allowed me to heal and grow in ways untold.
We started our relationship in a tantric community that helped to uncover our subconscious relationship patterning (patterning designed, by the way, to aim for the most painful mirrors from a human’s past), and that taught us skills for lovemaking and communication to keep our partnership thriving even when times get tough. I have been allowed to heal from so many of the abusive, and codependent relationships of my past because of the copious quantities of love and support given by not just my husband, but an entire cadre of friends and family focussed on doing the work of transformation in their own lives.
Professionally, when this year began, I had finally started to hit my marks. This was a whole process unto itself! First, I had to admit to myself, and then come out to the world, that I wanted to be, and that I was, a medicine woman ( this is another story I will have to tell at another time)—an intense process that was both scary and painful. I had to face the self-imposed blocks to generating wealth. The unfolding was grueling, but finally, I was bringing in both the number of clients, and the level of income, I had set as my first goal in business.
Then, lockdown.
The fragile successes I had only just started to accomplish were obliterated, decimated, dashed—Hulk Smash. I was the obvious parent to take on the role of primary caretaker while our daughter was out of school, and the thought of attempting to set up distance and coaching clients during her unpredictable nap schedule, while also making some attempt to caretake my own mental health, was just too daunting. I was once again living the dream of a 1950s housewife, and putting my own ambitions on hold (again, another tangent I will save for later). It is not a role that is altogether unfulfilling for me. No, it is quite close to the reality of living my best life.
And... I want more.
It wasn’t until the fires broke out in California this year that these dreams started coming back with full force. I realize with the writing of this that I had maintained a sense of service to both the world, and to myself, through hosting weekly Reiki Sound Baths with my friend Josh. After a few months, we both had grown fatigued, and decided to take a summer break. That break turned into a permanent hiatus as he made the difficult decision to leave the country indefinitely, on his own journey of self-exploration.
Here I was, grieving for the loss of a predictable world where plans could be made, and then followed through on; grieving for the scorched earth, the plants, and the animals dying on the land I hold so dear; and no longer having any direction to turn in my own life. I was in the metaphorical West, again. I was in the Darkness. Again.
That’s when the dreams began.
They are showing me my fears of codependency and survival, and my beliefs of value. They are dredging up the long-settled flotsam of my Underworld to be jetsamed from the surface.
Through this process, I am still discovering the ways my loyalty, and fears of grief, have prevented me from releasing other dysfunctional and abusive relationships that persist.
I am now ready.
I am ready to let go.
I am ready to surrender.
I am ready to move on.
I am ready to TRUST.
I am ready to RECEIVE.
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If you have made it to the end of this excruciating tale, Thank You. Thank you for being with me on this journey, for sailing with me on these rough seas.
I would love to hear from you!
Do you have PTSD nightmares? Have you found success and healing? Have you lived through abuse and dysfunction to come out triumphant? How are you making it through this hard year? Are you still struggling? Would you like support and Love?
Let me know in the comments, or feel free to message me directly.
I love you ;)