....... It was as if certain pathways in my brain weren't there any more, and I had to explore new ones. Picture a forest, one that gets primeval as you leave its edge and start to walk straight into it. There are some major pathways through it, like stream beds, for example. The closer you get to the center, the fewer footpaths you find. Through the years, as you live in the forest, you make footpaths, so you can get to where you want to go. Eventually a network of footpaths exists, some more worn than others.

      Then comes disaster. For a few years there is a climate shift, and torrential rains flood the stream beds and wash out some of your network of footpaths. You are aware of volcanic eruptions somewhere in the forest, because the climate isn't all that has shifted. If you venture too close to where the eruptions have been, once familiar landscape is changed forever. You learn to walk very carefully through this new landscape, very warily. If you hear a rumble in the background, you crouch, check out your position and your surroundings to be sure you are in a safe place, and if you're not, you make your way post haste to a perch where you will be safe. And you gather together your most precious possessions, the ones with your most valued memories attached, and stash those in what you hope is a safe place. Even when you have time to do that, you are always, every second, hypervigilant.

      All of your being is looking out for you. When the wind begins to rise, you know it, and when you hear distant thunder and see lightening flashes, you look for cover. You are surviving in a world that is no longer familiar to you, which has more danger signals, or different danger signals, or a continuum of intense signals, or all of these. What used to be pleasant, splashing creeks are now raging torrents, which find more direct downhill paths and which change the landscape forever. Nothing is as it was, nor will it ever be again, and yet what is, has some of its framework in what was.

      When there is a quiet spell and you have an opportunity to look around, much of the landscape is different and many landmarks that guided you before are no longer there. This is bewildering, because even though the intense storms have subsided, where are you? And where are your treasures, the ones you wanted to keep safe through the storms?

      Well, you're still in the forest, and so is everything else which is a part of you. Only the paths are different now. Many footpaths aren't even there anymore, and the major, most usable paths are the stream beds, which now are much larger, straighter, and which take in a greater territory than they did before the storms.

      If these stream beds were neurological fight-flight response pathways, then using the metaphor of the forest, it's understandable that what used to be a familiar home base will now never be the same as before. New footpaths have to be created, and this requires plenty of work. Underbrush and storm debris, such as anxiety and panic, can clog the way, and they have to be handled. That little personal cache of ethics and values has to be found again, and it has to be accessible so it can be a stabilizing influence and also a grounding for the new growth that must take place.

      I learned to marshal my mind so that it would speak to itself, using affirmations of safety and peace. And I spoke out loud to myself, a lot, especially when on daily walks which I still take. When you walk quickly, breathe regularly and deeply, swing your arms, and keep your back straight, you are visually telling yourself that you are a presence, you have self-worth, and you deserve to live. I found that every day it is important to do at least one bit of something which is self-nourishing, because while the trauma was occurring, the soul was starved, and the debt of deprivation is huge.