The best way I can explain PTSD is that a person can go to the last worst place they were within a split second and for some people that can be a really bad place. I’m going to take you on my healing journey of PTSD. Between the PTSD and the TBI I started calling it alphabet soup of bleep….
I was not attached to my body. My mind was screwed like scrambled eggs and my spirit had left the building. I was not in unison, yoga.
After falling apart for the last time in 2022 with an out of control nervous system, I was snapping left and right over what seemed like everything and the worst part was I couldn’t re-stabilize myself. I remember going to my old standby and getting in a shower in Costa Rica and just laying on the floor. I was so far from myself and just wanted to come back to me, however by this point, I didn’t really even know who I was.
I was highly volatile and dangerous. I knew I had to do something different if I was going to survive much longer. I was running well past fumes with both engines smoking and in desperate need to land the trauma plane but I didn’t know how.
It was 20 years to the date of hiding a near fatal assault from my early 20’s on January 5, 2002. I decided to save my life and dug in deep on my healing journey. I can smile now when I use the word journey because for a hot while it felt more like a crash collision of my life.
I was barely hanging into the planet and I realized that in order to get through it (anything) you have to get through it. The only problem, besides facing deaths door, I had no clue how to heal much less what to say to someone after hiding for that long. I was in a state of shock and disbelief that this was my life story. How had I screwed up so bad and wound stuck up shit creek without a paddle. What was wrong with me? Look up learned helplessness. The Bible Belt breeds it like rabbits on a farm. 
As a survivor of domestic assault on malicious wounding levels I did what everyone try’s to do in the DV (domestic violence) boat and that’s hide my wounds however they were so big internally yet total invisible from the outside. It would be like having a boat and the engine got totally stripped but the hull remained the same. You think “in no time this baby will be running as good as new..” but that’s a boat. Brains don’t work the same so brain health is an important topic.
I decided to take on all of the words and alphabets that were being slung at me from liar, attention starved, BPD, bat shit crazy, manipulative and that’s just warming up so I decided to lean in run with it. I should say all of the words but the correct ones like PTSD and TBI. My family and painful to say, mainly females, hurt and shamed me the most. Why much less how could I make up a traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder? I wanted to die. The attention I needed was love and support however I was being vilified and called “crazy” when in fact I have been brave. I realized a long time ago that it’s scary being brave and I was scared I was going to die at my own hands so it was time to be brave.
I decided to get as educated on everything as possible and heal as many wounds that I could identify within myself. I was determined to sort this soup out one way or another.
Break The Silence Against Domestic Violence Podcast – TBI
https://www.youtube.com/live/Pbnu22hW30U?is=OWol8sVlHW-qyhcm
Yoga, yoga, yoga – in my desperate attempt to heal I was deep diving into everything. I spent countless hours researching and listening to anything I could get my hands on to try and fix me. Meaning stabilize my self. I was now aware that I was unable to control myself from flipping into an alphabet (PTSD, CPTSD, BPD or was it the TBI?) I spent hundreds then thousands of dollars and on courses and countless books. I knew that neglecting 20 years of integrating trauma would be challenging but I had no clue just how hard it would get.
Eventually, I realized I had been hearing the word do yoga over and over. Try yoga, practice yoga, implement yoga, take a yoga class. Literally I realized one day that is the one word I’ve heard consistently. Keep in mind some days, actually most days, I could barely get out of bed. My body was going to make me process this trauma or I was going to end it all and I knew it. My suicidal ideology was ramping up by the day because I didn’t see a way out. When you’re reliving your worsts near death moment on repeat it’s brutal for all involved.
From the Buddhist Monk to the dude in a lab coat with a pocket protector and one way or another the word yoga was somehow going to re-enter the scene and that’s when I realized that I had been judging yoga. Even though parts of my life were very mainstream, I can still see where I held certain prejudice around certain practices. I really didn’t know anything about Yoga and I thought it was only pretty people in matching outfits stretching and boy was I wrong.
Yoga is to be in one with your mind, body and spirit. What I also didn’t know that this thing called my spirit was very far away from me the time that I started Yoga certification. I had never taken one class. I was surrounded by 15 of the most wonderful humans that showed me support at my weakest time. The breath work started bringing life back into me. Life that I had suppressed for two decades. I knew I was at a last ditch effort to save my life and ironically it was working, however, it got worse before it got better. Vivid scenes of the night almost died began to replay. This lasted for 12 days. I was debilitated and had to lay down many parts of the class. I had decided to dive in deep and took the 200 hours certification course which is truly a privilege and without it I don’t know if I would’ve made it. There were so many points in the story that I was at the end of my rope that I didn’t know how much rope I had left if any.
Yoga can be done anywhere and by anyone. It is connecting your breath, work to your body. In essence, raise your arms up and inhale. Take your arms down and exhale. It helps you get into your body because we are often detached from it. Yoga helped me with breath work and begin to get balance within my nervous system. It was a turning point for me to be able to get a hold of my mental health just a little bit better. It was little shifts every day and some days it felt like it would be impossible however healing is possible.
Asheville Yoga Center – Jennifer Riddle
Thank you for visiting the site and I will continue to be adding updates along the way. Flow like the river and enjoy the journey. If you are on a crash course, then use every tool and resource around you to save your life. Use your voice, you matter!
PS Forgive the typos. You get the point. Breathe. Enjoy the ride! 🌞
