Moving forward from trauma is hard. It takes a lot of commitment to breaking old habits and associations. It takes capacity to help the brain build new neural pathways and reprogram the nervous system to unlearn inaccurate signals of un-safety. One of the most uncomfortable parts of trauma work, is sitting in the discomfort that comes when doing these things. I’ve been doing that for the last three weeks, and it truly is one of the most capacity draining experiences of being a trauma survivor. Your body is on high alert. You feel like throwing up. Every muscle is tense. Your mind is spinning and you most likely forget to drink water and feed yourself. When you are forcing your body to unlearn old associations and sit in the discomfort of re-patterning, it feels like you could sleep for years.
There is a lot of change happening in my life right now. Change is really stressful for my nervous system, despite my ADHD brain sometimes craving it. Change or projected change can spin me into depressive episodes after periods of being on high alert of how the change will or could impact me. Sitting in the unknown or transitional period between change, is extremely dysregulating for me. What is most challenging about this, may be that change is indeed, the only constant in life. I continue to try and teach my body that change is not inherently unsafe. Change can provide us with learning opportunities and growth.
I have written about my dog, Ande, in past posts. I adopted Ande a month after my dog Sierra, un-expectantly passed away due to tumours that rapidly multiplied in her pancreas. After a short five years together, I had 8 days to process losing my first dog - who was extremely unique and special. Some of my oldest clients got to meet Sierra in my early days of private practice. I would bring her to my Saturday sessions and called them Sierra Saturdays. Sierra was a stray I adopted at 2 years old from the Kitchener Humane Society. She was calm, gentle and although she had some specific anxieties, she unintentionally became my mental health dog. She would match my energy and was my love. When she passed away in my lap, I felt a grief so fucking deep that it felt as though I had lost my family at 15 all over again. I cried, all the time, for weeks. I slept with her blanket in my bed.
A month after Sierra passed, I adopted Ande. When I first adopted him from the Humane Society, they had thought he would do well with another dog in the home. Our other GSD mix, Juno and him got along instantly. However, as Ande has grown older, his shepherd instincts and stray past have amplified. He has gotten very protective of his home and of his sister and we began to realize that being in a home with another dog is causing him stress. In addition, he is requiring a home in which his needs are the only needs to meet.
For months, I tried everything I could to care for Ande. I enrolled him in daycare twice a week with a daycare where he is the only dog taken for the day. My nesting partner and I created routines to help manage the puppy energy. My partners both supported me as I struggled with the dysregulation of raising a puppy and eventually we found a groove in the home. Things were hectic, but appeared manageable for a few months.
The last three weeks though, have been devastating. I have needed to make the decision, to re-home Ande after he got into a fight with another dog over defending Juno. The deep guilt of this reality, has eaten away at me. Coming from foster care myself, the thought of re-surrendering Ande to the shelter was too much to bare. This led me to contacting over 30 different agencies up to 2 hours away, trying to find a foster home agency for him. This led nowhere. Every agency I reached out to, responded with that they were at capacity due to the over adoption and breeding that took place over the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, I am still working alongside KWHS to find Ande a new home - although, it is looking like I will be needing to surrender him to the Guelph Humane Society, despite my efforts.
Along with this major emotional rollercoaster, I have also been job searching. After seven or so months of my private practice struggling due to the post-pandemic recession, I have needed to seriously entertain the idea of returning to the work force as an employee. This led me to picking up two smaller gig jobs - one, supervising access on random weekends and two - trying to teach yoga again. Neither one of these avenues brought forward enough income and left me feeling as though I was still scrambling for money, despite doing more work. What was the point? Between my writing, yoga, second social work job and my private practice, I was piecing together four different jobs trying to make something work.
I moved in with my nesting partner about a year ago. He has been talking about renovations for a while and the wheels have started moving in that direction. The renovations will be extensive and although I know they will increase our quality of life, the looming dismantling of my routine and comfort is anxiety inducing. Again, “Hi Trauma”, as an additional aspect of this, given that I did not live anywhere longer than 4-5 years as a kid. My bio mother was obsessed with doing renovations and moving to new houses and enrolling and un-enrolling us in different schools.
In all of these situations, I have no other option but to sit and wait.
I do not know where I will be needing to surrender Ande or when. I also know that when this information becomes clear, a wave of grief will be meeting me on the other side. Im in survival mode. I know that what is waiting for me after this process will be a lot of emotional work to forgive myself for doing this to myself, him, Juno and my nesting partner.
I don’t know what I will be doing about my financial situation. Although, I have decided for now to pause on that front until I find a home for Ande. I do not want to close my private practice and frankly, i’m angry that I am faced with this potential reality in the first place. I have no idea what resumes I have put out will actually lead to interviews and beyond that, a job offer. And, if I receive said job offer, how I will respond.
I don’t know when renos will start or where my partner and I will live during them, although we have some ideas. I dont know how long they will take and I am preparing myself for that time line to be longer than we are originally told.
So. Im sitting here. Feeling really, fucking uncomfortable.
This, is the work.