I’m sitting on the couch facing the christmas tree that I didn’t attempt to resuscitate a family patriarch in front of. There’s no circle of relatives showing varying degrees of experience with and knowledge of death. No forlorn wimpers. No injured souls. Just the tree. The happy one my kids look at and excitedly open presents around. The one they would decorate for Halloween if they could. Kvalvaag’s “Malum” is on the right turntable, soon to be followed by Immortal’s “Pure Holocaust” on the left. Aesop Rock put out a new record with Blockhead recently (“Garbology”) which will be making it’s way to the decks once again today too. Aesop Rock is my hands-down favourite MC. A new Aesop record always renders other music irrelevant for a few days and necessitates a thorough deep dive through his back catalogue. This album has been no different. Eventually the blastbeats will shift to sick Blockhead-produced beats. As a bonus I also picked up the first-ever vinyl pressing of the “Appleseed” EP as well as the “Long-Legged Larry” 7″. I put the birthday present money from my parents to good use in other words.

About a month back I did the second part of the Wounded Warriors Trauma Resiliency Program. I worked through the story of the teenaged jumper, telling it as a linear narrative with feeling for the first time. It was an incredibly difficult emotional process but I leaned into it and the benefit has been amazing. Both the professionals and peers are phenomenal and so supportive. The magic comes from a room of people all thinking they’re alone on an island and all realizing together as they share an experience and get feedback that they’re actually all on the same island. The other magic comes from being encouraged to share without filtering all the things other trauma programs discourage. In other words, the “war porn”. While every detail needn’t be included I can’t tell that story without some of it. Sharing it and having it be okay to have done so has shifted my OT experience as well. Where I was struggling with still images and repetitive sounds during exposure therapy I have found that now at my appointments more of the story plays through rather than being like a broken skipping record of memory. I’m forever thankful to this organization for not only helping save my marriage with their COPE program but for also kick-starting what I steadfastly resisted facing even with my own psychologist.

TRE has also been progressing for me as well. Our teacher has shown us some alternate “poses” that can help induce tremoring when floors and walls aren’t readily available. I have been very partial to the wall-sit and it’s modifications. It’s a quick and easy way of lowering the anxiety baseline ahead of difficult tasks. While I have noticed for me that the full process of TRE requires a higher level of presence to be effective and that I tend to rush through it without guidance the wall sit requires no presence or grounding, which is especially helpful at something like an OT appointment. I can do it with a racing mind and it settles the body without my attention. Since starting TRE I have also been mindful of how shaking when I do feel anxious now feels normal and helpful rather than me seeing it as another sign of insanity and a loss of my control and faculties.

Which leads into the last of the alphabet soup today. It is time for it to become official that I have reached my MPR, or “maximum psychological recovery”. This is the point of the journey where my psychologist makes not returning to the road official, WSIB shifts return-to-work efforts and I admire my penmanship while I look at the bright side. I must say a mental health progress report to an insurance company was not the exit ceremony I envisioned. I suppose when I have spent twice the time I initially did on learning my job trying to recover from the PTSD it gave me this result is obvious and long overdue to the outside observer. The negativity that exists around this is all mine but it’s hard to shift my beliefs around my self-worth simply because I’m being told in recovery to embrace and value the parts of me that were once maligned as egotistical, impractical and indulgent. Sometimes even by the same people which is all the more confusing. Change is great but it’s too bad about the catalyst.