~the flashbacks from suicide loss – the sojourning nature of a waking heart~

Currently, with my wholeness journey, the inner work seems to be focused on what I call the “spot”.  Fifteen months ago, it was a huge infinite abyss with no edges or borders, today it has reduced down to the “spot”.  If I have a think about it, the mind tells me that there are still any number of “opportunities” in there, but it is now more defined and focused, more healed from the strategies of mending.  If I place my hand over it, my heart is allowing some thaw to its protective numbness of feeling.

In bringing awareness to the thawing of my heart, it is the repetitive flashbacks from the actual events on the day of his death that have created a sojourning nature within me. The memories of that day leading to recollections of the hardship during the extreme behavior of his mental illness–these recollections flooding into the difficulties of the relationship itself of the years gone by–and those difficulties then moving into the loving essence that kept the relationship intact and tied together.  These sudden bursts of flashbacks–multitudes occurring within milliseconds–putting a word on the paralyzing effect of them is something I have not been able to do–but now I can step across all of its vastness and place it in the “spot” and that makes it more manageable.

“more healed from the strategies of mending”

I contemplate my own stigma regarding flashbacks or PTSD with this suicide loss-I judge that for me it should be a simple transition of letting go, erasing and changing the experience; but in reality, it is not as easy as flipping a switch on or off. It is enticed in my subconscious and at some level of suffering, it keeps focus on the remembrance of everything the trauma was.  The key word is “was”–the trauma is not in the present linear moment, but is a present flashback of a memory that was and is no more.  I will have joyful memories from the past, I will have painful memories from the past–both can be bittersweet and both can trigger a visceral response.  From an observer view, I can perceive both as recalled thought constructs giving me opportunity to love the loss and sorrow in my understanding of the present moment of now.

“I can love the loss and sorrow in the present moment of now”

When these flashbacks occur, I am encouraged to ask “Why this? Why now? Why in this way?”  to aid my steps in the peaceful calming of the visionary attachments of emotions I hold onto.  These questions assist to the awakening of a softness in my heart and an awareness of my soul–that these choices I make in life, regardless of the manner they are made, regardless of the egoic nature they succumb–that it is the peeling away of the associated spiritual chaos of my confusion from an existence which lends itself to my attachments in life events. My traumas are just that–mine.  Mine to hold, to caress and soothe, mine to challenge every understanding of my internal world of vision, dreams, memories. Repeating in my thoughts, repeating in my physiology, histology, biology-depleting the biochemical balances of my functioning human condition–repeating until they can get stuck in a pattern, come to a place of despair, or as I take that deep cleansing breath of release, freed to permeate into the wind that then washes and cleanses the stains of them–doesn’t remove the memory or change the memory–but cleans out the dirt and grime so that the wounded memory can heal from the inside out–no stitches binding it closed, no bandaids covering it up–just the touch of gently cleansing each layer of need until the acceptance and balance of the soul mending is tolerable and no longer the emotional trigger it once was.

“the touch of gently cleansing each layer of need”

I can have a repetitive sound of a single “pop” from that morning.  It repeats in my head over and over and blinds me–an internal audible sound that blinds my internal vision.  It is my active area of awareness now–the “spot” I am working on for my wholeness–and as I sit with it and try to breathe the blinding echo of it –I make it okay to move around it, maybe touch it, and decide to interact with it. And even though it can bring me back to that extreme shattering and paralyzing pain one feels with traumatic loss–I sit and do my best to hold the sound, to not necessarily try to change, replace or remove the sound, but to just be the sound and as I am slowly able to allow myself to do this and as the sound is slowly allowing me to move through its layers on a physical, audible, emotional and spiritual level–I have arrived at the pivotal awareness of that sound–it is the moment of my partner’s last breath of life–and from afar, with that “pop”, I heard his last breath….I will forever bear witness to that sound and I will do my best to gently carry it forward in the sojourning memories of my waking heart.