Hi Anita

“Do you believe that these (and other) unfortunate events were planned and executed by a supernatural power/ a god?”

I don’t believe in any sort of interventionist deity.
I am just well aware that there is more going on out there than we humans can possibly understand or comprehend. Intuition, the feeling of being watched, close relatives instantly knowing something has happened to the other even on the other side of the world, twins etc
I am more of an agnostic, who doesn’t need a convenient explanation of the unknown. I am quite happy for the big picture to stay a mystery. Humanity will work it all out eventually, like how quantum physics and spirituality are similar. Like twins and superposition.
I’ve always though of fate as part of this mysterious unknown. I assumed that if fate was connected to a god/deity, people would directly refer to this god/deity as the cause.

“All the sea turtles had about the same built in ability and potential.”

All my life until now, I have believed this, I would rationalise to myself “If the universe is a zero sum game, I am just balancing out someone else’s extremely good luck”. However, now that I only have a decade or so before retirement, the chance for any quality of life changing change is almost zero.

“The usefulness of my potential is all gone now“- in some areas, I imagine, not in other areas.

As mentioned above, I am in the sunset years of my working life. I know I have lots of potential in other areas, just not in areas that would improve my quality of life. I would be a good writer etc. I might have been able to help others with similar traumas( I had a really tough childhood as well) but my expressive aphasia, like bruce willis has, counts me out. My brain tumour was right next to the brocas speech area, so I can have what I want to say lined up in my mind but vocalising it, making myself heard is really difficult for me.

I’ve known about the serenity prayer for ages. I just thought it never applied to me, until now, now that I feel that I have run out of options.

Trauma Regression
When a child is subjected to some form of emotionally damaging trauma, their emotional development stops. The wound never heals because they are too young at the time and don’t have the tools to work through it. The healing wont restart until a level of self awareness is reached, for some this never happens.

I know that this discussion is the continuation of my general emotional development that has been frozen since I suffered abuse(s) as a child. I have been using my intelligent abstract brain to compartmentalise and push away any attempts to restart it, until now.

Thanks for your input.
Klast

Dear Anita,

– that’s hilarious, never read this before. We better do better than god, then, so that he/ she/ it can look up to us for guidance.

Those three lines are mine. They are my conclusions to the whole organised religion thing. Bureaucratising everyone’s personal spiritual life.
I grew up going to a christian church. One day when I was 13 and I was shaking the hands of the elders as I walked out, I thought; nah none of this feels right, WTF am I doing here, it all felt so insincere. Like all of us there were living some pretense.
Later in life a wise person said to me “Ahh you finally started thinking for yourself”, critical thinking.
Soon after my whole family left, the people we said goodbye to admitted they weren’t true believers, they were just there for the socialising. It was one of those churchies that abused me in unspeakable ways, that I fortunately don’t remember.

– re-associating with anger, re-personalizing your life: making it personal and real.

I guess so. I am a bit concerned about going through all this with the current state of my brain. I have recently been diagnosed with Complex PTSD, after all the traumas throughout my life. Seems like I am regularly getting diagnosed with something, every decade or so.

I used to have bad panic attacks, but I learnt to down regulate them with diaphragmatic breathing(triggers the vagus nerve, calming the parasympathetic nervous system fight/flight/freeze/fawn etc). Yoga Nidra at bedtime helped as well. Most people rely on drugs, Xanax etc.
Back then the docs said I had the lungs of someone 11 years younger, now it’s only 5 years younger.

Haven’t had an attack for about 7 years now. Fortunately I haven’t had to go on the big pharma merry-go round.
I am still on “duty of care” seizure meds, which I hate, due to the brain fog they put me in. But I have to stay on them for life or I get my drivers license cancelled. One of those times I wish I could fall through the cracks of the medical system.

– a reminder of how important it is to not mock others, to treat others (with aphasia or not, tics or not, short or tall, lean or obese, etc.) respectfully.

I feel I am just marking time until, we win lotto(HA), get an inheritance or some other random event turns up.

– saved by intuition!

My intuition seems to have increased since BC, but maybe I am just taking more notice of it. Some around me infer that intuition is a part of a normal persons life. For me it comes on like a strong sense of dejavu, during the day I can look at a thing or person and feel that I will be more involved with them/it sometime later. I was in a shop once when it happened and 3 months later my stepson got a job there.
When I met my wife 20 years ago. I had a strong sense of us having a long term relationship. Within 3 months of me moving in, her kids wanted to call me Dad. She’s a trauma child/woman like me, we feel we are on a committed life journey of healing together.

Klast
(short form of Iconoclast)