My Pilgrimage of PTSD
I just got back from a 3 day long trip to Denver and back to New Mexico. This meant I had to drive our Jeep Grand Cherokee solo for 700+ miles.
For most people, that isn’t a big deal.
When you have PTSD from a car accident that took the life of your son, it makes getting into a car riding just five minutes difficult- let alone 12+ hours of driving round trip. To make this journey even more difficult, I wouldn’t be bringing my service dog or my THC I use for treatment of my PTSD with me.
You might be asking why I would do that?
As with most things, our plans change in an instant. Initially, we planned to leave our homestead in our Bus, the entire family in tow, embarking on our next adventure. The morning we were supposed to leave, my partner came to me with some doubts about embarking that day.
In our family, whenever we get a “nudge” from our inner knowing— we listen to it. This time was no exception. I could tell that Kyle was struggling with the courage to tell me he didn’t think the bus should leave. He needed to work on a few more things and his comfort level was non-existent in going today.
You may now be thinking “okay, what’s the rush Jenn?”
In Denver, I had Doctor appointments that I couldn’t miss. They’d been scheduled for months and my inner knowing told me that these appointments were needed to level up in my journey of life. I had to go.
We came up with two options to bring to the kids. Involving our kids in our family decisions and having their input is important to us.
We presented them with two options:
- We load 3 kids, 4 dogs, 2 parents, and luggage into our small SUV, staying in a hotel for two nights with this menagerie while I went to my appointments.
- I take the jeep by myself while Kyle and the kids stay back at the bus, Kyle wrapping up bus projects so we could leave when I got back.
We all agreed that option two was going to be the easiest on them, and the hardest on me. Despite the uphill challenge it would be, I knew I had to go alone.
Everything happened very quickly after I made my decision. There was panic, but my inner knowing kept telling me I had to do this. I packed my clothes, made sure I had my wallet and phone, then I headed out for adventure.
The winds that day traveling from the mountainous forest of north eastern New Mexico to the concrete jungle of Denver were insane. I had to hold a very firm grip on the steering wheel of my otherwise agile vehicle the entire five and a half hours it took to reach my hotel. By the time I got there I was absolutely energetically, physically, and spiritually spent.
After walking to Taco Bell in the same parking lot for dinner, I took a shower and began to edit my vlog for my YouTube Channel that was needing to go out the following morning.
To make things slightly more complicated, I’m doing what I dubbed “vlog a day in the month of May” where I post a vlog every single day in the month of May. I hadn’t missed a day yet and I was dedicated. This meant though, I was filming my day to day life— including this terrifying travel day.
By the time I finally fell asleep— sans any sleep aid, it was about 1:15am. I tossed and turned for about 4 hours before waking up around 5:30am with an immensely sore body from all of my muscles being completely tensed up the previous drive day. Every step I took to the bathroom was a conscious choice of pain.
After getting dressed I went down to grab scrambled eggs and bring them back up into the room while I worked on editing the rest of my vlog. Before I knew it, 9:40am had arrived and it was time for me to get into the car for the first of my three long-awaited doctor appointments.
Luckily, my hotel was only about 25 minutes from the office building and the drive was fairly smooth. My nerves weren’t really there, my knowing continuing to reassure me that this was where I’m supposed to be.
When I walked into the office, I was greeted by a very sweet receptionist and I was told my doctor was running behind and it would be a bit longer wait. I scanned the books that were to my right on an end table and found one to read while I waited.
Before long, the doctor came out and ushered me back to his office. The office had bookshelves and pictures of family, as well as various degrees framed on the walls. The far right wall was comprised of windows from about halfway up. His desk and my patient chair located along that window wall, with a padded adjustable table in the center of the room.
I was here for a kinesiology appointment.
PTSD has been a daily presence in my life for almost 14 years and I was ready to try almost anything to get some relief in being in a vehicle. Especially because we live and travel in our Converted Bus. We know that this nomad life is the one that is meant for us and growing through challenges is something that I am no stranger to.
My amazing friend Robin took charge and set all of these appointments up for me. In fact, she was going to come with me, but as the universe would have it she has something come up last minute that was urgent and she couldn’t miss.
My doctor closed the door, flipping the pages of my chart in his hands as he sat in the chair next to me along the window wall. He asked what brought me in.
That was an entirely loaded question. So much of my life has had moments of trauma and each of those moments shaping who I am today. Those experiences though, left imprints in my body. Energy stored in my muscles that is like a poison, seeping into all aspects of my life. I’ve done so much Shadow Work, releasing past traumas that have happened to me. Yet, there were things that I couldn’t reach without some help.
To be honest, much of the actual process is a blur after my doctor asked me to lay down on the table.
My focus was to concentrate on my breathing and allowing my body to be open to what the doctor was going to do. He did some magical things with my head, legs, arms, and he even told me that my right side was 3/8 of an inch shorter than my left side. Just by simply pressing on certain points of my body and having me do an exercise where I raised my arms and legs animal style, he evened up both of my sides to the same height.
He physically released tension in my muscles and body caused by years of trauma, putting my body back into alignment.
When I stood up off of the table, this feeling of lightness encompassed my entire body and being. It felt like a weighted blanket had been covering me for years, had just been removed. It was the most exhilarating and odd feeling I’d ever had.
I didn’t have too much time though, my appointment in the next room was about to begin for NET, or neuro emotional technique. For me, it is going to help release unresolved stress and trauma that has manifested as PTSD in my body.
When I walked into my next Doctors Room, I noticed how calm and tranquil the room felt. It was a smaller than my first doctor’s room and very cozy. I looked to my left to find an antique dark wood couch with a burgundy and green padded seat and back. She had her desk next to the couch and once again in the middle of the tiny room was a patients bed with a fluffy pillow at the head of it.
My doctor instructed me lay down on the bed and get comfortable.
I was still as relaxed as ever, focusing on my breathing and staying open. She had me raise my right arm from the elbow to my hand so she could begin the muscle testing.
We discussed my main focus in this session and that was to be able to ride in the car with my family without having massive amounts of panic. She would then ask a series of emotions surrounding my panic in the car with the kids to find out where those stored traumas are. I don’t remember the ones that didn’t signal her, I do however remember when she asked about the emotion of abandonment and pulled on my arm, it went straight down.
You see, when you find the emotion tied to the trauma, your muscles relax and your arm is able to be pushed down. The other emotions she read off didn’t apply so my arm stayed steady in those questions.
Once she got an answer on a particular emotion, we then traced back to where it came from. She would ask certain age ranges to my muscles and once again, when my arm went down easily, it meant we found a timeframe when the original traumatic event tied to the emotional reaction occurred.
As it turns out, my first experience of feeling abandoned was at conception.
My Mother and Father were only dating when they got pregnant with me. I was at their wedding in that very same womb. If you’ve read my Book Soulful Miles, you’ll know the history I have with my mother. She showed great disdain for me my entire life, still to this very day.
When we discussed what I wanted to heal during this appointment, I mentioned nothing of my mother or the traumatic childhood I had. I specially wanted to release the accident we lost our son in. It blew me away so much abandonment from my mother came up; it beginning with her feelings toward me when she was pregnant. My body absorbed that energy and stored in my very being that was growing to be born.
That same energy has lived with me, until that moment lying on a cozy office on a padded patient bed.
As I focused on my breathing, my doctor asked me a series of questions to confirm through my muscles that the emotion of abandonment was truly released. If my arm went down, we would go back and explore that further. If we went back it was because the emotion was still tied to a trauma.
The thing about trauma is that it can literally be anything that affected you in a negative way. Such as, a friend in the second grade that stole your favorite eraser.
You had something that you cherished taken from you in an instant against your will. All of your control was gone and you just wanted your eraser back, not understanding why it hurt so badly.
An event that seems so simple, can be immensely profound.
In releasing the abandonment I felt from my mother, I was able to also release the abandonment of losing my child instantly in a car accident. Once we went back to the beginning, we were able to connect the proverbial dots to the accident and beyond. The abandonment stored in me from conception had been multiplying with each traumatic event I experienced, which then manifested into my choices and how I reacted to things when I got triggered.
When the session was finished she said I could stand up when I was ready. Coming back to my awareness, I slowly raised my body into a seated position taking a long inhale and exhale before I stood.
Weightless while being grounding was the best way to describe the feeling I had as I gazed out the window. The first thing my eyes saw was the copper dome of a church outside, my eyes fixating on the cross at the very top.
I felt like I had just been re-born; life was brand new and this spark of optimism washed over me. Out of nowhere I erupted in giggles! I was laughing like I was a seven year old girl again. With each chuckle, I felt even lighter and more centered with myself.
On the ride back to the hotel, I profusely started crying while driving. This ugly cry mixed with a saddened sob. It lasted for about 2 minutes and I went back to feeling of grounded stillness. My doctor has said that some big emotions may come up out of nowhere and it was just my body releasing things that would still be coming up in the next few days or so.
I went to the hotel and my nudge told me I need to take a shower to wash the day off, and so I did.
I’m pretty sure that was the most cleaning shower I’d ever taken. It felt like years of traumatic memories and emotions were falling off my being and swirling down into the drain. It felt indescribable.
Once I emerged from the shower, I went over to my friend Robin’s house to spend some quality time together. The beautiful thing about travel is having friends all over the globe that you get to meet up with when you’re in their neck of the woods.
The real test would be the following day, when I’d make the 350 mile drive back to New Mexico alone in my jeep.
I left at 3pm after a full day of one last appointment to clear out the remaining things I wanted to release and lunch + shopping with my amazing soul friend, Robin. In Denver, traffic can be horrendous and I wanted to make sure I left before it got too bad.
Robin and I parted ways and I started my jeep. Oddly enough, there wasn’t any panic about driving back, because I knew I was very capable of getting myself home. Despite the backed up traffic I met while making my way out of Denver and through Colorado Springs, my entire being felt very calm. In fact, the five-and-a-half-hour drive went by incredibly smooth.
Once I arrived home about 8:30pm I was greeted with an immense amount of puppy kisses mixed with kiddo hugs, and a warm embrace by my partner Kyle.
I made this pilgrimage without my service dog, THC, or alcohol to numb my nerves. I needed to make this journey on my own because the reward was one I’d have to earn by myself.
That reward came the very next day.
My partner needed to make a supply run into town for building material, he asked if I’d like to ride with him. Our daughter piped up and said she would like to go too. Here I was, about to get into the car with my partner and one of my kids— typically a huge trigger for me.
Today though, the trigger didn’t come. The panic was barely there, like a very light fog you can see though, more of a simple mist. It wasn’t prominent, so I was able to stay balanced the entire drive there and back. No THC, no service dog, and no catastrophic images invading my mind.
Whoa.
My first doctor I saw was right. This trip would be completely life-changing for me, and it was.
🫶jenn
P.S. can you think back to a moment in your life where you looked fear in the face and did the damn thing anyway?
How did that feel when fear was proved wrong?
P.P.S. I love you and I’m so grateful you’re here, growing down the road together 🫶💛✨
