You Chose This: "I Got A Shot In My Neck To Heal From PTSD"
And then I punched the nurse. A lot.
In case you are new to AJPT or missed this story the first time we ran it or just want to see it again because you are a more evolved individual than you were when it was first released, this was the post that you talked about and visited the most of all of AJPT’s early history (not counting the ones where I was giving stuff away or just being welcomed sweetly by this sweet community). I love this piece and I love Ani for going through it so that we all don't have to.
Love,
Jane
I’ve had chronic anxiety my entire life and until recently, trying to stay “present in my body” was a faraway concept I thought people made up experiencing, like synesthesia or something. Just kidding. (Kinda.)
But I would be damned if I didn’t try, and I would do almost anything to Grab Life By the Horns™ and Live it To The Fullest™ and be my Full, Unbridled, Authentic Self™ .
So I spent 10+ years trying every kind of method that promised to put me back in my body. These ranged from traditional to far out, including but not limited to: dancing naked with a snake in front of 20+ people to heal my body shame, studying with an old witch isolated in the mountains who would scream at me daily, EMDR, somatic therapy, Tantra, etc., etc.
Some of it was helpful. The snake was super healing and taught me what it was like to actually feel beauty. The old witch taught me what checking out even was because I wasn’t even aware of when it happened. Tantra made me relate to my body in a way I never even knew to consider, helping it feel like a home. And therapy gave me some great coping skills and understanding of why humans are the way they are.
But regardless of all of this, everything in nature is cyclical, including life itself and my relationship to it. And last year, life kept trying to bring me to my knees but I absolutely fully fucking resisted going down. Not this time, motherfucker. And I am tenacious, if nothing else. I didn’t feel like facing the loss I’ve been experiencing – friendships, my sense of purpose, a chronic illness, faith. I had just gone through the whole dark night of the soul song and dance like, a year prior and got to what I thought was the other side.
By November, I realized I had no sense of excitement for the present or the future, and I was completely self isolating, avoiding any attempt at connection. Days blended together. I was working or scrolling my life away on TikTok listening to yet another person cry about their bad haircut or something.
My past self would have either drank something out of a big plastic fake syringe at a club where the DJ would yell at me in that very distinct voice to “put my fucking hands up” (which I never did cause I hate when people tell me what to do). Or go to some uber-spiritual workshop where I’d force myself to have an eye-gazing session with some guy who breathed on me too much. But I’m grown now, I don’t force myself into sucking down overly sweet shots or forcing really weird forms of intimacy with men to try and feel something again.
This time was different, I knew what to do to get out of this. I taught this when I was priestessing – I needed to come back to my body if I wanted to feel alive again.
But my body was covered in eczema and I had migraines for the first time in my life. And I wasn’t running from sadness or anger. Sadness I could deal with and anger I kinda love when I channel it right. I felt bitter and jaded. Absolutely not.
So I did what any wise, curious-but-impatient soul in the modern age would do: I went on the biohacking subreddit to figure my shit out.