Godspousery Notes: Keep your shield up.

It's been a while since I posted. My life has been difficult of late. Partly because of problems with my physical health and partly because of problems with my psychological health. Depressive episodes makes it hard for me to function. I've gotten better about it with the assistance of better medication. But, being depressed still takes the wind out of my sails.

I've been struggling as new information about past trauma is revealed to me. I feel like I'm in the middle of a war with some force that uses my traumatic past like weapons against me. I start to get my footing and get myself moving despite my depression and then a PTSD landmine goes off. I'm on the upswing out of depression, but not fully out of it.

I feel the threat of something looming over me. I know that this sense of dread is because of my PTSD, it is a literal symptom of it. Instead of quavering with it, I am exhorted to 'keep your shield up'. This is less a literal thing and more of a spiritual thing. I struggle with keeping myself well and truly safe on a spiritual level when I am in the midst of a flashback. I've been having those a lot of late with the depression going on.

My focus on my spiritual shield helps mitigate the intensity of the flashbacks. I am not sure how that works, but it does. I've begun wearing protective jewelry to help with that at the urgings of Freyr and Loki. They are doing things on their side of the situation to help me. It's little pushes of encouragement, like the pack of sugar free gum that appeared last week in the midst of a stressful day that helped me not grind my teeth, that make big differences.

With my head making about as much sense as a sack of angry cats, it's been hard for me to 'hear' them and the spirits around me. They've been making their presence even more clear by doing things like casting their shadow beside me. I'm pretty sure that they've moved a few things when I was looking for them.

I was shown something, a quilt made in the colors of cream, burgundy, dark brown, and dark green. I was told that it was a mile marker for my progressing out of this state. When I went to spinning guilt, I saw that quilt. Except it wasn't just a quilt, it was a full bedset from the 1940s in mint condition. The message I took away from that was things are going to be alright and I and my family are going to be taken care of completely. While today is a low mood day and the rain has me feeling like I should hide somewhere and cry (I still haven't figured out why I'm having this response, hence the shadow work and therapy writing.), I know that the gods are good and will provide.