Aikido and Recovery

 How do you manage to balance (or not) martial arts and other parts of your life?

Aikido is a big part of my mental/personal health. I learn lessons there to apply to my personal emotional challenges. It’s been instrumental in the healing and recovery I am trying to do. It shows me in a kinetic and physical way where my fears still are, and what I can do about them.
Getting personal here, TW mentions of abuse and trauma:

It’s not an official “diagnosis”, but I have a decade or two’s worth of Complex-PTSD, which in my case is the slow trauma I got from long term bullying or emotional abuse, with threats or incidents of physical abuse. I have complex trust issues and problems ever feeling safe. Besides the obvious physical empowerment of a martial art for some self defense, Aikido is teaching me to practice trust, to enforce boundaries, and to speak up when people hurt me or I am uncomfortable.

That last is very difficult as I have had a lifetime of being "trained", told repeatedly and firmly, to be silent when I am hurting or unhappy. In our Aikido Dojo, if you ask someone to stop hurting you... they stop, instead of laughing, ignoring you, dismissing your pain, or increasing it for their entertainment. That is very new and precious to me and I am learning from it.

I am learning which motions still make me uncomfortable, and then in my outside therapy I can address the reasons for those. I get severely dizzy doing a certain turn and I realized it’s because I hate moving backward when I can’t see what’s behind me... because of fear and hypervigilance. I was able to then talk to my counselor about that.

I am also learning how to move with and around things instead of fighting against them. That’s the literal principle behind Aikido but it’s also been helping me in my emotional and personal struggles. “It is far easier to roll a rock, using its own momentum, than to try to carry the same rock. Stop trying to carry the rock!” I put myself through a lot of mental anguish I do not have to actually deal with any more  if I would just stop trying to carry it. So now it’s in inner mantra- “Stop trying to carry the rock!”

Minor epiphanies (warning, sexually motivated violence discussed)

I kind of gave another Martial Arts friend, who is Male, a minor epiphany earlier this last year.

"Look, there is a difference: How and Why a statistically probable attacker comes at you ( A Male) is not going to be the same as how and why he comes at me ( A Female). 

Statistically, if a guy attacks you, he’ll be some dude you don’t know, and it’s because he wants to start a fight- It’s a male dominance thing. There’ll be a bit of posturing and he’ll do the come at me bro thing, or he’ll be telling you to give him your wallet. 

On the other hand, statistically, when I (female) am attacked it will be someone I know and it will be sexually motivated. He won’t be aiming primarily to  damage me or take my money, he’ll be aiming to drag me somewhere, control my body position and ability to escape, and try to touch or rape me, then probably murder me to keep me from talking. 

The techniques I use are learned with this mindset. You’re defending your wallet and your ribs and face. I am defending my body and my Being from violation. A guy who grabs you wants to hit you a few times and take your stuff. A guy who grabs me, I have to assume, is there for rape and murder, in that order.”

He’d never considered that before.