A couple of days ago I fell asleep with a panic attack and woke up with suicidal thoughts. I’ve been going through a very difficult few weeks. So many personal situations that have been coming together, unresolved traumas, and emotions I haven’t been able to express, that have brought me to the brink of collapse.
An abstract watercolor image of a figure falling from the sky [Layers, Pixabay]
Losing control
I’ve been in therapy for months, and recently I started suffering from panic attacks. Two to three times a week, I lost control of my body, my mind, everything that it meant to be me, until I fell into despair. To those who haven’t had it, I hope they don’t have to experience it, and to those who have experienced it, I hope they never go through it again.
At my most recent appointment with my therapist, he told me that if this continues, with such recurring attacks, he’ll have to refer me to a psychiatrist. That was at the beginning of the week. A couple of days later, I lost control again: I went back to that state of mind where I didn’t care, where nothing made sense, where nothing was worth the effort I put in. Where I just wanted to give up.
I reacted, but soon after I had the second crisis that left me exhausted and unstable for the rest of the day. I told myself: “If it’s time to go to a psychiatrist, so be it.” But I don’t want to depend on medicines – I don’t want to feel weak. So it occurred to me to ask for help from “the people from above,” my way of encompassing what everyone believes: the divine, the gods, angels, elementals, the cosmos, the universe, and so on.
It’s been a long time since I read cards to myself, and yet my first thought was, “I’m going to do a tarot reading.” The sketch of the spread came to mind instantly. I made a few changes, a few last minute tweaks, but after trying it out, I knew I’d be using Las Lágrimas de la Llorona (“The Tears of La Llorona”) again.
Why that name? Because I haven’t stopped crying every time I can, wondering what will become of me, what I am going to do now, what I can expect, what I should change. I remembered the legend of La Llorona, and that ended up shaping the decision when I was at my job. I tried it as soon as I got home and just as expected, it clarified many things for me.
How to do it?
This is a general reading about our perception of life and how we feel about it, quite an illuminating experiment. For this reason, I suggest that the reader try not to be with anyone when they try it. It is an emotional, private, and very personal moment.
To do it, form three columns of four cards. The first, on the left, represents the past. The second, on the right, is the present. The third and last is the future. The first card in each column is the eye, our way of seeing things. The second card in each column is memories, the ones that we create, are creating, and that we could create. The third is how we have or are going to evolve as a result of it. The fourth card in each column is the result.
Finally, the last card is placed on top of all the others, crowning everything and representing guidance, revelation, learning, and so on – any word works, although for me it’s the divine words regarding reading.
A diagram of Alan D.D.’s La Llorona reading [Alan D.D.]
For quick reference, here’s the list:
- Eye of the past
- Memories from the past.
- Evolution from the past.
- Results from the past.
- Eye of the present
- Memories being created in the present.
- Evolution from the present.
- Results of the present.
- Eye of the future
- Expectations regarding the future.
- Evolution in the wake of the future.
- Possible results of the future.
- Divine word
For privacy, I preferred not to show all of the results of my reading this time, but I trust that it will serve you as much as it did me. It’s not a substitute for the therapy that I’ve been receiving or the one that I may receive, but a form of support to have a better image of my situation, to make conscious some unconscious or repressed ideas, and to serve as a meditation to be able to move forward.
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