Can you provide attainable tools/skills/feedback to help me ‘rewire’ years of trauma, ptsd, etc.

First off, kudos to you for being a single mom. It's hard to describe in words just what it takes and the load you're carrying as a single parent. That you are endeavoring to work on your healing while holding such a demanding job is admirable, and I applaud your efforts. Especially, as you say, in the context of the state of the world and the systems we all struggle inside of.

It sounds to me like you've really been through a lot in your life, and all of the struggles you're now navigating are indicative to me of a likely build-up of unresolved / unhealed trauma. My guess from what you're sharing here is that some of the trauma you've experienced was likely preverbal / preconscious, so in your very earliest years - and this can be the trickiest kind to try to heal from - as well as events that you do have conscious memory of. In any case, since you are asking, I think, for tangible or more concrete tools for dealing with all of this, let me suggest to you that trauma, and the way we respond to it, is primarily a biological (rather than psychological) phenomenon. (This is the assertion of Dr. Peter Levine, the internationally renowned trauma expert and creator / developer of Somatic Experiencing, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma.) So in other words, yes - we can accomplish a great deal toward healing our traumas by doing things like talk therapy, and, the most meaningful and profound ways to heal our traumas are through physiological or somatic processes.

One thing that trauma does to us - whether it's physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, psychological - is that it overwhelms our senses, and in that process of overwhelm disconnects us from our bodies. But what's arguably more important than what has happened to us is the way we've responded to what's happened to us, and/or the support we've had from others in moving through what's happened to us. For instance, let's say I was physically assaulted by someone bigger than me when I was a child. My body knew it needed to get away, but I was physically inferior and so unable to get away. All of this energy that I desperately needed to use in that moment but couldn't becomes stored up in my system, and it still needs to be released, or else my internal motor will just be constantly running (at least until it is released). And often, this is what happens when people experience things like panic attacks, for instance - their bodies are reminded of and perceive an immediate threat, so their nervous systems go into fight or flight mode...all the while, there's no actual threat in their immediate environment; it would probably look silly if they started running, or it would be a problem if they started threatening or attacking a person in their vicinity, so that energy tends to stay stuck, and they become paralyzed, temporarily (and often start sweating, shaking, crying, heart starts racing). So the focus then in healing these kinds of symptoms lies in the whole body more than just the brain, with the goal being to reconnect us to our physical bodies, where we've been disconnected from them.

There are a number of somatic exercises we can try as a way to reconnect us to our bodies. One fairly common way is meditating and/or building smaller mindfulness practices and activities into our day to day, where for instance we take just a moment to stop, pause, take a breath, remind ourselves we have a body, and consciously and intentionally notice what is happening inside of our body. Do I feel warmth, heat, tightness, coolness, soreness? Where am I feeling it? What does it feel like? Doing something like this even just once a day or a couple of times a week at first can get us into the habit of paying more attention to our bodies, which helps us move toward reconnecting with them. If you're interested, here is a link to five Somatic Experiencing exercises you might take a look at: https://life-care-wellness.com/somatic-experiencing-exercises-to-keep-you-grounded/ 

And, since you mentioned trying to manage all you're managing against the backdrop of the heaviness of the current state of the world, I would be curious, for one, to know what your news intake looks like. Not to suggest we can (or should) close our eyes and ears to what is going on around us and hole ourselves up, but, most if not all of us have a strong intuitive sense of the way things are and how things are going, generally speaking - what's working, what's not, what needs to change - and regular consumption of the news can be redundant and even harmful to our health, for instance by increasing the amount of cortisol in our systems. And news intake can represent a form of addiction, as well - we all, at a more instinctive level, have a desire to know the latest big thing that's happened, good or bad. When we seek this out and then get it, we get an immediate injection of dopamine into our brains the same way we would when we self-soothe with things like alcohol, cannabis, and other substances more typically associated with addiction. So, to the extent you can reduce your news intake, by setting time limits for yourself on certain social media accounts, unfollowing people and organizations, or even deactivating certain social media accounts, this will be better for your overall health. And my guess is you'll still have a good enough sense of what's going on in the world. Additionally, when we have the urge to check the news, or our phones in general, this can offer us a great opportunity to stop, breathe, and check in on what's happening in our bodies. (And if you already feel like you have your news intake under control, you can disregard this part of my answer :) )

I hope this has been at least somewhat helpful, Z. I wish you the best going forward.

Chris