I’m a hot mess today. Tomorrow is session #4 with Dr. Mandolin.
She is amazing but this process is so painful. I don’t know if I have it in me. My diagnosis is still new; 9 months. I spent my life just thinking I was broken, resigned myself to it, and figured I’d end up alone. Seems the cosmos has other plans for me.
The problem with trauma-based therapy is that it is worse than actually experiencing the trauma itself. For me, at least. When events happened in my past, they’d follow a pattern. Traumatic event > remorse on the part of my abuser > a time of withdrawal for all involved > apologies > acceptance > then bright sunshine > time lapses > another traumatic event. So, even though there was no end in sight, I knew there were days of being withdrawn, followed by apologies and sometimes gifts or ice cream, and then alone time, and the loop ended with sunshine ahead; I could predict them with relative accuracy and sense a pending event. I’d push each event deep into my mind and then move on, eye to the horizon for the next cycle to begin. Each event became a motivator, a galvanizer of my will…to get the hell out.
You see, in the pattern of abuse and trauma, you just ride with it. There’s not much time for wallowing. Especially when you are little and dependent upon people for, well, everything. “Why me” never has time to enter your head because you are on a preemptive mission forward. There’s shit to be done.
I have masterfully buried my trauma for 45+ years, to the detriment of relationships, my mental and physical health, and my dreams. Now, I’m unearthing it all. Digging up the graves of memories past that are buried deep within my head. Looking at them in the eye and wanting to ask all the questions I never could before. Why? Why me? Why did nobody stop it? How did I make it out? The thing is, there are no answers. It blows. So, I’m just supposed to sit in the memory of torture and marinade in it.
Therapy is supposed to help me come to terms, cope, and find some semblance of life. So, tonight I sleep with the enemy in my head with no predictable pattern of sunshine in the days and weeks ahead. It’s been 3 long years since I parted with the old Stuart, the expert compartmentalizer, general badass, the person that could fake-it-till-she-made-it. I’ve had enough nightmares, panic attacks, days without showers, body aches and pains, and the list goes on. Something has to give.
Perhaps the worst part of all of it is the unrelenting panic attacks. When you revisit past wounds in a therapeutic session (I’m doing prolonged exposure therapy), your brain dumps adrenaline. It reacts as if you are right back in it. Only, it feels worse because I willingly brought myself right back to the depths of hell. My instinct says run, get away, save yourself. Therapy says no. I’m supposed to embrace my inner shit show like it’s Amazon Prime Day and have a $1000 gift card. Awesome.
Who knows. Maybe my brain will just stops refilling the cortisol and adrenaline reserves in my body. Or force my amygdala to retire. Frankly, I don’t care what it does, so long as it stops. In any event, it takes time and there’s a high dropout rate because the process is excruciating. Stare your worst memories in the face until they have no hold over you. My logic, emotional, and instinctual selves are at odds. The thinking is that after enough exposures to the same traumatic event…literally over and over and over again…that my brain will wear down, soften, or just shut the hell up.
Stuart has been gone for quite a while and I fear she will never return. I haven’t showered in 4 days. I’m sad for who I once was…spontaneous, witty, fun, focused, and driven.
