Flash(back) Gordon

So I know I’ve been focusing on triggers and flashbacks a lot recently. But I had a neat moment happen to me recently. Sometimes these things are so difficult to explain and create an already thick layer of self doubt. These details, major events, extreme happenings have vanished from my(your) mind and then suddenly you’re swayed into thinking something is true. 

So of course then I question... “Am I making this up? How do I see and remember so many specific things now when 10 minutes ago I didn’t even remember it at all?” And so on. 

Honestly, I’ve always thought things like this because I have a long history of trauma so my trauma brain has always been working overtime trying to help me like.. not die. Social media hasn’t helped this either.. but whenever a public figure, a celebrity, athlete, politician.. whatever is accused of sexual assault the questions come out. From family. From loved ones. From people who are supposed to love and support you.

“She doesn’t even remember all the details.”

“She can’t say where it happened!”

“She doesn’t remember what she wore!”

“She doesn’t remember the color of the wall paper!”

All of these “She doesn’t remember” things. 

I don’t remember a lot of details sometimes. Other times I remember TOO much. 

I can’t tell you how incredibly damaging it is for people who vote and make laws to hear logic in this way. It’s worse for the survivors and future survivors and future attackers. So stop doing that shit. 

I CAN tell you I have come across a slightly relatable feeling to a traumatic flashback where the details suddenly fill in the gaps. 

And it might sound dumb, but here me out. And really think and take it in.

I was born in the early-mid 80’s. I’ve recently stumbled upon a gallery of photos on Facebook. This gallery is simply pictures of random, everyday objects from that time. A brand of hairspray or hair accessories. Toys. Snacks and drinks. Articles of clothing. School supplies. Magazines. Books. Scents of perfume. Bracelets. Quarter machines. 

I was looking through with a smile on my face and kept saying “Oh my god, I totally forgot all of these things!” And some of it was stuff I used or was around every single day! I suddenly had my head flood with memories that came in around these items.. taking pictures with that little camera, film, going to the store to drop off and pick up.. I remembered a plaza having a film development box thing.. like what was that? All sorts of shit. Some of it came back so clearly. Other things? I remembered but not many details. 

It seemed comforting. Because it was like a refresh of innocence. 

So, I guess, next time someone asks me why I forget things or why flashbacks can knock me on my ass and I can just say like “Hey, remember Alf?” And walk away. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to use some of this Country Apple body splash and be on my way, whore. 

(Why did we call everyone whores? Wtf was that?)

Ttfn : )

Momento Polaroid

 Something I’ve been really frustrated with lately is the fact that my trauma brain has blocked out SO MANY THINGS from my memory. In my process lately of FACING my past.. it has been a struggle. I can’t face what I don’t remember. Some may say “Why dig it up if it’s something you blocked out?” I’m glad you asked!

I’m still having trigger responses from things I don’t remember.

It’s difficult to deal with and understand triggers if you don’t know where they come from. So this has been my journey.

Tonight I remembered something. I was falling asleep on the couch because I’m exhausted, so I came up to bed early. Then, of course, I couldn’t sleep. So I started reading. And then I remembered. 

Now what I remembered isn’t important here and I’m not going to share it. 

But it was a time when I felt incredibly betrayed by friends. And also, it added a weird puzzle piece to a bigger picture I hadn’t connected until this very moment. 

And it’s fucking with me. 

So now.. it’s two hours later and I’m tossing and turning and my body is uncomfortable and I can’t calm down or settle. 

I replay good stories in my head and think back on my last few days and about the progress I’ve made but sometimes it’s just still so heavy and dark. 

But in general? It’s information that tinges me at the moment but will be a useful bit to keep in a jar for later. 

It’s like goddamn Momento.

Naps and hot showers

 Some days are just beyond weird. Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and that can often be kind of a day of misery. For me it wasn’t! Not this year. And honestly? Even on years when I was alone I was still ok. I don’t hate the day or what it stands for or represents. I felt pretty good and pretty high all day. ALL day. I felt happy, beautiful, smart, and like everything is exactly how it’s supposed to be right now. Cloud 9, content, proud, and productive!

I did find all of this odd, however. I typically am never blissfully happy for an entire day. I did take notice so I wouldn’t come crashing down. As a positive extreme can be as emotionally draining and detrimental as an extreme low.. I threw some restraint, caution, and took some deep breaths.

Today it a bit of a different story. I’m “ok” but no where near the level of yesterday’s confidence. Today I am slow. Distracted. Mopey. Sluggish. And not feeling beautiful. I want to take a thousand hot showers, and snuggly naps. And snacks.

But things line up this way sometimes. I’m working on creating more balance and less extreme feelings to help even me out 

I’ve been able to achieve a fraction of the things I had planned to work on these last two days and it’s difficult not to be consumed by that. But again, things I’m noticing and working on. . 

It’s a battle I will be fighting for the rest of my life, but being able to finally face and work through things has made me feel like I actually will survive this and sadly that’s not a feeling ive always had. 

Writing this has helped and made me feel a bit better

I think it’s time for my second coffee run of the day. 

Work it.

I’ve been trying to write an entry for weeks and I just can’t get it together. This fucking pandemic. 

I’ve been busting my ass trying to work through my trauma and it’s exhausting, and painful, and trying, and beyond any capacity I thought I had before. 

I’m oddly comforted because I know, for the first time, I’m actually on the right track. I’m doing the right things. And I’m processing everything. One of the more difficult things has been to try to remember details I’ve blocked out. But I’ve managed to put some pieces together and continue to make progress. 

Boundaries have been my most useful tool during this time. I never really realized how much I let the demands from other sway and guide my life. That’s silly. It my life. I’m going to decide how I go. 

It’s been insanely difficult as I’ve been so vulnerable. Another reason why boundaries have been a life saver! 

My entries have been and will continue to be short and few and far between. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m working. 

🤍

Jaws ate Dory

 I feel like I’m in a sinking ship. There’s a port with a space for me and my ship and everything I’ve ever wanted on it but it’s just sinking. And I can’t keep up with the water pouring in. I can only repair the damages half assed before something else capsizes me.

I focus on my mental health. I set boundaries for my physical health as were in a pandemic and having to quarantine isn’t really something someone in my shoes can afford to do. 

I have panic attacks as I prepare to clean a house. I fear I’m due for another attack. When will it strike? Like lightning it continues to strike, only this kind doesn’t come with the clouds of warning. So I anticipate. Constantly. 

I’m endlessly tortured by those who were supposed to care and didnt. Who were supposed to take my side but didn’t. Then there’s the 99.9% remaining that just don’t know what to do. Which is fine. I mean, I don’t know either. 

I continue backing away slowly, further into solitude so I can focus. It’s eerily quiet in my solitude and it’s oddly relaxing and comforting yet incredibly sad and lonely. 

I am tired. Once I have to explain myself deeper than a minimal effort I am exhausted. I’m so tired of fighting and working so hard to maintain the minimum of productivity. 

I’m lost, I’m stuck, I’m drowning. 

It seems I’ll have to swim the rest of the way and show up without a boat. 

Cold air goes best with self sabotage and regret

 Sometimes that times i have the most to say are the most difficult times to write. I feel raw, shameful, empty, embarassed, and filled with self hatred and loss of a sense of importance and worth. Depression, anxiety, ptsd... it's a melting pot created by a a collection of shitty situations and chemical imbalance that create the masterpiece I am today. 

Despite having these things for the better part of my life... I'm still learning, adjusting, adapting, and coming to new understandings that comme with growth. These are live demons that can take handle of everything I love and hold dear and tear it to shreds in a matter of seconds. Sometimes we are so used to pain and suffering, when we aren't experience enough of it we tend to need to create such things for ourselves. We need and hunger for the pain because it's often been the only time we feel alive, or like we HAVE to fight. We can't sit it out or we die. I'm not being dramatic. This is where harmful behavior, catestrophic behavior, suicide and unhealthy lifestyles come to play. It's not just a sudden feeling someone gets and runs with without thought. OFten its been a battle no one is comfortable enough to discuss and understand despite the fact that, when a loved on dies from suicide, everyone says "If only they had reached out! I would have spoken to them!" To be clear, I am not suicidal. 

Fuck off with that. I am so sick of people thinking they could have been the savior in a persons life. IF they're struggling in that way. Hurting. ANd living in this dark abode... they need more than a conversation over coffee some afternoon. SUre that can help but they need you at 4 am when they can't sleep. Or at 11 am when they can't leave their bed. These are battles we fight every day. We need help every day. 

In my therapy.. I've worked a lot on boundaries. I've been hyper aware of what i"M feeling, how I'm reacting, how I"m triggered. I've worked insanely hard on these things the last year or so. I've made specific plans and rules to live by in order to keep myself safe, protected, and to give me a plan when I am triggered. 

I had a happening this weekend I did not expect. I became triggered in a way I did not expect. I saw my rapists wife at a restaurant. I, foolishly thought I had overcome it and had moved on when in fact I hadn't thought or reflected upon it at all. This trigger sat inside my heart and my head for two days and brought me down. I thought I was sad. I thought I was PMS'ing. I thought I was just overwhelmed with the typicality of life. I wasn't. I was in a trigger. I didn't' address it. 

I spiraled. I broke every rules and guideline and boundary I have created and agreed upon and broke them. Every. Single. One. My trigger resulted in one of my greatest self sabotage moments of my entire life. a sabotage I didn't think I was even capable of. 

I spent my phone call with my counselor in absolute frantic tears this morning. I shamefully expressed how I had wrecked all of my progress in a series of moments. The closest thing I can compare it to is by celebrating sobriety with a bingefest. I wept with my tail between my legs and am now on a semi watch list. 

I feel like a failure. I feel like a.. I feel like an idiot. 

and now? Now I get to start all over. From the beginning. Pick up the pieces I'm allowed and try to force them back into some shape of a picture... a picture I may just never get to see again. a picture that may just fade away completely like some memory. 

When I get this low, I can't sing. I can't listen to songs I know. I can't.. think or focus or,,, I just fall into the rotation and muscle memory of shit I'm supposed to be doing. The fact that I've been able to write is astounding to me. I'm not going to edit it. I'll end up deleting everything and that's not the purpose of this blog. The purpose of this blog is to help people who go through shit like this. To know that it's not just inspirational quotes and hearing how strong you are. It's not about statistics or causes or whatever else. 

I want people to understand the deep and lasting effects of being a survivor of rape. ANd it is this. It's failed marriage. It's pushing friends and loved ones away. It's pushing love in any form away. It's acceptng trauma. It's sleepless nights, and days of gloom. It's eating disorder. It's depression. It's anxiety. It's crippling fear and panic at seemingly nothing. It's losing your sence of self worth. It's losing your mind. It's spending the rest of your life in therapy. It's shutting down. Backing off. closing off. boundaries up. walls up. It's people judging you and calling you crazy until you tell them what youve been through andn then they tell you how strong you are but they''re still going to keep your rapist in their lives because it's easier. It's wishing they had known. But then not caring to know. It's "Get over it". 

It's being frozen in anger and fear and flashback everytime the news is on. Its watching your friends and family support a rapist and call the accuser a liar who wants attention. But then they want to know the names of mine. Why? 

So now, despite how low I"m feeling. How awful I'm feeling. How weak and depressed, and devestated I'm feeling... I will take a shower. in silence and in the dark. I will get dressed. I will do the bare minimum of what I have to do today. 

Apparently this makes me strong. Me not killing myself or winding up in a ditch makes me strong. me laying in bed and wallowing in my own tears and spilled coffee on my bedsheets makes me strong. I keep going. I'm not strong. I'm about as weak and as fragile and as scared as anyone could be.

fuck.

Time for coffee.

Falling into a panic is attack is incredibly heavy, clouded, and takes your full attention for sometimes days prior. When you’ve experienced them for so long you can sometimes track them like a storm. You are in tune to your thoughts, feelings, senses... your body tenses and holds firm.. your wall is up to protect you from everyone and everything that may try and harm you (which sometimes can be a literal anything). Your eyes dart every room, back and forth, every person, face, wall, what is moving? where is the window and where is the door? How can I get out? What am I missing? 

It’s exhausting. 

You can be totally frozen and yet every other sense is on overdrive trying to put up barriers to pretext you while at the same time using up all of your energy. Causing absence of exhaustion. Defeat. Can’t take any more or do any more. 

I am still in a time where I sometimes think I am stronger than these triggers and attacks. I smell French vanilla coffee and I want to vomit. But the healing and growing part of me wants to be stronger than a scent. But it’s not just the scent. The scent is a trigger acting as a time portal, sending me back to working in a store. I’m standing in jeans and my work T-shirt. I’m trying to work when suddenly his face is there. His stupid fucking face. Holding that styrofoam coffee cup. He’d done it several times before. It used to be my favorite. I’m staring at him. Trying to be strong but so mad. The inside of my lip is blood from my biting. Chewing. A restraint I’m attempting. My wrists still hurt from his stupid fucking hands, clenching and holding them together. I dump the coffee and never drink it again. Not that kind.

That is a trigger. I will get a whiff of it and that is what happens. And I want to fight it and be stronger but sometimes I fucking can’t. And then I get angry for wasting yet more time.

But then it happens. I push it back and ignore and avoid and then I’m left with my only free morning.. having wasted it. I am trapped in my bed witg my thoughts and demons and triggers and all that I avoid with keeping busy. 

I get angry about what makes me feel better. For what I crave and desire and for what makes me feel whole again. 

When I come to I am frozen again but this time I am still. I am loose. I am calm. I am breathing and it is effortless and full and feels like it’s for the first time. That first breaths. I was drowning or at the top of a mountain and can finally take full and deep breaths. I can visualize my lungs expanding with air. My rips growing to the point it looks like they’ll crack. My face is wet. The air feels cool as it dries. My eyes are glazed. My body is still. I feel both dead and alive. I’m in a coma. 

And then I get up. Its time for coffee.