When you’ve spent the past three decades thinking you’ve had your shit together, only to learn that it was a façade and that denial is, not only real, but also a real mean bitch; how do you pull yourself apart and heal the broken or missing pieces of yourself so that you can have a hope of reassembling everything into something even remotely whole?
This is the puzzle I have been dealing with in every waking moment (and in most while asleep, too) since early October 2019.
Childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect are powerful forces that, over time, inflict more damage, create deeper wounds, than is often fathomable.
PTSD triggers seem to come from nowhere at times ... feeling a compulsion to grab house keys every time I take the bins out in case someone locks me out of the house; accepting blame when it is warranted but becoming almost debilitatingly anxious at the faintest whiff that I might be blamed for something that isn’t my fault; the anger that seethes through me when someone innocently asks where I’m going ...
Some of my triggers I have been aware of for a long time (the smell of chicken noodle soup makes me anxious and nauseated; when I feel I’m being ignored I want to just run away, far and fast) and some arrive suddenly, violently, swelling from some unknown abyss, leaving me drained, empty, confused, and wounded all over again.
It’s bittersweet, opening up these sudden scars, realising past traumas that my subconscious decided to bury. I oscillate between “gods, I didn’t realise it was so bad!” and “that explains *so* much!” and both reactions are valid, if perplexing in their symbiosis.
As I meet each one, systematically tearing it down to get to its roots, to unearth it’s core, I’m exhausted from the pain of remembering, the effort of disassembling ... and yet, I’m exhilarated by pride in what I’m accomplishing, how hard I am working to help the one person who always took a backseat in my life; myself.
I work to put these delicate pieces of myself back together, discovering how they all fit, finding forgiveness for the hurt, scared, lost child I once was.
And each piece finds its place within me anew. Strengthening my foundation. Building my sense of self.
Me; my favourite and most challenging puzzle.
