Category Archives: triggers

lost friends

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7

You’ve had a hard day of therapy, so you take yourself to the grocery store for a distraction. It’s usually a good choice. However, today you run into two former friends.

It’s obviously awkward for everyone. They don’t try to hide the Deer-in-the-Headlights look on their face. You say hello. They say hello back with a vacant distant look. You shuffle on as quickly as you can so that everyone can stop feeling awkward.

Afterwards, a part of you hopes for a text or an email from one of them, but, alas, there is none. You finally realize that the friendship is really over.

You drive home, cry a little, and then once you pull into your apartment complex you get out of car and immediately go for a brisk walk. The frozen grocery items can wait while you walk! You turn up the Glee playlist on your iPhone because you need to get the self-defeating thoughts out of your head. You replay “Defying Gravity” a few times, and even “Gives You Hell,” but you feel only mildly better.

The PTSD was too much for them, and a part of you understands. It’s true that they triggered you inadvertently a few months ago, and it was made worse later by one of them. It was The Episode That Made It Worse that was the real breaking point. You realize you’re talking in riddles here, but you can’t possibly relive it again.

You’ll never forget that horrid Winter Dance where you and your partner were on the verge of splitsville. “Billie Jean” started playing, and, for lack of anything else to do, you went on the dance floor to dance by yourself to that horrid song. This short, spunky woman then starts dancing next to you, and says, “Hi, I’m Faith! Doesn’t this suck?” Yes, the dance did suck, and that was the start of your friendship.

You just have to accept that they are gone.

TW: Floaty free-for-all

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Mega ginormous therapy day was had by the lot of us today. We did not like it one bit, not a sliver, not a crumb of like.

It’s weird in life how one seemingly disconnected thing can lead to one thing and then another, and before you know it you can draw the connection between these things. I’m getting ahead of myself, let me explain …

On the long drive to Doc’s office my head started shaking, and it felt a bit … involuntary. I know it’s strange to say that, but that’s how it felt. It felt like I was vigorously shaking my head no, but I had no idea why. The only thing I could surmise was that one of the peeps did not want to go see Doc today.

So, I get in to see Doc, and convey all this to him, and he agrees that is likely the case. It turns out that one of the little peeps did not want to come back because last time when Doc was setting me up for neurofeedback I had a memory come back to me as he was putting the electrodes on my head. I started remembering my mother detangling my hair in a painful manner. I think this memory was triggered because Doc was touching my head while I was a little peep. Anyhow, my mother decided to have my hair cut short, like a boy after this particular detangling because she was tired of dealing with it. My hair was cut so short I looked like Huckleberry Finn in a dress. I was beyond mortified.

To add to the mortification, Easter was upon us very soon after this hair hacking job. I had an awesome baby blue dress that looked like a boy decided to wear a dress to Easter Mass. I was mad, and embarrassed to be seen with the hack job on my head.

Right after Mass my idiotic stepfather had the entire family gather on the lawn in front of the church for a photo. The dork even brought his camera. Who brings a camera to Easter Mass? As we were gathering for the picture I grasped my hands in front of me. My stepfather started taking pictures of us, and my mother shouted out at me that I needed to stop holding my hands that way because it looked like I was touching myself.

Once I conveyed this to Doc I was floaty and out of it. Since then I’ve been grappling with feelings of despair and ideation.

If there’s more to remember, I don’t want it. Don’t want to hear it, don’t want to know it.

Oh, yes, that’s what that was …

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7

Some pieces are starting to come together in spurts. Just yesterday while I was plodding along trying to get myself together after being triggered I had a memory race across my brain.

Three years ago I decided to go to a 6 week partial hospitalization program at a nearby psychiatric hospital. It was the first time I entered a psychiatric hospital for treatment. I was crying, completely triggered and freaked out when I made the phone call to the intake phone line. After I spoke for a few short minutes, the woman on the phone asked me if she could speak to one of my parents. I was stunned! I didn’t understand why she said that. She seemed genuinely surprised when I told her how old I was, at the time I was 37!

Ever since that happened three years ago I’ve been stumped by it. I thought various things, such as was it because of the fact that I was crying that she thought I was a young child? But plenty of people cry on the phone as adults and don’t get mistaken for children … I’ve always wondered how that happened. It bothers me when I can’t understand or explain things.

Then it occurred to me yesterday that the woman on the intake phone line at the psychiatric hospital must have interacted with me while I had switched to a child alter. It finally made sense to me. Doc had mentioned to me on Friday that my intonation changes when I switch into a child alter. He can immediately tell when it happens.

It’s small, very small, but I like understanding, even if it’s only a small piece of the entire story.