Damn Triggers

My depression has passed, thank you for your help. People who care can make or break a person in those fragile moments. You all made me rise up from the black hole. You are much appreciated.

I called my therapist, Libby, and got an appointment with her on this past Monday. In our discussion we discovered that perhaps it is time for me to have weekly appointments again. We went a few months “on call” but some stuff has come up that needs to be dealt with.

I have trudged through my history and dug up some roots. I have written “my story” of bad memories that contributed to some of my PTSD issues today. That was a very therapeutic assignment.

Now I have new triggers happening. Libby gave me two choices. I could either learn how to move past them and live my life coping with it. Or I could stop in my tracks and start digging even deeper into some of my past, hitting on spots that were previously either avoided or hidden. I asked Libby which path she thought I would want to take. She knew exactly. Which path do you think I am going to take?

I do not enjoy passing over things and putting bandaids on them. I want to know why crap happens and triggers me. I want to the hold the bloody painful gnarly root in my hand and study it. Then learn how to deal with it. I need information in order to move forward. That is just who I am. Knowledge is power.

I have stumbled upon two triggers recently. One is my home. There is tension and stress within our walls. I grew up with that. Safety was missing in my upbringing. Stability and security were absent. I always felt small, unworthy, and lost. I was not important in the grand scheme of life. I have dealt with my mother issues and have reached a better point within myself to deal with her. I believed I blogged before about my father and the tension that came from his mood swings. Now that I face this within my own home as an adult, those childhood feelings are coming up. So, one task is to deal with my father and those feelings of being unworthy.

The second trigger was over this past weekend during a family picnic. Our niece and nephew are 10 and 13, the boy being older. Let me say that the boy is a bit wimpy and the girl is a tough tomboy. They are constantly after each other in one form or another. Wrestling, hitting, kicking, throwing, tumbling, etc. I’ve never seen two kids this age still act this way. Nevertheless, that is the basic story. Now, I know these kids are innocent and nothing out of the ordinary is happening. But, inside of me, something was churning. I sat there and watched them play and I got physically ill. My stomach turned and flopped. At one point, our nephew reached out to stop our niece from coming at him and his hands landed on her chest. I got angry. I got upset. Then I got nauseas. My own childhood came at me full force. I wanted to burst from my seat and strangle him. Obviously, I realized at this same time that this was not my story, it was theirs and there was nothing wrong with it. That reaction made me realize that there were a few things that still needed to be resolved within me. That will be the other task to deal with, my history of physical abuse.

I have my work cut out for me for a while. I may blog about it. This is my outlet.

I thank you for sticking around through the good times and the not so good times.  :-)