I have to write. It’s been a while.
Last year I was gifted with a minor head injury, which jumbled my brain. It’s a long story, but essentially, I saved an entire middle school from a T-Rex attack during a meteor shower, and then proceeded to hit my head on the metal corner of my car door while reaching for my wallet. The T-Rex spent 4 months in rehab and is now a vegan attending a culinary arts institute in Reykjavik, Iceland. I ended up taking 5 weeks off from work, unable to look at a computer screen and wore headphones and sunglasses wherever I went. I couldn’t even listen to music. My brain is mostly recovered, and no children were harmed in the process. Also…the part about saving the children and the T-rex may have been slightly fabricated.
And now…I need to write. I am going to write about a man who abused me from 15-18, well, 19. There will be few details, and I only write when I can stay present. Friends, we have to care for our brains and nervous systems – too much and we risk re-traumatization. So take care of yourselves as you read… and if you risk being triggered, maybe read it another time or skip it altogether. [Addend: don’t worry, I don’t really say much about him. Turns out, I can only write little bits at a time.]
Here we go:
Today I felt him…again. It felt like he was hovering above and behind my right shoulder. I could hear his laugh and smell his smoked up alcoholic garlic breath.
Gross.
How I ended up with a 31 year old “boyfriend” at 15 is a story for another time. The damage he did was so great, that I am still affected 38 years later. Even in writing that last sentence I felt my throat starts to close and my heart race.
This is how trauma works – it makes the past feel ever-present. But as I hear and smell and feel him , I am aware of the present moment. I am safe in my living room, with my dog guarding the front door as she does every night, my spouse in our bedroom reading a book, our kiddo in her room sleeping. It is 2023, not 1984.
Last Friday I celebrated 38 years since my last drink or drug. I will write about that another time as well. But I remember so clearly making the decision to break up with this man – I desperately wanted to stay sober and I knew I could not if he were still in my life. There was zero understanding for me that I was being seriously abused. He was my boyfriend – a belief I needed at the time. I was so brainwashed by him.
Pause…
I am having some feelings. Not scary feelings, but a feeling of pride – I don’t know how I was able to muster the courage to break things off with him – choosing my life over his desire to control me. Because the “break-up” didn’t last, I have often belittled my attempt at following through with the breakup. But at that time I was 16 with no place to turn but recovery. I chose recovery.
Of course he would not leave me alone, and after threatening to go after my then 9 year old sister, [he was a sick jerk of a man] I went back to him- managed to stay sober, but became more entangled in his mind games and sexual abuse for another 6 months – with intermittent encounters for the next 3 years. (That’s a long run-on sentence that I am going to leave unedited. Just for fun.)
It was hell.
I thank God every day for my sponsor and others in recovery for helping me through it. And here I am sober, working a program, and sponsoring other people. That is a miracle, my friends. a freaking miracle.
Today I could not leave my house, I was too frozen in my body. During my online therapy session I wondered aloud (through tears and somewhat dissociated)… what would my life be like if just one of the traumas didn’t happen… I allowed that statement to come forward, not as a way to delve into my grief, but as a way to expand my imagination.
Trauma takes away imagination.
It keeps us stuck in a cyclical mindset:
“I am bad. Bad things happened to me. I can’t get rid of the bad feelings. So I am bad.” Another idea, or a change in direction or tempo or observation introduces a taste of the creative spirit – it’s a kind of jazz of memory, expanding the realm of possibility. It becomes hope, and allows a little more breath and wonderment – maybe I am not going to be this way forever.
I am sad today…life has not been easy for me. It is likely that my early childhood and teenage years contributed to a brain and nervous system that still doesn’t operate quite right. This affects my physical, mental, and spiritual health , most likely shortening my life.
And then there is this thing called “post traumatic growth.” I am alive, present, functioning in the world (most of the time), sober, clean, married to the same person for 24 years…I work, people trust me with their secrets. I can be in high stress situations and somehow manage to be calm. Seriously – calm.
I wonder why other people seemingly experience a constant freedom from their past while I often feel tethered to mine. Then I remember the friends I have made along the way who are no longer living in this world – those who died because living was too hard; their precious scars kept breaking open, and they could not move through this realm any longer. Often I feel them coaching me from the great beyond– cheering me on, encouraging me to imagine the space on the other side of the tethering.
I am so very sad.
I hurt. I feel his breath on my neck and I want to scream. The terror in my mind oozes into the air around me, and every inhale feels like another betrayal; a constant reminder that he still owns pieces of me.
It is not fair.
It is not fair.
It is not fair.
Erliss…go to bed. May the angels watch over you, dear one.
Sometimes we have to parent ourselves, my friends.
Thank you for listening.
Much love to each of you,
Erliss, a sad yet deeply grateful recovering alcoholic and addict.
P.S.
The photo at the top of this post was taken through my living room window this morning. When going through difficult memories, it is good to have a resource or two to remind the person of life outside the memory. Trauma memories tend to be encapsulated in such a manner that they have no connection to any other experiences outside the trauma. This view is one of my resources, helping me stay grounded in gratitude, even when happiness is in the far distance.
