If you have PTSD or cPTSD, what follows may be painfully familiar, and I’m sorry in advance. Maybe skip this one? I don’t want to cause harm. Consider this a trigger warning (I’ll be talking about PTSD and domestic violence).
… I honestly don’t know whether to begin “at the beginning”, or quite when that beginning might actually be. I’m writing while also still triggered, slowly working through my anxiety and stress, and trying to find my way to a calmer place. I have the tools to manage the moment, and I feel pretty confident in the potential that I can, but it’s no easy thing. My heart is still pounding, and I can feel that my breathing is irregular, shallow, somewhere between hyperventilating and struggling to breathe. The first mile of my walk passed quickly, feet hitting the pavement too hard, pace unsustainably aggressive. I finally stop, sit, and work on properly calming myself.
For some context, after a week of providing approximately 24/7 caregiving to my Traveling Partner recovering from surgery, with few breaks, and no opportunity for deep restful sleep (or even more than 2-4 hours at a time, simply due to the timing of medication), I was exhausted, struggling with short-term memory and moments of confusion. I was also dealing with grief, having lost a cherished family member mid-week, and reconfronting the loss of my Dear Friend in the spring on the date of her celebration of life. My self-care was coming up short in places, just due to distractions and fatigue-driven stupidity.
In the evening last night, my Traveling Partner very kindly proposed that he felt up to making sure to take his medication through the night, and suggested I just get some sleep. Beyond grateful (and feeling very loved) I accepted. I even set my wake up time for a little later than usual, to be sure to get the rest I needed. I didn’t manage to sleep through the night, still waking briefly each time my partner woke up and got out of bed, and once because a laxative I had taken decided to do its thing at 04:00 in the morning. (I got a lot more sleep than I’ve been getting for the past 10 days or so, and it seems enough.)
I was soundly deeply asleep when I heard a soft voice ask me to join him in the bathroom. In my sleeping state, the voice sounded “sweetly menacing”, and seemed to me to be the voice of my first husband. A cold chill descended over me, my mouth went dry even as I immediately began getting out of bed. I don’t recall whether I replied or what I said. My consciousness felt paralyzed with dread. (Had I only dreamt my life with my Traveling Partner? Was I still trapped in a living nightmare?) I was already triggered before my Traveling Partner could even speak to me. He was stressed out, himself; one of his meds had just run out completely, which he discovered while preparing his meds for the day ahead. On a Sunday. He was panicking and needed my support – but I was also responsible for him running out of the medication! I’d been tasked with – and accepted responsibility for – ensuring his meds were timely, and available, and that he takes them. His panic expressed itself as anger, or that’s how it reached my still disoriented brain. Triggered and unsure where/when I was, I panicked, too. I fled. I took immediate action in the direction of getting that Rx filled, somehow. I wasn’t thinking efficiently or clearly.
He phoned me feeling angry and left without care. Reasonable, frankly. He gently asked me to come back, make coffee, and make a clear plan, together. I did that, dragging myself through every step, still thoroughly triggered and drenched in stress, dread, terror… None of it “real”. (No one likes being yelled at first thing when they wake, and also, no one wants to begin a Sunday discovering their partner allowed a critical medication to run out!) Nothing about the actual lived experience today actually justifies the headspace I find myself in; this is mental illness. PTSD. I’m a domestic violence survivor. Managing that these days sometimes feels like an afterthought, but this morning it’s way too fucking real.
I made coffee for my Traveling Partner, we settle on an action plan, and I leave the house, again. I’m definitely a threat to his calm and healing time in the condition I’m presently in, and I need time and space to calm myself and get re-anchored to “now”. My stress and anxiety multiply with my shame over failing my partner.
… The pharmacy opens at 10:00…
I hit the trail hard. Aggressive footsteps slamming the ground at an unsustainable (for me, now) pace. I walk myself breathless. I can’t tell if my heart is pounding with the exertion or my anxiety. My first mile passes quickly, unnoticed. I’m stuck in my own head.
I stop, finally, and sit for a minute. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Be here now.” I remind myself. For most values of “okay”, I am okay right now. No one is chasing me. There is no imminent threat. Fuck PTSD. I hate this shit. How am I so terrified right now?
… I remind myself how rare it is to have to face this crap, these days…
I write a while. Meditate. Breathe. Work on calming myself. I reflect on the relationship I have with my Traveling Partner, his gentleness, his love, and our life together. “Be here now.” Now is okay. No physical violence. No being awakened in the night to be beaten. No torture. For most values of okay, I am okay right now. I save my draft and walk on, realizing I really need to pee.
I walk on more gently. I’m still seeking calm. I’m still pretty fucked in the head. My heart is heavy with the stress and hurt that I have caused my partner. It’s incredibly difficult to make amends for this sort of thing and it’s hard to overstate the damage it can do.
I breathe, exhale, and relax (well, I try; I’m still working on that).
I notice the sunshine, the blue sky, the birdsong. I notice the swarm of rally cars in the parking lot as I reach the trailhead. I think about how far I’ve come and how much time has actually passed since my living nightmare ended… 30 years? Hasn’t it been long enough to really let it go?
Brain damage and PTSD… That’s a lot to ask a partner to deal with. I find myself wondering why he stays, and can’t help recognizing that he must love me deeply to endure so much. I’ve managed to fail him too often over these months of injury (and now recovery), and it doesn’t seem fair to him. Good intentions aren’t enough, and sometimes doing my best won’t get the job done. That’s fucking awful and way too g’damned real. I curse my ex under my breath as I walk… but the responsibility for doing more/better now is mine, 100%.
I walk and think and prepare to begin again.
Evening Light 