When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
~Coldplay
I’m afraid I’m about to sound like a total maniac, as I do my best to write this out. I love my family, my babies, more than anything in this world. I don’t talk about it much, maybe because I keep tricking myself into believing I’ve been “healed”? But, I was diagnosed with PTSD, years ago, awhile after my sexual assault. Adam understands and well knows all of my little eccentricities. No shirt collars, blankets, or especially hands, can be touching my neck. No water in my face. I don’t like to kiss for long periods of time, because I get overwhelmed with the feeling of someone in my face. When we’re having sex, Adam moves all the pillows away from my head, because he knows that is a problem for me. My daughters seem to have sort of adapted, or simply grown up, knowing most of the things that their mama doesn’t appreciate. (Well, not the sex stuff, obviously.) My son, though, he just doesn’t understand. He has a habit of coming up behind me, and hugging me. He typically does it, as he’s asking me for something he wants. That only seems to aggravate my senses even more. I do not like to be touched unexpectedly! To say I “don’t like it”, is actually a gigantic understatement. It literally makes my skin crawl. I feel a rush of both fear, and anger. Part of me wants to scream, and smack the shit out of anyone who does it. Even if it’s my own child. I know how that must sound, to most people. I’m a terrible mother, for having that kind of reaction to my child’s touch. I’m frustrated with myself, for not having “gotten over this”, yet. I’ve been choked, held under water, beaten, and raped. In many ways, those experiences are from a lifetime ago. Once in awhile, I’m flooded with such an onslaught of emotions. Ones I’m fully aware of how, when, and why they’re bubbling to the surface. I wonder, am I ruined? Will I be like this forever? Is this just part of who I am?
My brother suffers with PTSD. Its creation, within him, is from something very different from mine, but I knew he would understand…
Ugh, therapy. I’ve had little to zero success, speaking with any therapists, to date. I don’t want to go sit in a sterile, boring room, and tell some stranger about shit I nearly always do my best to hide from the world. Besides that, the perky and very fake feeling politeness that oozes from every therapist I’ve met with is enough to make me also want to smack them in their stupid smiling face. “Uhhh huh. And, how does that make you feeeel?” Gag me. Or better yet, was the hippy lady who suggested I simply “Just put an invisible shield on.” As if that isn’t exactly what I’ve been doing, for most of my God damn life! Didn’t need to pay her $200 an hour to hear this ingenuous and “brand new” idea…
This is where I’m at, this evening. I guess I’m a little bit pissy. I’d hoped writing it out, here, would help to alleviate some of my pissed off. To be honest, I think it has. This, my blog, has been better therapy than any session I’ve had with strangers, anyway.