*CONTENT WARNING! Common themes of this blog include, but are not limited to, PTSD and abuse, sexual and otherwise.*
[written on December 24, 2012]
It’s Christmas Eve and instead of being in The Homeland with my family, I’m sitting on my couch in B-Town, waiting to attend an Al-Anon* meeting with L**. I spent the 10ish days leading up to my flight home crying, puking, saying over and over again how much I didn’t want to go. Not this year. Not right now. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I could barely function enough to do my job. So, when Tuesday came around and I was in the worst shape yet, I went to therapy to figure out what to do. It’ll be my first Christmas away from home and the first Christmas my family spends apart. It was surprising to see and feel just how much I didn’t want to be there this year. Just the thought of being in that house with my dad, pretending like everything is a-ok, like his alcoholism didn’t fundamentally fuck with my life, like I’m not dealing with my own pain right now…. Spending 8 days keeping all of them calm, taken care of, worrying about everyone but me. It’s the same ol’ story, again. Take care of Sister, take care of Mom, protect everyone from Dad… I left therapy knowing that if I finally took the time to make a decision for myself, if I decided to take care of myself instead, I would be staying in B-Town for Christmas. So, after 4 more hours of crying, trying to convince myself that guilt and fear aren’t sufficient reasons for me to fly across the country to that house, I canceled my flight and tried to get some sleep. Finally.
It had been at least a week since my last full night’s rest (even more than a few hours would be great), but I stayed awake, anyway. Night 2+ of no sleep. The next morning, I told my mom I wasn’t coming home. I spent most of Wednesday crying, throwing up, trying to sleep. L spent most of the day with me, trying to get some sort of food into me. We took a sauna together, sometimes she just sat with me. I never realized how much being in that house and playing that role have conditioned me. I never realized the deep fear that lives ever deeper inside me. This notion of living the life of a parentified child, and adding 5 years of molestation, assault and rape on top of that — it’s a wonder I made it this far at all.
I thought making the decision not to go home would end some of the nausea, sleeplessness, anxiety. I was wrong. Partly. Wednesday night I went to hell and back. B was supposed to leave for her Homeland on Thursday morning and by 3am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I was having a full-blown panic attack and it turned into this purging, painful, desperate catharsis. At least that’s what K calls it. It’s the closest I’ve come to death, and I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it isn’t. I was crying uncontrollably, vomiting, my whole body was convulsing. I hadn’t slept in days and couldn’t stop shaking and honestly felt like if I was all alone, I wouldn’t make it. And it just kept going. Every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, I couldn’t keep doing it, feeling those things, it got worse. The sheer desperation I felt that night is simply not something I can put down in words that describe the pain I felt. At times I was telling B I needed to be hospitalized. I wanted so badly to just fall asleep, to have the nausea and crying and shaking stop. B called K, her own therapist, and MB*** at 4am our time, trying to figure out something to do. And even as I write this, I know it sounds trite. At times I just wanted everything to stop. I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t feel like that anymore. But, somehow, I hit rock bottom, got to the very ends of the fringe of my rope, and 5 days later, I am still recovering. At least I feel some semblance of normality.
This is where the story gets interesting. I am writing this as a new Fuzzy Trauma Llama. Something shook loose on Wednesday night, some demon was purged. My body released so much deeply buried pain, trauma, fear, sadness, secrecy. It feels like I went through a cathartic rebirth. I feel different, like a different me. It’s hard to describe, but staying here and going through just the worst night of my life healed me. At least a part of me. I can feel some of the anxiety has disappeared. I can feel my subconscious churning through all of this — still trying to make sense of what it was I went through, what it means, how I’ve changed.
I find it difficult to convey the true levels of pain and suffering I went through Wednesday. There seem not to be words for it. No one says this is a path you can take. No one says you don’t have to bury all of this inside until it devours you whole. You can choose to heal this trauma. And I’ve realized that by taking this step, by choosing to heal, by facing hell and continuing to walk further in, I am changing the story for sexual assault survivors. I’m putting another narrative into that magical Jungian collective consciousness and I’m disrupting the operative norms that seek to keep us as broken victims. When someone harms you in the ways I’ve been harmed, they take all of your power for themselves. By deciding not to let him break me, by deciding to heal and take my life back, I am also taking back that power. For the first time, I feel that power and that strength inside me. I feel the power in what I’m doing here. I feel myself changing and solidifying and I am going to finally know what it’s like to flourish. Onward!
-FTL
*This was my first Al Anon meeting. We met in a small, circular room. Chairs were set up around the circumference of the room so that everyone looked in to the middle. The meeting is for women-identified people, led by women-identified people. It was a mix of straight, lgbtq, old, young, middle, tall, black, parents, children, daughters… I had huge issues with the God stuff — just hearing “God” causes a visceral reaction in my gut, but that’s a whole other issue. I heard stories that resonated with me and helped me de-normalize how I grew up. I haven’t gone back, but if I do, I’ll give this group another try. It’s probably one of the few places I could get past the word God and onto the lessons.
**L lives above me and B. She has become a compassionate guide and sage presence in my life. We have an amazing little hobbit-hole of a home tucked behind/under L and A’s main house. We’ve been living here for about a year and a quarter now, and L and A have become our family, not just our landlords. L has her own story to tell when it comes to trauma, and she has shared her story and her home and her love with me unconditionally. Someday, I’ll figure out how to show both her and A how much they mean to me. In the meantime, I bake them pies.
***MB is like B’s second mom/Cool Aunt. Very dear friend of her mom’s (and became a dear friend of her dad’s, as well), very free-flowing, intelligent, warm woman. Loves B like a daughter and has been a loving support to B throughout this and the rest of her life. MB is awesome, has a great sense of style, reminds me a bit of Joni Mitchell, and has a phenomenal laugh.
