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| A photo of one of said holidays - dang my Grandpa was sad! |
Luckily, I have managed to create a peaceful loving home with my little family of four.
But growing up, holidays were confusing. They were a time when the stark contrast between how I felt on the inside and how things looked on the outside was greatest, making them extremely difficult for me.
We now know, as I've written about before, that the body holds on to feelings that it wasn't able to feel at the time. We don't get to control when they come out. There are some very effective means of keeping them in -- drinking alcohol is one that my family seems to prefer most -- but the problem with that method is the old feelings then continue to get held in the body, weighing everything down.
I've been working hard over the last decade or so - so very hard - to understand, to release, to accept, to forgive, to witness, to share - my own experience, and this has meant making the decision to feel.
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| The cousin joy I desperately want to facilitate |
I made a plan for the four of us to go skiing at Cascade and stay overnight at an Air Bnb in Montello with my sister and her family. I love my sister and her children, and a big part of me wanted to go.
Another part started to make her needs known the day before: I started feeling triggered. By now I know the signs that I'm under the spell of my PTSD: I was hypervigilant, I was nervous, I was irritable, I was angry, I couldn't sleep, I wanted to drink to forget. But I didn't listen. I overrode those feelings, and I pressed on with the plan.
I will never ignore them again.
Because what transpired on Sunday, December 23, on the way to skiing with my sister's family, was so awful, so beyond my control, and so traumatizing for my own children that I never, ever want to go there again.
I can recount what happened, but I'm not sure it will help anyone understand it. I was stopped at a point in the journey where I wasn't sure which way to go. I consulted Google Maps, and it failed to help me determine which way to turn.
And then I lost it. Like, lost it like I never have before. I screamed. My son tried to tell me I could go either way. I screamed louder. Everything that either of my children said made it worse. I continued to drive while both children were in tears, begging me to let my daughter drive instead. I simply could not cede the little bit of control I had left. In those moments, my children did not feel like my children, and I did not feel like myself. I was not in my body.
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| Such a strong, resilient kid I've got, and a ski lover to boot |
Most of all, I'm profoundly grateful that no one was physically injured. I'm also grateful for my therapist, who said to me "Yes, you went off the rails, and you needed to get off those rails." Another of my healers - a neurovascular therapist described that my insides after that event were "a whole new landscape" - that before, everything I felt was tamped down, and then the gasket blew. My yoga teacher asked me what I needed in that moment in the car, and when I said I didn't know, she said she thought I needed help. I began to sob. Yes, that makes sense. It makes perfect sense that the help I couldn't ask for and never received as a child was the need I so desperately felt and was finally able to express, albeit more crudely than I would have liked.
Phew. So what does this song have to do with all of this? A couple of things. One, I know that my children and I are protected by forces beyond anything we can understand rationally, by Jesus, Etc., and for this I am incredibly grateful.
Two, there are parts of me that are similar to my parents that I haven't felt the need to fight against in the same way. One of these is my love for TV. One of my new shows is Billions. It's sooooo good.
And on a recent episode, two of my favorite characters were discussing this song:
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| My treasured musicians, the day after |
You can rely on me honey
You can combine anything you want
I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun
Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around
Don't cry
You can rely on me honey
You can come by any time you want
I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun
Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around
It does't exactly retell the story of December 23, but it kinda does...
