The not so pretty truth

It happened…

Seemingly out of nowhere…

The fear. The panic. The uncontrollable crying. The shaking. The wanting to curl up in a ball and hide.

I hate this word. I hate the concitation of it. I hate how it’s improperly used. I hate that I have to use it.

TRIGGERED

I understand why this word is used. When someone with PTSD experiences an episode it is like firing a cannon.

Fight or flight takes place… unless you’re like me, I just freeze.

When I was a little girl, some people that lived down the street from us had a really big snake. The kind that they let out in their front yard with the kiddie pool and a leash. One time they asked if I wanted to watch them feed her.

That day they gave her a baby bunny.

The bunny saw the snake. The snake stayed perfectly still. There was an intense stare down. The bunny was frozen. Finally the bunny moves, it bops the snake on the nose… The snake strikes.

I think about that a lot.

I have always related to that bunny.

When I’m terrified I can’t do anything. I go to a place in my brain that is bright. I detached myself completely from my body. I am in the clouds. My physical body is being tormented, but my emotional self is completely gone… when I’ve been in the clouds too long I bop reality on its nose… reality consumes me. I can feel everything.

Unlike the bunny, I survived.

Unlike the bunny, I need to learn to live with it.

The intensity of trauma and the power it carries.

Trauma is a gigantic snake statue in my life. It is not alive. It is not an actual threat, but it scares the piss out of me whenever I see it.

I can pretend the statue is not there. I can hide it. I can try to build a wall around it. But really I know it’s there. I know it is always lurking in my mind, and I know it’s right around the corner.

Years of DBT. Months of trauma therapy. Pushing through the pain. Creating new coping skills… It is fucking hard work.

You have to look that snake in the eye, and learn to normalize it.

I know that’s a crazy concept. But until you accept reality, and accept that it happened, and accept you survived, and accept you’re going to continue to live… You will never be free.

That snake, has a place in your life. Do I have to like it? Nope not at all. I do have to understand it has a place though.

Once you deal with it… when you can yell at it and how it’s ruined your life, “I see you fucking snake!”

When you can look at it and not be afraid, “you have no power over me snake!”

When you can walk by it without acknowledging it… There is a place where you find freedom.

That is until, you find him in a place you didn’t realize he would be.

The fear. The panic. The uncontrollable crying. The shaking. The wanting to curl up in a ball and hide.

TRIGGERED

But years of DBT, months of trauma therapy, and a whole lot of hard work has shown me I can deal with him.

Tonight I was triggered. I was caught off guard. Tonight that snake put me in my place as a scared bunny.

This time when I bopped reality on the nose though, I understand that I have the skills to look the snake in its eyes.

“Snake, you startled me. Snake, I don’t have to be afraid of you. Snake, I hate that you’re in my life. Snake, you have no power over me.”

I am sure I will be on edge the next several days. I am sure this is not the last time he will scare me. I am positive though, the longer I look at that snake and accept that he is in my world, the less power he will have, and the less time it will take for me to recover.