Triggered

Triggered

The walking trigger bomb struck last night … the triggers happen daily, but last night was discouraging to me …

I had just left the hospital from seeing my brother, see next post for more info on the latest hospital drama …Brother Stu being hospitalized for his infected, diabetic foot wounds, him going off his meds, filing a Missing person’s report from him leaving the VA hospital AMA (Against Medical Advise) Sunday night, The Police finally finding him Wednesday, they had just given a ‘code sepsis’ on him over the loud speaker and he was refusing an IV because they already had blown a vein (not sure which hospital did that) and he said the IV’s are painful … he had peed all over himself, the bed, the now sticky floor, and was telling the doctor he wanted to get off the pills entirely, not to mention the sepsis team requesting to move to Stu to another room because the guy in the next bed was involuntarily screaming out loud every 5-10 seconds AND trying to troubleshoot Stu’s phone which was not working when we were trying to contact him … these are just the highlights and not even the whole story … this is a ‘normal’ day with Stu … Totally insanity …

I need a meeting; I text my dear friend Brian so see if he is going to a meeting in the area so I can join him … he is a shining light and always has good things going … he is just a pleasure to be around at all times …

I am distraught, wanting my brother to die so as to end all this misery, for him and for me, and hoping he is ok at the same time … talk about a conflict of interest!

I walk up to the meeting, and I stick out my hand to shake the hand of the greeter … she announces, “we hug here” … I retort, “I don’t” … Triggered!!

She did nothing wrong … I know this is my stuff … she was trying to be friendly, a lot of meetings hug, many people at the meetings hug, hugging is a huge part of recovery … I even love to be hugged … but there are times when I do not feel safe like walking into a meeting I have never been to, in a program I do not normally go to, not knowing anyone but my friend Brian, when I am under a tremendous amount of stress, I am tired and distraught … this is an instance when I am in protective mode because the pain is so intense that I cannot let randos (random people) disturb my, in that moment, very fragile world …

In that moment, I was triggered when she “demanded” a hug from me … I was taken back instantly to a predator in the rooms of recovery who demanded a hug from me … back when I was a young, pretty, little, naïve thing … I was at a meeting and this douche bag insisted I hug him … I put my hand up to stop him … he came through my hand … I pushed him away … he came back at me … I pushed him away again, directly with my hand on his chest to the point he had to take a few steps back with the force I had pushed him… he looked me straight in the eye and forced himself on me, pushed past my hand and hugged me past my very clear boundary … VIOLATION!! It was a hug rape!  Yes, it was … so disgusting … power move … it still creeps me out to this day … obviously …

He was a venerated member of the men’s recovery club, lots of sober time, helped lots of guys, still hailed as a guru to this day even though he has been dead of many years … I shutter at the sound of his name … he was a total predator and chauvinist, the type of old school pig that uses woman for his own pleasure and then discards them when he is done …

I did not know what to do after he did that … it was so demeaning … like my choice over my own body didn’t matter to him because it didn’t … it was all about him gaining control and getting what he wanted … its so … I do not even have deep enough words to convey how gross this is to me … that is when I usually revert to cussing … but he doesn’t even deserve the waste of a good cuss word … cuss words are sacred … this is as about as low as you can go, circling the sewage drain type shit … Ewwwwww …..

Because of this incident, I vowed that would never happen to me again … I have adopted a firm stance on when I feel ok to hug and when I don’t … it is up to me, not the other person …

I have been hugged many times by people in the rooms, mostly men, who have motives that are not pure … I am a vivacious, beautiful woman with big tits … a magnet for perverts and juvenile men, AKA boys, that want to take their shot or cop a free feel, rub up against the friendly, pretty gal with big knockers … FUCK!! Why do women have to subjected to this kind of torture?! We don’t … but we sure do have to navigate through these waters, me ON A DAILY BASIS … I am talking THOUSANDS of times throughout my life … enough to make you take a stance as to how to protect yourself … I can see it coming now … my outstretched, blocking hand avoiding unnecessary, creepy hugging … on the high alert scale …

Now for the big reveal … this is Dad shit … my dad was one of those creepy perverts, cop a free feel, old school chauvinist, juvenile boy mentality, didn’t get enough love as a kid, needy mother fuckers … and I loved my dad dearly, DEARLY! But this about him, I hated …

He was so needy in the area he cheated on my mother for years and grabbed for women any chance he got … I knew this was inherently wrong since I was 5 years old … why is daddy flirting with the waitress in front of mommy and her sister, Auntie D.? I was confused by this behavior from a very, very young age …

As I got older, my dad even did this to my friends, being flirty & huggy with them … he even acted as if I was his girlfriend when we were out and about … After I reached recovery, I asked him to stop doing that in one of the most uncomfortable conversations I have ever had to have in my life … to his credit, he did stop. He had never touched me inappropriately … in fact, he gave me so much appropriate love as a child, but as a pilot, he was gone a lot so that was few and far between … My father was a good man, just damaged from his childhood too … but all of this left me confused about what appropriate love from a man is supposed to look like …

Growing up with this model of behavior made it “normal” … this is how guys are … they grope you … deal with it … PASS!!

But I did not pass, even though it was extremely uncomfortable for me, for decades, because I thought that is just how life is … men lord over women sexually and that is the way of the world … an old idea formed in childhood that is not true or correct, but was carried into adulthood and caused more damage … this is the shit I have spent thousands of dollars and hours of therapy on … worth every penny … to undo this shit … reform and reshape my thinking from these ingrained beliefs that harm me and were a part of my make up for so long …

So … talk about a triggered flash back … all in an instant … this little gal at the meeting door had NO idea what just took place in my brain in about 1.5 seconds … all that … packed into 1.5 seconds … that is why it is called trauma … it is traumatic to relive that on the regular …

Maybe I should wear a sign that says “proceed at you own risk” …

This gal tonight was just trying to be friendly, there was no ill-intent in her action, just a desire to welcome me to the meeting and do things how they do it at that meeting … but the action, and her direct manner, triggered that flash back and all the other hugging baggage I carry with my PTSD+ … like she was demanding to be hugged and my body, mind and spirit screamed “NOPE! I’ll decide” … she had no way of knowing this was my experience & truth … She meant nothing other than to greet me and welcome me to the meeting with open arms …

This is where I get frustrated … imagine carrying this around with you ALWAYS … PTSD is a knee jerk reaction, you can not stop yourself most of the time … it has to get unwired so the hair trigger doesn’t get tripped, but there are so many hair triggers that it takes a life time to undo them … this is where I start to cry writing this … holy shit … this shit is hard … I will keep trying … noticing what happens and overcoming each obstacle as it happens … that is my nature … the nature of tenacity, survival and sheer determination …

Imagine living like this on a daily basis … some of you do not have to imagine it, you are living it … you are one of the main reasons I am writing this post, this blog … writing my truth and experience, to try to help in some way … help both of us … together we can heal with understanding and comradery … knowing that others are going through the same, or similar struggles, is the stuff healing is made of … it is a starting point for trust and love to bloom and blossom … where the wounds can be exposed to the light, which mends years of destruction from the culprit of mental illness … PTSD is mental illness … and community can restore us to health, one day at a time, if we are willing and keep showing up for our own restoration.

Back to the meeting … I found Brian, grabbed some coffee, the meeting started, we celebrated some members’ sobriety time, ate cake, sang happy birthday, cute kids playing with the celebration balloons roamed about, members talked about the miracle of recovery and hugged in a circle to end the meeting … one of the gentlemen who had witnessed the exchange outside was seated next to me … he looked at me, shrugged and said “are you good? cos we are gonna hug now …” I got irritated at his question because now I feel like I have to explain myself and I just wanted… NEEDED a meeting … now I have to explain shit that is impossible to explain to strangers and I shouldn’t have to … just because I walked in the door and did not want to be forced to hug a stranger … yes, I am fine to lock up shoulders … but I kind of wasn’t … I do not like forced closeness … I like my space … and that is ok … I mumbled to him that it is was a safety thing for me, I do not like people demanding hugs when I do not feel safe, he said he gets it … I was not threatened by him, I intuitively knew that he is a gentle giant and I actually felt safe sitting by him in the meeting … he reminded me of my brother Stu …

During the meeting, like 2 minutes into the meeting, I knew I wanted to make an amends to the girl at the door … just to set things right … I found her at the last minute, walked up to her and apologized if I had offended her, that was not my intention and it was not personal … she was totally cool with it all, said she was taken by surprise, but not offended … we talked it out, shook on it and left it good … I am glad for that …

Meetings always help me, and it was a good meeting and it did help me, except for this trigger incident …

The hangover of the situation is that the PTSD kicks in instantly, uncontrollably, into my life, at unexpected times, when I just need to connect with my recovery family and yet the PTSD can make me push away the very thing I am seeking to heal me … to keep people at a distance so I feel safe when I really want their love and comradery … I am on constant alert of how YOU might hurt me and how to avoid that … it is not a conscious thought, it is innate … this is where overcoming all this takes a tremendous amount of effort and willingness to let go of it all … unless you have experienced this … you have no idea the depths of how deep this runs … it is an underlying current that runs constantly, without thought … it is the program running in the background at all times, everywhere, every time … it can be exhausting … debilitating … depressing …

The frustration of just wanting to go to a meeting to feel better and now I get an extra layer of bullshit added to feeling bad is just torturous … especially on top of an already impossible situation with my unpredictable, mentally ill brother, and with my work for that matter, as I fight for the rights of another mentally ill young man and a rogue HOA, that is a story for another time when that matter is completed … but needless to say, it is heavy and weighs on me … also the demands of a stressful occupation, just trying to keep my head above water amidst it all …

This is where the hope comes in … Jesus and Our Father, God, are my stability … I am surrendered and following them … giving up the ghost … letting them guide me daily … trying not to control, just following the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, AKA intuition … letting what feels right guide me next, despite my head demanding to make sense of it all … my head wants to figure it all out before I act … but the guiding of intuition is more ‘in the flow’, where you just do it because somehow you know you are supposed to and it feels foreign because it is not something I would normally do under my carefully controlled mind regimen that keeps me safe and in control, the flow feels easy and natural … that is Gods will … That’s what I strive to follow, and it is getting easier and easier as time goes on with more practice …

It is God’s will that whispered to me to make an amends to the girl at the door and we were able to smooth it out … it felt like the right thing to do as opposed to my ego, at first telling me it was her fault … but what a mind fuck in the mean time … this is what I live with on a daily basis, what I strive to overcome, what I am gaining ground on inch by inch, day by day, committed to recovery … recovery is slow, V… E… R… Y…   S… L… O… W… (said in slow motion) but I am committed …

I just had a glimpse, worth writing out the 2800+ words for …I have all the time I need for it because that is all the time I am going to have!  This is the most important thing I could be doing and I am only going to have whatever time I have left in this life, so it might as well be moving towards healing, however far I make it, is however far I make it … At least I will literally die trying to get a better me to the table … I can live with that … PTSD+ and all … as long as there is hope, I can do it, and there is ALWAYS hope … Thank God! Literally …