I Have Healed A Great Deal Since My First Post Here. It Is A Relief That I Have Been Able To Make Such

I have healed a great deal since my first post here. It is a relief that I have been able to make such progress, when, at the beginning, I was certain I was going to remain in my high-alert, traumatized state forever.

However that does make some flashbacks and other trauma symptoms a bit more jarring when they do appear.  Some days you feel almost... normal?  But something will take you back and remind you that you aren’t, and that you’ll never be completely “normal” again.

I was more accustomed to that notion when I was in the thick of the worst bits, and having such a disaster-brain all the time made me not have a “normal” to miss. But now, I have good days to mourn.

I feel spoiled for even posting this, especially when I read from people who are still in early healing days. But I guess that's further evidence of how we're not quite there yet.

I'm lying in bed next to my amazing woman, who, moments ago, i woke up so that she'd hold me while I sobbed. For no reason that I can confirm. I am calm now and I feel her drifting off next to me. It's peaceful.

I spent so many nights attempting to pace away my anxiety and dread in the basement alone. I didn't want the creaky floorboards in our old house to wake him.

Waking him was always bad. Especially if I was looking for comfort. His demons were to be soothed, attended and deferred to. Mine, likely only an excuse for my shortcomings, were mine. What business were they of his?

Kindness to myself is how I will erase him.

when i was a teenager it felt very revolutionary to be cruel to myself. like some kind of slow passive protest against how much everything hurt. i starved myself of sleep and food and tenderness because it felt right. it felt sharp and angry and radical and i wanted to be those things. adulthood is the realisation that the world is already working to cut into you well before you learn how to do it yourself. caring for yourself and others is the real protest

2020

Sorry for my absence. The holidays have some traumatic landmark memories for me, and I did my best to avoid all things that trigger.

Overall, I was successful. And my woman is doing her best to help me make some happier memory associations. She got me an xmas tree this year and a whole bunch of lights and ornaments.

I would say that I am cautiously looking forward to next year. At least the decorating part. I guess we can call that progress.

I think the abuse robbed me of my capacity for joy; that whole "in the moment" feeling everyone talks about.

It's conditioning from years in the cycle, where a happy few hours came to a screeching halt ( literally) due to some inconsequential blip, and days of misery would follow.

Beware the happy times - the worst ones come next. How do you relax and be present when that's been your programmed mantra?

This is the reminder card for my follow up appointment after my abortion. I've kept it since receiving it in the last few days of 2016. My woman asked why I've kept so many things that hurt and remind me of terrible times.

These scraps corroborate my story. If I don't keep them, the terrible things that have happened to me just become a figment of my imagination; another false excuse as to why I'm not a better adjusted Adult.

Furthermore, and probably the darker side of my trauma response, I've felt I deserve the misery these memories stir up. Comfort is not something I'm entitled to given my sins and finding reminders of that is part of how I can atone. Real pain is penance after all.

I told her. She said all of the right things. The kind, supportive words we all allow to bounce off of us; so unlike the things he would have said, which I would have allowed to soak into my core.

But I will try a little harder, and today I shredded this damn thing.