My life blew up shortly before my son’s third birthday. That’s not entirely accurate. Let me try again… Around my son’s third birthday, a couple of years before I turned 40, the fog began to lift. Up to that point, it was like I had been living with my head in a cloud. Not really being in the driver’s seat, but just kind of being pulled along the course of life by whatever was presented to me at any given moment. And the lifting didn’t happen all at once. It started as a deep and powerful feeling that can be best summed up as ‘horny’. I was driven by a lust I hadn’t experienced before. Using my power of dissociation to revel in elaborate sexual fantasies. Nothing I tried could make it stop. Not mental indulgence, forbiddance, writing about it or sharing it. I was driven. I discussed it with my trusted doctor. And .. at her advice.. Ultimately I tried to discuss it with my husband. That didn’t go so well, and. Yadda yadda yadda, less than 6 months later.. I was out.
It was the most painful and difficult thing I have ever been through and over ten years later I can honestly say that I never regretted it for a second.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many things in my life that I regret. And many of those things have to do with the way that my marriage ended. But the actual leaving… No regrets.
It took me several years after the divorce to really truly wake up.
And by wake up, I mean lose my shit.
At 40 years old, now safely outside of a very long pattern of trauma, my old way of being started to come apart. As it turns out, my entire life and identity was a trauma response.
Ev.ery.thing. Every decision I have ever made.. Was all based on the programming of my brain being raised feeling unsafe.
So my libido came on line to give me the strength to get out, but it took another 3-4 years before the fog fully lifted. Even though my very first counselor at 18 years old diagnosed me with ptsd, and even though I had struggled with different aspects of mental health issues over the years, it was right around 40 years old that I could really see my mental health status in a bigger frame. When I began looking for resources to help me deal with the dissociation, emotional flashbacks, communication and relationship struggles that I now understood had been running my entire life, I found a new diagnosis called CPTSD. Every detail of every description fit almost perfectly. It was like they had lifted details from my life. Waking up in a horrible mood for no discernable reason, driving and suddenly realizing that I wasn’t really there mentally and had no idea where I was (this cost me many hours being lost before cell phone GPS), only sleeping for an hour or 2 at a time because of hypervigilance, agreeing to things that I really didn’t want to without a single thought only to realize later what i had agreed to, taking on too much to the point that I’m totally overwhelmed and none of it I would have chosen for myself. Chasing validation like I was literally going to die without it. I could finally see it. This was the thing that was making me feel crazy. During this time I had repeated trauma patterns with the oppressive roles being played out by landlords or housemate, getting a DUI that viciously interfered with my career plan, before I finally figured out that I needed to stop chasing validation from other traumatized people or men who wanted to have sex with me and actually work on myself. I started going regularly to UU church. Found a mentor and started playing affirmations in earbuds overnight.
Then covid hit. Chasing outside validation just wasn’t an option anymore.
From what I have heard, I’m not the only one with some form of PTSD that found themselves suddenly more equipped than the average person. Like… sudden change and chaos? Isolation and dread? Bring it on, man, I been down all these roads many many times.
I achieved more personal growth during those 2 years than in the 10 years prior. That’s how it felt at the time. Until, of course, it was over. The lockdowns, that is. The part where staying home wasn’t questioned, and most events had an online option. The part when it felt like the playing field was leveled and I never just suddenly realize that I haven’t gone anywhere for the past 2 weeks and am intensely overwhelmed by the completely convincing feeling that everyone I’ve ever met thinks I’m a total loser and wouldn’t want me around. Yeah, all of that ended, except for that very last thing, of course.
Now I’m kind of stuck in this weird limbo, where there’s the part of me that is totally grateful that I had that lockdown time to find peace within myself where I’m ok alone, and the same old part that I was before… not really good at keeping close relationships with people but desperately needing to feel included or like I belong somewhere. I’m not comfortable doing the same things that I was doing before, but if I start doing new things, then I’d have to start all new relationships. Good lord that sounds like work.