Progress Not Perfection

I have to constantly remind myself that's the goal.  Progress, not perfection.  Because, man, do I get frustrated when I find myself in familiar territory.  Back in a place I hated that I worked hard to crawl out of.

I'm a mess right now.  Lots of things getting me down, not the least of which is my health.  I feel awful.  Almost all day every day.  The last week has been particularly bad.  So much pain and dizziness and blurry vision.  It's really hard to function.

I can't control that.  I get it.

But I keep thinking that I should be able to control the other stuff, the emotional stuff.  I've experienced it before and learned how to handle it.  So why, when it comes back, do I have no clue what to do.

The thing that has been particularly troublesome lately is my sensitivity to the emotions of others.  I knew I was off my game.  Then I found myself in several situations in a short period of time where other people were upset.  Intense negative emotions.  Sometimes directed at me, sometimes not.  Either way, I crumbled.  I froze.  I shut down.  I withdrew from life.

I am in a place where I feel like I have to justify all my decisions again.  As I state how I feel or what I want I am taking an emotional read on the people around me to make sure that what I say is okay with them.  I hate that!

I am hiding from people because they might ask something of me that I don't want to give and I won't have a good enough answer.  Any little bit of pushing with strong emotion can make me buckle under right now.  I feel so vulnerable and weak.  I hate that, too!

I hate that other people's emotions are ruling my life.  I hate that I can't remember how I got past this last time.

The only thing I'm happy about in this situation is that I noticed.  I guess that's progress.  And that's what I'm working toward.

If you're wondering why I put this on this blog instead of my main one, let me tell you.  It's about fear and self-protection.  Honestly, too many people who know me read my main blog and I worry that there may be people who would take advantage of my current vulnerability if they knew.

One Step Back

I think it's safe to say I still have some unresolved issues with my husband.  If there was any doubt before, it was all cleared up over the last few days.

I've said before that things aren't the way they used to be.  And for the most part that's completely true.  But every once in a while we have what I could only call a relapse.

We had one this past weekend.

Emotions and tensions were building.  Why?  I'm not sure.  A multitude of things probably.

And Sunday night it fell apart.

The spark that started the fire doesn't matter.  It was a stupid thing.  But soon it was raging out of control.

He yelled.  I yelled in defense.  We went our separate ways.  He wouldn't let it go.  He came back again and again with the fight.  He dragged the kids into it.  He treated me with disdain.  He mocked me.  He contradicted my parenting choices with the kids.  He blew off commitments.  Everything in his approach with me that night said, "Screw you.  You're worthless anyway."

The children cried and/or got upset.  One left the house to avoid listening to the fight.  Another asked if we were getting divorced.  It rocked their foundation.

I think he forgot to take his pill that morning.  I can't confirm this, but from the way he'd been acting all day it seems pretty evident.  The kids even noticed.  One of them asked me why he was picking fights.  I had no answer.

Now, the pill was originally prescribed for his OCD.  I don't know how much it helps with that.  He says that it helps with the obsessive thoughts.

What I do know is that it helps with the anger.  When things got really ugly a while back and we were talking divorce, the medication was one of my bottom lines.  He can only stay if he remains on the medication.  He is a different person on the medication.

Sunday night he was the other person.  The angry person.  The person that hates me and sees me as the enemy.  The person who radiates hatred and a desire to destroy.  The person who is looking for war.  For blood. 

No, he didn't hit anyone.  He did push someone.  That was not okay.  I addressed it in the moment.  He probably doesn't even remember it.  He often doesn't remember his actions when his rage is flowing like this.

As ugly as it was, and it was so ugly, I also gained some important insight.

The next day he felt fine and thought it was all better.  This is typical.  He feels better so in his mind it's over and resolved.  No talking about what happened, what went wrong.  How to prevent it happening again.  No acceptance of his misbehavior.  It's just over.

And in the past that was often enough for me.  I was just glad the hatred was gone.  I was just glad the fire was out.  I could bandage my own wounds.  I could move on.

This time it wasn't enough.  Lines had been crossed, important boundaries.  I no longer felt safe in my home. 

But I didn't initially see it.  For the first day or two I was edgy.  I was still upset with him.  Any contact from him sent my anxiety through the roof.  When he got home from work and was near me or talked to me, I wanted to back away.  I wanted to hide.  I was afraid.

It was Tuesday or Wednesday that I realized he had triggered a PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) episode in me.

The fear.  The holding my breath.  The claustrophobia.  The need to run and hide.  The crying at almost nothing.  The avoidance.  The defensiveness.  The snapping.  The tension in my body.  The explosion in my headache.  The extreme sensitivity to touch.  The desire to climb out of my own skin.  The desire to curl in on myself.  All of these things were a PTSD response.

And that's important for me to understand.  It will help me figure out where the triggers are.

I don't know yet.  I believe this triggered something from our past, earlier in our marriage.  But it's possible that it was something from before, from when I was a child.  I just don't know yet.

I've calmed down some.  I've done a little work on it, although not much.  It's scary work to do. 

I told him what was going on.

But I still feel threatened when he is near.  I still can't relax when he's home.  There is still work to do.

Hide, Freeze, or Acquiesce

As children we have experiences that set patterns for our future lives.   

We have scary experiences.  Maybe you were chased and bitten by a dog.  Maybe your father hit you.  Maybe you accidentally found yourself locked in a closet or container and couldn't get out.  These things are frightening, more so the first time.  They come out of the blue and we have no experience to draw on to know how to deal with them.

But once we've dealt with them, we have more information.  If it happens again we know what we did last time and whether it worked or not.  This can help us know how to deal with it this time.  And if what we did to protect ourselves was successful then it is likely to become our first choice the next time something similar happens.  And sometimes what worked once doesn't work the next time, so we try something else.

Eventually, we have a collection of strategies for dealing with fearful situations.  My strategies were hide, freeze, or acquiesce.  These were the things that worked, that minimized or shortened my suffering and pain.

And while these strategies served me well in situations where I was powerless, they also put me in jeopordy in situations that I could have done something about.

I have heard people openly declare that they were not abused as children, that they've never been sexually assaulted.  This is difficult for my mind to process.  There has been so much in my life, it's been so prevelent, it's hard for me to imagine a life without it.  I cannot imgaine being an adult female and not having been sexually assaulted.  Or verbally abused.  I don't think these people are lying, I just can't imagine it.

So maybe your experience in junior high was different from mine.  But for me junior high was a time when it seemed like every boy I knew was exploring his sexuality and his connection with the girls around him.  Grabbing, groping, touching whatever he could get his hands on.  Dirty jokes.  Sex talk.  Mooning and flashing people.

Now put me in this situation.  I find myself alone with a boy in the high school dugout.  He starts to grope me.  Do I tell him to stop?  Do I yell?  Do I leave?  No.  I freeze.  Because I have learned that this is the best way for me to get through the situation.  It's just my body.  It doesn't matter what he does to it. 

And once I am out of the situation, do I tell someone?  No.  I avoid him.  I hide.

And then there is the time I am sleeping over at a friend's house.  I am asleep on the couch and wake up to find her older brother pushing his naked penis into my face.  Do I cry out?  Do I tell his parents?  No.  I push him back slightly and turn over to face the couch.  My version of hiding in this case.

And there were many times when someone wanted me to do something I didn't want to do, but I gave in because it seemed like the safest thing to do.  Just acquiesce.

I didn't learn to fight until I got married, but even then I often fell back on my earlier coping tactics.  Giving in to maintain the peace or protect my children.

It's what I knew.  They were the tools I had.  I did the best I knew how in an effort to protect myself.

Because that's all we can do.  The best we can with the tools we have.