Trigger Warning

Lightning

Triggers, by nature, are symbols of pain that prick at the surface and reverberate deep down into our very core of pain.  I think of it as a needle so long that it can pierce from head to toe.  Sometimes I’m paralyzed, other times pumped full of adrenaline—literally in split-second limbo of do I fight or flight or just melt down. 

Sometimes they pull up memories that are re-lived.  In detail, word-for-word, thought-for-thought, shame-hurt-helpless fear-helpless rage.  Sometimes they recall sensory memories, touch, sight, sound, smell.  Sometimes they flit in and out so fast they’re barely registered, like a familiar odor that passes by on the breeze and then is gone.  Other times, a tidal wave, drowning out everything in sight.

I’m used to navigating them.  I’m used to the familiar roadmarks, signs, warnings, and upside down cones that mark danger.  But just because we are aware of them, doesn’t always make them easier to live through. 

I can’t line them up in order of how to tackle them, especially the non-verbal sensory memories.  But I can try and make sense of them when they’re washing in with the tide.

It’s no use closing my eyes and wishing and hoping they will just go away.  Like my youngest daughter who gets bad dreams sometimes, and just wants me to lie down with her.  My sweet little sis, waking up in her bed, scared.  That was me as a child, too, tiptoeing out of my bed and just hoping my mom wouldn’t wake up and let me sleep at the foot of the bed.  Because only her room was the safe spot from the nameless fear I had back then.  So I can relate when DD2 has her bad dreams, too.

And that’s me, as an adult, suffering from insomnia, because of the trauma of the divorce.  How I long to be able to sleep through the night like I did years ago.

My ex is being “extra” these days.  He is holding onto his power and control and keeping our extended summer time hostage, because he can.  I reached out to the play therapist and co-parenting counselor for advice.  And finally, the attorney.  The attorney wants to write a letter.  Because that’s what attorneys do, but I know that will only cause him to dig deeper.  The co-parenting counselor we've seen over the years isn’t versed in domestic violence and does not have any conducive advice. She equates us both in her mind; which is akin to saying its “both sides’” faults when looking at a white supremacist inflicting violence by driving a car into protesters marching against racism.  It’s not ‘both sides’ when one is running over people in a crowd. (p.s. it’s taken me a week end to unpack that trigger).  And even if she was trained in DV, i'm not sure what she could do.

The play therapist has more understanding—but unfortunately, her help is--soon the kids will be 18 and you won’t have to be hostage to this type of thinking anymore.  At least she recognizes the power dynamic, even though she can’t do anything about it.

My coping mechanisms then—are:

1) writing about it and also /eyerolling about it instead of crumbling about it,

2) finding compassion for myself...and for him, wishing him free from suffering (compassion meditation, I'm trying something new),

3) therapy, lots of therapy, and 

4) doing my best to zen out and work around him.  I have to remember--I'll figure it out, I always do.  I’ll figure this one out eventually, too.

But the triggers, I’m back to the triggers of what it is to deal with him.  The world gives him a pass because he has a job and can be charming and educated.  That’s the world I live in.  I can create my world, but I still live in his—where he exerts control when he can, because he can, where my shortcomings are a laundry list that in his eyes victimize him.  The world where he never takes responsibility for the violence inflicted in my home.  The world where it’s okay for him to do all that he did and walk away with his power and control.

Those are the triggers I live with.  And I have to figure out how to transform them into lifting me up instead of holding me down.

I guess sometimes it’s okay to cry.  I’ll get to strength and love and light at some point.