This blog post contains a short personal experience that may be triggering. Please read at your own discretion.
Writing a blog about my darkest moment is really difficult. Even when I talk about the healing and miracles there is sometimes a piece of me that was only reminded to write about it because I was thinking about why I need healing in the first place. I will try not to get too wordy on you, but I was sitting there thinking about what keeps me from writing more. When I sit down and write it gets me out of my head by getting my head onto the page. I love it! Really, I do.
But sometimes I get stuck in moments like I did tonight. I’m kneeling down, music on, an oversized t-shirt and unwashed hair. My brain is in a fog wondering what I’ll do once my son actually falls asleep and pleading with God that Enya will get him to sleep tonight the same it did last night. But my plea isn’t that serious because I feel it is somewhat of a frivolous ask. It’s more of a half-prayer that I throw out there just if God has time, but if He is too busy, He’ll leave it to me. Anyway, that’s all beside the point. I am kneeling down, having a gratitude moment with my wet-dry-vac and there it is.
He somehow has gotten into my house. He is standing behind me, too close. My mind floods wondering if he will leave, wondering what he wants. Why is he back? Is he here to hurt me worse? Will he hurt me worse? What is going to happen. How did he find me? What would I do if that really happened?
My eyes catch the carpet still covered in crumbs, I move the vacuum forward and back, forward and back. Why did that just happen? Why for the past two nights have I been afraid in my own home? Why have I started to feel unsafe again? I check the door, take a deep breath, and see my house alarm still set. Do people know he stalked me? Does he know that I’m talking about him? Do the people that have heard my story know what it is like? I don’t know.
Tonight was a very, very, extremely, extremely small-scale example of what it is like living with PTSD. Tonight I didn’t have a panic attack, I didn’t relive past horror, I didn’t get paralyzed leaving the vacuum running for over 20 minutes; it does not consume me like that anymore. Now, I have random moments where I have to redo some of the therapy work I did. Sometimes, I don’t want to write, because experiencing it once was enough. Then there are other times where I get the sense that someone needs to hear this part of my experience. That was tonight’s feeling.
Thanks for listening.
Sending you all love and healing this Christmas season!
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