The Center Cannot Hold

It was a three-doctor week, this week. Trauma therapy, psychotherapy, psychiatry…

I had flashbacks for six hours on Monday night. They would stop then start again within 5 – 10 minutes. For six hours. I literally begged Sir to kill me.

My psychiatrist suggested I don’t process as much trauma during trauma therapy. I explained to him that my trauma therapy consists of resting my hand on a pillow, squeezing play-dough, and imaginging walking on a beach… I’m not sure how much less trauma processing I can do in trauma therapy.

I feel like my mind is unraveling. I’ve developed a stutter. It’s been getting worse for weeks, but this week it happened at work. Twice in front of my students, and once in a staff meeting. I found myself unwilling to speak… And it suddenly brought back the memories of the last time my stutter got bad… When I was in the hospital. When they forced us to “journal”with our non-dominant hands, to let our subconsciousness “bubble to the surface.” They did this with rape victims. Our subconsciousnesses needed to fucking well stay buried!

It got bad enough I couldn’t control it, even with my strategies… I pre-rehearse in my head. I whisper words before I say them out loud. I sign them to myself before I say them. I slow myself down. I make the shape of each word with my mouth before I add my voice to it…

And still I stutter. I stumble on words. I can’t wrap my brain around my language… unless I’m cursing… I seem to maintain my fluency for saying “fuck” in all of it’s grammatical variations.

My doctor just prescribed an anti-psychotic… DJ is thrilled and “proud” of me for “reporting well” to my doctor. D is relieved that we won’t have to revisist the six hours of flashbacks again without a pharmaceutical parachute.

I… feel like a failure.

I’m glad I have a drug to stop the horrible nights. But I feel like a failure for needing it. I feel like a failure for being so broken. I can’t even handle imaginary beach walking. What the fuck will I do when we actually get to trauma processing??

I feel like I’m doing PTSD wrong.

Nothing fits, nothing works right, there’s no reason for me to be such a mess… I keep thinking if I just suck it up and make myself focus… make myself stop… just… be a grown up… then I will be better.

I told Sir the other night that I was sure that my psychiatrist (who is a veteran, and treated millitary members with PTSD) didn’t have soldiers crying and holding his hand during his appointments.

Soldiers deal with their PTSD.

I’m just being a baby.

And everything feels like… trying to fill a bucket, with fine, dry sand, using chopsticks. It takes so much effort and so much concentration, and when I finally get myself to focus and work hard enough to pick up a few grains, they slip out of my grasp as I turn to carry them to my bucket.

And nobody can say anything helpful.

Not for lack of trying.

Just because nothing fucking exists that can help!

All the bullshit that they teach you about trauma in books and campy pop psych articles and reddit threads… is bullshit.

When someone is having a flashback, telling them it is a memory… ISN’T FUCKING HELPFUL! It isn’t a fucking memory! It is happening to me all over again, just this time the enemy is INSIDE THE FUCKING BODY! There is no hope at all of Superman swooping in and saving me from the Big Bad like there was when it happened for real. When it happened for real, at least it was someone outside of me doing it to me… someone who had the potential to be removed, stopped, blocked, killed off…

Now… it is inside of me… where no one can help me, no one can reach it, no one can stop it or block it or kill it… because the shit that was done to me then has become an indefinite internal reality now.

It’s not a fucking “memory.” It’s happening again. Real time. Right now. In 2019. It is happening again, just this time it’s coming from the inside.

It doesn’t comfort or support or help me in any way for someone to sit out in the comfortable world that isn’t inside my body and tell me it’s a fucking “memory.” It’s not. It’s now.

And telling me that I survived it the first time, I can survive the memory… well, we’ve talked about the “memory” shit. And, actually, I didn’t surive the first time at least once… And the rest of the times, having the misfortune to actually LIVE THROUGH IT, only means I get the undeniable privilege of now RELIVING IT over and fucking over again. Reminding me that there was a chance for it to stop…. reminding me that I didn’t get to take that chance then… and that I won’t get to take it now… DOESN’T FUCKING MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER!

I am so fucking sick to death of all the fucking, “Read this inspiring story of a person overcoming their mental illness…” I want to throw up. None of it means anything. I hate all of them. I want to puke ON them with their “perspective” and “gratitude” and “empathy” and their “Let’s list all the things you can’t do anymore, Shadow…” Go fuck off.

And especially fuck off all of the fucking sappy stupid people who don’t actually have to deal with this shit, who go all gaga eyes about how amazing and inspirational the poor, broken-brain girl is who can still see the good in the world through all her patheticness, and it’s so Awwwww, isn’t that so inspiring… Fuck the fuck off!

I have children… literal children… I am responsible for… I have to hold… I have to cradle… I have to teach, and comfort, and manage, and correct, and mold into the future of our world… and… I’m… I’m… I can’t even feed myself. Who the fuck put me in charge of children???????????????????????? What is wrong with everyone???????????????? I’m not that good a fucking actor! How do I still have a fucking job?????????????????????

And I’m so angry…

I’m so angry all the time…

At everything…

I screamed at, then threw as hard as I could, a roll of toilet paper, tonight. I don’t even know why. It was just sitting there being… white… and … papery… and… and.. cylindrical… Fucker.

I yell at my kids.

I yell at Sir.

I yell at my dog.

I haven’t yelled at SB, yet. But probably that’s because he’s the perfect sub and anticipates everything and never gets in my way, or… or… is cylindrical in my presence…

I have to get up and get food ready for fucking Mother’s Day tomorrow, and pretend for six hours with my family that I’m not a dumpster fire excuse for a human being.

I thought about killing myself on Tuesday afternoon. It’s the first time I noticed that I have side airbags in my car… Which is really discouraging when you’re trying to die. I decided to kill myself when I got home. But the eight-minute drive took all of my energy, so by the time I got home, I just sat on the kitchen floor and ate frosting from a can, then went to bed at 7.

I don’t even know why I write shit like this down. Nobody cares. Not even me. Sir says to “process.” Well, I’m fucking processed.