Alligator

I had an interview today. It went really well. I think I’ll get the job!

I have fear that I shouldn’t be buzzed. I have fear that I won’t be able to handle a new job. I have fear that I’m a bad mom. I have fear that I am like characters that I read about or see on screen. I have fear that people don’t like Quarky. I have fear that I’m like Hitler or Casey Anthony. I have fear that I’m like my mother. I have fear of my power. I have fear of my pending success.

Somewhere I developed the belief that I’m a REALLY bad person, even though I have absolutely no evidence of me being this really bad person. In fact, most of the actual evidence of who I am in my life would reveal a kind, loving person who empathizes with people from all walks of life. She’s an attentive mother who wishes nothing more for her child than to be happy, healthy, and successful in his own life. She cries over other peoples’ sad situations, even some that she doesn’t even know. She wants the best for the Earth, for future generations. She truly contemplates things like the meaning of life, treating others as she would want to be treated. She cares about equality among ALL living things.She always tries to be honest with others and herself. She is sensitive and caring about the ways that she affects other people. She is quick to apologize when she believes she may have hurt someone else. Yet, inside her is a mama bear who will do whatever she must to protect her child and ensure his happiness, health, and future success.

When I couldn’t control the rages, I turned to books and therapy. When I realized it was because of the anger I held back from my mother, I unleashed it. I put space between her and anyone who insisted that I continue being around her. I hated her for the way she made me hate myself, and the way that was affecting my son. I needed to own that feeling. Even if it meant losing my sister, my brother, my stepfather, his family, and most of my mother’s side of the family. My son growing up in a home where his mother has dealt with her anger, her own past, her own family’s toxic dysfunction… that is worth all of those relationships put together

He is MY RESPONSIBILITY. What happens to him and how he will turn out, it all depends on the way I deal with him now. I know this because I know what would’ve prevented me from decades of therapy, addiction, spinning my wheels, and dating all the wrong men. A mother. That’s it. And it wouldn’t have had to be my birth mother. I could have been raised by practically any human in the world other than her, and I would have likely received more love, more praise, more acceptance, and more affection than I actually did. Most strangers in my life have shown me more kindness. The other people in my life have given me the shred of self-esteem that has kept me going through the worst of times.

Over a year with the same therapist, and she is still throwing me compliments and making sure I accept them. That’s because a year ago I didn’t believe any of them. I didn’t believe there was anything to love about me. I believed I was worthless. To my core, my entire life, I have believed that I was worthless. I did not expect anything good to happen to me. I didn’t expect to ever feel better than anxious and depressed. I felt defective. I was a mistake. That’s what I believed.

It wasn’t until I allowed myself the courage to truly begin analyzing my past, realistically, no matter how hard it may be to face the truth, that I began to see the change in myself. I had to face that my mother didn’t love me.

Small memories would surface. They weren’t repressed memories. I always remembered them, but I never realized they were bad because everything was minimized by her. To her, nothing was ever a good enough reason to lose your emotional cool.

Once I’d accepted that she didn’t love me, then I had to accept that it wasn’t the fault of the tiny child that I was. It wasn’t MY fault. It wasn’t because something was wrong with me that made me hideously unlovable. This part is way trickier.

Healing from PTSD, whether complex or not, is a big, fat irony. Normally, when you think of healing from something, you think of moving on from it, of the problem going away. But with PTSD, you may think, “I’m moving on once and for all, I’m going to live in the present, I’m going to appreciate what’s in the here and now and in my bright future.” And then one day, the old events and feelings come back to smack you in the face out of nowhere. And then, the shame of not being truly ‘over’ it, of not being grateful enough, of not being appreciative enough, of not being strong enough to let go of the past retraumatizes you. You hate yourself for allowing it to come back. You mentally punish yourself for not being free.

The only way to truly heal from this cycle is by not forcing yourself to be free of it. You must accept it. You can live in the present. You can be grateful. You can look forward to your bright future. But you must understand that that future will also have the remnants of the past in it; that you must be prepared to deal with future replays of the past, if and when they happen. To be healed with PTSD means to truly be integrated with the part of yourself that you hate, to allow that part to show its face, whenever necessary, without shame.

My therapist asked me, after I read the above paragraph to her, “Do you think you identify with the PTSD so much that you can’t let go of it?”

I thought about it and said, “If the PTSD is part of what makes me empathetic towards others’ feelings, sensitive to others needs, an attentive mother, an honest writer, full of depth, then I don’t want to get rid of it.”

At the end of the spectrum from this point of wanting to be away from it all, I feel a love that could create a million big bangs. I feel my love so powerfully that it consumes my entire body like the weight of the universe sitting on my abdomen. There are no words in any language to describe what I feel when I really think about my love for my son, my husband, our amazing pets, the various loved ones, friends, and strangers who have been there for me. I’m crying just writing about it. In a minute, I’ll probably sob for about 5-10 minutes thinking about it. There’s seriously nothing I wouldn’t do for them. I absolutely hate the time that has been wasted on me dealing with my past. It’s not fair to any of us. I wanted so badly for it to be a quick healing process, 6 months of therapy and I would be over my family’s abandonment. I mourned the loss of who I thought they all were to me, all at once.  That takes more than 6 months, unfortunately. You really can’t rush it.

But in the aftermath… there is more life left to live.

The next day…

Got a call. I start training for my new job on Monday.

This post inspired by Alligator by Of Monsters and Men.