This week, I've been feeling anxious with no observable reason - literally, waking up in an anxiety spiral that continues through the day.
Yesterday, I realised what was going on; this specific week of the year - not "the run up to Christmas", but specifically "the 18th-22nd of December" has been the scene of several major life impacts over several years:
. 16yrs ago on the 18th December was the date of my first testosterone injection - and the beginning of the end of any semblance of a good relationship with my mother.
. 12yrs ago on the 20th December, having had to move back home after almost a decade away to care for my terminally ill father, my mother assaulted me at knifepoint, causing me to have to flee, with just a backpack of what I could gather while she was trying to kick in my bedroom door, and leaving my dogs behind. I ended up sleeping rough, calling every local friend I knew might be able to get out to me and help me, for two days continuously - no one answered. I slept in a church porch at night, kept moving during the day, kept trying to find people who'd help me.
(No one did, until my terminally ill father called our church pastor, who then called a married couple I knew as friends - and whom I'd tried to call myself - and told them to help me. I got two nights in a house, on a sofa, before I had to leave again, because they were going to visit family for Christmas.)
. Last year, on the 22nd December, while I was taking two days' annual leave from a high stress job, where my team was critically short-staffed, a colleague in HR instigated proceedings, in response to both my disability and a project I'd been assigned that would have seen HR shaken up quite significantly, that saw me lose my job - sending an email while I was off work, with my out of office clearly identifying that fact demanding I provide "evidence" by the 4th of January - I came back to work on the 27th December; everyone in HR was out of office until 2nd January. Everyone who could have enabled me to provide the requested "evidence" (I would have needed to speak to at least two different professionals from areas outside my company) were also unavailable over the Christmas period - I'd been set up to fail.
Intellectually, I'd "moved on" from those experiences. They'd happened, I'd had my reactions to them, some of those reactions had been pretty extreme, but they were over. There was nothing I could do about any of them, and so I'd let them go. Resentfully, perhaps, with difficulty, certainly, but I'd let them go.
But my body, my nervous system, hadn't.
The Body Keeps The Score explains the long-term, deep-rooted, nervous-system impact of trauma. The way that negative experiences linger in the nervous system and the unconscious mind, rising to the surface in the form of panic attacks, anxiety, depression, "irrational" outbursts, meltdown, or shutdown when the "trigger" of the same point in time that the original event happened comes around again.
So, How Can You Deal With It?
In my case, it's simply about recognising what my body and mind are saying, and why they need to communicate it, and engaging with them, having a respectful, open conversation with them:
Yesterday, I realised what was going on; this specific week of the year - not "the run up to Christmas", but specifically "the 18th-22nd of December" has been the scene of several major life impacts over several years:
. 16yrs ago on the 18th December was the date of my first testosterone injection - and the beginning of the end of any semblance of a good relationship with my mother.
. 12yrs ago on the 20th December, having had to move back home after almost a decade away to care for my terminally ill father, my mother assaulted me at knifepoint, causing me to have to flee, with just a backpack of what I could gather while she was trying to kick in my bedroom door, and leaving my dogs behind. I ended up sleeping rough, calling every local friend I knew might be able to get out to me and help me, for two days continuously - no one answered. I slept in a church porch at night, kept moving during the day, kept trying to find people who'd help me.
(No one did, until my terminally ill father called our church pastor, who then called a married couple I knew as friends - and whom I'd tried to call myself - and told them to help me. I got two nights in a house, on a sofa, before I had to leave again, because they were going to visit family for Christmas.)
. Last year, on the 22nd December, while I was taking two days' annual leave from a high stress job, where my team was critically short-staffed, a colleague in HR instigated proceedings, in response to both my disability and a project I'd been assigned that would have seen HR shaken up quite significantly, that saw me lose my job - sending an email while I was off work, with my out of office clearly identifying that fact demanding I provide "evidence" by the 4th of January - I came back to work on the 27th December; everyone in HR was out of office until 2nd January. Everyone who could have enabled me to provide the requested "evidence" (I would have needed to speak to at least two different professionals from areas outside my company) were also unavailable over the Christmas period - I'd been set up to fail.
Intellectually, I'd "moved on" from those experiences. They'd happened, I'd had my reactions to them, some of those reactions had been pretty extreme, but they were over. There was nothing I could do about any of them, and so I'd let them go. Resentfully, perhaps, with difficulty, certainly, but I'd let them go.
But my body, my nervous system, hadn't.
The Body Keeps The Score explains the long-term, deep-rooted, nervous-system impact of trauma. The way that negative experiences linger in the nervous system and the unconscious mind, rising to the surface in the form of panic attacks, anxiety, depression, "irrational" outbursts, meltdown, or shutdown when the "trigger" of the same point in time that the original event happened comes around again.
So, How Can You Deal With It?
In my case, it's simply about recognising what my body and mind are saying, and why they need to communicate it, and engaging with them, having a respectful, open conversation with them:
Body and Mind: Umm...we don't feel safe. In the past, around this time, really bad things have happened. We've been hurt. We lost our income, and our safety. We had to sleep outside, in the cold, and no one came. We were all alone in the face of other peoples' anger and hatred. They hurt us, and no one stopped them!
Me: I hear you. I remember those things, too. I know how I feel, still, towards the people who could have helped me, but didn't. But they're not happening now. They won't happen again. We're never going to return full-time to a situation where one person, or one group of representatives of a company, can control our financial security completely. We will never be around the woman who attacked us and took away our home and support again.
Look around; right now, we have soft, warm blankets. There's a radiator, and a hot water bottle. Our dogs are here - touch them, feel the weight of them lying around us. There are walls, curtains on the window. Privacy. Safety. We have all our things here - see?
This is a conversation I suspect I will have to repeat over the years, but it is a conversation that has an immediate beneficial effect on me.
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