Coffee is therapy. Read along as I relate and offer affirmation to the struggles of living with Complex PTSD over my morning coffee.
I don’t really feel like my normal self these days .
I woke up not sure what to write about today and honestly – I don’t feel like doing it now or at all. I don’t want to be doing this right now, I am using every ounce of discipline I have to get this done. I know this is necessary – I need to say aloud what I am struggling with and work through it.
This morning the word FREEZE screamed in bold letters at me. I know I have felt disconnected recently; exhausted with little fuel in the tank. I’ve been brushing it off with what I thought was awareness of what I have gone through but my avoidance game is on point. It always is.
I’m so good at it in fact, that avoidance has become my fast track to Freeze Mode without even realizing it.
Last week I had my first real world situation where my child needed me to defend her against an institution. The institution was her school and for weeks I communicated and avoided them as I worked out my own issues with speaking up to defend my child.
I identified my health anxiety by name and have been facing it with awareness which seems to be exacerbating it more than fixing it – I really hope this is just the “gets worse before it gets better” part. This pandemic has magnified an anxiety that I have always had and not been fully aware of and getting my vaccine last week put my nervous system on high alert, though I am very glad I did it.
Also, twice in the last couple days I have been tapped by my family to be a sounding board for issues they are experiencing. It is such a new experience for me being an active part of a family unit. I am still learning what it means for me to be a big sister, to be an aunt and a niece.
So with everything going on, at first I thought I was just being a bit avoidant because it all just feels like a lot. Then I really took inventory this morning and I realize I lost an entire weekend to nothing. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t shower, I didn’t cook or clean – I sat on the couch and checked out.
I abandoned myself this weekend because I didn’t properly address my overwhelm last week which caused my survival coping skills to show up and I shut down completely. It is so easy to get really angry with myself at this point. Like WTF – why does this keep happening?!?! I thought I was getting better at catching this stuff and addressing it before it became extreme.
Then I took a breath and I realized what was different, this time I identified my freeze mode, I recognized what was happening instead of my counselor telling me, and I am already working to counter it.
That is a win.
On goes the journey.
This is where I am finding myself, after about 10 years of existing, and feeling pretty good (so I thought), I decided to dive back into the work because I realized that I was in fact “not OK”.
Now it sucks. And I know it’s going to suck more in the next few months. I hope it gets better. I pray to God it gets better. I don’t regret showing up for myself to do the work, but it does give me pause about whether it’s all going to be worth it.
Thanks for putting this into words.