The internet adage is true. Once you "get it" you can't "un-get it". The understanding, if only a little, is there. You can run from it. You can put it on the back burner. You can, if you want, continue to engage in destructive self-soothing behaviors and escapism. But it's there. When you wake up in the morning. When you go to sleep at night. Sometimes, it's literally OUT there, waiting.
My uncle, whom I have not seen or talked to since I was about five or six, found me on Facebook. Triggered a seriously weird dream that ran like this:
I'm in an apartment looking out the window. It's really lovely and my kitties are capering around me. I step to one side and notice that the floor is squishy. Weird. So I start exploring and find that there are weird squishy spots all over my living room, like holes in the floor that the carpet is covering. As I'm standing on one sort of bouncing on it, the carpet gives way and I tumble all the way to the basement. The basement of this apartment building is filled with GIANT mushrooms. It is creepy. Then there are the creatures I keep seeing out of the corner of my eye. Yuck. I look for stairs but they have caved in and are of no use so I start looking at the mushrooms and climbing up on them until I get to a REALLY big cluster of mushrooms that seems to have kind of a neck up. Reminds me of a dinosaur with a long neck and as I'm shimmying up that long neck it starts moving beneath me. A giant mushroom dinosaur. That makes me move and I gain my living room again just as the whole apartment building starts shaking ominously. Time to get out! I herd up my kitties and by the time I make it out on the balcony, things are seriously degrading. I'm literally climbing railings and falling stairs to get to the neighbor's apartment to get their kitties out. I manage it though. So the five kitties and I head over to the apartment manager's office. Dour woman. She nearly steps on the three little snakes that have also apparently come along for safety. I explain that I'm not paying rent for a completely unlivable apartment that has HOLES in the floor and she needs to do something. We look out the office window and the apartment building now looks like something you'd see in a war zone. Windows and walls blown off, furnishings and living space just open to the elements. She tells me that it's clear that as I have pets, I am somehow responsible for the damage but she'll put it back at least the way it was before my pets did whatever they did to the apartment. I'm incredulous and ask if she's going to address the fungal problem in the basement of the building that is the culprit. She just stares at me. When I return to my apartment some work has been done. The floors are shored up and there aren't any more squishy spots. There are, however, half dollar sized holes in the carpet in clusters. Like someone made them to "simulate" the damage my kitties were accused of doing.
It probably won't surprise any of you to learn that I am in possession of the remaining pictures and such that are relevant to my maternal grandmother's family. Or that those pictures and documents are boxed up in my basement and I haven't looked at them since I received them over twenty years ago. I've made various promises to myself over the years to dig into the mess, organize it somehow. But something always came up. Or I made something come up. I've been thinking about it again but held off as I'm looking for a therapist and am still not sure I have the where with all to dig in without some tangible support.
Boom. You can run. Can't hide. At least not forever.
I set some boundaries. No, I will not give his number to my mother or pass along any messages. While I didn't offer any details as to why that is I did offer up that I am recovering from C-PTSD. As a Vietnam vet, he got the PTSD part. I think he'll go look up the C. Explained that I'm happy to talk with him but that I may step away from a conversation for personal reasons. All in all, it was a good interaction and surprisingly positive.
Got into a box and it's not so bad so long as I stay away from things that don't relate to me personally right now. I can do someone else's history even if it informs mine. Took some snaps on my phone and sent them on to the Uncle. At least there's someone now who can maybe help me identify some folks.
My uncle, whom I have not seen or talked to since I was about five or six, found me on Facebook. Triggered a seriously weird dream that ran like this:
I'm in an apartment looking out the window. It's really lovely and my kitties are capering around me. I step to one side and notice that the floor is squishy. Weird. So I start exploring and find that there are weird squishy spots all over my living room, like holes in the floor that the carpet is covering. As I'm standing on one sort of bouncing on it, the carpet gives way and I tumble all the way to the basement. The basement of this apartment building is filled with GIANT mushrooms. It is creepy. Then there are the creatures I keep seeing out of the corner of my eye. Yuck. I look for stairs but they have caved in and are of no use so I start looking at the mushrooms and climbing up on them until I get to a REALLY big cluster of mushrooms that seems to have kind of a neck up. Reminds me of a dinosaur with a long neck and as I'm shimmying up that long neck it starts moving beneath me. A giant mushroom dinosaur. That makes me move and I gain my living room again just as the whole apartment building starts shaking ominously. Time to get out! I herd up my kitties and by the time I make it out on the balcony, things are seriously degrading. I'm literally climbing railings and falling stairs to get to the neighbor's apartment to get their kitties out. I manage it though. So the five kitties and I head over to the apartment manager's office. Dour woman. She nearly steps on the three little snakes that have also apparently come along for safety. I explain that I'm not paying rent for a completely unlivable apartment that has HOLES in the floor and she needs to do something. We look out the office window and the apartment building now looks like something you'd see in a war zone. Windows and walls blown off, furnishings and living space just open to the elements. She tells me that it's clear that as I have pets, I am somehow responsible for the damage but she'll put it back at least the way it was before my pets did whatever they did to the apartment. I'm incredulous and ask if she's going to address the fungal problem in the basement of the building that is the culprit. She just stares at me. When I return to my apartment some work has been done. The floors are shored up and there aren't any more squishy spots. There are, however, half dollar sized holes in the carpet in clusters. Like someone made them to "simulate" the damage my kitties were accused of doing.
It probably won't surprise any of you to learn that I am in possession of the remaining pictures and such that are relevant to my maternal grandmother's family. Or that those pictures and documents are boxed up in my basement and I haven't looked at them since I received them over twenty years ago. I've made various promises to myself over the years to dig into the mess, organize it somehow. But something always came up. Or I made something come up. I've been thinking about it again but held off as I'm looking for a therapist and am still not sure I have the where with all to dig in without some tangible support.
Boom. You can run. Can't hide. At least not forever.
I set some boundaries. No, I will not give his number to my mother or pass along any messages. While I didn't offer any details as to why that is I did offer up that I am recovering from C-PTSD. As a Vietnam vet, he got the PTSD part. I think he'll go look up the C. Explained that I'm happy to talk with him but that I may step away from a conversation for personal reasons. All in all, it was a good interaction and surprisingly positive.
Got into a box and it's not so bad so long as I stay away from things that don't relate to me personally right now. I can do someone else's history even if it informs mine. Took some snaps on my phone and sent them on to the Uncle. At least there's someone now who can maybe help me identify some folks.
I can deal with the macro of the idea though in context of C-PTSD. I didn't choose this. This cloak was chosen for me. It was put on me as a child by a revolving cast of caretakers. Some part of me realized that cloak was there and what it was doing to my life but I didn't have the tools to fully understand. I'm getting there.
She's mostly paying attention. Trying to relax and just let things go for now. It's okay not to address everything all at once and I don't have to sort thirteen very bad years with a man I haven't seen in three right now. But the anxiety is wrecking me and I'd like to just go cry now because I'm overwhelmed. Anyway. Thanks for reading. I just needed to get this out. Somewhere. 
But I have a recommendation from a friend who is dealing with similar issues and am hoping to get fit into her roster of clients. I've kind of been lurking here for the last couple of weeks and not posting much. What I've read has encouraged me though. Even though sometimes it's so hard to read. Similar experiences but some not and I'm very empathetic so a few times I just kind of sat here with a broken heart. That encouragement, the openness and willingness to share inspired me though and I've started blogging some of this. 