Hello (second try) [possible triggers]

[Dog dad]

Hi, folks —-

I may have messed something up. Doesn't look like my first intro post took, which is a drag since it was pretty hard to write. Apologies for any repetition here.

Like you all, I have . . . a lot in me. Youngest of four children in a violent, emotionally abusive and neglectful home. Emotionally distant and rageful father. Narcissistic and emotionally damaged mother, who made me her enmeshed pseudo-spouse child. Molested by my older brother (6 years older) over span of years. Witness to myriad other abuses in the house. Numbed out early, then somewhat aggressively when I discovered alcohol at 14. On leaving home (partially at 17, fully at 18), alcohol and promiscuity were my self-destructive self-treatment plan. A painfully empty life that I attempted to counter by committing myself to service and an angry  idealism. Became a fairly successful lawyer representing underserved communities, which allowed me to force some meaning into my life and enabled me to crowd out any painful sense of myself by embracing the demands it placed on my time, my life. In my 20s, I first started therapy, with mixed results. In my late-20s, I found a therapist with whom I started to do some real and good work. In my 30s I was blessed to meet my partner, with whom I built a good life. But . . . then my compulsive self-destructive self-treatment plan started to kick back in. I numbed. I again fractured myself. Rather than deal healthfully, I survived by essentially leading a double life, which was toxic. I did that for years.

This year, I reached out and reconnected with the therapist with whom I did good work before. I also ended my double life and told my partner what I have done. We are now doing a therapeutic separation while she takes the space to come to terms with my making her the collateral damage to my trauma. I own my choices and my acts, and I am committed to being what part of her recovery that she wants, can handle. We are working on it. But it will be a long road. Meanwhile, I continue to work on my own recovery, which . . . has, this year, been excruciating.

**The Body Keeps the Score** and *Journey Through Trauma** have been remarkable resources for me, as has my therapist and my journal. This year, I have—-for the first time in my life—-let go of my persistent and failed intellectualizing of my trauma and started doing the physical, body-centered work of recovery in addition to therapy. In the carnage of what I've made of my life, which has more than once made me think of ending it, I am seeing green tendrils of new growth. I found this site a few weeks ago and waited to introduce myself till it felt right.

This afternoon, it felt right.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for letting me introduce myself.