STUCK ON PAUSE: PTSD and the door

#selfproclamations #abuse #trauma #healing #childabuse #attack #PTSD

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Curled up on the couch, a soft fur blanket drapped around my body, fingers laced with my husbands' --- feels like home.

We are watching a Netflix original, trying to keep our eyes open past 1am to enjoy our greatest version of a date. Alone time after the three kids go to sleep.

Hearts calm and bodies relaxed, enjoying the lack of awareness of day or time. It is winter and no responsibilities are calling our names here in the night.

He kisses my cheek and I smile, feeling warm and content as he admires the outline of my silhouette and runs his finger down my nose.

There is an intimacy between us that can forever be unmatched. A safety in his touch and the presence of the space he takes up next to me, legs intertwined and feet touching.

A feeling builds up in my chest, a quick pick up of breathing and lack of exhales causing me to raise my left hand to my chest, bare beneath the neckline of my shirt collar.

My ears are picking up something from the depth beyond the shut wooden door that keeps us time blocked in date night.

A thump. A creek.

And a sudden shriek of the door POPPING loose and dragging open in the dark.

Just as my body sensed its movement, my nerves LEAP with intensified fear.

Neck whipping, I turn to my husband and ask him to check if a child is out of bed or if something pushed the latch open.

It is silly, but I am frightened.

He gets up in serious fashion to explore what is most likely a toddler awaiting retrieval from the baby gated bedroom across from ours.

Instead, he meets gaze with a dark, empty hall and turns to me to smile gently for reassurance that everything is ok.

I am up behind him already. He shuts the door and tells me that it was nothing.

As his body passed mine to return to the couch, I turn back away from the door and it POPS open again.

This time, my shaking hand meeting the backside and shoving it shut. I am pale and I can feel the goosebumps rising over my back underneath my silky top.

Heart pounding and tears welling up along with the thump, thump, pause.

Thump, THUMP, PAUSE ---

I am met, chest to chest wit an understanding hug as he holds me. As he repeats,
"YOU'RE OK. YOU'RE OK."

Hand caressing my back.

He knows.
--- Unmatched intimacy.
He knows.

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PTSD sometimes looks like knowing 5 seconds before it happens.

It's feeling the air change. Or an expression alter.

It's seeing something there that no one else sees because it happened, just a long time ago.

For me, PTSD looks like petite hands pressing a wooden door shut at 2am and making bruises on a strong, thin calf of someone prying the door open in order to reach me.

2am, hair grasped in fist and screams, inaudible, felt in vibrations down my spine. Goosebumps and chills.
Fear she will get in.

Fear of what happens if I am not strong enough to shut the door.

A final slam and standing fast on feet to hold the door shut from inside. Desperately looking around for something to hold it shut, absent of a lock on the cheap brass handle of the eggshell white portal I desperately beg to cease moving.

So I tug heavily at the vintage dresser and get the corner to pass the door. I keep pushing and manage to shove a heavy, 9 drawer natural wood IKEA vanity across the right corner of the room.

I melt down in front of it and press my body to the drawers. Knobs resting my head and spine between them.
PTSD is not remembering how many hours i slept on that hardwood floor that night or what got me into school the next morning.

Just knowing I reached an adult I trusted instead of taking my midterm, to shakily pass words I had been waiting to utter for years.

"Attacked".

My PTSD shows up during normal hours.

It does not pencil in meetings with me or request a call.

It just comes, unannounced. Like a walk-in for an important meeting.

A meeting of timelines. A recollection of truths.

As I grow older, gaining understanding of what is happening and learning how to say PTSD in line with my name... I realize the foreign sound of this term only means I have not presently associated with my past.

February 2019 was my first real diagnosis with this term.

It was not until summer that the pronunciation felt right.

Past reminders in current situations.

Pre processing of past events.

So what does healing look like for someone with PTSD?

For me, it is the meeting between past and present in order to map out a healthy future.

It means using my senses and my present awareness to assist in honoring boundaries to make the flashes subside and the title "healing" feel attainable.

It means I will have the whole body experience of hitting "play" on my life.

J.S. Jaded Savior ♡

An excerpt from "STUCK ON PAUSE", an autobiography about living with PTSD, depression, anxiety, trauma, abuse etc. Coming in 2020 ☆