Dropping the Albatross

 

“These children suffer trauma as acute as soldiers in combat; they also carry the trauma like an albatross throughout their lives.”

Forty-five percent of the U.S. population is exposed to it, and 28.6 million of them are children. These children grow up with three internal rules—don’t trust, don’t feel, and don’t talk.  Since they are inculcated to deny the reality around them, they develop a resistance to talking about urgent, important, or meaningful aspects of life. 

When they reach adulthood, they are sometimes labeled as extreme introverts and hard-to-get-to-know; they are ‘shy.’ As adults, they may suffer depression and anxiety, and are often characterized as control freaks. The most important emotional leap for these adults is to separate the past from the present.  They must learn to realize that overreaction now, is really feeling pain from the past. Psychotherapy and psychopharmacology can do them a lot of good. (Psychology Today, February 2007).

Psychotherapy and psychopharmacology can do them good.  There was a weird comfort in reading that.  Maybe I'm not as crazy as I thought.

I’ve told myself forever I’m a well-developed adult.  It didn’t affect me. Denial reinforced from many angles. “You left home, you don’t know what it was like,” or “You should write again about how AWEFUL your childhood was (this is where I need a sarcasm font.”  I wasn’t going to write about it, because I wasn’t going to admit it affected me.  I didn't even know how profoundly it DID affect me.

Inculcated to deny the reality around them…

I wasn’t going to write it until I read that statistic—45% of the US population. I’m not alone in my shame and guilt. It DID, and still does, affect me, in ways I don't even know yet.

I don’t know why it’s happening now…this reckoning, this awakening. Maybe, it just is, and maybe there is no rhyme or reason why shit happens. Maybe it just does, out of the blue.

All I know is that I can’t handle more broken-down people, and I can’t handle being broken-down anymore.  I look at life, and realize I’ve worked hard to be where I am, but I really don’t know who I am.  I need to stop telling myself I don’t deserve the things I have.  I’ve got to stop thinking that when things are going good, the bottom of this MFer is going to drop out, and I’ll again have to feel like that little kid sitting at the top of the stairs crying and listening to the yelling and the dishes breaking;  I’m not going to have to run down some dark alley in the middle of the night to get away.

Somewhere along the way, you have to face the fact that it wasn’t your fault.  That no matter how much you try to be perfect, you can't make sick people change.  The refusal of people to heal and change, doesn’t define your value or make you unworthy of anything, especially self-love.

So, I’m told that the first step in dropping this albatross is acknowledging two things after coming out of denial—1) I have no idea what ‘normal’ is, and 2) I have to regain the ability to feel and express emotions.

Three weeks into this shit, and as far as I’ve gotten is that feeling really sucks. It’s terrifying and it comes, wave after wave, crashing down and tightening my chest. In a way, I feel like I’ve been running down that dark alley, terrified, my whole life. And being scared has somehow always been easier than feeling the pain that comes when shit breaks down and the brokenness feels like the heavy dishes crashing on the kitchen floor.

So, I’ve been trying meditation lately—letting the feelings come and trying to process them.  It’s damn hard, and most of the time, I just end up in tears, taking an anti-anxiety pill, and having a good old fashioned cry—more like sob-fest, really.  It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve tried to do in my life.

Some days, I wonder if I’m just wallowing in self-pity, drink a cup of tea, and try to think what my Nan would tell me.  She’d tell me to get my shit together.

Then I remember that's why I'm on this new journey. I’m trying.  And nobody, so far, has told me that dropping this albatross would be easy. As crazy as it sounds, this heavy bird is all I know.  It's almost like I've fed it, nourished it, and held it so tight, that letting it fly means I have to nothing left  to keep me tied to the ground. But, I'm trying like hell to let it fly away, because maybe I'm supposed to fly too.

my new journey

“I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue, and what you are is the point.” ~Susan Sarandon

My traumatic truth tells me that what I am is wrong.  I am not supposed to be having an existential crisis at 40.  This is the age I’m supposed to be self-aware and not give a single fuck.  Not the case.  Not the case at all.

I’m terrified to tell this story.  It means things are not perfect. The vacuum lines aren't correctly spaced.  Problems exist.

We cannot have not problems.  Ever.  "They" need to think we are just peachy.  "Those people, over there."

I’ve always been a writer.  Not necessarily a good one, but it’s something I have always loved to do.  For the last four years, it has been beyond my capability to put anything into words.  As I examine this today, I know that it’s because what I want to say, what I want to FEEL (because my writing is mostly making sense of what I feel, and it always has been), is a trigger for some people. 

Accordingly, I’m not supposed to feel how I do about certain things, and despite being caught up in certain circumstances, my observance and affect to some of those things aren’t valid to others, despite the fact that perception is reality and my reality has always needed to shift to make others comfortable.  

I’m not finding fault.  I need to look at things with which my younger self maybe wasn’t ready to deal, in a new light.  I need to feel those things again as an adult whose coping mechanisms are more evolved.

Making sure my perception doesn’t make anyone else uncomfortable has seriously fucked me over. It’s always been, “No one needs to know things are a mess.  Put on this mask of perfection and all will be ok in the world.  To those people ‘over there,’ everything looks fine, so it is.” 

I’ve fought depression since I was 16 years old.  Back then, the spiral began with the first adolescent rejection.  All of those fears of people knowing things were fucked-up, were validated in that single moment.  It only amplified when I left home for college my freshman year.  Somehow, by the grace of God, I managed to sleep all damn day, miss class, make it to basketball practice, and still pull a 4.0.  Keep up the façade, if you will.

I’ve been in and out of therapy, been on and off countless medications, and done my fair share of self-medicating for the last 24 years.  But the kicker was a few months ago, when I realized I hadn’t slept more than 5 hours on any given night as I stepped out of the shower forcing myself to go to work.  

The thoughts in my head terrified me. So, I sat on the edge of the tub letting those thoughts surface.  I remember the last time I felt what I would call normal.  I was 25, and the only reason I left that counselor was because I moved and lost my insurance.  So, I called that guy.

It took me a couple of weeks to get back in, and the only reason I was able, was because they found my records from 15 years ago.

It was cold and windy that day.  It was my day off—usually a day I don’t worry about make-up or hair or what to wear.  But by God, I was showing up to that appointment put-together. 

 I am NOT crazy.  No one can KNOW I MIGHT be crazy. 

To be honest, my only gauge for crazy, is my judgement of other people.

So, I put on my best outfit, did my hair, made sure I didn’t ‘look depressed to those people over there,’  and did my best to walk stoically into the last place that acknowledged I was, actually, kinda nuts, but really did helped me.

As I was signing in, of course the line was FULL of people I didn’t expect, nor want to acknowledge.  

 Dude, we are 3 again; if I don’t see you, you don’t see me.  

It’s an understood code.  

It was kind of like the first experience buying weed in Colorado—all NO FUCKING WAY! THEY’RE ALL SO NORMAL!

First off, they make you see the psychiatrist…the medical person.  You do it, or they aren’t signing you up for counseling.  At least not if you have the chart I did WAY back then.

The room was exactly as I remembered.  Awesome antique furniture I am scared my fat ass will break accompanied by creepy antique dolls that make you convinced they move when no one is looking.  I’m waiting for the shrink when this tiny Rastafarian chick walks out and calls my name.

New person.

I have to talk to said person.   

I have to TELL her things. 

Of course, being NOT at all crazy, I have an anxiety attack and start to cry—BEFORE I EVEN GET TO THE DOOR OF THE ROOM WITH THE COUCH!  Because…ummm.. social interaction with someone that might judge? 

At this point, I don’t even know. 

At this point, I'm still pondering Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus, and wondering if Frederic Jameson's post modernism is in fact, flat.

I am not crazy. Dude, have you seen crazy?!  This is NOT crazy.

She’s very kind and nice…asking me all the questions.  I’m thinking, “cool.  I aced it!”  As if you can somehow ACE that shit?  Then, she says, “You can pick up your prescriptions at 11:00.” 

I cry harder.

Fuck.  I am not strong.  I need pills.  I AM CRAZY!

I pick up my prescriptions at Walgreens, which amounts to 6….fucking SIX prescriptions…so I can cope with counseling.  

I AM FUCKING NUTS!!

I decide work is not an option for the rest of the day.  Instead, I scrub my face, put on old PMS sweats and hold a good old-fashioned cry over actually being medicated.  Because, hey!  CRAZY!  

I allegedly ate a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and drank the rest of the worst beer ever made, left over from a Valentine’s Day ski trip with my mother.

At this point, I am NOT looking forward to the counselor.  The last time I went to counseling, she was shitty, yet highly recommended by friends.  Lots of money out…nothing worthwhile in. Same meaningless shit for the previous ones, too. As much as I hate admitting I’m certifiably nuts, it’s worse when they want you to pour money into a meaningless pit of here-read-a-book.

So, I again sit in the antique furniture, convinced if I make a sudden move it’s going to fall apart, and wait.“Jen, if that happens, everyone is going to know you are fat…just like that chick sophomore year.  You should’ve kicked her ass. ..stop it! Everyone knows you’re a lard ass.  You do own a mirror.”

The lady who calls my name is wearing the same skirt as me.  She’s wearing a hemp necklace. 

You can bet your sweet ass I’m sizing her up for all she is worth before she can assign ME as CRAZY.

There’s a Himalayan salt lamp in her office. A University of Idaho degree hung on the wall, bigger than her Ph.D. There’s a Grateful Dead stealy above the sink. Buddhas are everywhere. All I can think is, “Holy shit.  This person might relate to me.”

She says to me as I walk into her office, “sit wherever you like.”

I sink into the chair next to the door, mostly because I'm so far gone walking is a g-dang chore, and the tears start falling. 

I pretty much cry for an hour. I did not anticipate this.  I apologize many times over.

I am supposed to know my 'am' by now.  

People with there shit together don't do this.

More apologies.  

There are several uncomfortable pauses, and at the end of the hour she says, “healing is alright.  You’re hurt is really on the surface. I think I can help if you’ll do the hard work to make healing happen.” 

Healing.  It means acknowledging wounds. I’m so ready for that.

For the first time in in 15 years, I heard I can be healed.  

Healing.  Why has no one told me that is an option, and as a a self diagnosed, somewhat intelligent person, why the hell didn't I think of that?

Just saying the word...it's comforting.

I can accept hurt and be ok?  It's alright to heal?   

Suddenly, the freight train hit me.  Everything hasn't been 'fine,' but I CAN and will let it go.

This is my new journey.