It's a Mood

Hi.

Hello.

It's me.

For the first time in months, I've felt a burning desire to sit down and pour words onto the screen. There's something to be said for getting triggered. I read something today about telling someone to "leave it in the past" or "let it go" when the source is trauma. Doing so, is dismissing the reality of the body and the nervous system.

NOBODY wants to relive traumatic experiences, to feel the nervous system fly into protection mode, fight or flight. Nobody chooses to get hijacked by the shit storm of emotions that flood the mind and the body in those moments of being triggered. Responding to past trauma is because trauma exists, and not because of an unwillingness to let go.

I was triggered today.

I keep it together where it matters, and the moment I get out of the situation, I feel like I got hit by a 10,000 lb pile of bricks. I make myself wrong for all the things I didn't say, could have said, should have said. I give myself praise for not reacting, for staying calm. And then I sit in this pity party of "I've come so far, but still have so much more to go."

I wish I could go back in time to 2014 Amanda and give her a giant hug and not let go. I would tell her that this is not it, there is so much more coming to life that you just can't see right now. The tears in your eyes are making things a little blurry, but the clarity is coming. You are more powerful than you know and the moment your are ready, the world of possibility will welcome you with loving and open arms to embrace you for all that you are and all that you have not yet become.

I would remind that Amanda that her intuition is invaluable, and that gut feeling that something is wrong is worth listening to. I would remind her that she is not alone, even though it feels that way. But the first step to being seen is allowing others to see her, the real her, and all of her. You are too strong, too powerful, too beautiful, to not be seen.

I don't know what difference it would have made, if any. But thinking about that feels comforting to 2022 Amanda.

I don't want to type what I'm about to type but acknowledgement is important.

He gets in my head. And no matter how much I know the facts, know who I am and who I am not, he still gets in there. A conversation ends and I go within and again, start to question myself, my reality, my perception of the past and the present. I second guess every single thing I have done or said - is it grounded in the what's so or is it grounded in fighting back so hard against something just so that I can be right and justified and resist him?

Psychological warfare is what my Dad called it today.

I started my book a month or so ago. And the first time I sat down to write, I was overwhelmed by a memory from 2015 that had not even come to mind before then. It's the first thing I wrote about and I cried as words flooded the first few pages. I had been in my house, trying to get out, but my exit was blocked by a body that would not move out of the doorway or allow me to move out of the room. I managed to push the button on my phone to call my Dad before he realized what I had done and when he heard my Dad say hello on the other end of the line, he moved out of my way and let me go outside. Before that moment, I had never shared with my parents what I was dealing with. I never let them into my reality. That moment, in 2015, changed my life.

So today, I called my Dad. The person that will forever and always have my back. The same person that he tells me does not approve of me and my life choices, does not support me and my decision to destroy my family. Maybe I call because I know he will always have my back, or maybe I call to remind myself that the things he says are not true. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

I'm good.

I know that I'm good.

I know that I'm safe.

I know that I am loved.

I know that I love me.

I know that I am a good Mother.

I know all these things.

And maybe at times, his little voice gets in my head and makes me question it all. And in those moments, I make myself wrong for not being stronger, not being smarter, not having done enough work yet to be past the point that I am at now.

But those moments of self doubt and make wrong get shorter and shorter.

My autonomic nervous system responses get less severe and less overpowering.

What I am seeing now for myself is that at the source of the sadness that I feel and the tears that I cry when I am triggered, is a grieving for the me that once was that I haven't fully grieved yet. She was a survivor and without her, I wouldn't be here. In some ways, I'm think I've been afraid to let her go.

I think it's time.

So goodbye to you. Thank you for being strong, even in the moments you felt like it was impossible. Thank you for stumbling through the last several years. You got me to where I am right now and I'm ready to take it from here. You can rest now. You can let go and know that you did everything you were meant to do, and without you, I would not be me. I love you. I honor you. You are free.