Had therapy today. It was hard.
Last night I e-mailed J about some things, that I’m having a really really hard time with. It’s a tricky triggering subject of attachment issues and all this stuff tangled up with my mom’s bpd and the way she thinks and the things she raised me to believe. And… I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not going into detail, but it’s a BIG ISSUE and it terrifies me.
J encouraged me to talk to M about it, because it’s something that needs to be addressed with EMDR.
It was really really hard to pluck up the courage to talk to M about it. I struggled with the words. J had advised me to just share the e-mail with M, because then I don’t have to talk. But I had no way of printing out the e-mail, so… thankfully I remembered what I wrote and the insight I had, but it was still hard to get those words out. So, so, so hard.
The tricky thing is, that this is something that will probably only be fully resolved by talking it out. But it’s a conversation that absolutely terrifies me and I don’t think I can ever really have. I don’t WANT to have it.
But yeah, I explained things and then M said next Sunday we can do EMDR work to process this and work through it. I’m relief and nervous at the same time.
After therapy, I took the bus home. I was not prepared for it to be so scary and uncomfortable. There was this boy on the bus, who was clearly mentally handicapped in some way. I could tell by the way he talked and acted. He also had the special bus pass and ID that you can get if you have a physical or psychological disability that allows you to pay a discounted fare to ride. (I have the same pass for my PTSD.) You have to have a doctors note and stuff to get the ID.
He immediately started talking to me. I couldn’t really understand him, partly because his words kind of slurred together, but mostly because the bus is loud and I have a difficult time hearing people. My brain is overwhelmed by all the talking, the loud noises the bus makes, the sound of the road. So I do what I always do when I can’t really make out/understand what someone is saying- I smile and nod. This boy gave me his phone number. I was nervous because I don’t like talking to people. I just wanted to be left alone. Then at some point he moved to sit right next to me, and I started to panic. I was blocked in, trapped against the window. He made me text him so that he would have my number. I was frozen with panic and fear, and he was right up next to me and in my space, and wouldn’t leave me alone, so I did it. He kept leaning into me, and touching me. I have no idea what he was saying, because I was trying to breathe and was dissociating, floating outside of myself and panicking. I vaguely remember he was saying something about how I need to come over to his house and we can hang out.
I was scared.
I don’t know what he meant or what he was implying or… I mean, maybe it was innocent and child-like thinking on his part, but I obviously took it in a way that he wanted to hook up or something. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know I was scared and he kept touching my arm and my hair and I wanted him to stop. I don’t like to be touched, unless I really trust you. I don’t like people sitting right next to me. I don’t like people being within my ‘space’, which is within arms length of me. It’s my space. My little bubble of personal space. I don’t like it when people invade my bubble, and this was… beyond invading it.
Eventually I yanked on the cord to stop the bus and got off. I wanted to run away, get the hell away from there as fast as I could. So I finally did. I escaped into a big store nearby and walked around in a frazzled daze, it was busy and crowded in the grocery section which didn’t help at all. But I wandered around and ended up in the homegoods/furniture section which was a lot quieter. Eventually I just sat down and started tapping on my knees and trying to ground myself. I think I was in there for nearly an hour.
Eventually I felt grounded enough to manage walking around a bit.
And I decided to pick up some tea.
My therapist loves tea. Last week, when I was still getting over that nasty cold, she offered me some peppermint tea. I love peppermint. For me it’s very calming and grounding. So I said yes and I took some. I liked it well enough. I’m not sure of the taste, because… they all just taste like tea, to me. But it was warm and smelled like peppermint and I love that smell. Today I tried chamomile. It was okay, too.
So, I wondered throught the tea isle, and decided… what the hell. There was a box that had different flavors, like mint, and chamomile, and lemon, and other blends. So I grabbed it and bought it, and when I got home I made myself some with the peppermint/spearmint blend. It helped ground me some more. Plus, I find the warmth helps soothe my throat which is still achy and scratchy.
I’m still not a tea person. I know nothing about tea. But this stuff was nice.
Ugh, it’s been a long day.
defying ptsd 