I am stressed and impressed! In me. For having not lost my mind!!
Seriously tho it’s 3am and I need to sleep so I can drive tomorrow, so I was watching videos to calm down — AND I took my anxiety medication, but I’m beginning to have obsessive thoughts so I’ve decided I better actually address it. Just enough to get some sleep, I promised myself.
I had a trigger the other day that has suddenly ruined all my trust in health services, which is not my normal me. I mean “homes,” assisted living, anything like that. It’s that woman in the hospital. Her bones were black. I’m not really sure I should even share it! It’s so disturbing. I’m also not sure that it counts as something that would give someone PTSD-symptoms. My cousin becoming faceless, sure, cuz even though I didn’t know him well I still knew him enough to be traumatized by the story. (Was he even my actual cousin, though? Now I’m confused. Luckily y’all don’t care and this isn’t a court room, so I can figure that out later.)
At work today a kid co-worker ran up behind me and grabbed my neck. She did not know better (she has intellectual disabilities) but I made it clear that she can never do that to me. She looked a bit spooked. She had meant to be silly, clearly.
So that stressed me out, but I was already stressed because my mom’s heartbeat was irregular. All day. We both slept in so she was off on her meds, but none are for that, etc etc etc. I came home from work yesterday to find that her blood sugar was 300 (insert slightly funny story about that here; I’m too tired to tell it).
Then my mom texts me saying her BP and HR are low. So I rush home before my shift is over (my managers are cool people honestly) even though I close, but she insists she’s fine. So now I’m worried that her arrhythmia will result in worse heart failure, or clotting —> stroke, or cardiac arrest, etc. But I legit can’t tell if that’s my anxiety, so I ask my sister.
My sister is being very helpful. She helps me take care of my mom and the bills. It’s been lovely.
This story isn’t in order. That’s a sign that I’m triggered pretty bad. Just realized the next part of the story I was about to tell happened while I was at work. Hm.
I’ll just tell the part that’s bothering me enough to leave me in tears a few times the last few days. Bad dreams. Not about rape, though, so that’s lovely :) It’s the black bones. Her body was dead but her eyes moved and looked at me, and it was in a hospital. The bone was sticking out but not because it was broken. Rotted. The whole limb was rotting off, and it’s her eyes that look so dead inside that freak me out the most. Then there’s a weird memory of an old woman I met at my great-grandmother’s funeral. She was so nice but I was overcome with guilt (I hadnt started kindergarten yet) because her mouth scared me so much but I just wanted to tell her hi so she’d smile.
Also ties into the memory of me being left to die in that hospital; and of the old woman the pedophile lived with. Nancy. I’ve never been able to say her name in years I guess that’s neat.
Anyway. Thinking about her makes me want to talk about her with the pedophile. What an odd feeling.
The woman with the rotting bone. She was a victim of severe neglect. I’m sure it retraumatized me to see her and I didn’t get PTSD solely from looking at this woman. But I remember googling her condition because I was so terrified and learning that it happens to elderly people a lot. Typing that sentence made me tear up; so yeah, that’s the root of the issue. Helplessness. Fear it could happen to me, that I’ll be sitting there in a soiled bedsheet for months starving while my body literally rots to expose bone. But the worst of the feeling is not even that. Its being terrified that it’s gonna happen to everyone else. No one deserves that.
But no amount of donations I give to the elderly are fixing it this week. So I’m thinking that taking care of my mom boosted the trigger a bit.
I understand it’s an extreme situation that rarely happens to people. But my fear lies in the fact that it happened to SOMEONE. It’s rare to have a dad who leaves you in cages, too. Or to be in a hospital where the nurses almost kill you. Or to end up brainwashed into maybe not being a real human. My brain kind of assumes at this point that “rare” means “I need to do something actively to make sure this never happens to anyone ever.” And then the OCD gets worse.
I really need to focus on my class. I only have two weeks left of it to turn in two months of late assignments.
I do have a therapist appointment coming up soon. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely make it to that :)
I have too many things to discuss in therapy now. I wonder if I should just focus on my new relationship with my mom, since this therapist isn’t a trauma specialist? I guess I could ask her if talking about people living in dead bodies is too much for her.
One time Brandi forced me to watch Final Destination with her and a scene happened where a grill blew up and a mom’s son’s arm landed right in her plate. Triggered those ^ above. She yelled at me and wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the night, lol. I barely even noticed.
