Thank you
@gizmo, that was sweet and encouraging. :D It's incredible what you've been through. I'm glad your persistence paid off. I do find that life continually stretches us. It says a ton about your strength already that you've endured all that and continue to build yourself to visit your family an hour away. Thanks for being willing to share that hope.
So, I guess I'm finally ready to open up. I found as I was typing a response to you that I just started typing away. Here it is...
I was really surprised by all of this. 5 years ago, I got hit with a life-threatening illness. I got out of the life-threatening phase, but I lost everything. Before it happened, I was living several states away from family, in a long-term relationship, running an organic, local bath and body store. I was having trouble getting on my feet financially there, but I was making steady progress in my business, customers felt comfortable giving me feedback and regularly coming back. Things were hopeful. That's how far I had come from my PTSD.
Then I just got hit with this autoimmune disease and kept going down and down. I was nearly bed-ridden, barely taking care of my most basic needs. My family came and got me and I was back in my parents' house trying not to die.
3 years ago I became mostly independent again as far as just taking care of the basics, but I have been pretty much housebound ever since. My parents' house was near a city, but in a little woodsy area with some acreage. We weren't near anything to walk to, but I had friends willing to drive me out to all kinds of fun places. So I was pretty excited about the change of pace of living downtown where I could walk to those places with some effort.
Moving out here was stressful, yes. There were just a series of acute events that happened during the course of the move that sparked old survival instincts from childhood. One of the major triggers was staying with a family for a few days that was just full of drama and had a ton of similarities to people in my childhood in all the wrong ways. When I got here, I was already close to the edge. I instinctively started doing what
@FridayJones talked about. I found the roof patio of the apartment building and started making it mine, used the space to wind down from these other events.
So I was out one night just trying to get acclimated, dealing with some of the grief that naturally accompanies a major change, and this guy... THIS GUY... comes out to the patio. As soon as I hear the door shut I'm in a panic. It's just me on this roof, the doors automatically lock in 15 minutes, and I am in all kinds of terror mode. I do my usual thing of quelling it with logic. "It's ok Eternum, other people are allowed to come up here too. It's just one guy, not everyone thinks like you," etc.
The guy leaves me alone at first, but when he realizes I'm alone, he approaches. He seems friendly and talkative, asks if he can sit down near me. He pulls up a chair a respectful distance away, which calms me. Slightly.
We get into this conversation. He's asking a bunch of questions. He's talking about his wife, who's in the hospital with liver cancer. He comes from a country where women are "not free" and it's becoming clear he's used to them being inferior and dependent. Then it's questions like, "Do you like change?" "Are you alone? Oh, you just moved here with your dad?"
Then he starts talking about how he wants a girlfriend. He starts letting it on that he's wealthy, he's a catch, I can tell this is someone who doesn't take no for an answer. What I can't tell is if he's the quick-tempered type to get insulted and then violent when rejected or what. Honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm already a ball of panic inside, thinking that there's a real possibility I may have to defend myself if it comes to that. And then I'm having this horrible, horrible realization that if it comes to that, I can't. I am too weak from my own illness. I say that, but I have the fighting instinct that I would rather break my own arms swinging a chair to defend myself than sit there and cry. I just knew it was a high likelihood I would end up doing something like that and still lose the fight.
The last mostly reliable defense I have is my exhausted and now frazzled-by-panic mind. I seize it. I maneuver that conversation before he can ask me anything directly involving his intentions, start firing questions back at him about his life with feigned interest, put on my best charming act, made him think it was some wonderful introduction and pulled an, "Oh, look at the time, gotta go."
Practically run back to the apartment aaaaaand... that's it. That's the last straw my mind can take and I'm having nightmares and flashbacks and relapsing within the week.
I realized today from FridayJones' post that I let someone else take that spot away from me, and therefore the one space of safety I was beginning to establish here. When he mentioned certain hours for certain places, I remembered that during the day was consistently just fine. Only had that problem at night. So I went out today and it was like it's always been during the day. If someone happens to come up there when I'm up there and I don't feel good about it, I'll leave immediately instead of talking myself out of my fear.
Today, I accepted my paranoia. Doesn't matter if it's an overreaction. I'm ok with this.
