I’m sick today, so I stayed home from work. I feel kind of dizzy, feel weak, and don’t want to do anything. My eyes feel funny, like I’m really tired.
I also feel triggered. I have for 3 days now. I wasn’t able to get into EMDR yesterday because of it. That’s okay, not getting into EMDR, because I didn’t need to get more wound up.
Today I told my wife how I feel, how it sucks to be triggered and not know why, how I hate not having the words necessary to describe how I feel, or what I am going through. I’ve told that to her before. It’s nice talking to someone about it, someone who doesn’t misunderstand.
We took a nap. During the nap my wife kept moving her arm. I felt really uncomfortable, even afraid, every time she moved. I couldn’t describe it. Then, when it was time to get up, she asked me to massage her shoulder. She had been moving her arm because it hurt. I massaged her shoulder and thought about how I was triggered by her moving her arm because it reminded me of Mom. It reminded me of Mom moving her white arm with the board attached, beating me until I went senseless. That’s what Mom did.
She started beating me when I was young, five years old, maybe four, using her hand. That hurt her too much, so she started using a hairbrush. That worked but then the hairbrush broke. The next one broke as well. She had a collection of broken hairbrushes in her bathroom drawer. Eventually, I believe, she got tired of breaking hairbrushes, and besides, she needed something with more impact. I was becoming numb. So, after that she used a three-foot-long one by two piece of pine. My dad had a lot laying around, pieces of pine, after he used them for backing to the paneling he put up in the rec-room.
Mom used the board to get more impact, and to have something that didn’t break. She was very good about making sure the impact was appropriate. Later she told me that she didn’t want to leave a mark that others could see. If she left a mark she could get in trouble. She did leave a mark; it was just invisible.
She kept the board on top of the refrigerator, right on the front edge so you could see it all of the time. She took it down when my brothers and I needed to be controlled. I felt controlled. I didn’t like the feeling of being beat. I liked being controlled better.
Then one day the board broke. I laughed. Mom smiled. She didn’t beat me that day. I don’t remember her beating me after. She told me later, when I was an adult, that we at some point had become too big to be beat. I would guess that was when we became too numb for the board. She would have had to escalate, and she couldn’t think of anything to beat me with that wouldn’t cause serious or apparent harm.
The harm was serious. It’s apparent to me.
I also feel triggered. I have for 3 days now. I wasn’t able to get into EMDR yesterday because of it. That’s okay, not getting into EMDR, because I didn’t need to get more wound up.
Today I told my wife how I feel, how it sucks to be triggered and not know why, how I hate not having the words necessary to describe how I feel, or what I am going through. I’ve told that to her before. It’s nice talking to someone about it, someone who doesn’t misunderstand.
We took a nap. During the nap my wife kept moving her arm. I felt really uncomfortable, even afraid, every time she moved. I couldn’t describe it. Then, when it was time to get up, she asked me to massage her shoulder. She had been moving her arm because it hurt. I massaged her shoulder and thought about how I was triggered by her moving her arm because it reminded me of Mom. It reminded me of Mom moving her white arm with the board attached, beating me until I went senseless. That’s what Mom did.
She started beating me when I was young, five years old, maybe four, using her hand. That hurt her too much, so she started using a hairbrush. That worked but then the hairbrush broke. The next one broke as well. She had a collection of broken hairbrushes in her bathroom drawer. Eventually, I believe, she got tired of breaking hairbrushes, and besides, she needed something with more impact. I was becoming numb. So, after that she used a three-foot-long one by two piece of pine. My dad had a lot laying around, pieces of pine, after he used them for backing to the paneling he put up in the rec-room.
Mom used the board to get more impact, and to have something that didn’t break. She was very good about making sure the impact was appropriate. Later she told me that she didn’t want to leave a mark that others could see. If she left a mark she could get in trouble. She did leave a mark; it was just invisible.
She kept the board on top of the refrigerator, right on the front edge so you could see it all of the time. She took it down when my brothers and I needed to be controlled. I felt controlled. I didn’t like the feeling of being beat. I liked being controlled better.
Then one day the board broke. I laughed. Mom smiled. She didn’t beat me that day. I don’t remember her beating me after. She told me later, when I was an adult, that we at some point had become too big to be beat. I would guess that was when we became too numb for the board. She would have had to escalate, and she couldn’t think of anything to beat me with that wouldn’t cause serious or apparent harm.
The harm was serious. It’s apparent to me.
