The Trigger Makes No Sense

[desiderata310]

Strange crazy session today.
It's bad enough that I couldn't enter my usual way. It seems that planned parenthood has my entrance to my therapist's office blocked off for the foreseeable future since they are using Lent to do a marathon protest of abortion. Little do they know that they are completely disrupting my ability to feel safe.. sane... stable... whatever.
Today was worse because when I sat down out in front of the office, a scary looking guy in a truck pulled up. OH f*ck NO.. I left, rode down the street and started crying watching my therapist trying to get in the door. Took me a bit to sort it all out and come back. We got inside and I COULDN'T EFFING CALM DOWN.

I managed to babble through all of it but at one point the dog alerted and I freaked. My thearpist went out to show me no one was there and I thought.. ok.. I'm good but I wasn't. Suddenly I was so far away. He was asking me questions and I kept asking him to repeat them because they didn't make any sense.

My therapist said we should end early since I was triggered and dissociated and trying so damn hard to stay. He walked out to the lobby to give me a moment. As I walked out... it was like I was trapped some place very dangerous. Three trucks outside with rough looking workers.. I couldn't.. I froze. I don't know how long I stood there with my helmet in my hands sobbing.

Somehow my therapist got me out and up the hill and I was on my bike riding again but I was bawling and snot running everywhere and howling. I must have looked a site. damn small town.

It's not the first time it's happened.
The shitty thing is that the trigger MAKES NO SENSE. NONE. These guys have never done anything to me. I've never been in danger from someone who looks like them. I WORK with rough looking people. But they are as much a threat to me in those moments as the ancient old woman and her granddaughter holding protest signs out side of the Planned Parenthood around the corner. I couldn't go near them if I wanted and the panic is so damn real.

NO clue what to do about this.

I texted my therapist crying that perhaps this means I will have to give up therapy for lent.
H

 

[Friday]

I want to go have a good shout and possibly smack down at the abortion protestors. Grrrr.

A million years ago a bunch of us got pissed off and went and protested against the protestors. Wrote our reasons on our foreheads, and the carried signs or wrote on our cheeks "Say it to my face." & "Can you still kick me when I'm not already down?" So instead of bullying and harassing frightened young women making one of the hardest decisions of their lives? They got dozens of pissed off US Marines with words like RAPE & Daddys Little Girl & Lethal Birth Defect written on our foreheads in sharpie and lipstick. Effing church group. Half of whom tried to say that "we" didn't count since "we" had good reasons & God would understand in violent crimes, incest, maternal death, etc.. Well who the hell do they think they're bullying and abusing walking through these doors??? People who aren't years past these traumas, but within 3 months of them. Of course, to the other half, it never mattered, bunch of jezebels going to hell. Well, with their hateful god, I'd clearly rather be anywhere else. Hell sounds grand to me, if the alternative is spending eternity with you & your god.

Turned into a bit of a spectacle (Deep South, Bible Belt. Made the local TV news). By the end of the day the US Marines were the tiny minority. We had well over a hundred women of all ages, races, classes.. with sharpie or eyeliner drawn reasons on their foreheads. In business suits, and hausfrau dresses, jeans, and mumus. One of the ones that broke my heart was an old, old woman who wrote "Love". Her husband had killed her first 2 children. She refused to let him kill anymore. It wasn't legal then to divorce without "cause" (and proving cause near impossible), and it wasn't illegal to rape your wife. Coat hanger abortion hurt her badly enough she had to have a hysterectomy. Which is what she was hoping for. There were so many stories, there. All heartbreaking. All infuriating. Chemo. Car accident. Beaten & left for dead. <grin> And plain for the world to see, written on our foreheads.

I've aborted a rape-baby, and I've kept a rape-baby. Both were exactly the right choice, for me, at the time. I regret neither. But... Clearly... It's a charged subject for me. The protesting abortion thing alone would have had me seeing red. Bloody politics & religion & forcing your choices on others. A person can be ProLife, and I'm happy for them. Cheers. But no one has the right to force others against their will to believe in their god, or other politics. Freedom of Religion. And I have the right to vote. To know my own mind & follow the dictates of my conscience. And that's before they cut off my ingress/egress. And before the threats that follow abortion protestors loomed heavy: looking for bombs & bombers....scanning for shooters, knives, and the crazies mixed in with the zealots, who are there for the express purpose of hurting people, God as their excuse (and defense attorneys paid for by the church). And remembering my own grief, and the weight of so many stories.

Woulda been a hard & heavy day for me, Desi. Coming to a place of sanctuary and finding strife. Shudder.

 

[Rumors]

Very sorry Desi. I'm think you should hire FridayJones to take you to therapy and let her handle it!!! You may feel empowered by her results! That really sucks though.

 

[shimmerz]

I'm think you should hire FridayJones to take you to therapy and let her handle it!!!

Not a bad idea to visualize this one on your next trip. She paints a great picture of how she could be a great body guard for you!

As far as the guys with the trucks. It makes total sense to me. I had a thing about this too. As a matter of fact, if I was driving and saw a red truck I would almost drive off the road. I am going to say that every trigger makes sense. We just haven't always gotten to what that sense is yet.

It sounds to me like you have a bad case of what I call 'fear of the fright'. It comes with second guessing sanity because we don't 'get it' yet. I was horribly reactive, just like you are describing. It is a nightmare. Consuming. I am so sorry desi. I just wonder if you could keep the faith that there is a reason. It is deep down, but it is authentic. that faith, when I finally found it, really helped my crazily reactive bits settle down.

With you in spirit....Friday is with you with a painted forehead and a menacing growl for people who get in your way. :cool: You are doing good. Honestly.

 

[Friday]

I am so there.

 

[zeckster81]

You know I'm against abortion, but to stand outside and harass people who are just trying to live their life the best they know how is ridiculous. When in reality God shows so much love and mercy for these women who make the choice to abort. Most of these women are so broken and hurt as it is, that to make them feel worse is ridiculous. If they want their voice heard go to the politicians and try to make them change the laws. Don't hurt people who do not know anything but hurt themselves. Making that decision has to be so hard. I can't imagine having to feel so helpless and alone that they have to make it.

 

[desiderata310]

@FridayJones a place of sancutary? yeah, I guess I had never really actively thought of therapy that way. It's honestly the first place, the first person I've known who DIDN'T make a judgement against me. First time that someone DIDN'T yell or get impatient with me when the tears started and I couldn't stop them. I've never even considered it.

The more frustrating thing IS the Planned Parenthood. My therapist's office sits on a corner. Since I am always the first patient of the day, (and habitually early) he showed me that I could get in the back and sit in the little courtyard shared by his office and the real estate office next to him. Since it's early, it's always quiet and always empty. It's become, over the last several months, my favorite place to sit since I can actually relax a bit before going in to do what has always felt like tromping on my soul.
Since the PP shares the path to the courtyard (but not the courtyard) it's always been a tiny struggle for me to get in but now it is impossible with the protestors and their signs. I just can't MAKE myself walk past all of that. It's ruined it. Therapy hasn't felt "safe" the last few times I was there. I wasn't making the connection. My therapist was.

I've figurativly been kicked to the curb. Since I'm there before anyone, there's no place to sit and wait for my therapist to get there. There's a low retaining wall that I have to walk through the landscaping to sit on. It feels exposed and raw. Since I commute by bike I am always wearing bright yellow and greens. Obnoxious, high vis colors to deter motorists from hitting me in the fog (I wear bright lights too) but it makes me a spectical sitting out there waiting on him to arrive. I have always been one for the shadows.

The "rough looking guys" yeah... they are there to work on the office next door. They HAD been done with construction. When I saw the first one pulling up... *sigh*

I don't know. I can't keep doing this. It's wearing me out. I went to work yesterday, worked only half a day and was worn out trying to suppress the crying or constantly closing my door. I wasn't making any progress on anything anyway. And after a particularly difficult meeting. (me and three men in an electrical room discussing arc flash risk in depth) with someone who is just effing triggering as hell to be around, I threw up my hands and went home. I'm two days behind on my running and I couldn't go out to do a run yesterday because the urge to run out into traffic on purpose was too great. I spent the evening trying not to cut.

I used to be a badass. Or at least, I fancied myself a badass. Doing 36 hours straight of work because the job called for it. Working like the guys and telling them to piss off. Even right down to having to see my abuser at a work call and having to work with him on a project right before I moved. I fought through all of it. I kept my distance. I spoke gruffly. I gave orders and yelled at people to make my whereabouts known the whole time and to make ME feel better and to keep me from crying.

I seem to have lost that. I can't power through this stuff anymore and when I do I crash and crash hard. Usually in suicidal jaunts and self harm sessions and drinking myself silly. Not to say that I didn't do those things when I was in 'badass' mode but I thought of the drinking etc as part of the badassness and not a reaction to it.

I went to work yesterday after all of this and didn't have time to compose myself before the first of my employees showed up to my door wanting to talk about something. Fuuuuck. She could tell something was wrong. (no Ihad managed to remove the snot and tears from my face) but how can I be the boss I need to when I am constantly falling apart?? No, I'm not a marine but these f*ckers are constantly looking for chinks in my armor and when they see one they pounce. I had to take HR action twice within my first 6 months and had my boss question my motives behind the write ups. I have to be better and stronger and smarter than what I'm working with.

Jesus, what the f*ck is going to happen when I take a f*cking service dog to work?

 

[shimmerz]

I am so there.

I can hear the song knights in white satin (I am aging myself), playing in the back ground as you ride your trusty steed up to the doors with desi.

@desiderata310, jeeeez I remember this. Feeling like I couldn't hold onto a thing properly. Terrified lest any move I made destroyed my sense of normal even further that it already seemed to be (and was). It is palpable. All of the 'acceptance' and visualize and from all bad is good bullshiest doesn't help a bit. I am so very sorry. I have been there and it was terrifying. And it makes everything else terrifying. There are no words.....

 

[desiderata310]

@shimmerz

TVOTR: Wolf Like Me. Just the spirit of the song not so much the content of the lyrics. But even with that blasting away in my headphones I was having trouble getting back over there yesterday. Yeah. the song makes me feel like a badass but not yesterday.

Passed by this morning: no workers but PP was going strong. More people actually. Seems they are ramping up. I may not be able to get there physically before long.

Passing this morning was hard. Which is funny because I can't NOT pass by. Not going by puts me in a state and I wind up having to go by anyway.
stupid f*cking brain.

 

[ghotiff]

Three trucks outside with rough looking workers.. I couldn't.. I froze

To attempt interpreting this trigger...this might be why it could trigger me.

Men and trucks are more "powerful" than men alone, particularly if they are trade specific trucks (eg one I couldn't drive, it gives them more recourses to use against me). Men in trucks are physically higher and I can struggle with a height difference because I was child height during my abuse.

Nothing in the above is terribly "logical" but makes sense trauma wise.

I hope that helps. I find triggers less frustrating when I understand them better.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Men and trucks are more "powerful"

Yep, and the auto industry is cashing in on this fact!

There is an American commercial where kids see a pic of a guy in front of a sedan and then the same guy in front of a truck. I think they ask the kids what kind of pets the guy would have. Of course, for the truck guy they say he would have a german shepherd, a rattlesnake, etc, but for the sedan guy they say he would have birds!

So yeah, wanna be a "REAL" man, buy a truck! Only wimpy guys drive sedans...

 

[ghotiff]

@Solara
Wow...I don't know how to respond to that.