Flashbacks
I really, really, really have issues with the holidays, and quite honestly, I’m glad they are over.
It’s always overstimulating, and as much as I hate using the word trigger because of how much it’s been trivialized, a sh*t ton of triggers.
Memories of broken christmas trees, police calls, fighting, and fear.
Sometimes it’s very difficult not to snap at people when they push me about why I don’t like the holidays. I like the music. That’s about it for me. Oh and the lights. The rest though? Crowded stores, expectations, traffic, pressure pressure pressure.
At least the food is always good, thanks to my mom and grandma, aunts, and cousin.
This past christmas was probably one of the best i’ve had, despite being sick. There was no pressure on me to socialize, and I was able to connect with my cousin, who I honestly and regrettably never had a long conversation with. To be honest, I didn’t have many long conversations with his brother, my eldest cousin- But he’s gone. PTSD got him.
There are good memories in there somewhere, like my daughters first christmas. Christmas with my ex husband’s family (I loved my ex-mother in law, and she was still a big part of my life until the end. At least we actually got to say goodbye, but that’s another story for another time.)
Christmas was actually not terrible as a little kid. It’s only now that I look at the photos that I realize some of the stuff that was bubbling under the surface. Those christmases a long time ago…I’ve been thinking about them, about playing Super Mario Bro’s on the NES in the guest bedroom while “Santa” dropped off our gifts (on Christmas Eve, ha).
It’s like there’s this web of memories…actually not so much a web but a tangle of strings of memories that I need to figure out how to untangle. And not only is it past due that I address this huge tangle, I think i’m finally in the mental position to be able to look at this big mess and start to unravel it.
Not that I’m a fan of resolutions and all that, but I hope this year I can start to really dig in and unravel this story and make it into something meaningful.
Flashbacks…
What’s been very new for me is the experience of flashbacks. It’s seriously not something i’ve ever truly experienced until after the hurricane.
I always thought flashbacks were like VR- you are just in a completely different environment and don’t know where you are.
I learned about emotional flashbacks recently- which was mind blowing to learn. When i’d be critiqued for a mistake at work, it became life-ending, shameful, embarrassing experience, every time no matter how small the issue. Every perceived negative experience sparked a reaction completely disproportionate to whatever I was reacting too. The more this became an issue, the more I started hiding it, burying it so deep under the surface that eventually I just packed it all into a ticking time-bomb.
Then, the murder-tree.
Honestly, the flashbacks really began to ramp up after Helene. (She’s my Carol Baskin.) (Sorry I’ve been watching Tiger King, I love trashy tv sometimes.)
Not just the emotional flashbacks, but small hints of the “VR” flashbacks. I had one in the shower the other day- I reached out to grab soap from the caddy, and for a moment I felt like I was in the old shower, in the old house. Before the leak that ruined the floor. I have them every once in a while when i’m about to go to sleep, or just waking up. Not remembering where I am- Am I in the temporary shelter of my former classroom? Am I home? Where is home?
