A $40 Ikea nightstand

Many of you probably don't know what drove me to therapy. Primarily, my kids, and the lack of sleep and the inability to take meds without a very sleepy side effect. I was worried at all times of the day about their safety and at night about our safety in our home. I used to set booby traps and stay up late researching local statistics about home invasions, for some reason, numbers always calm me. Finally after a month of only sleeping 2 hours a night on average, I decided to ask for some help. I needed sleep, I needed to shut up these thoughts. I knew this wasn't healthy and I needed help. Initially I took Celexa and just one night Xanax (more on why just once, at another time, funny story, involving sleep, but never again will I take Xanax). My anxiety was SO bad that all I did was worry that the meds were just covering up my ability to be alert and aware. So, off to find a therapist I went. This where my kids come into play, my daughter has generalized anxiety, OCD and sensory perception disorder. Which means, she's brilliant but very rigid and her meltdowns can be massive because she is young and still trying to figure out how to communicate and express herself. She also has a therapist and we have made huge strides lately. I am so proud of her. BUT. She still has meltdowns and they are massive. And last week she was in an obsessive loop (which can be triggering for me) and I was just letting her repeat herself and letting it out, and BAM, while I was driving home, I had a flashback. It was dark, it was me looking in on myself, I became hot and dizzy but luckily I was able to focus and take that last turn into our court. I quickly decided to put the thoughts out and focus on getting the kids ready for bed. I also decided it was time to put together a new nightstand. I thought that if I stood still it would rush back and I would be stuck. So, I put together a $40 Ikea nightstand at 8:15 pm after a long day, with anger and frustration. I just needed to put something together, I needed to complete a task and make it whole. Even if the drawer was put on upside down, even if my kids were up until 10 pm helping me, even if the arthritis in my hands were killing, I NEEDED this night stand to be whole. And I did it. And we went to bed, and I slept. AND I SLEPT. A night like that would have kept me up, thinking about the flashback and obsessing about what it meant and why. I would have likely checked all the locks and windows in the house and set booby traps and then become paralyzed in bed.

It's funny the things you forget about yourself, and thanks to my therapist, she reminded me of how Kristy of last year would have handled this. And how much progress I made just automatically following what I needed. Which was to move out of the moment, to not stay stuck or paralyzed. SO thank you Ikea, for being cheap and requiring assembly, it was perfect therapy for me at that moment. 

Yesterday, I walked in therapy, talked about this flashback, the things I did, and how when I woke up the next day and I couldn't really remember the flashback. I remembered the fear, but couldn't recall the actual flashback. I was  frustrated because, the flashback was me being an onlooker and then I couldn't remember it and that I am trying so hard to connect with Little Kristy and heal her. And that this was just another example of how I am failing. Meredith (my therapist, if I have never mentioned that) reminded me that I don't have to stay in the past to heal Little Kristy, that I have to be present and mindful and loving to myself to heal. But my default is to naturally attack myself. Man, self love is hard. Being present is also super hard, anxiety sure knows how to mess with your brain that way. Making you think by living in the present means your not prepared for some tragedy. But statistically, if you have ever experienced trauma, you are more likely to experience it again. And that's because a  trauma brain might initially be aware of danger but it also knows how to disconnect to protect.....instead of what it should be doing which is running away from the danger.   I tell myself on a regular basis that my level of anxiety is not helping me and is actually making me more vulnerable. Because I forget, because I just don't believe it. That's because many years ago, I got stuck, in a loop, a trauma/obsessive loop. And that is if I can control how people see me that they won't hurt me. If I plan for all the things that I can some how be prepared for when danger strikes. And when you plan for these things, and then they don't happen, you reinforce the worrying and the planning because THAT IS the reason why danger didn't strike. Not that danger wasn't going to strike. I just kept feeding myself that same lie over and over again, that my actions some how prevented bad things happening to me later in life. I mean cause lets face it, when I was a kid, I was told I was bad, I was wrong, I was selfish, I was a bitch, so when abuse and neglect happened to me, I thought I was bad, I was wrong and I was selfish, not this adult, who was abusing drugs, neglecting my siblings and I on a very basic human right level, who was leaving horrible mean men in our home that abused me. I thought it was my fault, I thought it was because I was bad. And somehow I have thought up in my brain, a long time ago, that if I can act a certain way, be a perfect person, a perfect mother, a perfect sibling, a perfect friend, that nothing bad will happen to me and that no one will leave me. Because that is the core of it all, I have tried my whole life to perfect so that I can be loved. I am scared to disappoint, anyone, I mean that, anyone. Even mean people, even people that don't matter or shouldn't matter. I am scared that if anyone that gets to know all of me, that they won't love me anymore, and that they will leave me. I have been working so hard on this simple concept. To know, that I am a good person, to know that I deserve love. And I am working to being Kristy, and to letting people love all of me, flaws too. But it is scary, scary as hell. Scarier than any trauma, neglect or abuse I have ever endured.   

A $40 Ikea nightstand helped me stop the obsessive loop. Helped me move on. Helped me stay present and not stuck in my loop. I am not perfect and I have no *real* control over how other people feel about me.  And I have to stay true to myself and love me and just let go and be present, it's the only way to truly heal.

"Trauma creates change you don't choose, healing creates change you do choose." _ Michelle Rosenthal