flashback

The pot roast?  D liked it.  I could tell I did a good job with it; however, I had to leave the house because the smell overwhelmed me.  D, E, and my m-i-l had a good dinner.  After a couple of days of eating it, he confessed that he's not really into beef that much anymore and isn't sure he wants to add it back into his diet in a regular way.

Oh well.  I'll give myself an A+ for effort and execution.

I can't sleep tonight.  I've been listening to the wind for days, have enjoyed being out in it, have loved how it leaves me so breathless and pink-cheeked.  Now I'm starting to worry about some of the trees in the yard.  I wonder how much more they can take.

I stopped at the grocery store for a couple of things today and saw a young girl (8 or 9) having a panic attack/meltdown at the check-out counter.  She was crying, heaving, sobbing, and screaming for her mother to stop touching her.  It sent me into a flashback, and I had to work hard to calm down and get my breathing back to normal.  The jolt of adrenaline made me sweat and stink.  I don't think I ever did that out in public as a child, but I used to have heaving sobbing fits when I was young.  I felt so much compassion for that young girl.  Her circuitry just went haywire today -- whether or not it was provoked by something concrete.  I also felt compassion for the mother but wondered why she didn't immediately pull the child out into the fresh air.  She let her daughter melt down at the counter for about ten minutes, and the door was just a few steps away.  My parents never knew the right way to help me through panic attacks either, and in the middle of the heaving sobbing fits, I'd get so angry and then worked up even more that my parents were being so stupid. 

(I don't assume that the girl in the store suffered from what I did as a child.  Listening to her, I felt my heart break for myself because I remembered what it was like to feel so trapped.  Many times my parents' treatment of me brought on these panic attacks/sobbing fits; yet, in the middle of the upheaval, I'd be desperate for them to *help* me through the panic.  To hate them but to need them all in the same crazy, throbbing moment was overwhelming to me as a child.)

I've done such a good job this year of staying in the present.  I never thought I could be as free of the PTSD stuff as I have been since I burned the journals and said goodbye to my father.  It surprised me to have such a full-on flashback after so long.  There were years when I had them daily.  The PTSD colored all of my relationships and many of the professional choices I made.  I haven't really thought about it much lately so today was interesting -- definitely hard to experience a flashback again but helpful to realize how rare they've become.

The wind has died down some.  Now I hear rain.  2am.  Still not sure if I can sleep.

Comments

[Stephanie]

The part about D not being that excited about beef made me chuckle... did Dr. give him any suggestions on how much he should have? Maybe he only needs it once a week...

A lot of grief *and* healing in the past year...