The bread and butter advice to avoid triggers includes erect boundaries, use compartmentalization, keep work separate from private life, limit harmful family relationships, learn to focus thoughts away from triggering memories. All these are helpful. I learned to minimize situations leading to distress. Sometimes the plans and strategies don't work.
Unfortunately, I've hit a wall within a perfect storm of life events impacted by current events. Sometimes, unplugging isn't enough. Sometimes I can't limit contact with family when they try to send me down the rabbit hole by pinging my PTSD triggers. Sometimes, it's intentional under the cover of "I was just teasing!" I need to step back. It's been too much lately. I've hit my saturation point.
Last year my sister was diagnosed with a stage II cancer. Limiting family exposure since then became impractical. She is a sexual abuse survivor that has never sought out a competent mental health therapist. She takes advantage of the free counseling sessions offered through her work, she'll use pastoral counseling, and she'll call family to talk things out, but she's never gone to a Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Licensed Certified Social Worker or a Master of Social Work that is paid for by her for her. That's her decision. That's her choice and I made peace with her choices long ago. It's her PTSD, not mine. We talk and we're close, but when it gets too real or tense, I take a time out.
Good news, it's a year later and she's cancer free, her last procedure was a few weeks ago. Great! Life can get back to normal, except it didn't.
I'm having surgery next week to deal with a health problem before it spirals out of control. I''ll be in the hospital less than a day, back to work within 3-4 days and fully up to speed within 2 weeks. I set aside the time and money for this months ago. My work is all desk work from home until after July 4th. Mr. Wolverton will be with me every step of the way. This is totally manageable. Although submitting myself for surgery in itself is somewhat of a trigger for me, part of the pre-surgical plan was to talk to a counselor about these issues. We have a plan and it's going along as planned. I'll be fine. I'm set, except knowing this in my head and feeling this to be true is as different as night and day.
Then, there's the typical kink in the plan.
My sister called. Can I take her son for the week after my surgery? She got a free trip to an evangelical praise convention that's going to be held in Texas. Her son thinks religion is for the birds and isn't going. (Forcing a sixteen year old with Asperger's to do something they think is stupid is asking for headaches.) Can he come for another visit? Please, please, please? Ah, no. No. I know my limits. I'll not be well enough after surgery, because I'm likely to have bouts of soreness, crankiness, insomnia and fatigue. Having my nephew isn't a problem when I'm up to it, but I won't be up to it that week. And, well, no. She was disappointed, but understood. Telling my family "no" for anything often brings up lots of pings on my PTSD triggers. Again, not a problem, my coping mechs are working fine.
Since he can't come to me, she wanted help going through the list of where he can stay. He can't stay with a lot of people for a lot of reasons. One family member would love to have him, but it's too risky. (It's too likely there'd an evangelical tinged "This is my house! and you'll obey the man of this house!", moment. No, there's a better solution.) Ten or more phone calls later, he's going to stay with family who lives 10 hours away.
Then there's 10 more phone calls figuring out the travel plans. A train trip is out - he doesn't want to take the train. He's excited about the idea of flying by himself. He's thrown himself into the internet fully planning to train himself to be an expert flyer before he steps into the airport. This is good, we have a buy in; flying alone will work if we can find an airline who will accept him as a solo flyer. Except this plan might be falling apart as I write this diary.
The many phone calls over the last year with my family have gone fairly well. I got lots of barbs, but only a few direct hits. I didn't take as much bait offered to me on silver platters to strike back as I have done in the past. Some days I'm happy that I'm talking more often with my family. Today isn't one of those days. Today, I feel raw.
I grew up in a religiously observant family that dysfunctioned on a grand scale. Being the youngest daughter meant I had less credibility than any other family member. At least that perception has changed...for the most part. During the latest phone calls over the last month, the Duggars came into the news and, in turn, the Duggars awkwardly came into these conversations. Dealing with my sister's health crisis in some ways made what happened to me, a lifetime ago, seem like it happened recently. Innocent remarks about how my behavior is so different today, than it was when we were children would become instantly tense. (I acerbically retorted that I hoped I was more mature today than I was when I was seven years old - over forty years ago!) Lately, family has wanted to talk about the Duggars, but didn't want to hear me talk about the Duggars unless I use the Duggar talking points. That was tense because that's not going to happen.
The Duggar situation is way too similar to my molestation experience and the pings aren't bouncing off today. It's too much. I can switch off Duggar news stories, but I can't switch off my family. It's much harder to dodge triggers during dynamic conversations with both obtuse family or people determined to keep score. All five of us have our own stories whether it be verbal, physical or sexual abuse, but several of my siblings don't recognize what happened as abuse. It's annoying to have family validate one their account of abuse while denying the veracity of mine. It's particularly irritating when my older siblings (like ten to eighteen years older) complain about how horrible my younger brother or I was when we were five, seven or ten years old. Sometimes, there's a sick competition of "the abuse I had was worse than yours". Sometimes, I take a deep breath. Sometimes , I cut the call short. Sometimes I want to say a resounding "FUCK YOU!" (when appropriate), however, I haven't found an appropriate instance to say that.
I can't stop taking phone calls from family altogether, but I can limit them. I'm wearing down. I admitted it to my oldest sister today (she pings me less than the rest of the crew). It's nice to be able to write, that we had a soothing conversation today.
One moment I think, "Hey, navigating this PTSD stuff is really manageable". Except, I'm tearing up at the damnedest times. All of a sudden I'm getting anxious over this surgery. Although I planned for this time off and set money aside to allow me to take time off; I'm freaking out over money. My last pre-op is on Monday which will give me an all clear, so I'm angsting for no reason. I'm shaking, crying, over eating, over drinking and very quietly flipping out. Unlike the PTSD cases you see in the news, I'm more typical and am quietly self-destructing. I've gained weight. I'm not coping with ALL of this very well, after all.
So, what to do. For starters, I'm only talking to soothing people, dodging phone calls from trolls, doing soothing things and limiting the bullshit. I'm listening to my happy playlists, walking, gardening and painting. I'm mindfully grounding myself into the here and now. Expressing myself in a positive manner like this diary is chancy, but it's my PTSD, my choice and I made peace with my choices long ago. I'll be fine, I just got to get back on track.
So, here we are. Coping.