Madly Ever After

This is a deeply personal post. TW cPTSD/abandonment/alcohol/assault

Face your fears says the DBT handbook. So what am I afraid of most?

I’m most afraid of those I connect with leaving me and that my mind will lash out against me for not doing enough to try and keep them close and then in circles blaming them and blaming me.

A Downward Spiral (thanks Trent).

When you’re anxious/avoidant it makes reaching out to people really hard. I mean really really really fucking hard. You pre-judge everything you’re going to say, re=analyse previous conversations for things that might have upset or been misinterpreted.

For me all this comes from childhood. I’ve been diagnosed with ASD in adulthood bit whether this is organic or developmental it’s impossible to tell. What little access I want to have to my childhood memories don’t particularly fill me with the joy of being wanted other than to do what my parents wanted.

So I end up being a pleaser, I do what makes others happy to make me happy and when that doesn’t work I shutdown and can’t cope or become over caring and don’t recognise boundaries.

Alcohol takes the edge of these feelings and allows me to stabilise briefly but it’s a short term fix.

Having had a full emotional flashback this year based on parental trauma which kept me off work for 5 weeks I’m recognizing and understanding the micro triggers. Doesn’t mean I can prevent these though.

One of my closest friends was nearly assaulted this weekend. She was going home and was chased into the train station by someone a foot taller than her and threatened. Fortunately she stood her ground but was so shaken she had to contact me and we ended up playing cards and getting drunk until 2 am.

So to get back to the topic. I’m afraid of losing people.I’m a protector who doesn’t know how to connect unless needed to protect. OK yes, I’m Larry Niven’s Pak! But without someone to protect or care for who am I?

DBT says I should care for myself but I can’t without others to care for.

I don’t have the inability to care like the stoics do.

If I don’t care and protect then what’s my point in being other than making art or working. And at the moment I’m barely fit for work and can only find focus when someone gives me a problem but because I care so much about getting the job done right I collapse into a point of doing nothing.

It’s the same with talking to people. I engage in a relationship and then suddenly find I can’t talk or connect as I’m afraid they’ll not respond or take what I’ve said in the wrong way or whether I said something that I’d interpret as hurtful or wrong.

Hemce falling into the anxious-avoidant loop.. You get anxious and then start avoiding contact and then can’t break through the anxiety to make contact again,

It’s the hell that people don’t talk about.