Hi friends. I did something really strange and dysfunctional yesterday. And since I'm learning new healthier behaviors, I did what I've never done and looked deeper instead of just assuming it was failure on my part. The microscope revealed that my emotional pool was a cesspit, teeming with all kinds of trauma pond scum. Decades of dark tetrad narcissist parent abuse has created a legion of weird trauma responses in me. They are triggered by things that seem odd or unrelated but make sense when you see the emotional flashback behind them. So I've made a kind of working flow chart of triggers, trauma responses and emotional flashbacks.
Trigger one: husband forgetting phone. I was out in the yard and I called him only to hear it ringing in the house. This set off a chain of trauma responses: panic (freezing) fear of abandonment, ridicule, humiliation, flight (immediately taking off in car so without leaving note so he would feel the fear, panic and insecurity I was feeling). Rage at both him and myself, him for "kicking me to the curb" and me for reacting. For letting it get to me and not being stronger.
And when I dug deeper I found that I was frustrated with him for carelessness but I was also angry at my parents and their spouses and children, for consistently doing shit that left me alone, humiliated, afraid and vulnerable. And that is the emotional flashback. It's also the healthiest, most justifiable anger I could feel.
I was able to regain my composure before I talked to him. And that's thanks in part to giving myself permission to use my best judgement and not immediately return his calls and texts. The old trauma responses told me that I had to fawn and jump to answer, that "two wrongs don't make a right" and that it was petty retaliation to ignore his calls and texts. I have been gaslit into believing that it doesn't matter what anyone else does to me, how they provoke, bully, manipulate or harm me, I must always respond with what the bully deems the "right" response. Ergo, people pleasing, absorbing the shame, fawning, groveling, bending over for punishment.
And I will admit that on some level I did want to show him how it felt to wonder where someone was and why they weren't answering. But that's healthy too. It's the only way to get the point across that being unavailable when you need to be is disconcerting and very risky. Sure, now that we're older, it's not such a big deal. But there were too many times when our kids were young that he left me stranded. He would say he'd be back in 15 minutes, taking our only vehicle and leaving me with the kids. Two hours later, no Albert.
He always had a perfectly logical answer. And I believed him. Yes, I know that sounds really sketchy but it was also true. He did have a good reason. But not good enough for leaving us stranded. Countless times I had to remind him, what if one of the children got hurt? He'd give the classic response--they didn't. Yes, but not by any intelligent design on your part, I'd say. You didn't follow through on promises. You put whatever agenda you had in your head before your concern or responsibility to us. You took chances and just expected that I'd work out whatever came along. Most frustrating of all, you didn't even think about how I'd work it out. You felt no concern just diddled around, oblivious to your family. Hurt, fear and anger made me lash out or sometimes just explain why it was a problem.
But either way, he would get defensive because he knew he was in the wrong. And either way, I'd feel in the wrong because there is no right way to deal with someone else's hurtful choices. You can't make them stop. You can only take care of yourself. And I was taught that self-care is selfish. So there's that. Plus, I've yet to find the manual that explains how to navigate in a relationship with a very self-absorbed, stubborn person who refuses to cooperate. That's why so many end. I knew he was responding to his own trauma but that only made things worse for me. I already took on too much responsibility and that triggered even more caregiving at my own expense.
And it also triggered endless emotional flashbacks to a mom and dad who from the time I was 3 or 4, were randomly there and randomly nowhere to be found. And who put no care into seeing to it that someone was responsible for this little child. Or they dumped me with strangers and dangerous people. They purposely left me exposed and confused to groom me. I don't know what they did but they were sure as hell gone. I have been left to fend in shocking situations that I normalized and internalized. I think they did this to achieve exactly what they have achieved. That I'm anxious, confused, awkward and scared and don't have proper self-care skills. The point was to render me helpless, starved for love and desperate for bread crumbs of care which they would withhold until I was so conditioned that I thought it was a banquet.
So, stranded and desperate are not good places to be. It makes you do weird things. Like panic. Especially when you're caring for other people besides yourself. I have trauma nightmares that not just I but a bunch of children I'm responsible for, have been left in dirty, dangerous and unfamiliar situations to fend. It's terrifying and mind-blowing. Terror makes you react in unglued ways. Yesterday's situation was not at all the same. My husband understands now how his irresponsible behavior has caused so much trouble. And he is very careful and responsible now. Forgetting the phone was an accident.
However, my trauma didn't understand that. All she remembered was the sick dread of it happening again. So I did new things. First, by not responding immediately it gave him so uncomfortable moments he needed to feel. More importantly it gave me time to process and work through what I was feeling and how I could get to a better place. I explained to him how him forgetting the phone made me feel.
I felt humiliated, like someone had set me up to look foolish and was jeering at me. It is yet another pie in the face (my mom once threw a pie in my face at her company picnic). I felt let down and worried. I felt mocked. I felt betrayed. I felt anxious and like fighting, fawning, freezing and fleeing all at one. This will make sense to you if this type of thing is a trigger for you. It doesn't' really matter if it does or not. Because it does to my brain. It senses threat and is firing on all neurons to protect itself.
It's amazing how therapeutic it is to talk it over with someone who cares. Who doesn't weaponize or punish. Who wants to work for harmony. Who gets it. My brain was able to comprehend that though it looked the same, it was not a threat. It's going to take time, however, because old traumas and gaslighting about them cast long shadows.
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