normal

Fulfilment

Last year, somehow, a man woke me up to the fact I have feelings. I’ve suppressed them for so long and played the role of object to men that I was almost content with it. Never allowing myself to commit to a relationship. I know I’ve covered contentment before but fulfilment, it’s different.

With the man that awoke me gone, I guess I began to fall in to my old ways. Not exposing myself to the possibility of having feelings, avoids the possibility of being hurt. Perhaps this is a PTSD thing but looking at the wider world, I think it’s simply just a product of modern dating.

Modern dating. It’s no longer faux pas for someone to share that they met their partner on a dating app or website. Sure, we all want to be able to say that we dropped our compendium in the middle of the street, that papers were flying everywhere and there he was rescuing us and that the rest is history. That’s not reality though, that’s Hollywood.

I wonder, if I meet someone but the ‘spark’ isn’t instantly there, do I settle because they can make me laugh? Do we simply just settle because we don’t have confidence in modern dating? Do we settle because the sex is satisfactory? Do we settle because we have decided that ‘this one will do’ even though they don’t completely fulfil us?

Food for thought, what is it in a relationship, be it friends or a partner, that truly makes us feel fulfilled?

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The walls we build

When life has thrown so many challenges at you, you construct an emotional wall. I recently told someone that I have the Great Wall of China. I always thought this wall came up after my tumultuous relationship with Brent. It’s been six years since I left the most volatile relationship of my life. One would think that it was then that the last time my wall was down. However, someone walked in to my life recently and I’ve realised that my wall has been up since my high school boyfriend and I broke up. That’s ten years of never truly letting anyone in.

Yes, I’ve had a mostly healthy relationship since then but he got the damaged me, the me when the PTSD really reared its head. It wasn’t easy for either of us, but we at least had some happiness. It was hard, he was seeing a psychologist for emotional detachment disorder so I guess that’s what kept me placing bricks in to my wall instead of slowly taking it down piece by piece.

Since then, I dated a man for almost two years. It was probably a situation-ship but people seemed to think we acted like a relationship. We’d laugh together, spend a lot of time together, tease each other and generally vent about our lives. Occasionally we’d do family things together but never a big event. We’d buy each other gifts with cute cards, but never an I love you. We never opened to truly committing to each other, I guess we just knew it wasn’t meant to be. He was a great support through all of my emotional times and when I let go of him, I seem to have also let go of my past traumas. Still I wonder if that relationship put more bricks in to my wall.

They say that things happen when you least expect them. It wasn’t part of the plan for me to let someone in recently. I know it wasn’t part of their plan either. But I’ve stopped building my wall. I’ve gone from having this Great Wall of China as strong as it could be to completely letting it crumble. As my wall has come down, I’ve seen another try to rebuild. I know that I’m strong enough to at least let the light shine through the cracks. No more building walls.

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Just when you think you’re ‘normal’ again

My last relationship ended quite amicably, we went through a lot together. My PTSD symptoms came to a head during the two years that we knew each other. There were too many times that he’d say or do the simplest of things and I would end up snapping…or break down and collapse in hysterics. I thought it was all over as far as innocent actions triggering the anxiety side of my PTSD. I thought it was all over until a few days ago.

There’s a man who’s been in my life for quite some time now. He is one of the most kind, gentle and caring people I have ever met. My parents are mid separation and he has been so supportive of me. He has even been a shoulder to cry on when I’ve been a blubbering mess. The thing is though, he has absolutely no obligation to be there for me but he has been. As kind and gentle as he is and as much as I trust that he would never do anything to hurt me, a few days ago he triggered my PTSD. We were just sitting and chatting, I was likely being my usual irritating self. I don’t recall the exact details but it led to him holding my arm still so I couldn’t move. That moment triggered it. As my anxiety rose I asked him a couple of times to let go…until it felt like I was yelling it.

I apologised to him later during the day, it seemed like he’d barely noticed I’d snapped. What I didn’t tell him was that it’s not the first time almost the same thing has triggered an anxiety attack. It first happened a few years ago, only about eighteen months after I’d left Brent. A guy I’d known for more than five years wrapped his arm around me and held me tight and commented “You’re so tiny”. It felt like he was pinning me down, he only held me tight for a few seconds, my chest tightened and I felt as though I couldn’t breathe so I yelled at him to let go. Luckily…I’d not long told him about the night I left Brent, so he knew exactly why I’d reacted that way.

Unfortunately, the second time it happened was with my last boyfriend, probably one of the first times he saw me break down. I told him as little as I could about my past because that’s what it is, past and it shouldn’t affect the present. However, as I mentioned before, that relationship was when everything PTSD began to rear it’s ugly head. He’d get upset with me because he would do something playful or make a joke and it’d trigger something in the back of my mind and I’d flip out or hyperventilate and collapse in an hysteric heap. Every time it happened he’d ask why I just hadn’t told him not to. It’s impossible to explain to someone what will trigger PTSD, not until it’s actually happening.

That’s just it with PTSD. You don’t know when it’ll pop up, you don’t know why until it actually happens. I thought those days were over, I thought men could be playful with me now and I would be fine…but I’m not.

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