The Decision To Feel After A Lifetime Of Disassociation

I woke up from another nightmare this morning. Before the alarm clock. Just close enough for me to not be able to fall back asleep, not that I'd want to, for fear of seeing this night's "bad guy" waiting behind my eyelids. 

I'm exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that comes from spinning your emotional wheels and re-experiencing trauma after trauma until you wake up to shaking hands and a racing heart. The kind where naps aren't even comforting any more because day-mares are now a thing.  But just like every night I lay my head down, I take that gamble because I have no choice. 

The decision to feel after a lifetime of disassociation. I made it myself. I did it for a beautiful reason but it doesn't take from the absolute agony I feel every day. Sometimes I talk about it, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I fall asleep after being on the phone and crying to the point where I scream but make no sound so the person on the other end doesn't know. Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Sometimes my alarm goes off and I do scream...into my pillow, and cry, hands shaking and heart racing. 

Applying eyeliner in the morning with tears in your eyes is impossible and yet I do it more often than not. I have to because my face must be brave when I wake up the 9 year old girl who sleeps across the hall, unaware of what her mom is going through behind her own door. I have to smile and pretend I'm listening when she tells me things about books and friends and school and the charge on her computer. I have to turn my head when a rogue tear escapes, overflow from what's waiting when I come back inside after putting her on the bus. 

I want to crawl out of my skin and cry and scream. I want to be hugged but I don't want to be touched. I want to curl up on my couch under a soft blanket and stay there until I feel safe again. I want my cat to sleep on me like she used to, purring and sharing each other's warmth. I miss her. I miss Nancy. And frankly, I miss who I could have been if none of this ever happened and my brain wasn't riddled with PTSD & triggers. I would love nothing more than to stop this day-to-day horror show funhouse I feel like I'm walking through. 

The decision to feel after a lifetime of disassociation. I made it myself. And I have to stand by it now. So I sit down at the dining room table, I finish my coffee through what I hope is the end of the tears for now, wrap up this bit of writing and get on to work. I'll listen to an audiobook or some music I love as I get through this day. I'll try to refocus, reframe and readjust. And if the tears come again, unlike steeling myself and stifling them as I used to do in the past, I'll let them flow, dry my face and keep going. I will get through this. I won't give up. 

As always, 

Love Light & Blessings

~Sarah Gallardo

Valentines Day 2017

Valentines Day 2017

To be soft.

In a world that is hard.

In a world that will shake you to your core and leave you a shell of a person, in tatters.

For someone who has survived severe trauma this sounds like an impossible task. It feels like exposing every major artery after almost bleeding out, once before. I never fully understood the gravity of this, the sheer ridiculous faith one must have in order to wholeheartedly try at love again, until now.

But before I continue, let me clarify the use of the word "soft". I don't mean "to be weak". For so long that's what I thought it meant. I believed I needed to be hard to keep myself safe. This is a trap. If we all went through life with our shields up, how would we ever really see or get close to one another? By "soft" I mean open, trusting, vulnerable. I mean not to fight for a "safe distance" in a relationship while simultaneously wanting to feel close to someone. It's like a porcupine. Sure, they've got a back side full of needles, but their tummies are so soft and warm. There is no feat of bravery in showing your quills. Courage is rolling over and showing your soft side to the one you love.

And so I have taken the leap and tried at love again. Truth be told, at first I was waiting for disaster, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for yet another disappointment. My life experiences trained me to expect this. After leaving my abusive ex husband, I had had other tries before. They ended in heartbreak, like the slow removal of a bandaid that never had the chance to heal anything at all. In fact, I learned more about what I don't want from a partner than what I do want. What I didn't realize at the time but I do now, is that I wasn't showing up in those relationships 100%. It didn't matter what the other person did or didn't do (not to dismiss their bad behavior), I wasn't being my authentic self. I didn't even know who that was. I had become so attached to my armor that I became it. I was a "take me or leave me" girl, and I set it up so that I'd be unfazed if they left. That is not love for anyone involved.

Now I realize the importance of give and take, compromise, communication, trust, honesty and vulnerability. I have taken the leap. I showed my soft side to the most amazing man I've ever met. This after four years of attending a weekly domestic violence support group, becoming a trained counselor and still going to one on one therapy every week, to this day. So yes, I put in the work to learn about choosing to surround myself with healthier people. I'll always still be learning. But I know this, I have a wonderful friend and partner by my side. He taught me what it feels like to truly be loved. He's my person. He's someone I can learn with, grow with and tell the truth to without being judged. And the most beautiful feeling of all; I can trust him with my soft side knowing he'd never intentionally hurt me. It's not easy. We make mistakes, we fumble, we flounder at times. It takes work. We're not perfect and we both know it. But I think we've grown to love that about each other, and in the process I think we've grown to love that about ourselves.

There is no such thing as fantastic reward without fantastic effort and fantastic faith. To me, the most real, down to earth, splendidly simple kind of love that I have found is the most fantastic reward of all. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Love, Light & Blessings

~Sarah Gallardo

To S.B.