Damn PTSD. It can go die in a fire.

I've been getting triggered again. I've tracked down what's been triggering me. And Beloved's going to help with an effort to resolve that. I'm just mad that I got triggered in the first place. I like to think I had a handle on my PTSD triggers and that I was managing it ok. And then it was like an emotional landmine went off. I found myself caught between rage, grief, terror, and numbing out. Given the situation, I spaced out. It was the only way to handle it with out things spiraling out of control.

Since then, I've still been partially triggered. I keep spacing out. I keep rehearsing arguments in anticipation of a fight with the person who triggered me. I keep perseverating on the incidents that triggered me. It's just been exhausting. And, on top of that, I'm feeling depressed and helpless. When I'm not going back to what triggered me, I find myself going back to the events that traumatized me at random. Stuff that I was pretty sure I had processed and integrated into my consciousness and "healed" keep coming up.

I'm not sleeping well. My schedule is shit. I am twitchy and anxious. It's good that I talk to my psychiatrist tomorrow. At the same time, I am not well. The stress of the isolation of COVID19's forced social distancing brings up memories of living in the boonies where I didn't have peers to interact with except at school. Summer vacation was when things got bad. My brain keeps bringing it up. I have to consciously remind myself that I am no longer twelve and being terrorized by my parents (and under the condition that I have to keep it quiet as the grave lest they throw me out of the house or have me locked away in an institution - which was the regular threat).

My children are managing this stuff relatively well. There's some frustration and anger that their birthday parties have been cancelled. There's been some frustration and anger that we can't go to the park and use the playground equipment. Aside from that, they're more or less ok. I'm the one who is walking around a ball of anxiety and quiet terror. I have some how managed not to be too short tempered with the kids. I think that's the influence of the xanax. 

I've started doing my therapy writing in my journal again. It's only been a year since I wrote in there. Because I forgot it existed and I kinda felt like I was doing ok. But, I'm not. I'm debating switching from a handwritten journal to a blog format. I don't know. I do know that the things triggering me right now I can't do much about them. My whole back hurts from my fall on Sunday which brings me right back to when my mom broke a dozen seasoned wooden spoons about my head and shoulders because I accidentally broke a coffee cup of hers. My feeling depressed brings me right back to when I was depressed in high school and I sought help only to have my mother slap a butcher's knife down on the table and tell me if I really was suicidal I should do it in front of her to PROVE I needed help. Hell, taking a shower causes me to flash back to when my mom assaulted me in the shower to 'help' me wash my hair by dumping two bottles of listerine over my head as she "scrubbed" harshly, damn near knocking me over. Since then, the smell of listerine makes my heart hammer with fear and the taste of it makes me gag.

And I keep catching myself gaslighting myself over this stuff. I'm not in a great way right now.