Complex PTSD: A Week in the Life of Dissociation (DAY 1) “Isn’t it Ironic?”
What should be a simple task triggers a week of dissociation and deep grief.
The Catalyst: Thursday Night Homework
Therapy Assignment: Read one chapter of Pete Walker’s “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.” My worn, paperback copy is heavy in my hand. Ah, the familiar panic…
Read?! How am I supposed to read?!
One word at a time. One sentence at a time. Grab a highlighter.
A highlighter?! I can’t mark up a perfectly good book! What if someone else needs it someday?!
What about your needs today?
Maybe I can use tiny post-its, or just try to remember the parts I want. I can dog ear the pages and…
You’ve already done that. You know what you need. Get up and get that highlighter!
Mayday! Mayday! Putting your needs first is selfish! IMAGINARY PEOPLE MIGHT NEED THIS BOOK! Selfish is bad! You’re bad! Commence Freeze response!
(Did I mention that my husband’s out of town? This conversation is strictly in my head.
ISN’T IT IRONIC?
I’ve never been sure of the proper use of ironic (oh, Alanis how you fooled us) but, it’s interesting that the same book that could help me finally heal the traumas of my youth (and beyond), is the source of tonight’s meltdown.
In truth, we have history. When my therapist first recommended it, I’d downloaded the audio book to listen to on my walks. I turned on the almost robotic reading, took about 10 steps, and ripped my earphones from my ears. They felt like they were on fire. So did my nose and lips. Immense pain. In fact, my entire body was tense. Was electricity in my veins? I paced in circles like a dog chasing its tail. What WAS that?!
Well, if I’d been able to listen, I’d have learned that no, I wasn’t like Kramer, having a seizure at the sound of Mary Hart’s voice. I was having a flashback. The voice in my ear triggered a trauma response. Is ironic appropriate here?
Always the problem solver, I speed up the recording. Surely the chipmunks will make this an easy listen. Earphones in, I continue walking and push play. Suddenly I’m in a sprint. My heart races, my feet burn on the pavement AND THAT NOISE IN MY EARS HAS TO STOP!!! I’m so rattled that I switch to “Dateline” with Keith Morrison to soothe my nerves. Ironic?
That was over 5 years ago. Since then I’ve dragged my copy of Pete Walker’s book across the country and back, spent days with it on the beach, and even took it with me to Disneyland. Don’t let the curled pages fool you, I’ve never managed to get past the introduction.
I didn’t know then the depths of my trauma. I’d lived with panic attacks and an overbearing father that my sister and I (correctly) referred to as a stalker. We’d later learn he was also a covert Narcissist who had done major damage. Complex PTSD damage. It’s like PTSD, but instead of being based on a single trauma or time period (like a soldier at war), it’s based on a series of long-term traumas like, child abuse. Your brain grows around trauma with some parts becoming more prominent than others. Your “fight or flight” survival mode remains in the “on” position all the time. Constant adrenaline.
Basically, it’s brain damage, and I’ve had it my entire life.
I’M JUST A GIRL, SITTING IN FRONT OF A BOOK, TRYING TO READ IT
Reading books without pictures has always been a struggle. My eyes dart and swim on the page. Sometimes I start reading sentences from right to left (which you’d think would’ve helped me with my Torah portion at 12, but no).
I graduated from Beverly Cleary’s “Ramona” to Archie Comics, dipping my toe into Cynthia Voigt (“A Solitary Blue” was my favorite). All had illustrations strewn throughout and all created images that I could clearly imagine.
Even then, it took me 5- 10 minutes for what I call my “let down” period, the amount of time it takes for my brain to settle into the fantasy of the book so that I stop re-reading the first sentence. Anything that was instructional or difficult to visualize, however, would only land as individual words, or single meaningless letters. I’d often complete misunderstand the messaging.
In school I’d “black out” mid-thought, still able to sit and respond, but truly missing entire class periods. Then I’d write down the wrong homework assignment. “Jamie why did you hand in a paper about Abraham Lincoln when we are studying Eli Whitney and the cotton gin?” Ummm…yogurt?
This inability to read has been my great shame. A frustration that my inner critic gloms onto in order to take me down from the inside. The echo of impatient teachers, but mostly my father’s voice.
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?! There’s no way you’re going to read this book.
SHUT UP, DAD! It’s just 1 chapter! I’m an adult now with 15 years of therapy. I even had the foresight to check myself into a mental health program when my brain could no longer hold a thought. That’s where I finally cracked the code to the repressed memories that you’ve always been afraid I’d reveal!
I learned that this inability to focus isn’t actually ADHD. It’s dissociation. My brain protecting me from a meltdown. Like a house, my brain can only hold so much electricity before it overheats and trips the breaker. To avoid a blackout, it unplugs certain things so that I can still function. My therapist calls these “protections” from my trauma.
Going into the deep thoughts that reading requires, my body is on guard.
Where is she headed? Is she going towards those buried memories? Abort! Abort! Wait! False alarm. Ok, plug the reading function back in. We’ll check in every few sentences to see how it’s going. Stop. Re-assess. Stop. Re-assess.
“Thank you, body, for protecting me.” That’s what I’m supposed to do. Let my body know that I can handle it from here. It’s a work in progress.
Ok, Jamie. You’ve got your highlighter-
I don’t want to use it!
Quiet! You’re just as important as the imaginary person who might someday want to read your already mess of a copy of this book. You spent the money for it (twice!). You are damn well going to take whatever notes you want!
Oooo. That’s better.
BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY, I CAN GO TWICE AS HIGH
Silence inner critic? Check!
Highlighter? Check!
Notebook for thoughts? Check!
Remember, you don’t have to read the whole book. Just one chapter. Let the reading commence!
And then it happened. After 5 years and 10 minutes in the FREEZE response, I started to read the book! Really read, like humans do. An occasional eye swim and backwards sentence but the concepts were getting through. Thoughts came in, and I dismissed them just as I’d learned in meditation. Levar Burton (and my therapist) would be so proud.
I highlighted like a lawyer preparing for a case (or at least how “Clueless” taught me they do). Honestly, I’d never really used a highlighter properly before. I’d look to see what other people were highlighting, or just highlight a sentence that I could understand, but not really capture it for future reference. Now I was highlighting concepts, ideas, making notes in the margins and absorbing content like SpongeBob absorbed water after his first trip to Sandy’s house (Sandy’s from Texas so she lives in a bubble of air underwater …you get the picture).
You can see what kind of media has replaced my reading. I can’t wait until there’s a Tv/movie quotes and song lyrics version of Jeopardy. Look out Ken Joenings! My memory is like a steel trap, the information just has to be allowed to get in, and now it is! But I digress.
The different types of trauma responses Fight, Flight, Fawn and Freeze. With examples. Familiar. Roles in a toxic family. Yeesh! I relate to all of this.
COMPLEX PTSD: THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY
When I’m done reading, I return to the highlighted parts and take notes, real notes about what I got from each passage. I mark the page number so I can find it later.
This must be how people study. I’d never been able to read and immediately absorb this kind of information before. It took me 5 years just to get a 2 year degree.
30 minutes (including the 10 spent paralyzed about the highlighter). It only took me 30 minutes (not hours or even days) to read the introduction, chapter one, even some of chapter 2 AND take pages of notes. I didn’t need to review it. I was prepared.
Joy! Rapture! Pirouettes in the living room! I can read! I can finally read with comprehension! And I LOVE it!!! I might even be able to read for fun again, even without pictures!
But…
The (irony?) of Complex PTSD. The pirouettes turn to pacing.
When you learn that you’ve been able to do something all along, that you’ve struggled with your entire life, you realize just how heavily the trauma that was PURPOSELY inflicted upon you has blocked you from being able to do so many basic things.
I pictured the faces of kids I’d taught my reading “tricks” to over the years. The looks on their faces when they realize that they’re not “stupid” or “lazy,” they just learn a different way. Like the 4th grader who’d moved from the lowest reading group to the highest in one week when I taught him that he could read like Darth Vader. Now, I had that look.
I’m not 5 or 10 or even a teenager. I’m 43 and JUST learning that I’m not stupid or lazy or broken. I’ve had the power all along. The man who was supposed to protect me tried to take it, to discredit and silence me in order to protect himself. Gross.
This feeling it’s…hope…and deep grief. So much time spent in turmoil. Tests, assignments, failing grades. What could I have been? What can I be now?
No wonder I couldn’t listen to the book back then. I wasn’t ready. My body was still protecting me from the truth.
“BIG EMOTIONAL RELEASE”- Coming Soon
As usual, tears won’t come. Frozen in the past, present and future all at once. Over my forehead is “Big Emotional Release- Coming Soon.” Release date unknown. Why? Because emotions were punished or used to manipulate. I learned early to repress them, especially tears.
So now my emotions lay squished, down deep. They’re injured. They’ve atrophied. Like a runner recovering from a broken leg, they don’t yet have the strength to quickly emerge. They need time to heal, then time to train.
For now, I have my “Feels” playlist to try to coax them out. Cat Stevens, guide me with your raw, emotional music. Morning Has Broken, and I’m being followed by a Moonshadow. Let’s take the Peace Train through this Wild World ’cause I Can’t Keep It In. No tears yet, but something is rumbling.
Joy, Grief, Life-altering realizations, currently trapped with no way to release it. Who knew 30 minutes could affect so much?
IRONY i·ro·ny /ˈīrənē/ a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.
So that’s what irony means. Let the week-long dissociative episode commence!
Look for Days 2–7 coming Soon
