Trigger Crash Out
Entry posted by Yarnable in Therapy is Not Fun ·
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I can sorta feel my hold on staying present slipping, so I am trying to keep myself here by writing. I really don't like disassociating and I can tell my brain wants to right now.
In therapy my T has got me trying to work on the "Trauma Egg" - it's pretty easy to find info on it if you look it up. They warned me that a side effect of working on it could be a return of hypervigilance and stronger reactions to triggers that haven't been bothering me as much lately. Boy howdy were they right about both.
My husband and I had to go to the store, we needed a bunch of stuff and because the was an issue with his bank, he got his paycheck almost a full week late. We needed to go today or we wouldn't have anything for lunches and dinners next week, which would be a problem.
Grocery stores are hard for me in general. They are bright, loud, and full of people who seem to throw their emotions at you. I pick up on tension and anger from others really strongly, and I can get overwhelmed by the emotions of others really easily. I've been able to shut off whatever lets those emotions in for the most part, but working on the dang trauma egg has made it harder to do that for the last week or so. I've also been doing my best to not give in to the hypervigilance, but got thrown for a loop today. We were discussing what soda to get and some very rowdy young guys came into the aisle right behind me. They were a bit oblivious to the others in the aisle - it's a game day today and a college town, so lots of excitement, I guess. One of them came very close up behind me, I could feel him brush against my purse, and he reached up over my head to grab a bottle of something.
One of my biggest triggers is a male presence looming behind and above me.
I am not very tall, the shortest of my siblings, and most guys have a good bit of height on me. This guy was at least 6'6".
It was like I felt my brain slam the door shut. I immediately forgot what I was saying, forgot what was on the mental grocery list I had, and froze in place until I felt my husband nudging me away from where the guys had moved over to, still joking with each other and totally unaware of other people in the aisle. I followed my husband on autopilot, feeling numb and spaced out. We still had things we needed, and I was trying to pull myself back into my body, so hubby resorted to leading me to the craft aisle and let me stand with my back to the shelf and the cart in front of me so I could breathe for a second. I had to work very hard not to immediately burst into tears right then and there. After I calmed down a bit, he told me to grab a few skeins of yarn because he knew I needed something to focus on to ground myself.
We got the rest of what we needed, but then had to head over to a second store because the first one is good to get drinks but not really for food, and the second has a good bulk section. I kept catching myself trying not to leave my back exposed, and my husband made an effort to step between me and more groups of rowdy guys a couple of times. At one point I was walking so close to my husband that I kept bumping into him so I could avoid what looked like a group of frat bros. My husband would say something and I would have to ask him to repeat himself because I wasn't processing things right. I kept forgetting what we needed, and I can guarantee that if I had written down the list, it would have been a shredded mess because I worry at things with my hands when I am upset. By the time we were done I was shutting down hard, and hubby mentioned he could see I was starting to disassociate and we needed to get to the car quick. The whole way home I was in an awful mood, but trying hard not to crash out so we could get the groceries inside and then I could melt into an unhappy puddle of goo and eat ice cream.
My brain feels numb, and there are traces of the start of a panic attack racing through my system. I haven't had one in months. It took about 3 times longer to write this out than it normally would. I can see how disjointed this looks, but I can't fix it. My brain is not ok right now.
The 9 year old that hides under the bed in my mind is currently in the pilots seat, and she is not having a good day.
I hate this. I know that therapy can be hard and healing takes a lot of time and sometimes goes opposite the way you expect. But boy does this suck.
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