My therapist has said it a couple times now, but I'm pretty sure I didn't want to hear it. A possibility? Sure. Confirmed diagnosis? I don't think so. Slow down there for a second. Yet, as this time of year rolls around again - the family holidays and what not - I know deep down she is right.
I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It's odd and yet liberating to say those words to myself let alone others. I have PTSD, and the traumatic events/time period is from almost exactly ten years ago.
How can something from ten years ago still be messing with my brain?
Perhaps, that may not seem odd to others, having their trauma affect their day-to-day life and demeanor, but I also thought my struggles were mostly, if not entirely, from my already established mental illnesses, depression and anxiety. Yet, it makes sense that all of these intertwine themselves together. I had depression and anxiety before that time period, but the increased symptoms and struggle around this time of year clearly correlates with my first two years of college and more specifically, the time I came home for winter break my sophomore year. That moment inspired the short story I wrote at Purdue in Creative Writing my senior year. That was a lifetime ago. Wasn't it?
What I most recall from that Christmas Eve is boyfriend, who is now my husband, Brett, dropping me off in the driveway of my childhood home. I think we had spent the evening celebrating at his parents' house. The sky was dark, starless; the security light atop the detached garage mimicking moonlight on the gravel driveway, interspersed with dead grass and weeds. We arrived in the old 04' Ford Windstar van. The electronics only worked part-time, but Brett drove that beige bucket everywhere, as did I eventually.
As we pulled into the driveway, the tears began to flow as if a faucet had been turned on. What started out as slow and quiet whimpers turned into a hard sob. Face down, I didn't want Brett to see my frailty, how the occasion of Christmas could break me into pieces. We sat there for a long time like that. He quiet, me crying, not wanting to go inside. I knew I had to...eventually, but I wanted the minutes to stretch out and become hours so this night would be over.
I did go inside, entering the kitchen with the light above the chipped porcelain sink. Quiet, the house seemed vacant, but I knew better. My mother and father were in there somewhere; one trying to avoid the other and be awkwardly cordial while the other wanted to push them back together. My father believed there was a possibility of reconciliation. Pretense aside, there remained no possible salve to heal or cover the rift that devoured our family: the cheating, emotional abuse, the accusations and impending court case.
Ten years later, we still live on. Each of us at some different point in our healing; some unable to heal at all.
That night, I cried. I cried for the family we once were. I cried for the end of my childhood. I cried for the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same. I would never be the same.
Now, as a mother with holidays coming, I want to carve out a slice of happiness for our small but beautiful family. Desperately, I wish my trauma to not stain my son's memories while each day I worry whether I am enough as a mother: good enough, present enough, loving enough, involved enough. Pushing myself to not let my reality become my son's future. It may not be possible, but I pray it is.
Looking back at that night, I felt real terror at the real possibility that terrible things could have happened that night. Instead, it was a night filled with anguish and tears, sorrow and fears, and it cemented the realization that my parents could no longer help me nor care for me. We were all falling apart, bruised and bleeding from the tumultuous past two years.
This time of year the scars of old wounds begin to ache like phantom limbs. These are my memories. This is my trauma, well at least, it is part of it.
Time may heal all wounds. That doesn't mean they don't still hurt now and then.
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