Betrayal
In this excerpt you’ll see that I ask Ms. Sweeney, my supervisor, for help when it’s more than apparent that Roger needs dedicated support.
Of course, Ms. Sweeney wasn’t aware that, ever since recovering from my childhood illness, I had made a pact with myself to be self-reliant from here until eternity. That I was going to be the one helping others, not the other way around. Because of this, she had no idea what a big deal it was for me to be asking for help.
The Universe Is Trying to Tell Me Something
Have you ever felt as though the universe is trying to teach you the same lesson, again and again?
At this point in my life, I had experienced several flashbacks. However, because I was good at avoidance, I somehow kept pushing them out of my mind with the belief that I could do so indefinitely. Yet, now when I did this, the flashbacks started to occur with greater frequency and to exact an even higher emotional toll.
T-E-R-M-I-N-A-L
Just last week I finished reformatting my manuscript. For those of you who have been reading my weekly posts, you’ll recall that I had received feedback from Amy Quale at Wise Ink to consider telling my story from the perspective of an adult who’s trying to process childhood trauma. I believe this was a wise suggestion from the standpoint that understanding post-trauma and the way in which it can interfere in your daily life is relatable to more readers.
Giving Voice to Your Fears
Elizabeth, a good friend of mine, recently shared with me how she had shared my blog with her friend Amy who was experiencing trauma-induced responses (note pseudonyms are being used here). “Trauma of any kind can trigger similar visceral responses,” my friend said, pointing out some examples from recent entries to Amy.
While my story is unique, the way in which trauma shows up – in the form of intrusive thoughts and flashbacks – is not…
More Unraveling
In this excerpt, you will see how the thread continues to unravel in my classroom. As the chaos increases, I look for things that I can control in my environment – the ceiling panel that can be righted; the pens and pencils that can be lined up; the papers that can be squared.
If you’ve read any of my earlier entries, you’ll notice how this is a tendency of mine whenever I feel like I’m losing control…
Unraveling
As you will see below, this is when things start to truly unravel. Ever since I had gotten sick, I looked for ways in which I could control my environment. I was a teacher who prided herself on being organized, who had more activities than I needed to get through the day. Down time led to disruption in my mind…
Shaky Ground
As a young adult, I was used to living with a certain level of “unease” at different times. On those few occasions when I would get tripped up on a word (just like anyone else does), I immediately would be concerned that this tiny misstep would allow those around me to gain access to my childhood illness, that this misstep somehow revealed more…
Pah-Tah-Kah
Six years ago Dan and I learned that our daughter Kate scored low on the articulation test that toddlers take at their two-year-old wellness check-up. We ended up taking Kate to see an audiologist and ENT, at which time we learned that she wasn’t hearing unless a nerve behind her ear was stimulated by an electrode…
Evasion
Last week I was listened to the New York Times’ The Daily podcast titled “A Better Understanding of Long Covid” (May 20, 2022).
My attention zeroed in when Pam Buelluck, a health and science reporter for the NYT, started talking about Samantha, a 34-year-old woman who was initially infected with Covid in October of 2020 and shortly thereafter was diagnosed with long-term Covid…
The Flashbacks Continue
As you will see in the excerpt below, the flashbacks continue. They had always been there, but they were different now in that I was more conscious of them and more aware of the way in which they were impacting me. Further, I was aware of the way in which they potentially could impact Dan if I didn’t learn how to open up more…
Flashbacks
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been working on rewriting my chapters in past tense while also incorporating flashbacks. This way, you as the reader will have a better understanding as to the way in which my childhood illness was impacting my adult life.
Reclaiming my childhood self was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, since that entailed seeing — and feeling — the trauma I experienced at a deeper level…
The Journey Begins
People will say that writing can be cathartic. I’m sure this is true for some people, but, for the most part, this hasn’t been the case for me. It’s grueling sitting alone with yourself and allowing your brain to see – to really see – traumatic events unfold. Yet to evoke emotionality in the reader it is imperative that the reader can feel and see what I experienced…
I’m a New Person
In this post, you’re going to learn that I actually went ahead and got an endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy, the surgical procedure I swore I never would consider because of all the potential complications.
Thank goodness the procedure was a success. As happy as I was about this, I had quit grad school before the procedure was done and now had to reinvent myself…
Ignoring All the Signs
This wasn’t easy to write. Not like there have been easy passages. But this one? I can’t believe I just kept plodding along, thinking that I’d get different results without dramatically changing my approach.
Have you ever had those times in your life when you have a pretty good idea you’re walking into a trap but you don’t know what else to do? That’s where I was. Basically, I ran toward the fire, not away from it.
Validating Emotions
I had another consulting session with Amy Quale at Wise Ink last week. We confirmed that I’m going to have the opening chapter of my book be when I’m starting college. By restructuring it this way, I will be able to focus more thematically around how I, as an adult, processed my childhood trauma. The flashbacks that I include will be separated and italicized from the rest of the narrative so that you, as the reader, get a sense of the degree to which they are impacting my adult self and how resistant I am to confronting what is in front of me…
Universal Emotional Truths
How do you get past that inertia that lodges itself in your gut and threatens to take root?
When I stared at my computer screen last week, I asked myself this very question – and many others. How do you start over? For me, I’m thinking specifically of my manuscript. But my brain traveled to other places too…
Unknowingness
It was shortly after I started my blog in September 2021 that two different friends reached out and asked if I was familiar with the local literacy agency Wise Ink. No, I replied, but I think I’d like to learn more.
Notice the use of the word think instead of know. I’ll admit it — I was nervous. I knew that my manuscript could be improved, yet I had worked so hard to get it in its current form that I couldn’t imagine reworking it…again…
Childhood Self versus Adult Self
It’s during college, when I’m trying to sever my childhood self from my adult self, that memories from my illness keep surfacing, again and again. I am angry that this is happening. Hasn’t my illness taken up enough of my life already? I want to forge a new path and form a new identity – I don’t want to be known as “the girl who was sick as a kid and almost died.” I don’t want to have anything to do with her. Nothing at all.
Creating Your Inner Narrative
As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but I’m surprised that I didn’t realize the importance of talking about what I went through and seek out therapy earlier. That said, every inch of me tremored when I just thought about the trauma I had endured, let alone try to talk about it. Better to stuff everything down – or so I thought.
