The Morning After Drill

My unwitting response to a trauma trigger

There’s this restlessness again. My morning plans fell through, and in that heedlessly opened up crack, it expanded and quickly filled the whole space. I attempted to stay in bed longer, mindlessly scrolling through social media, emails, job posts. I was welcoming the hint of sleepiness starting to spread over my body like a fog, hoping I can escape this day into a nap, but it evaded me.

Then came desire to eat. Not hunger, no. Desire to eat as a backup plan of numbing through the day, bingeing on ‘bad’ food and staring at a bigger screen to burry the discomfort. Eating, maybe purging later, and definitely hating myself after that. Hopping onto a scale to ‘see the damage’, as if the real damage can be seen or measured in pounds. I contemplate that option for a bit, but get pre-bored. I know food will no longer be enough to consume all of me, even for a short time. Lately – in the past year or so, I started getting bored with binge eating – my old trustworthy shield. I would lose interest and feel tired half-way through a pack of candy, or a box of cookies – a previously incomprehensible feat. At times I tried to force myself, in disbelief that the effect of this reliable drug was now wearing off. You can try and trick yourself, but can’t ‘un-know’ what you’ve truly learned.

So I jump out of bed. ‘Time to raise and shine, bitch!’ – I mumble. I am talking out loud now. Sometimes it’s intentional phrases I need to hear that no one else knows to say; and sometimes it’s random words that escape the constant stream of uninvited thoughts. These sounds startle me a bit. I used to fear I was going crazy when these single words would break through my throat. I am used to it now. If I truly am in the process of going mental, resisting it would just add torment to the mix.

I dreamt of going crazy as a kid. I’d read about people in asylums who are convinced they are Napoleon, or God, or whatever historical or mythical creature they wanted to be, and thought – what a blessing! What does it matter the reality the rest of us see; they live in their own. I could break free from mine only for brief hours of reading. Daydreaming also helped, and would become my main escape route as responsibilities required my adult body go through motions, trapping paralyzed with fear kid inside.

Now, decades later, I am consciously trying to deconstruct my world, to build anew. Rather than escaping temporarily, I am breaking it down, prying out concrete blocks of my thoughts and beliefs from the seemingly impenetrable walls, sifting through, throwing away the ones that don’t serve me. Some, the hardest ones to separate are so merged with the very fabric of me, that they threaten to take the whole construction down as I tear them off. They are the oldest ones, the hand-me-downs of generational pain. The shitty gift I wish I knew not to accept as mine. May be my childhood dream is coming true – I am finally going crazy. It’s just that I had no idea that going mad, going off the the rails of my mind would require so much goddamn work!

I made it to the beach. It’s windy, and I’m hiding from sand bursts at an empty lifeguard tower – coffee and notebook in hand. Sitting here is prohibited – big black letters on the sky blue paint state so, and I will eventually get kicked out by some sort of authorities. Not 200 ft from my spot a cop, citation book in hand, is persuading a homeless-looking guy to leave a public bench and thereby stop an assault on the senses of better-dressed, presumably housed public nearby. But I feel safe. A white female, I have my Private & Expensive University cap on – for the second layer of perception protection. I am sure that if it comes to interaction, confrontation will be avoided with exchange of a few polite smiles, and the citation book won’t leave officer’s pocket. Isn’t it nice to look like I belong!

Getting to this beach took me about 2 hours from the ‘fake it till you make it’ jump out of bed stunt. This beach is not far from my place, not if you measure in miles. I took a few detours. Froze up in the middle of my living room, mind racing, agonizing over what should I do next after my swim practice got cancelled. Brain telling me I must do so much, feeling unable to do anything. Forcing myself to just move, get out, go to the beach if nothing else. Then getting stuck on which book to bring – small decision that feels like an insurmountable task. Another freeze or two in the parking lot, phone in hand, not seeing anything. I’ve heard that people who used to read a lot as kids and now are mindlessly scrolling through their phones instead, have just found a better way to disassociate. That hit me so hard, my proud ‘bookworm’ mantel fell off.

Truth is, there’s dark emptiness under the surface of this restlessness. The restlessness is just panic, fear of falling in, if I don’t cover over that void. Reading used to help escape it; food used to help to stuff it full; sport & job used to help ignore it – focusing on running in place. Thinking if I don’t stop for long enough to feel the lack of solid ground, the dark vortex won’t swallow me whole. All those defenses are now gone; it’s just us – me and the void. Familiar escapes can’t erase the knowledge, the illusory comfort of ignorance is out of reach.

Anguished, exhausted by the life-long race I resign. I sit with it, terrified to death: ‘You caught me, I am here’. What do you want old fiend, what do you need of me, I ask. And subtly something shifts. I don’t understand the answer yet. We haven’t spoken in so long, I had forgotten the language of caring. But I will keep asking, keep listening – there is no other way now. So, hello, darkness, my old … friend?