Daily Crumbs: Burn the Rug

I'm used to not sleeping well, to waking often throughout the night with my mind fixated on or haunted by something. I woke wide awake, much earlier than usual today. I checked the time and closed my eyes again. I fell asleep just before midnight and it was barely 5 am.

After a few initial random thoughts ran through my mind, my brain started narrating a very difficult conversation that I need to have. It's a conversation I've been working up the courage for all year. I tried to remind myself that lying in bed at 5 am isn't the most opportune time to dive into the details of what needs to be said. I tried to comfort myself. I tried deep breathing exercises. I tried to soothe myself back to sleep. Regardless of how I tried to redirect my thoughts, they always found their way back to this very difficult conversation.

I've noticed a lot of things in my life that I do out of habit but have always wanted to change. One of which is staying in bed after my mind has decided that restful sleep isn't an option. I usually toss and turn, fighting with myself in a desperate attempt to fall back asleep and be graced with a happy dream. Anything to replace the way I feel when I wake in the night. The happy dreams seldom come. So today, rather than tossing and turning the wee hours away, the writer urged me to get up and use the time more wisely. If my mind wouldn't put the thoughts aside, I better help put them on paper. 

This year has been really difficult for me. One of the hardest years I've had in a while. It's been a process to acknowledge and find some semblance of acceptance. Times like this always feel like I'm regressing, which is a terrifying reality to face.

Some of the worst symptoms I had during my first few years of trauma work have returned. I find myself dysregulated more often than not. Spiraling. My C-PTSD flares have been increasing and worsening. I've had to adjust and increase my medications. My nails are brittle and bitten. I'm melancholic and withdrawn and haven't written all year. Each a flashing sign of inner turmoil.

I've been swallowed by the whale that is depression and dissociation. Alive within it, but stuck. I have to remind myself daily that the return of these things doesn't mean I did something wrong or lost the progress that's been made. The things I've been experiencing are a red flag waving, letting me know of the dangers ahead if I don't take action.

When I first realized this difficult conversation needs to happen, I gave myself a timeline to work with. Roughly nine months to be specific. The end of that timeline is closing in on me. I'm just days away. I'm fairly certain that's why my symptoms have been worsening throughout the year. For the past nine months, I've been working through the most confronting parts of why this conversation is so difficult. I've spoken about it at length many times over with my individual therapist, my wife, my best friend, and the women in my support group which includes our group therapists. Each time the details are discussed, I'm met with the same initial emotional response from those I'm speaking with:

"That's SO fucked up."

My family has an uncanny way of brushing things under the rug. It shocks most.

I'm one of those things. The things that haunt me and keep me up at night are those things.

I feel smothered by the rug, like I'm being restrained and suffocated.

I'm ready to burn the fucking rug.

The thing is, I don't know if anyone in my family, including my mom, know how deadly it is.

If I don't burn the rug, I fear that one day I might not find my way out from beneath it's crushing weight. My lifeless body will be found wrapped up in it like a straight jacket I couldn't escape. My hands clinging to the hundreds of pages filled with my gut-wrenching screams.

When we're struggling the most, it's confronting to realize that no one is coming to save us. We have to be the voice. We have to take action. We have to strike the match.

I have to burn the rug to save myself.