Triggers

From: "I am daily assailed by the architecture of trauma Pigface and social services and  all the organisations who sided with them or didn't help us, installed in me and that is still running..."

... :intrusive thoughts and my body surging with cortisol spikes by the hour. 

I am constantly triggered by things particularly related to social services or to reminders of Pigface.

The doorbell ringing at 6.30PM this week that sent me into a terrible spiral. We don't expect people to ring the door at that time. The mail has already been, deliveries have already been, and I don't want to answer the door because I just don't want to take the risk that it's Pigface or Social Services, or the police, with some new accusation against me.  Cognitively, I know that likelihood is vanishingly small, but the rest of me reacts as though they're all outside the door.

So I sent calmly, to my 6'1 son to open the door, though that would be nothing to his even taller, much heavier uncle, 100 times more aggressive and demanding. 

There's nobody there, he said. 

I sent him to the back door. There's nobody there. 

But it bothered me.  I wanted to know whether the person had been at the back or the front door.  That's classic threat scanning: if you can predict where the threat might come from you might be safer. None of it's true, it's all hypervigilance. Because there was historical threat at the door.  Pigface at both doors.  Social services at both doors.   It suddenly became incredibly important to know which door had been rung.

I phoned my husband to ask if he could work out which door the person had been at. He doesn't seem to understand me and keeps talking about fixing the door cameras.  Five minutes go by with my saying I don't care about the cameras or fixing them, I just want to know if he can tell which doorbell it was I heard.  But he keeps saying the same thing.  Eventually, he hangs up.

Eventually I realise (I think, though I never did get it completely clear) and not from him explicitly saying anything that the reason I heard the doorbell was because he was fixing the camera. So there was no one at the door. And he seems to think it's funny. Whereas I just was super, super, stressed, through something inadvertently caused by my husband. 

Being triggered, made afraid isn't good.  Being triggered by someone who is supposed to be an ally isn't good. Being abandoned having been triggered by that person is worse.  Being laughed at doesn't help. By the time that was all over I was in a real state. 

So I send him messages saying, explaining how this stresses me, and that he shouldn't hang up or laugh and make it worse, and please not to make the fucking doorbell ring at night because with this kind of concatenation of stress I was never going to recover.  And in my head, I see Pigface laughing, loving all the chaos he has caused.

And do you see - nothing had happened.  To the world, nothing is happening.  To Social Services, nothing wrong, relating to Pigface ever did happen. In that programme I mentioned, Waiting for the Out, one of the characters says it's that splitting of you that really does for you.  It's that split reality, in this case: what you know to be true and what the rest of the world says is true.

It was a trauma reaction to social services who had so harmed me, coming to my door in the past, that was activated eight months later.  That one actually activates pretty often: most times someone comes to the door.

The other week, an unknown mobile number came up on my phone.  I didn't used to be able to answer my phone at all, post-trauma. Now I can answer it if I know who it is.  I don't allow voicemails  - too threatening.  For the first time, I answered this call.  No resposnse.  I went into immediate spiral / threat scan mode.

This morning, I saw someone fat and barrel-chested with spiky hair in the street staring at our house who I thought, momentarily was him 

 A couple of days ago: His insane, cackly laugh  heard in the character of  Brigham on the TV series "Small Prophets" 

Last week: a photo of myself with short hair, reminds me of a vile family resemblance. 

Last week: the thought of a passport, earlier this week, a symbol triggering reminders of everything he took from me, rendering me powerless as Power of Attorney, stopping me doing things with mum she would have liked, interfering with, trammelling our relationship.

Last week: social dynamics at singing groups make me perceive social threat. I completely shut down, socially. 

All the time, I second guess people's reactions.  Mild power dynamics make me feel targeted.  I feel judged, criticised, manipulated, expelled, erased, all the time, when I know very well it may not be warranted. I know that, I tell myself that and my system doesn't care.   

I hadn't realised how many triggers, but there is something at least every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and those are just the ones I'm conscious of, not the bracing I've now normalised. 

 It is exhausting, depressing and frustrating

There are a lot to shift.