sometimes words have hidden meanings"I want you to be honest with me' translates into 'tell me what you think I deserve to know."
That comes out bizarre and what I mean is that I am honest; I tell the truth and lots of it; I expect and anticipate the same from those around me.
When I don't get that, when people lie (I thought it was cocaine, I didn't know it was speed; I never said that, or if I did it's not what I meant; I didn't want to hurt you)
it always starts with the mouth not the ears.
I've been addressing my PTSD these days or more realistically it has been addressing me. In the world of tempered fragility the foundation of respect and trust is the bedrock of relation. When I became the other woman or the other woman stepped in between me and my lover something happened.
It was not that he fucked another woman, which is what it is.
It's that at first he didn't tell me.
It's that it was the woman who I had to have trespassed from my work for flipping me off, calling me a cunt on the street, and generally harassing me.
It's that the other woman triggers my PTSD
and that the guy who was supposed to be my partner didn't seem to think that my psychological well being would be impacted; that I would be shaken to the core; that I wouldn't withdraw back into the cocoon of safety that I've built.
Because respect is knowing the person that you're with and understanding their needs. It's not that people with high levels of anxiety need to be held with velvet gloves, it's that we all have specific needs and as we're adults know how to express them. If a partner is unwilling to meet those requests or steps over those boundaries it's hard to come back.
Because, TRUST. It happens until it's gone and then there's no going back. No amount of texts, phone calls, boxes of chocolate make up for the fact that someone whom I am supposed to trust to be on my side, on my team, just pushed me down hard and that their actions are an icy cold bath of feelings that I don't really have words for.
So I grow into all of that. I am simultaneously vulnerable and in retreat; I am gathering my stores.
Sometimes to teach, we leave. Sometimes in order for the general public to understand what it means when someone says "this is my boundary, if you cross it there will be a consequence" there has to be a consequence otherwise the passive aggressive molasses blooded neophobic think that they have a full deck of cards.
3 comments:
This is beautiful.
Thank you for writing this. As always.
It is the push that seems to pull me always; the superficial depths of a haunted surface, the tangible buttress of salted skin, and the stars against an ever expanding great unknown remain my constant companions.
Post a Comment