The past has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. Lately I have been very troubled about something that I feel I should have "gotten over" or overcome, by now. I will not share what it is for several reasons, one of which being that I am still not comfortable with sharing the deeply painful events that transpired. There are only a very select few that know some of the events that occurred and at that, not everything.
Something happened a couple of weeks ago to trigger all these emotions, thoughts, and issues that I thought that I had dealt with nearly 5 years ago. Upon deep prayer and comtemplation, I realize that I had never dealt with the situation. I had pushed it aside and never thought it a problem. Because everything was so painful and in some ways traumatic, I forced it out of my mind, and this particular trigger forced it right back in. I was very surprised as I thought I had forgotten everything. All of this disturbs me greatly. I feel like I am placing certain people in a place where they do not deserve to be because of the deep scars that I apparently still have and only recently discovered.
I have never been someone to use a bad past to blame for my present actions, even if my past has everything to do with why I act the way I act. I am not that kind of a person; I, myself am to blame for my actions, not my past, therefore I have been distraught to catch myself reacting in a certain way to this trigger irrationally. When I caught myself doing this, the last thing I wanted to do was blame my irrationality on my past, so I immediately told Mark what was going on. This took so much prayer. Mark knows that I am an intensely private person, so he listened patiently as everything came tumbling out of my mouth like a torrential downpour of rain. When I finished telling him, I was shaking, and crying and immediately got sick. I can't believe that I remembered so much of what I had kept buried for long.
Mark's reaction was predictably indignation and anger (as well as I am sure, shock)-not toward me, but toward the situation(s) that had occurred. I did not tell him for him to feel sorry for me in any way, (which is a huge reason I have not told many people)but to explain the reason behind my irrational reaction to this particular trigger for my memory, which I made completely clear to him.
5 years ago I went to see a counselor weekly. He was such an amazing godsend for me as he was the one person who saw everything unfold and unravel in my life. He saw first hand the affect everything had on me, and my reaction. There were days where I was uncontrollably crying, and other days where I would just sit and stare and not say much of anything. Those days, my counselor would try to get me to look at the issues behind the obvious problems. Those days I felt like I was living one day at a time, trying desperately to make it through to the next and not caring if I did not. Many times I prayed that God would grant me mercy and let me die.
Every night was an eternity. I had nightmares and would often wake up screaming. I would try to stay awake all night to avoid the nightmares, and then fall into a restless sleep all day because I had no motivation to do anything else. At the time people thought I held up remarkably well because I forced myself to act as normal as possible in public. Only my sister whom I lived with at the time saw the internal damage that was happening. I hardly ate, would go driving for hours, (wasting so much money I did not have on gas) and would lay on the couch just staring. I blamed myself constantly. I was broken in so many pieces that I had no idea who I was or what I was doing. I continued in this vicious cycle for such a long time.
I realize now, that I still need prayer. These unwelcome memories have come back because I never properly dealt with them in the first place. They still have a devastating effect on me because I forced them from my mind and refused to dwell on them. It only took one trigger, one event to bring them all back in. Mark and I have talked about me resuming counseling for this delayed reaction. I feel like that would be the best course at this time, because I do not want these feelings, memories, and emotions to keep coming back unbidden, and I DEFINITELY do not want to act out on them and blame poor behavior on anything but myself. I want to make sure I don't take it out on anyone. But, if I choose to do this, it will be intensely difficult and will require much prayer. Just had to write down my crazy thoughts for the night. :)
