Locked out : a major trigger

Certain things really trigger me, one is being left waiting, other is being blocked or locked out, when I get triggered I have to sit with myself for a while because it almost as if someone has hit me or squeezed me, that said I was often locked out of the house as a child and left in the car for hours while my family went to the golf clubhouse at the coast and I was trapped in that crushed car for a long time too following my accident at 17 and the anniversary of that is just a few weeks away.

Today I decided to get to the Al Anon meeting but I was running late as I wanted to eat something first and when I got there this group called SMART recovery had a sign on the door that said if you were more than 10 minutes late you would not be allowed entry to the meeting!!! Whamo I have never ever ever had that experience in any 12 step meeting ever before, the way they are run is that you are free to come and go whenever you wish. I was running on a lot of emotion over the past few days and the minute I saw the sign I felt winded and just started crying. Luckily there was an empty meeting room next door so I just went in there in the midst of a full blown panic attack and cry fest. I sat myself down, let the emotions keep coming and spoke to myself as calmly and rationally as I could, saying its fair enough they have these rules even though a deeper part of me thinks what is more important is that place like a 12 step group is open to others needs to come at any time they can manage. But believe me in my time of going, especially to Al Anon I have seen all kinds of things happen and people being shut down in so many ways. I stopped going to meeting a few years ago due to this.

I accepted it today. I just sat in the room next door for about 15 minutes enough to recollect and calm myself but the deeper trigger at being shut down or locked out was a massive one for me. Lately I am seeing how deep the early experiences we have in life remain within our bodies and souls, as far as abandonment stuff goes it can and does at times feel next level in magnitude and no one who doesn’t suffer it could ever fully really understand so of course we are going to be misunderstood at times when we react ‘badly’.

It felt good that I could stay today with my trigger but the depth of response was pretty acute, that said it was a response not just a ‘reaction’ because I was able to ‘talk myself calm’ and believe me that is a sign of progress. I have had my final time of attempting with Al Anon now, from what I am seeing more and more of these ‘rules’ are now entering the equation and maybe I am the one at fault in that if I want to participate I need to be more ‘boundaried’. That said I wondered how a deeply desperate person would feel, who suffers acute PTSD and made a big effort to get there, and even if they were running late really did need the connection of a meeting. Such a rule could end up causing them a lot of harm and that kind of gets my goat really.

Anyway sometimes lately I feel its so much better just staying at home here and connecting with my Higher Power at times and doing my journaling practice. The outside world can be so fracturing at times, as my new temporary therapist said yesterday it is very ‘triggering’. So its understandable that many in recovery want to stay inside their own shell and safe and cosy in their own healing journey. I know there are times to reach out but I do find that the peace I feel at home is often such a great source of comfort. The human world seems to be so ‘mentally’ skewed and rule bound and there is a certain quality of human who cannot see any deeper than the surface.

I was watching a programme on Uluru on Sunday night and soon it is going to be officially forbidden to climb over the surface of what used to be known as Ayers Rock. Uluru is an intensely sacred and spiritual site to the First Nations people in Australia and when you travel there the spirituality is palpable, many deeply attuned people who visit there have said they often find themselves crying or in touch with a profoundly otherworldly force there.

The aboriginal people have asked that out of respect people chose not to climb the rock, but of course there is a section of the population who seems to think they are being ‘precious’ or silly for asking such a thing, some of these people were being interviewed on Sunday night and their attitude and sensitivity level was truly shocking to me. I know that it takes all kinds to live in this world and we have to find ways to get along and respect each other’s differences, however what I don’t get is that the aboriginal people were the original custodians of this land and have such a profound respect and awe for nature, and yet some ‘whiteys’ think its there heroic God given right to trample all over something that seems just like a material object devoid of any deeper meaning.

An aboriginal elder was interviewed on the programme on Sunday night and he spoke of how this heroic ethos was at odds with the aboriginal one, and its something I mentioned in a blog last week and then it twigged why this kind of heroic stomping over things triggers many of us, we too just don’t seem to fit well into that blustery, arrogant ethos of ownership and possession. Yes, it takes all kinds and we have to realise that but we also have a right to our sensitivities surely. Our sensitivities don’t make us silly or ‘precious’ they are just a part of what it means to be the unique human beings that we are.

Well when I think about it, I knew that today I needed to respect that new ‘rule’ at Al Anon, maybe it will make me tighten up my act so that if I do decide I need a meeting on a Tuesday I get more organised, that said the impact of being shut out really did trigger me and I understood why when I worked through the trigger. Today, though, much as I hoped to, I just wasn’t meant to connect with any one at that meeting.