I have a connection with someone who was part of my life in those dark days of trauma that I only hear from rarely now, but I just got a call from her after lunch and I ended up at the end of the conversation feeling a bit sick to my stomach. My friend sounded a little drunk to be honest and I know it was late in day in the States where she lives when we spoke. There has been a lot going down in her life and one of the last times we met in my home town a few years before Mum died she actually told me she had started going to AA which was interesting as alcohol was a huge part of my life during the year 1984 when we lived together in a share house.
Her memories of the phase are of happy times and I get the sense she feels a bit put out when I tell her that my memories are darker, today she was apologizing for feeling that way while trying to own that, at the time she was not in the best place during those years either, but I began to feel a little sick to be honest.. She had no idea at all of the trauma I went through as a child, when I started to share some of it she said to me “why didn’t you tell me any of those things (many injuries) that happened to you back then?” I tried to explain the facts as I now understand them that the pain we experience as kids basically gets buried and lost in addiction that its only with some years of sobriety that it emerges. When we wonder how mothers and fathers and siblings can abuse, usually its due to the fact they too bury and then displace that pain onto outsiders.. I handled the way she was about it a bit better this time, I spoke up for myself.. and there was so much she did not know about me, just as I did not know a lot about her family trauma either and she revealed some of that to me today.
Being sober today I do not have the luxury of a hiding place when it comes to my trauma.. Not a lot of people want to hear about it, my family would have rather I denied it than faced it. Luckily with my sister now I can talk through some of the things and my friend was shocked and upset when she heard how Mum used to hit and terrorize us.. That said, now knowing the emotional reality of my own mother’s childhood its natural she did what she did.. Only in later years could she share with me that her Mum never once cuddled her or told her she loved her and Mum told me she always felt Nana favored my Dad over her. Later in life my older sister Judy (now deceased) told me she heard Nana many years ago saying she loved my brother more than my sister.. These are things that do not get spoken of, or get denied, we may be told we got them wrong but if we are the witness or the truth teller in the family we see things but we may not always be allowed to know the deeper emotional reality of the things we saw and knew and experienced.
Anyway even though the chat brought up some painful feelings for me today I am glad my friend took the risk to call. She told me she was diagnosed with PTSD and depression 8 years ago and since she is employed by the US military she was put on medication and then hospitalized, the meds made things worse and she eventually had to get off of them. She feels the same way about medication as I do while like me knowing that truth is just the right one for her,not necessarily for anyone else who is free to choose.
Maybe the upset tummy I had speaks of how her call pulled me back to that sad year when my Dad died today. My friend’s father died 3 years ago and she said that had made her think a lot about me in recently years as she remembered the shock of hearing that my Dad had passed and how horrible it was. I explained to her about the call I got in the early morning at work, how I took the call in my bosses office and of the painful aftermath with Mum finding out about the two terminations I had in the years we lived together.. She was the one who helped me when I fell pregnant twice and had to go away for a termination.. She knew the guy I was with then who was an addict and emotionally abusive.. .She went through some similar things..
I sometimes come away from a call with her feeling that its difficult for her that I went through so much pain and that my memories of that time are not happier and lighter.. Maybe we had some fun times but i still need to hold onto my reality. Sadly we trauma survivors cannot look to anyone to truly understand who has not endured what we have.. I know my friend loves me and i care for her too, but the schism between the two realities was a little disturbing for me today.. I felt I needed to give that a voice.. since writing my tummy has calmed down and the sense of emotional dissonance has faded.. I had to look that term up the other day as I was not sure of its meaning but I just realised a moment ago that may be what I experienced during and just after the call ended.. A kind of schism between my reality and the reality of someone who played an important part in my life during those years of the living out of my Complex PTSD.
Emerging From The Dark Night 