You're not getting a ring

 "Just so you know, you're not getting a ring."

It was close to Christmas and he randomly told me he wasn't proposing. I hadn't even considered this and didn't understand why he felt he needed to say it. I nodding in understanding and he said so sincerely, "but I would marry you....". The words hung in the air. Multiple concerning incidents had happened at this point, I didn't feel safe to be myself, yet suddenly this carrot was dangling in front of me...and I wanted it. Though I didn't actually believe this was possible or real. 

Rings are a difficult subject for me. When my ex husband proposed to me he didn't even ask me to marry him. He asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said, "an engagement ring". He wasn't making much and had bought a $99 ring. The diamond was barely a chip, likely something that fell off while cutting a big beautiful one, but the ring was dainty and cute and still more than I ever thought I'd get. I proudly showed friends and one said snarkily, "Wow! It's so big!" and everyone laughed. I held back tears and smiled. The thought of getting a huge ring, something I wanted, something to show off, was beyond what I could fathom. No special band, no sizing, this was it. I was being mocked and laughed at but I still felt like I was somebody to finally have someone that wanted to be with me. The tiny diamond fell out at a Christmas Eve church service and all my past trauma said, "of course". 

We had a trip to Las Vegas planned for New Year's Eve. He again announces, "Just so you know...you won't be getting a ring. Just want to make sure you understand that." Again, had zero expectations but now this need to say this to me each time was getting to me. I even had a fantasy that he was saying it again to surprise me. That night he was not winning at his gambling, and me feeling like if he couldn't win and be happy then everything would be ruined. I started putting my own money into slot machines. More than I'd ever spent as I typically gave myself a $20 limit and I was putting hundreds in. I didn't care about me winning. I just wanted him to be happy and to have this New Year's Eve moment I wanted so desperately. I was drunk and high and by the time we got back to the room I'd crumbled to the bed sobbing "I tried....I tried so hard...". He didn't talk to me the entire flight home. No ring. 

Our first and only Valentine's Day came, and things were shaky. Another statement about me not getting a ring. Then a Facebook post saying how much he loved me and was happy with me, which included terrible pictures of me. One picture was me about to have surgery with no makeup, a hairnet and mask on, and hospital gown. Here were these words I'd wanted my whole life yet I also felt I was being made fun of. I ever so carefully asked, "Hey...why did you post that picture?" after thanking him profusely for the post. He said, "Oh I just grabbed some pics." We had a ridiculous amount of pictures together. My Facebook page alone had so many pictures. It was purposeful, and I knew it, yet here were those words that I'd never heard and longed for my whole life. 

Days after Valentine's Day, where the day after we had a massive fight about his ex wife, I had a big gig days later where my mentor had given me a performance challenge that was a stretch goal to say the least. And I nailed it. I came back to his place excited, happy, and proud of myself. He congratulated me and as I was going to the kitchen he says that a friend of his just got engaged and they'd been together less than we had. I said that's nice and went into the kitchen to pour a wine. I come back out and he brings up one of my best friends getting engaged. I again smile and nod, but now I'm seeing I am not giving him the response he wants. He reiterates again how they've been together less than us, and now my friend was engaged too and did I hear him say all this. I said, "What are you trying to say?" He changed subjects but my personal win was no longer part of the conversation. I didn't understand it. It felt like he was trying to hurt me and upset me. Another thing to stuff down.

One thing is for sure...I didn't get a ring.

Intermittent Reinforcement

"Intermittent reinforcement is the unpredictable cycle of affection, attention, or relief mixed with cruelty, rejection, or withdrawal. Because the good moments arrive inconsistently, the brain becomes fixated on earning their return, strengthening the trauma bond."

After a 24 year relationship, 22 years of it married, and 6 years of horrific dating experiences, I'd given up on any chance of love and was mostly numb to it all. I'd gotten a girlfriend because men had been so awful and I thought I'd just try something else. She was married in an open relationship where he also had a girlfriend. We were adorable together with my pink hair and her light blue hair, but there was never an emotional connection. I quickly learned I wasn't as bisexual as I wanted to be but went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. 

We met through Facebook where we had mutual friends and he'd been watching me. There was a lot in common so when he saw I was in Los Angeles, one of his favorite cities, seeing Ghost, one of his favorite bands, he decided to message me. Over the top charming but in an easy going way. I looked at his picture, and not my type, but I thought why not. We had a call the next day when I flew home and though initially were going to meet that Saturday decided we couldn't wait another second and planned a date for the next night. I don't recall the conversation, but he knew how to play it up and I bought it. Kissed me barely 15 minutes into the date and would later imply I was a slut because I'd kissed back. We made out in my car in the middle of the street and it felt wonderful and romantic. I thought driving home could this possibly be the miracle I didn't think would happen?

Our second date was two days later. We had sex and it was terribly embarrassing as I started bleeding profusely. I was mortified. Yet he said he loved me. He made some bizarre statement about how if the first time you have sex is awkward it means it's going to be a great relationship. I smiled and nodded while thinking this was weird, and yet here was finally a man that seemed to care. Went to his house the next day to hang by the pool and he said, "Should we do a life event on Facebook?" I had no idea what that even meant as I came onto there married. He said, "put that we are in a relationship". I froze. It hadn't been a week. Red flags and sirens were going off in my head yet here appeared to be someone that wanted to be with me. I wouldn't be the sad alone one anymore. The one no one wanted. The one no one would stay with. The one everyone fucked and walked away from. It was right there so I said yes. The post blew up, as I'd never done this and he noted it but didn't seem to believe my explanation. 

It all became a whirlwind of things I'd never done, and it felt like a lot, but he had very firm things he felt had to be done in a relationship and I just went along with it. A joint Google calendar was created so we knew everything the other was doing. I had access to his garage and house. He brought toiletries to keep at my house. I was seeing him every day with him saying each time how he loved me. I was called beautiful and pretty lady and all the things my husband never said. I told a friend that I was scared I was being love bombed and she said, "Or maybe it's true love and he loves you!" I wanted it so desperately.

My cat had been eating my hair and chomped off a huge piece leaving me with a layer barely two inches long. We needed to cut my hair shorter, which I hated, to make it look blended and allow it to grow back. My hairdresser had been taking classes for extension and needed a model where the process would be for free and you buy the hair. I decided to do it and was so excited to have long hair again where I'd feel like I looked nice. I gushed about it for weeks. I was thrilled with the extensions and was sure he'd like me more and be even more attracted to me. He said they looked nice but I didn't get the compliments I'd hoped for. A few days later while driving after dinner he turns to me and says, "You know I like women with short hair." I gulped. I felt nauseated. I was holding back tears and stared at him. He then says incredulously, "Why are you acting this way? It's just an opinion." We'd been together 5 weeks at this point.

This was the start of the intermittent reinforcement that continued the entirety of the relationship and many times after. It wasn't not thinking before he talked. It was rather calculated and cruel. Many times I'd see a smirk on his face when I started crying after what he'd said. But then days later the compliments, the I love you's, and we are perfect for each other came back and I stuffed down the pain. I didn't see hope for anything else.

That pattern didn’t end when the relationship did. My brain still returns to every contradiction, every tender moment beside every calculated cruelty. trying to make it all add up, still trying to solve what was designed to be unsolvable. From the outside, it may look like an inability to let go; from inside a trauma bond, it is a brain still trying to resolve the confusion that created it.

The Cover Up

I've always covered up my pain with joking. I feel like it started as a pre-teen and feeling ugly and unwanted. I would cut myself down with the silent hope I'd be told I was wrong. I was rarely told otherwise and usually laughed at. This carried over into making jokes about my deepest pains but acting like I didn't care. Again, typically laughed at. I now can't accept a compliment no matter how sincere. I feel like it's only being said to stop my negative self-talk. Usually my mind goes into overdrive on the back-end thinking "Why did they say that when it's not true? It can't be true. It's what I'm dying to hear but I can't believe it so it hurts."

I make jokes frequently that I'm dying alone with my cats. I say it as a brutal way to force myself not to hope and to accept my fate. I say it and act like I don't care. I say it like I'm just cutting up and cracking good ones. Yet each time I say it and the other person laughs and nods in agreement, a little part of me dies. I get sent memes and jokes talking about women my age alone with their cats. Jokes about how if you're alone by a certain age all the cats know to show up. Funny things depicting a woman alone. I give a big laugh react and a "LOL" as I wipe tears. I gave them the material to laugh at so it's my own fault for the outcome.

The whole dying alone thing is a tricky one as there is nothing you can do to change it. Sure you can position yourself at places to meet people, be social, get out there. But the chance of you running into "your person", "soulmate", "the one for you", is luck and coincidence. When I attempt to explain this to someone with a partner I hear "Well you know relationships are hard." I have to bite my tongue from getting snarky about being in a relationship over two decades so I actually know this. Usually at this point they decide to put the blame on me for not loving myself enough. Because apparently when you hit peak loving yourself, then your perfect person appears!

I've also told myself to stop covering up the pain and just shut up about it. Find a reason to live and just accept you'll do it alone.  

Let It Go

Long before the annoying song came out, the mantra of "let it go" was a long held belief in the way to getting over something, and the ability to do this as proof of your efforts. I don't let things go. I hold onto them tightly, recalling every detail and nuance. But only the negative, the traumatic, and the hurtful things. I can not only let a good and happy moment go, I frequently forget they even happened.

Despite commentary as to if I've tried hard enough to do this, I have read and researched on it for decades. I've done the self help books. I've read about forgiveness. I prayed. I cried. I burned and burned and burned to release it. The pain remains.

With CPTSD, “letting go” is often difficult because the nervous system has not registered the matter as safely concluded. It may keep returning to it because:

The current event resembles an earlier injury.
Something important remains unexplained, denied, or unacknowledged.
You were once harmed when you did not anticipate what other people would do.
Your reality was challenged, so reviewing the evidence became a way to preserve it.
The mind believes that understanding everything will prevent another injury.
The body still responds as though the threat is happening now.

With my severe and compulsive rumination issues, it pairs well with not being able to let go, as my mind won't turn off investigation mode. In my thinking to let go of something puts me in danger. Even if the danger was decades ago, even if those people are dead, even if the fears aren't logical. So, I do every special calming breath I know. I take medication. I meditate. I do rituals. I write. I scream to the nothingness. And the pain remains.

I was looking back and asking myself if there is anything I was able to let go of in a healthy and conclusive way. I was reminded of my son's birth where I had decided that my birthing experience was going to redeem all the milestone events I'd missed in my life. This was going to be my moment. I was convinced that birth is something I could finally excel at and have a great outcome. The short version: 10 days overdue, induced, cord around the neck, emergency c-section. I felt demolished. I wanted that big push moment. I wanted my hand held and to be told I was doing great. I'd so desperately wanted that moment of being handed my baby and yet he was taken away (per protocol). I once again cried to the heavens, or to nothing, saying "Why? Why couldn't I have this? Women give birth and get this! Why not me?" It haunted me for years. I went to a c-section support group. It was years later I was at a new OB, still crying about not having a natural birth, and he said "Wait...how big was your baby?" "10 lbs, 22 1/4 inches." He looked me up and down, and then clearly recalling the pelvic exam he just did on me, and said, "You are very small. You pelvic bones are incredibly small. To get a 10lb baby out of you we would have had to crack you in half and break his collar bone." I was fine with me being hurt but when I pictured hurting my baby the tears dried up. I was fine. I never cried about it again. I let it go.

My mind can do this and I'm not incapable. So what will it take to let go of everything else? How can I stop my mind from trying to solve the unsolvable? How can I come to acceptance that I've haven't been given the life that most of the people around me have had, and this is just the hand I was dealt? And I feel the question needs to be asked....is letting go always the answer? 

 

The Plan

Author's note: this writing will include intense, disturbing, and possibly triggering descriptions. Please read with care and caution.

When I take a PHQ-9 (depression test) before any mental health treatment or session, there are a few questions I always give the same answer to:

Feeling bad about yourself — or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down - Every day.
Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way - Every day
Secondary question: do you have a plan? - No

I admitted recently that I'd been lying about my plan and I did have one. My psychiatrist said, "Will you tell me?" I said, "Will you commit me?" She said, "Do you have intent?" Me, "No". "Then I won't commit you." I revealed I'd watched some gossip show talking about some child stars that had killed themselves. And then Dr. Drew not only explained what they did, but gave the exact drugs they used to stop their heart and breathing. My breathing stopped just hearing this. I'd always had the plan to kill myself with drugs but I never knew the perfect combination. I was worried I'd just OD, or fry my brain but still live. So now I had the two drugs to combine, and though I didn't have them, they wouldn't be too hard to get. 

TRIGGER WARNING

The plan was to fly to Mexico where you could get drugs from a pharmacy without a prescription. Get the drugs I needed (unlike Dr. Drew, I won't reveal them), take a snorkeling trip to a cenote, and then have a terribly unfortunate drowning (because you can't just do it and be selfish even though the pain is debilitating and killing you).

I know it would hurt people deeply. I know it would fully destroy my son. Fuck do I know. Yet I still wake up every day and think "How much longer?". I look in the mirror and think "How many more times do I have to see that fucking face?" I look at my life and think "You are a loser and the lowest and most pathetic person everywhere you go." 

I've said this before, but I get why you would want to live. Not saying there aren't problems and issues, but I see your good life and see why you'd be happy to keep going. I think most people look at people like me through their personal lens and make their judgements from there. But really, look at me, how would you feel to be me?

Luck, Rumination, and Hopelessness

"Wow! You really do have terrible luck!" Not the first time this has been said to me yet it still hurts every time. I had a friend say she wished people wouldn't say this to me as it then puts it in your head that it's real. This is true. I've never felt I had luck, history to prove it, but there is something about someone confirming one of your deepest pains that hits in a way that feels like being stabbed. The man I thought was the love of my life said this to me in Vegas on what was supposed to be a whirlwind New Year's Eve weekend. He was a big gambler, I'm not because of the no luck lifetime streak, so I said I'd just watch. He did some slots and quickly lost. He turned around and said, "You really are bad luck!". I hadn't done anything. I'd stood there. I'd watched. I'd done nothing yet I was getting blamed. He later went on to say it was just a joke but only after I'd fallen apart in a drunken sobbing fit. Sometimes I think what bothers me more than just being one of the unlucky, is that the lucky ones don't acknowledge what they have. I won't say I've had nothing lucky happen. I got pregnant easily, without trying, no miscarriages, and a healthy pregnancy. I fully own this was luck and coincidence, and would never tell a woman with a different experience how she should feel about it, much less give her some "unlucky" comment. How hurtful. Yet I hear it all the time. 

I ruminate over these things obsessively. More than I tell people. More than I've told any mental health professional. It's too shameful to fully admit how bad it is. I've tried, alluded to what my mind does, only to be met with a metric shit ton of shame. "Well, you should stop doing that!" "You are only making yourself feel worse!" "How is thinking about that going to help you? You are trying to make yourself feel bad." If I told you to stop breathing for the day, could you? The amount of energy to try and stop the thoughts, and it never working, is a mental level of exhaustion and failure that makes you just give up. Though I don't give up. My methods are sometimes healthy, sometimes very wrong, but I can't explain that I'm trying when all others see is failure. 

I explained to my psychiatrist that the rumination has gotten much worse. My nerves feel exposed and things said to me are like acid being poured on them. I find myself on spin cycle "Why did they say that? Like why the fuck say that to me?" She feels I may be getting "flooded" with the extensive ketamine treatments and this feels like a perfect description. Imagine every pain, bad word, trauma, upset, sorrow you have swirling above you at all times. Even when smiling and talking it's there. And then someone laughs at one of the worst traumas of your life....how would you react? I saw a meme that said "Rumination is your mind trying to solve the unsolvable". That hit so hard but also dead on. "Why couldn't my father love me?" "Why am I also the lowest person wherever I go?" "Why did he say he loved me and then purposefully devastated me?" Why? The mind just won't stop.

Six months of ketamine treatments. Nine months since I nearly killed myself. My PHQ-9 scores (depression screening test) had me at 9 - 3 weeks ago. A single digit is a big deal as I was at 21 when I came in. I've been 18 for two weeks. It's been 2 weeks of a lot of stressful situations, reasons to not be happy, but I also feel the regression. And I hear the comments. "I thought you would have been better by now." "Are you doing the work?" "I've been watching and can see you are improving." It feels like have your little sad moment but the clock is ticking. 

The catch-22 of being open is that people often mistake access for invitation. I share because openness and vulnerability matter to me, and because someone else may need to hear that they aren’t alone. I was talking to a friend about cutters and said that though I never did it, I always understood it. She said, "Words are your cutting." Possibly one of the most telling statements of my life. I have an almost physical need to say things out loud. It isn’t because I think everyone needs to know everything about me, and it isn’t simply a desire for attention. Saying it lets the pressure escape. But when someone tells you something personal it doesn’t suddenly make you part of the story. It isn’t an invitation to interpret the experience, tell them what it “really” means, or prescribe what I should do next. Sometimes I need what I’ve said to be received, not reviewed.

It's so hard to end a writing piece without a cute conclusion. Though I haven't tied it up with a pretty bow in a while. The hopelessness is overtaking me again. I feel constantly on the edge of breaking down. It's that feeling like when you're about to cry and you don't want anyone to see it, so you pinch yourself and bite your tongue, and act like something is in your eye as the tears come out...all day long. 

Though it's frequently discounted, I have been trying my entire life. I've tried. 30+ years since one of my first diagnosis and pumping me with meds. My situation isn't emotionally palatable to most. It's shape shifted, told things weren't as I remember, and all the shame and blame that I should try just a little more. I don't know what to do. Do I shut up, stop giving everyone access to me, and slowly implode? I've resigned myself to living but I don't want to. The memories of that night in December float around in my head and whisper there is a way out of this pain. 

Living in Uncertainty

It was less than a week ago I wrote about how accumulation affects my nervous system. The health scare I was writing about escalated daily, sending me sideways into days of silence while trying to still keep my responsibilities. While the steri strips are still on, I am relieved to say that the worst didn't happen and I'm OK on this. 

Was about to start something important and new next week and felt like the week where I should have been preparing and celebrating had been ruined with the health scare. I thought I have a few more days to finally be able to be safe and take a deep breath...and another blow came. It's not the outcome that is even leading the emotions right now. It's the uncertainty, because at this moment the stability isn't there. Yes, it might work out. And I could also have everything crumble beneath me. My mother was here when I found out and she tried to say what I knew was going to be some "good thoughts" bullshit and I barked "Not a fucking word about me thinking something good. That's a bunch of bullshit." She shut up. 

With uncertainty in a dysregulated nervous system, possibility becomes probability. I was talking with a friend who went into a speech about how I need to distract myself, how being scared won't change anything, how I'm just making myself more upset. I explained that it's not that I lack rational thought. It's not that I'm purposefully feeling that everything is catastrophic and don't have reason. As we spoke more she made a profound observation "What would be the opposite for you?" Severe depression and an emotional plummet. "And which feels worse?" I said the debilitating depression. When my mind is going over every possibility it's to attempt to make sure I'm not blindsided, as even if the news is horrible, I feel braced for it. And when I'm spiraling and flipping out my nervous system feels like at least I'm doing something and still attempting to survive. It feels better than the other side which is desolation. It's more comfortable to catastrophize than shut down.

I've had nearly 2 years on a roller coaster and it feels like the attendant has left the park. I don't know if I'll be able to handle the next drop. I feel sick, I'm dizzy, and it just won't end. The people on the ground are waving and saying the ride isn't that bad, while I am scanning to see if it's about to jump the track. I'm bruised from this ride. I have whiplash. It's easy to explain roller coasters when you're standing on the safety of the platform. It's a different conversation when you are strapped into a ride you can't get out of.

I've had 6 months of ketamine at this point. While still drowning in what is coming up, I'm more stable. Though I had a moment last weekend where I thought if I get one more hit of bad news I may even take them up on going to inpatient. Uncertainty, though I'm painfully aware is all of life, still wrecks me.