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?