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I forgot that today was a holiday. There’s nobody around me to celebrate it with. So I was dumbly going out my front door to run over to the post office to check my mail (too small a town for door delivery). I opened my solid wood inner door, reached for the knob of my outer security door (wrought iron bars with steel mesh) and turned it.
Because the holes in the mesh are quite small and have been painted several times, with the way the sun was hitting it I couldn’t see outside except to notice from where I stood on the inside heading out that there seemed to be a new and additional CURVED piece of rod visible at the height of the knob.
It wasn’t until I had the door opened about six inches that the loops of a large snake with diamond patterns on its back came into my view as it enclosed my outer door knob completely with its wrapped body as it slid itself across, up and down my screen door!
Panic.
Not a reasonable thought in my head as I stepped backwards and slammed shut my wooden door without shutting the outer door, reaching into my pocket for my cell phone. My friend, no doubt alarmed by my alarm, told me to call the sheriff’s office. I did. Waiting for the deputy to arrive I watched with prehistoric revulsion from my picture window as the snake undulated its way all over that door. It began to drop itself through the air and I knew it would be on the ground and gone before help arrived.
In my state of alarm I didn’t see its head or its tail clearly. I did see it taking off in a straight line across my yard (after it obviously negotiated the five steps that lead up to my front door). I watched it crossing the road. I now gingerly stepped from my door and kept my distance so I could see where the snake was once the deputy arrived.
This man didn’t like snakes any more than I do, but he relaxed when he spotted the narrow rather than arrowhead shaped head – and eventually saw the tail that he already knew would not have rattles.
I only felt very mildly stupid.
Growing up in Alaska where there are no snakes, I will NEVER respond to them like a south-of-the-snake line native. The deputy assured me I could “leave now and have a nice day” while he and his soon to appear buddy would snare the snake and relocate it. I didn’t watch.
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I am STILL not OK – many hours and much reasoning later. My body, having spent 18 years living in an extremely abusive home, does not tolerate a full-blown stress response well. Not well at all. But the warning to watch ALL OF THE time for hazardous creatures came with today’s experience at the same time the reminder came that my nervous system and stress response system had to develop from infancy with a super overload that means today that trauma affects me differently than it does ‘ordinary’ people.
Which brings me to the second experience of my day I wish to write about. I am getting to know my neighbor L, a woman I liked and trusted instantly from the moment I met her. L grew up in a stable and loving home and did not suffer from abuse or trauma. I can tell that about her – really just read it in her body language. Her easy smile, her natural confidence that shows in her relaxed movements — she just feels HEALTHY to me.
Today when I stopped by to tell her about the snake that came a’knocking (L HATES snakes and has a true phobia about them) we ended up visiting for quite awhile. L lost her husband of 25 years to cancer less than a year ago, and as L talked about how she relies on prayer to help ease her through the most difficult year – one holiday, one birthday, one anniversary – at a time she placed both of her palms on top of one another right in the center of her chest.
“Sometimes the ugly feeling builds up right here.”
I asked L how she handles that feeling, and if the prayer helps it go away.
“Oh,” she said, “Sometimes I have to really cry and when I do then this ugly feeling goes away.”
L had also told me about a friend of hers whose husband died, too. L asked her how long she had cried after his death. “For a year,” the friend told her. “I cried and I cried so hard I thought I would never stop, but I’m finally getting a little bit better now.”
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Sometime when I am visiting with L I want to remember to ask her again about her friend – most particularly about what L knows about her friend’s early infant-childhood years. It would not surprise me one bit to learn that this woman did not have the kind, loving and good childhood that L had. In fact, just from the description about these two women crying I would be most surprised if the friend HAD a happy childhood.
L described to me something I will never be able to experience. She described her feeling of deep sadness and grief as “this ugly feeling” that is obviously (to me) not a feeling that L has experienced as a chronic state of her life. In fact I doubt it showed up at all until her tragic loss. Crying is SUPPOSED to make what really IS an ugly feeling go away.
Now, for L’s friend the crying seems to have gone on a long long time and did not make the “ugly feeling go away” after a reasonable period of crying. L can cry, the ugly feeling leaves her shortly and she can go about her day still missing her loved husband — but NOT captured in the essence of her being by “this ugly feeling.”
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Perhaps this is true for other severe (especially when it starts in infancy) abuse survivors as it is true for me. Such stress and such sadness built themselves into my growing little body that “this ugly feeling” became my normal state. It’s at the center of my nervous system where peace and calm is supposed to be (as the ‘set point’ for homeostatic equilibrium of the stress response and nervous system).
L and I have very differently-developed bodies – I know this now – so as she describes her ability to cry a cry and have “the ugly feeling” vanish from the center of her chest, and as she tells me about her friend who cried continually for a year I know where I fit in along this continuum – and I know why.
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Stop the Storm 
That word “overwhelm.” I get overwhelmed so easily. And when I do…I am right back breathing in the same old panicky “ugly” feelings that I felt over and over and over again growing up.
My consequences are that I cannot handle too much
stress.I have found I also could not handle full time work. I have had jobs(as a social worker) where I began to feel overwhelmed and as hard as I tried…I could not remain in that position. For my co workers doing the same type of job..they were able to manage.
I used to get so mad at myself…even think I was stupid,but I have come to accept that this is clearly a consequence of my upbringing and my nervous system has been overloaded and just can’t maintain itself.
Thankfully the work I do now is not stressful and brings me great satisfaction. They asked me to add another day to my job and wanted to add more responsibility.While the extra income would be nice…I know myself…so I declined.
These are very old patterns in our body – it DOES help to identify where they came from – and sad, but true — to find ways to work around them. Thanks so much for posting this!!!
yes. But despite us being good friends…she has a very difficult time talking about how it has impacted her life. I don’t really think that she is in denial ..I personally think that she feels if she allows the full impact of what happened to her,it would destroy or immobilize her. But she continues to have physical problems. I know before I met her she told me there was a time when she was so anxious she was bedridden and had to have someone look after her and her small children.
What I find so hard to take is that she speaks to her mother very often and visits with her. She cannot be completely herself . She accomodates her mother.I think she has shoved all the anger somewhere deep. She knows that I have reacted very differently to my mom. Yes, I maintain contact and talk to her but its controlled completely by me. I dont see her too often and I have created boundaries that feel right for me. I allow myself to “feel” the full impact.
Everyone has to walk their own path. My son just turned 26 and recently asked about his own childhood for the first time. In consequence I created a timeline of all the chaos and moves and moves and moves I made with him! My daughters have the timeline now and they are adding things into it for him. The last item = my daughter emailed to ask when it was I disowned my mother so that could go into the timeline as well.
My dearest older brother just ready to turn 61 has in this last year had MAJOR immune system illness show up that I KNOW without any doubt comes directly from the extreme stresses he felt growing up my parents’ son — ESPECIALLY as my 13 1/2 month older brother who loved me as much as a human being can love and had to WATCH what was done to me from the time he was so small.
There is — very much IS — such a thing as being overwhelmed and there’s no way to know even hardly for our own self where our ‘overwhelmed’ line is — and we cannot possibly know it for another.
I hope this book I am writing can present these ideas about how early stress and trauma DOES affect us for the rest of our life — and we will be writing about the Center for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experiences studies that clearly show the ‘forever in this lifetime’ consequences of early stress and trauma.
There was no possible way I could keep my mother in my life once I reached that crossroad that led to my disowning her. That was my path and I am very glad it was. THE TRUTH – once levels of that become recognized, truly recognized, I don’t believe there is a way to go backwards. Something has to change then. But for some their entire life is constructed to avoid knowing that truth (as it was for my mother) – and I do suspect this happens to a large extent to stay away from what WOULD be an overwhelming realization of what REALLY happened.
Trauma is BIG – and this kind of trauma was never ours, was never even our parents’ — it comes down the generations — and it has to STOP!!!
I know her mother was sexually abused as a child and in an abusive marriage although my friend remembers that her mother was just as abusive with him.
No doubt was bad all the way around…..
I just love reading your blogs because they make so much sense to me ..in my gut.I know that what you write about is true. I think that for us…prolonged grief is a state of life. I don;t think pain ever goes away completely like it can for someone like L who had a “normal” childhood. For me, there is always an underlying feeling of grief…Like I have not finished grieving what happened to me, the pain.For me, Grief will be my constant companion…I dont expect it will ever go away. It can;t. Its written on the inside of who I now am…having lived through trauma.
The “ugly” feeling is always present. Depending on what circumstances I find myself in will it react in varying degrees.
I like the way you are able to tell just from L’s body lanuage that she is “healthy”. It got me thinking about what my body language says about me.
I have a good friend who is a nurse and she has a BPD mother and growing up she was the scapegoat in the family. Yet when you meet her she talks in a very calm way. However I know her and I know she suffers from anxiety and stomach issues.She lives her life accomodating her anxiety. But its because I know her well that I see this. People find her so calm until they get to know her very well.
The real indication with L was the way she is reacting to grief i think.
so interesting…..
Yes, and interesting to me also that L had a career, didn’t marry ’til 36, never had children of her own tho had step children, lived with her mother ’til marriage, has had a stable life all the way along and is just an amazing person to me! Would want to know if the BPD mother you mention was full-blown when your friend was born?