It's funny how a small change in the environment can trigger something because of the PTSD and the dissociated trauma memories. Actually - it's not funny. It's frustrating and even angering at times. Would you believe my new and wonderful brighter lighting - the lighting that was put in to cheer me up - suddenly became the bright lights from some other place (I won't say where right now). It was a place that is seen by a little girl as being scary and not good. The hub called New Guy last night when it got bad and he was able to help me. The hub helps me, too. I couldn't get out a coherent version of what was going on with me to the hub, but I was able to put it together somewhat with New Guy. But only because he's so different from other therapists. It was safe to stop trying to send that material away when we spoke. Sending the girl away and distancing her sends me into a dissociative hell and puts the PTSD hounds hot on my heels. Who would have thought that one of the most useful skills in a therapist would turn out to be love? I never would have thought that. It never would have entered my mind.

Anyway, the flashbacks happened Wednesday. I couldn't tell an entire story from them because they were not of the moving picture variety. They were the kind where there's a snapshot because of a visual trigger, a short burst of barely coherent mental images and memories (including memories of past flashbacks) - and repeat until the mind is like a big, rambling blog post filled with links to previous posts. Can't click on them all, because it's too confusing and frightening and it's just information overload. Well... thankfully I have a therapist who will not ask me to...

1. Get it gone by chemical means. (Slip that kid a mickey finn.)

2. Distract. (Pretend it isn't happening because a child's distress is inconvenient and television shows and pointless hobbies are more important.)

3. Get grounded and stay in the present. (Pretend there is no earlier version of you who still needs the current you to go back and get her.)

4. Watch it like it's just a movie on a screen. (Use the dissociation to depersonalize and push yourself away even further. Again. Because no one wants you.)

Of course, these are all valid things that a person can use in a pinch (or just to live another day if it comes to that), but they do not heal. They cannot foster closure. They can uphold or replace dissociation when used in a situation like what happened to me Wednesday evening. And to me this is a misuse. It helped me much more that my therapist called me, reminded me that flashbacks eventually end and that there IS more to my reality than what I was experiencing just then and that both are real... Most of all? It helped me that he asked what was happening, who and where it was coming from and I got to just enough of those aforementioned 'blog links' to make just enough sense of things to get to a place of having something happen that felt like the beginning of some rubble trying to settle into piles that made more sense and were less terrifying. Piles that look like the foundation of the story of where much of this recent distress is coming from (not from now not from now not from now - safe now safe now and brought part of the kid out with me).

Oops. Wait a minute. Did I say the most help came from a therapy technique? That's debatable, really. Because we couldn't have gone there in such dire circumstances without the most crucial element of all - Love. Thirteen and a half month’s worth. When I heard his voice and he told me that he is sorry I am in pain, that he loves me and wished he were with me physically so he could hold my hand? The little girl heard, “TELL. It’s okay to tell. No one here will hurt you. We understand and we love you. Come with us. People here love and don’t hurt.” And so she reached up and grabbed the hand that the therpist stuck down the rabbit hole.

I’m still in comfort and recovery mode, but even so, I am more productive in this space than I was in the ‘everything is fine here/ we just need happier lighting’ space I inhabited in the miserable days leading up to this incident. I guess there really is no substitute for things like love and truth. At least not for me. I never would have been able to guess, that when I finally found the right therapy, my first job would be un-learning the vast majority of the previous therapies because they upheld the dissociation that first saved my life and then ruined it. That pisses off the inner accountant the most. 'Cause I'm cheap like that.