It is a truth universally acknowledged---no, wait a moment, that was my last post. Jane Austen, books, etc....
But it is a truth--universally acknowledged or not-- that survivors of trauma tend to react to the normal troubles or stresses of life as if they are repetitions of trauma, at least initially. It's a knee-jerk reaction. I assume that it will happen, to some extent, for the rest of my life.
So when something goes wrong in my life, like car trouble, or losing my job, I go spinning into a state of panic first of all, and a feeling of helplessness shortly follows. The helplessness doesn't really reflect who I am these days, but harks back to being a helpless child in a world with abusive adults calling all the shots.
When I'm in the stage where I'm feeling helpless, the entire weight of it all falls onto me--the weight of living in an evil world that has no good to offer anyone, especially me. I have to run and hide, if only for an hour. Sometimes I actually go to bed and pull the covers over my head--which strikes me as pretty pitiful, as it never worked then, they plucked me from my bed routinely--but I still do it. Somehow, thinking the worst makes me feel better. Nothing's going to sneak by under my radar.
Then I get up and figure out how I'm going to deal with the situation, and do whatever I have to do.
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