Death on August 12th

Tauma that all came rushing back on one of another traumatic days in my life. It’s the day that I will now forever remember as not only my dads death but the day I saw it with my own eyes my husband was in fact cheating on me. Betrayal trauma makes you feel like you are losing your mind. Complete and utterly crazy and unless you have lived this crazy and I hoping you haven’t you can never truly explain it to anyone. It puts you on an emotional tailspin and pulls you in opposite directions until you are begging for mercy. This night I did just that begged for mercy from the man who had taken something special and tossed it aside like garbage. It yanks your sense of security out from under you and puts you in a state of emotional free fall. Fall I did from this day on August 12th is a day I have a hard time talking about. Breathe knocked from me. Betrayal Trauma, It is severely emotionally destruction, and until you have experienced it, you really can’t imagine how truly life-altering the experience can be.

This day Life altering once in 2002 and again in 2018. Death it was the death of my dad and then the death of me. 

From this moment on let me describe my mental state when it wasn’t wishing for death, praying for death it was all of this. My brain couldn’t and wouldn’t operate the same.  Fear that was a constant every waking moment sleepless nights, zombie days. Restlessness, anxiety and in constant guard not to mention the sadness. I couldn’t regulate my moods it was shock, disbelief, anger, devastation, I had been given exercises in therapy to help calm me along with medication to help with sleep and make me a zombie and I prefered that, the zombie compared to the having to feel a single bit of it. My heart hurt like physically hurt inside my body. I couldn’t reason with myself or make any intelligent decisions.  FEAR was at the center hijacking any normal function I had left. Every single task felt like the most challenging thing and I cried non stop. I was completely out of control. I was stretched to the limits and this was it the moment I died as I watched him walk out of that house with someone else and get in the car I text him immediately after and he responded. “You need to stop.” As if I don’t deserve a single answer no closure just trash that’s what I was to him trash. CPTSD ALSO CALLED CDMD betrayal trauma. All fancy words I have learned from the hours and $ spend on many therapists. Some excellent and some well not a great fit for me. 

What’s it like to be betrayed by a significant other,one that you admired and loved?

I now share this August 12th date of death. This traumatic stressor that was now premeditated, planned, and caused by another. My husband. This isn’t just a call he went on, an accident he handled this was a thought out planned meeting at his brother and sister inlaws house a block from my house. A violation of my marriage detrimental to my soul.  

Complex trauma is applied to adults who have experienced chronic relational trauma (for instance, ongoing sexual and emotional betrayal) that destroys the foundational trust in their primary relationship. In such cases, complex trauma theory accurately summarizes the levels of stress, distress, and emotional fragmentation that betrayed partners experience. This article was given to my by my therapist when I said you know I just don’t understand. Yep still trying to understand it all. 

That night, the wee hours of August 12th.

 information that had been given to me in text, phone calls and a manila envelope left on my car that left me sobbing and dry heaving in the shower. His words written to her in a sexually explicit email. The information I had now just seen with my own eyes. I couldn’t defend the rumor or him any longer or it would be me that was lying. As I watched my body got hot I started internally shaking, my knees buckled under me, my heart was racing, the thoughts were coming so fast I couldn’t even process them but I could not deny what I had seen and I was devestated. I was devestated for me and also my child that witnessed the same thing hours earlier. The shower of lies pouring out. Then I was cold and shaking and the panick attack, the spinning of the room my lungs trying to breath and I was lying on the side of the road waiting for it to end so I could go home. Tears that I had no idea a person could cry that many. One of the things I have learned in therapy is that feelings and emotions you feel in the body before they ever register in the mind. The body and all the magical things it will do like gearing up for the threat with adrenaline and cortisol. Fight, flight or shut down. Lucky for me mine would choose the panick attack as it’s mechanisam and shut right down.  

From this night on I lived in a emotional mess. It was the repeated discovery of the life I knew little to nothing about the LIES that kept me in that min by min day by day and month upon month.

The emotional rollercoaster that I wish I could just get off of. 

Difficulty concentrating, remembering, staying present. That a rough one for me. 

The body keeps the score (therapy homework assignment) indeed! Body based pain and discomfort like my heart that felt like I was being crushed the pain deep in my chest. 

Survival how is it that one survives the unfavorable, unfair, unjust? 

I thought of this many times in the last 2 years and all unfairness of the world has amplified a million times since this day 18 years ago. The cancer that would steal my dad away the day I share with THIS NEW TRAUMA. You may hear it the gossip the rumors but when you see it with your own eyes it something entirely different so this day August 12th isn’t just the day I would lose my dad. It is also a trauma that is trapped deep inside me.  He hadn’t left to “fix himself” it had all been a lie. August 12th the day of death! The death of me, the death of love the death of life. 

  Never in my wildest dreams did I think you would be one of the things I would have to survive. The trauma you caused has impacted my life in ways some can’t understand half the time I can’t understand it. 

Fragments of this date that have hit my heart and my mind has trouble with this autopilot of survival. 

Words I wish I never heard, words I wish I could never know. Heartbreak, gaslighting, betrayal trauma, co-dependent, reactive abuse, affair, DSM5, EMDR, triangulation, triggers, manipulation, all the fancy therapy words. 

I feel emotionally, mentally and even spiritually exhausted . It is far more than simple heartbreak. Somewhere in there I still try and find understanding. This isn’t a simple heartbreak it so much worse because it’s always haunting. A scar that no matter what your heart can’t recover.  

What’s even more heartbreaking is that friends and family suspected what was going on, and while they were ready to defend me, I was always trying to defend you. Defend because I loved and defend because I thought there was an ounce of tenderness left. 

Unfortunately, I was horribly mistaken, and no it came with no guide to overcome the damage that was caused. The tall mountain left to climb, I keep climbing because eventually I have to arrive or so I think! August 12 I am just going to try and survive the horrible memory of you.