| I can feel my anxiety rising. Happy and I came home from our Oscar party high—to all our shit packed and shoved together in the middle of the floor. My mind went back to being evicted multiple times in my childhood. Furniture sat on the curb while neighbor’s jeered and snarled at our shame.
I remember putting our clothes in trash bags to protect them from the rain.
I wonder, in my heart of hearts, if the fatigue isn’t so much PTSD as it is experiencing the sheer exhaustion of staying alive FINALLY catching up with me.
We start shooting the footage for my upcoming Amazon Prime Docu-Series. The irony of the timing is mind-blowing.
Happy and I have a place to stay while the demolition crew guts various walls in our home and patch’s them up to heal the water damaged.
My balance is off.
Happy has been vomiting.
I get dizzy, teary and on edge with the break-in routine.
And just like Happy, I get nauseous too.
I dry heave because I forget to eat sometimes. And I’m eating whatever I can get to that comforts me.
Including McDonald’s.
Comfort food is real.
I’m clear I’m triggered.
Low grade triggered.
But triggered nonetheless.
I’ve been surrendering to living an empowered life with PTSD, Anxiety Disorder, dyslectic, being on the Autism Spectrum—aka: being legally handicap. I’m not upset or ashamed. I’m learning how to language my need for certainty, soup-to-nuts communication, and consistency.
I realize I’m wired in such a way that I live in the literal. Most people live in the figurative. I, literally, do what I say. Most people don’t. And the unspoken, assumptive social agreement is “good enough” or “it got done.”
My brain will not compute it if it’s not done like agreed upon.
My ears won’t hear it no matter how loud you say it or how many times you say it to me.
My eyes will read the words but the logic will not register.
It feels like a gaping hole, a chasm between me and the rest of the world. I keep free-falling into the chasm. I can see myself falling feet overhead over and over again and I land in a heap of ragged bone and raspy breath in my body, sitting on the corner of Monument Street and Chase Street being splashed by careless cars driving in the rain.
I try to speak but I have no words.
I’m learning how to ask people to give me a context before giving me data. And also to label a communication so I know where to put it in my mind. The more consistent things are, the less I stress. The familiar comforts me.
So Happy and I are sleeping in our bed tonight and perhaps tomorrow night before the walls are torn down. It’s comforting to be in my bed, scented with lavender water to soothe both Happy and I. I am proud of me for how I handled the surprise of having all my sh*t packed and pushed to the middle of the living room as if waiting for a crew of rugged-looking motherf&ckers to toss all of my belongings out the window.
I simply handled it.
I talked with the manager, went and got dinner with Happy, came back, checked out the suite and then spoke again to the manager to inform her Happy will be staying in our home until we have to move out.
Being home stabilizes us.
So Happy’s already asleep on his favorite pillow (that he cooped from me!) and I’m
starting to nod off. It’s been a fruitful and eventful week. I’m building internal systems to honor me and love me just as I am. I’m becoming masterful at taking excellent care of me (and Happy.) And for this self-efficacy and self-reliance, I am profoundly grateful.
Thanks for witnessing…
Dr. Venus & Happy.
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