It’s invasive

So I have been struggling trying to write this most recent post: At first, I wanted to share how wonderful my therapist is: I’ve decided to call him “Kavi”-it’s Sanskrit for “sage” or “poet”- and I wanted to include the letter I had written to his boss in full…but that seemed like a bit much…

And then I wanted to touch on a trigger I met in the last two weeks: And while I did have a momentary reaction to it, it didn’t affect me in quite the same way the other triggers have hit. Which is good, I suppose; it could mean I’ve become adept at handling them-jury’s out on that. It didn’t feel big at the time, but when I started thinking about it, I understood why it hit.

See, while golfing on opening day, another group hit an errant shot that came far too close to us for our liking. Kevin being Kevin, yelled “ow” facetiously, though it took me a moment to realize he was absolutely fine as I was not looking his way at that moment. As I was thinking about my reaction to it-panic and feal I felt- I realized it was a trauma response to last time I thought Kevin was “fine” and wound up facing his mortality.

Any thought of Kevin injured or in pain does not sit well with me.

There is a direct correlation to that, and my dark days; the thoughts, the fears, and the pain that came with them.

Not a fan. Do not recommend.

So I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to say, how to say it, what I wanted to touch on and I’m still not sure, to be honest. Some days I feel like me, most I would argue. And some days are just…meh.

I also think the reason that I’m having a hard time settling on or sticking to particular topic is because I feel like that little bit of panic is pulling at different pieces of me. It’s invasive.

It’s also a cognitive distortion-I know this-I know Kevin is fine, he’s okay, he’s here with me; I know it’s unreasonable to fear his pain; I know he can have an injury AND be absolutely fine; and I know, I KNOW, that feeling that panic is perfectly normal for what we survived.

I am seeing “Kavi” tomorrow, time for my regularly scheduled sanity session. I know he’ll guide me as he always does when I can’t settle my thoughts…and that’s one thing about these little moments of panic, or even the larger ones, that feels debilitating: I hate how they pull at the pieces of me; how they pull my thoughts to darker corners, to what if’s and could have been’s; how they flitter to “I can’t imagine” and “you were so lucky” (I still hate those phrases, by the way); I hate how those thoughts steal my focus, how they steal the light; I hate how they interrupt my sleep. And I hate how easily it happens.

I’ll keep going though: keep writing, keep breaking through the minutes, and keep leaning into Kevin. I’ll find a way to reclaim those pieces of me again. I always do.