If you have walked with or followed this journey of mine in any way, you know that anxiety is a family member and you are inevitably aware that it is, once again, December...
My therapist, Jay, asked me last session how I was handling my December extra-anxiety. I told her that I actually felt much better than past yule-times and that I was proud of myself. I then went on telling her about scheduling physicals, how I was worried about Nick getting diabetes in the future, and that I check my kids' temperature and breathing on a regular basis. Ok, so maybe not, "much better". Thank God I can have a chuckle about it, because living with it is honestly exhausting.
Jay gave me some homework and asked me to dig really deep to try and identify the first time I had the dreaded feeling. The racing heart, the pitted stomach, the feeling of being startled without provocation. I immediately went to the room. That cold hospital conference room where the doctor said, "There was nothing else I could do." Even as that memory gut-punches me to this day, that was not the first time. I went back a little further. High school? Even though every thought about decisions and choices I made in high school currently give me anxiety (because I have a children), that's not it either. I keep digging. I was 12, we were on a family vacation in Emerald Isle North Carolina. Something terrible happened to me there, and though that event indefinitely had a hand in shaping who I am today, it still was not the root of my anxiety.
There are many inspirational quotes about roots and trees with one common denominator: roots are deep and steadfast and taproots are almost impossible to remove. When a root so deep is damaged, it endangers the life of the tree. I went far enough down to find where my root was harmed. And it was a place I haven't visited for a long time.
The garage door on St. Charles- this is my root. It was slow, loud, and horribly foreshadowing every time it opened. It meant our step-dad was home. The husband my mom was blindsided into marrying. Have you seen, "Dirty John"? Well that doesn't even come close. Jaim and I would come home from school and do everything humanly possible in the, "main" part of the house so that when that sound took our breath away like a belly-flop gone wrong, we knew we could spend the rest of the night in our rooms, if need be. We gorged food, she helped me with homework, we watched Guiding Light, we talked, and then....we waited.
Some days he would come home and go right to the basement to his computer. We could smell the cigarette smoke wafting up the stairs and we knew that if we were silent and tip-toed, we could mill about the kitchen or even sit on the porch and wait for mom when the weather permitted. Other days he came home mad. The cigarette would already be burning, hanging from his lower lip and stuck there like the tiniest bit of super glue was holding in place. He stomped and slammed cabinets to give us our warning. If we stayed in our rooms, we could be ok, but if we didn't shut and lock it fast enough, one of us was going to pay for his bad day.
I asked my sister before writing this if she minded that I now release this pain into the atmosphere. We have buried this truth for decades. And just like a quote in the book I am reading now, "Bygones can be like collard greens, they become bitter if you keep them in your mouth too long", my fear is that I continue to vandalize the root instead of nursing it to health.
For the sake of repairing the root that my mother invested her life in fostering, Jaim's root, and my root, I share. On behalf of healing and one day maybe, just maybe saying goodbye to anxiety once and for all, I share. For someone who is struggling with their own damaged root, and for those whose roots are being damaged in real time, I share. You are not alone.
Although it is, in my case, the emotional abuse that resonates with me more, the pictures I conjure of my sister throwing herself over me to protect me from any blows intended for me, start my heart racing all over again. The invasion of privacies and the gross overbearing misuse of power are all right there at the root. The little details of his abuse are not as pertinent as what the abuse turned us into. Hungry. Hungry for love, hungry for attention, missing our mom who would stay locked in the basement or bedroom with him, while he told her how horrible she was and what terrible children she had. She stayed in those rooms, because when he was at his worst with her....she knew she was protecting us from him.
One day my mom stayed home from work. She NEVER missed work. When J and I got home, he wasn't home yet. She told us that we were leaving. She had bought a townhouse and that we were not going to school tomorrow. There was no shock on our faces, we grabbed hands and jumped for joy. I was 15, my sister almost 18. My mom said, "We need to be fast, and we need to be quiet. We are the Three Musketeers and nothing will ever break us again." The nexts day, as the man whom we would never mention in our house again was at a golf tournament, we moved our entire lives into that new home. We had no furniture. We shared a makeshift bed of comforters on the living room floor those first few nights. But we had it all. We had each other. We had everything.
I guess this is just about as good an ending as you can have in a story like this, however the, "everything"in that last sentence, included anxiety as our new family member. And though we never said we were now the "4 Musketeers", we were never quite the same either.
So there it is. That's my root. The day my evil twin Anxiety was born. And though my, December Anxiety is strong with me, like the force... I also carry pride, joy, hope, faith, and love. I am proud of my mom. I am proud of my sister and I and our resilience (with some hiccups along the way ;-) ). I have so much joy and love in my family and with my friends that I often feel unworthy of such abundance. Even at the darkest moments of my life, I had faith. I knew God was with me, he has never left me, and continues to carry me this very day.
I will sign off tonight with hope. Hope that my story may begin the healing process for whatever part of your, "root" that is damaged. Hope that you know things that happen to you, do not define you.
ps. I love you, J. You have, "saved" me so many times and in so many ways. I was not your gift, you are mine. XO
