The art of disassociation.
Over the last few weeks, as my work life has become balanced, I have started to feel more human, albeit stressed at the prospect of unemployment. But in the last couple of days as my joie du vie has returned so have pangs of loss and grief (timed with Father’s Day probably doesn’t help, as Lola is more withdrawn, she reports it has exacerbated her nightmares).
In the frenzy of the day to day, I face the obstacles as they hit me - I don’t normally have time to think. I become naturally affected when one of them talks about abuse, but it has to be compartmentalised and filed away so I can continue with the obstacle course that is my normal day.
‘As I stop dissociating with work (albeit replacing with job hunting), the realities of what we have lost have hit me.’
But this means I am now really seeing the days when Lola struggles to emerge from her room (although funnily enough not at the weekends when about 15 friends seem to descend on our house and requests for the burst alcohol balls from Lidl) and how she is living. I realise how Coco and I have lost her over the last 2 years, and whilst that is a normal part of teen life, to feel like you are losing them, there have been many days when she struggles to emerge - maybe when she needs a new vape or chocolate and we miss her ‘dick-ish’ behaviour.
I hang on to the fact that she chose trauma therapy, and it is going to take time, but it is still hard to bear. Her sertraline dosage has increased, and with it her face when she does emerge on good days is notably different, fleeting moments of the old her.
‘What the world doesn’t see’.
But this is what the world doesn’t see, the long term chronic debilitation that haunting memories of the abuse brings. She is bringing to life her PTSD through her Art GCSE, all of her chosen works are dark, pencil drawings of women screaming, annotated with notes talking of a lack of agency and control, being trapped in one’s head the worst punishment of all.
The weight of it is almost too much to bear, I let myself touch it and then move on. I have learnt not to bat it completely to the darks of my mind but I also know I can’t comprehend it fully. Some days when I try to get her to school, when she talks about what is happening in her mind I feel the overwhelming rage, a desire to leave the house and escape these feelings. But I don’t. I won’t. I will always stand by their sides and feel their pain.
‘Co-morbidity between ADHD and CPTSD’
So I got to thinking, the art of disassociation. I do it so well, function, appear normal but not when it becomes too much. I consider my ADHD ability to hyper-focus, and how that hyper-focus translates to trauma disassociation. I know there is co-morbidity between CPTSD and ADHD, so I wonder at the link. I don’t consider myself burdened with CPTSD - I did slay it - but some of the latent effects are now practiced for me - disassociation being one of them.
We are our normal, I will make sure they have a future, however hard it is to get support from the School who have made matters 100x worse with their lack of understanding or empathy (that is really an understatement). And I remember that Lola chose to do trauma therapy now, she chose because she doesn’t want to live like this, she wants to truly LIVE. She also decided to do it because she has seen my strength but also my failings. She saw me hit rock bottom (even though I hid so much which I could do when they were younger), but she also saw me fight. And I know this is why she is facing this now, because she has seen me fall, fail but the grit and determination to get myself back.
If this is you, if you are at the Lola stage of therapy in the midst of it all, or like me supporting children who are doing so, just be kind to yourselves and trust that you will recover XOXO.
