The concept isn’t a foreign one: push someone far enough and even the meekest can snap. In fact, I think there’s a TV show called “snapped” that talks about the phenomenon. You’ve heard people say that the quiet ones are the ones to watch out for? That’s probably because by the time they’re ready to explode, the amount of pent up resentment and hostility becomes some kind of unraveling you could never see coming. A Tasmanian Devil of payback.
While no one on earth would call me “a quiet one” and the step I finally took over my threshold of tolerance wasn’t into murder, this is still something that happened to me and changed just about everything.
I wish it hadn’t happened.
Not because I regret anything since. Not because I’m sad about where I landed.
I wish it hadn’t happened because since that day, it’s never really stopped happening. I wish it hadn’t happened because it rewired my nervous system. I wish it hadn’t happened because I found out I have some darkness in me I’m very uncomfortable with.
The exact circumstances aren’t really relevant to my experience. There are a few things that had combined to create the perfect storm in me. I had spent a number of hours trying to have my point of view heard. I had spent a number of hours feeling like everything I said was being twisted and misinterpreted. I had been yelled at. I had made someone unhappy by doing what I thought was right.
None of these were extraordinary circumstances, mind you, but there was one thing I can point to that tipped the scales. I was robbed of my autonomy.
There was control all the time but it was veiled. It was passive. It was enforced in roundabout ways and never overt. This is how most of it worked. It was done in such a way that if I called it out I was told I imagined it. Things were implied and I was often punished or treated poorly but in the kind of behaviour I couldn’t exactly define.
The way I was treated was covert enough to not even be sure it was real. I definitely didn’t want to believe it was. Someone who loved me wouldn’t control me, so… Yeah it was all in my head.
Right?
This one was different. It was black and white. I was physically prevented from doing two things in quick succession. One after the other. I had no control. I had no recourse. I had no voice. I had nothing left to lose.
Which makes it sound like I made a choice in the moment but what happened was far beyond a choice.
I absolutely lost my mind. I got physically violent for ten seconds and then I lost myself all over in the realization of what I’d done.
It became a new low for me in personal crisis. Screaming and writhing on the floor, I kicked and broke a bench. I tore at my hair.
I begged the police be called. I begged to be taken away. I sobbed that I was crazy, unhinged, that I’d hurt someone I loved.
I was told I was psycho.
Hear me when I say that I was.
Not under the influence of any substance. Not hiding something or trying to get a fix. I couldn’t reconcile my loss of control. I couldn’t trust myself anymore.
I never went back on that position.
The first thing I did was write a lengthy email in great detail about the incident at hand. I asked for professional help and received it.
I expressed my need for a boundary in light of this development, that discussions and conflict couldn’t occur face to face. This was nearly never honoured. It was mocked plenty but not honoured. And while I would not get physically violent again I would also never be able to regulate in heated moments after that day.
I would try enforcing my boundaries and they’d get trampled. I would repeatedly say I didn’t trust myself and didn’t feel safe and I’d be followed from one corner of the suite to another until I lay on the bed or the floor and screamed, my heartrate upwards of 120, sweating and swearing and making no sense. More than once while hyperventilating I would ask if he believed me yet, if he could trust me when I said I was no better now than I had been that day.
He stood in the doorway to the bedroom the last time I remember, watching me writhe on the floor shrieking and I remember telling him to take a good long look at the performance.
PTSD isn’t a “claim”.
PTSD is a brain injury.
What happened both to me and around me leading up to that day had such a profound impact on me it has permanently altered the way I respond to danger. The things that occurred after that day have altered my understanding of love, myself and the world around me.
Today a minor conflict skyrockets my blood pressure before I get a chance to process it. Sometimes a familiar smell is enough for my palms to sweat. There have been so many moments in the recent months where I have assertively called out bad behaviour and stood firm in some quiet sea of calm only to find my entire self lost in a panic attack twenty minutes later.
There have been NUMEROUS men in my life who have clearly created a dynamic where I am punished in one way or another for noncompliance. There have been more times than I could recall where I have been very challenging for men to get along with or not be mean to me and I took that treatment because I was just grateful for the company. Because I have always been told I am challenging.
I keep telling myself that the common denominator is me, and come to think of it, that’s likely true.
The common denominator IS me, the loudmouth. The common denominator is me, the big personality. The common denominator is me, the encyclopedia. The common denominator is me, a human being who aims to genuinely connect with other people.
The common denominator is me, making men uncomfortable.
Maybe that’s something I should lean into for once.
Leave a Reply