The shower

The fireworks last night were beautiful.

Even though we were just watching them from little bunny park. They were scattered randomly in different directions, different distances, sometimes halfway hidden behind trees.

I had been sick in bed for over a month and we hadn't been able to get out and do much recently though so it was refreshing.

Until the very end of course, when a simple sentence changed my inner peace into panicked chaos.

"I wanna take a shower before I go to work in the morning."

...

"I warned you I was damaged. I warned you my last 5 year relationship took a huge psychological toll on me. I warned you I still had a lot to work through. Or maybe I didn't, maybe this is not a PTSD response to a past traumatic event, maybe I am actually just sensing my intuition about something wrong going on..."

All these thoughts started racing to the finish line in my mind at lighting speed, over a shower.

I want to tell myself I'm crazy and just let it go... but some things I struggle greatly to release, especially when things don't add up.

Let's go back to my gaslighting ex-boyfriend who I, for unknown reasons, allowed to push me to this sad and fragile state my mind is in.

Five years we were together, it wasn't till the last year that I fully understood who he was and what he was capable of. In the past, I always loved to believe my ex husband was the worst kind of guy possible, and let me tell you he is still a close runner up... but no sir, my previous relationship really takes the cake.

Figuring out he was tampering with my food and hygiene products.

Learning I was cheated on with at least 3 other women, and no less than 20 men, repeatedly. And also, that he was never protected and contracted HIV along with 2 other STI's, me only finding out because I ended up in the ER with IBS from contracting one of the STI's... I still don't know how I got lucky enough for the HIV to miss me, but I'm grateful every day that his ignorance did not put me in that lifelong battle.

He let me go crazy to the point I was second guessing everything and felt like I was losing my mind. To the point that I felt so desperate and out of control trying to get the truth that I took a baseball bat and wrecked his car.

He finally admitted everything. Well I can't say it was everything, but it was enough.

Enough to put all the odd, red flagged pieces together to difinitively show I really was actually crazy, not because I was wrong, but because I let myself be so blind and in such denial for so long.

It validated that all those extra showers were not just because you "loved showers" but because you had other intentions.

So on a beautiful holiday night watching fireworks contently with my new boyfriend and he mentions he wants to shower the next morning as he is staying at my place for the night, and he happens to be working with someone I don't care for or trust the next day, my brain immeadiately went into panic mode and made the worst assumptions.

It was like I literally was back with my ex and I could feel all that horror again.

But my boyfriend has not given me a reason to not trust him, and I can recognize a trauma response when I feel one. Thankfully he loves me and showed patience and support as I talked through it with him.

So the best I can do is see it for what it is... a gift.

I have baggage burried in me that weighs me down, and most of it I don't even know what it is or how to see it, but it affects me every day, it affects my depression, anxiety, and my general well-being.

So to have a trauma trigger like that is actually a blessing, because it brings it to light so that I am aware of it and can actually do something to work through it so it's not just laying stagnant in my heart and body.

So thank you triggers for giving me the opportunity to clear some space, making room for new and better memories.