Dear “Mom” & “Dad”
I am certain that words cannot express what I intend to convey. Nevertheless, I am compelled to tell you a portion of my strange story.
When you and I first met, R and I had been separated for four months. I had recently – exactly a month earlier – returned home after five weeks in Washington – treatment for, what I suspected was, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
On a hunch, and with the encouragement of R and my sister I investigated centers that specialized in the treatment of CPTSD and survivors of relational trauma. The idea of intensive treatment had come up a year earlier just a few weeks after my grandfather’s death when I confronted several intense and traumatic memories of physical, emotional and psychological abuse.
I broached the topic of inpatient treatment again during a session R and I were having with a close friend and neighbor, a trained psychologist who’d been graciously serving as our fourth couple’s therapist. I was exhausted, emotional, ashamed, embarrassed and yet – somehow– still hopeful that we could turn things around.
Deciding on a center just outside of Seattle, I elected to take a leave of absence from work, interviewed with the intake coordinator, submitted the requisite paperwork and charged $10,000 to two separate credit cards.
Within two days of arriving in the posh PNW bedroom community, complex PTSD and panic disorder were added to a health history of thyroid cancer, generalized anxiety and clinical depression.
I had been struggling my entire life (for good reason, so I was discovering!). The wheels finally came off in August of 2022.
The decline was precipitated by two significant and simultaneous shifts in a job that I’d recently begun after a decade and a half of raising my children, supporting R’s career and running our home and our lives; putting my ever-anxious, over-controlled, hyper-aroused limbic system to good use.
A beloved supervisor, Sarah, who had recruited and mentored me, accepted a position at another institution just two months after I started. Coincidentally, on her last day, our entire department was displaced from our offices to work remotely for an undetermined amount of time.
For fifteen years, I had been a full-time mother but now I was living separately from my children. I was recovering from two achey, feverish weeks alone and in bed with Covid. My capacity (emotionally, physically, mentally, empathically, logistically and intellectually) was at a minimum.
No longer able to withstand R’s tirades about my abusive behavior, acknowledging that living separately was better for us all, I rented a shitty apartment for one week, tearfully explained the situation to the kids and white-knuckled my way through the next several hours.
I spent time “working” from an awful apartment with white walls and my own traumatic memories and a self-hating inner-voice for company.
Walking to the grocery store the first day, I saw a close friend walking ahead of me. Without conscious thought, I ducked into a drug store and feigned interest in razors as I watched her walk by, confused, wondering what I was hiding from.
I know now that I was hiding from the truth; embarrassed of the failure, unable to admit my marriage had ended long ago.
I was certain these things were happening to me and my family because I didn’t deserve happiness, that I, alone, had caused the suffering around me.
August ALSO happened to be the one year anniversary of my grandfather’s complicated, traumatic, abrupt death. The year had NOT been kind. It had been six months since my father-in-law suddenly and traumatically died of the same cancer that I’d “beaten” just a few years earlier.
My father-in-law and I disagreed politically and religiously but we had both worked hard on our relationship and I’d earned a role as a member of their family, I was honored to share their last name. In fact, R’s parents and family have been a key part of my healing journey.
We are all flawed and my father-in-law was NO EXCEPTION but by simply being himself, loving me unconditionally, sharing the love of his family, over the course of two decades, I was able to convince myself that I was, loveable.
It had been a couple years since I’d seen Papa but I had been writing letters to him daily. We spoke on the phone and traded voicemail messages until a nurse found him in his apartment, tested him for Covid, and helped to load him into an ambulance.
Although it hasn’t been publicly, or even privately, acknowledged, my grandfather’s death was a heinous crime. My parents were his primary caregivers; they exposed him to the Covid-19 virus, then left him to die.
My father, a sociopath with a sustained history of relational, emotional and physical abuse had sufficient motive. I had written a letter, in fact, just a few weeks prior to my grandfather’s death, urging him to be wary of my father, never to be alone with him, to reach out to me or my uncle with any concerns.
Papa’s death FORCED me to investigate the details of an abusive past that I’d lived but had not fully understood. When I look back at the circumstances, its no wonder that after that week on my own, I wasn’t able to pull myself out of an emotional tailspin.
Looking at the “timeline” of my life, it’s no wonder that I checked myself into a hospital in September of 2022. I was ready to treat symptoms that no one in my family – including myself – were willing to ignore any longer.
It was the beginning of a new school year and I was leaving my husband and teenage children to establish daily and weekly routines without my hyper-aroused, over-functioning frontal lobe.
Three time zones and nearly 3,000 miles away from the people that I had been living for, I was terrified by the memories I’d uncover, the feelings that I’d FEEL! . . . ESPECIALLY if encouraged to.
In the end, my time in Washington, all though not a cure-all, was very well spent. I ate well and exercised. I entered my own body several moments at a time. I attended individual therapy three times each week; spent time alone and with important new friends, incredible fellow survivors. I sat in the sauna, listened to memoirs written by incredible women, and reconnected – over the phone and in-person – with friends I hadn’t seen in decades. I found a magical combination of safety and structure and, I – against all odds – fell in love with myself.
I returned home to R and the kids with a wholly different perspective of my own life and a new appreciation for the treacherous path I’d walked. I returned to my family KNOWING that CPTSD would be with me forever, that it had wreaked havoc on my marriage, scared my children and nearly defeated me more times than I could count.
Most importantly, I was willing to forgive myself for it all. I was FAAAR from perfect but I am a SURVIVOR. It hasn’t been easy or quick but I have begun the arduous, uphill journey towards self-acceptance and your cozy apartment was precisely what I needed to continue the work I’d begun in earnest.
I spent hours soaking and stretching in your clawfoot tub. I befriended the other long-term renter, smelled her cooking, saw her clothes on the line, could hear her footsteps above me when I flipped my laundry.
I saw you coming or going and you effortlessly checked in to see how I was doing, whether I needed anything. I understood that a life-line was there should I need it.
Your actions likely seem insignificant; this letter, superfluous. Afterall, you weren’t doing anything other than being yourselves, caretaking so naturally that I’m sure you took little notice.
By just being yourselves, you offered precisely what was needed. In your space, under your care, I was both held and free and for that I will always and forever be grateful for your grace and kindness.
Love,
envd
*carpe diem*
Collecting Pieces of Me 