"Hyper Vigilant".
I use to call that being super on it, but lately it seems more of a hindrance than a good quality. Being on it all the time is exhausting. I'm fairly certain I've spent so many years of my life making sure that there was NOTHING someone could throw in my face, that I always stayed not one, but fifty, steps ahead of everyone. I run conversations and situations over a hundred different ways in my head, come up with answers to questions that haven't yet been asked, and then weigh the possible reactions in my brain. If I want to accomplish something, I run through all the road blocks (and the solutions to them) in my head over and over again until I find the perfect path - and then I do it. If I encounter a problem in my test runs, I solve the problem every possible way in my brain and then pick the best real life scenario. I expect people to get mad at me (even when I have done nothing wrong) and figure out the best way to go through life making the least number of people upset. I see scenarios in my brain before they become scenarios in real life. My brain loves to solve puzzles - and it's good at it.
What I never understood, until now, is that it's all part of "trauma brain".
To be clear, I hate the term "trauma brain". It suggests that I've been through something tragic, and the concept of that is bizarre for me to grasp and I don't particularly like it. I am not a victim and I don't like to consider myself one. My brain use to put 'victims' into a group of people who had things happen to them and did nothing about it, therefore sitting in this bubble of victimization rather than moving forward, but being a victim of something doesn't mean that you are victimizing yourself. It means you've been through hard stuff that affects your life, and you are a warrior for pushing through that junk to function in normal day life.
When you've been in an abusive relationship (be it by parents, friends, a spouse or a total stranger), apparently it's pretty normal to run through scenarios in your brain because you're always trying to stay one step (or in my case fifty steps) ahead of the situation in order to prevent conflict, and more specifically, abuse.
I'm pretty good at it. As an athlete, I was trained to run through courses in my mind before entering into an arena. I visualized every jump and turn. Every possible scenario. At competitions, I completed my course 100 times before ever actually stepping into an arena. I used my brain to my advantage in my sport. I've had a lot of practice, and as I grew up and encountered bad situations and bad relationships, I applied my ability to visualize a course to those. I learned that if I ran through things in my mind before they happened, I could avoid situations I didn't want to be in. I run the scenario, match it with way too much logic, everything I know about the person and my relationship with them, and then I pick the most likely path. I make an educated guess on what someones reaction will be, and then I fix it before it happens. It's like living in the future to prevent the inevitable.
AND I AM EXHAUSTED FROM IT.
I am so tired of doing the right thing for a parent, friend, or spouse. I'm tired of picking the path someone else wants me to walk in order to prevent the argument or the scolding that happens when someone disapproves of the life I'm leading or the choices I am making for myself. I'm tired of people assuming I'm doing it wrong because it may not be the picture they painted for me. I'm tired.
It's been almost two years since I filed for a divorce and almost four years since my dad died. I've been to therapy probably over 150 times in the last two years (every week plus twice a week for several months), and I think I just hit a point in my life where I realized that I am just too tired to care what anyone thinks of my decisions, and too tired to be so worried about what kind of chain reaction my actions are going to set off. Let's be serious. I don't make the world spin. I am just not that important. If I mess up.... The world is likely going to keep on spinning and everyone is going to be just fine.
Do I have a daughter? Yes. Would I EVER make a decision that wasn't in her best interest? Absolutely not. She is my world. But as a mother, do I have to perform the way that everyone wants me to? Absolutely not, and doing so does my daughter an injustice, because it doesn't teach her to LIVE.
I think about Grace so often, and give it to so many people because I was taught to love unconditionally, wholeheartedly, and selflessly, and yet I give myself literally none. I demand perfection from myself at all times, and let everyone around me mess up a million times over. And I apologize. For everything.
But do you want to know the most frustrating thing about it? I am 100% aware of all of these things, and yet, it is literally WORK to make myself not obsess over whether or not my last text to someone is going to make or break a situation, I have an illegitimate (or sometimes legitimate) fear over if my entire relationship or friendship with someone is going to crumble because of something I said, or didn't say.
NEWS FLASH: If your relationship can crumble because of something so small - if calling at the wrong time, or not calling at the right time, or saying the wrong thing, or saying nothing at all, if focusing on yourself for a minute because that is what you need instead of being available for a friend, if pausing a situation because you need to focus on yourself in order to make yourself whole to serve your friends - ends a relationship permanently... That relationship isn't worth your time to begin with.
I know, in my logical brain, that relationships worth my time are the ones that go through hell, come back together, communicate, talk about it, and come out stronger on the other side.
Relationships are nothing if they don't carry with them communication, forgiveness, and GRACE.
I want my daughter to know this. I want her to see it in practice because children learn best by demonstration. I want her to know the difference between someone taking care of themselves in order to take care of her, and someone being selfish in nature - and there is a difference. But she will struggle to learn these things if I don't demonstrate them. Most importantly, I want her to know that if a relationship causes her emotional distress, or if she fears someones reaction to her actions when she has good intention, that she is allowed to walk away from that relationship, because she is allowed to value her heart. I also want her to know that she is allows to make decisions for her own life, regardless of what other people think she should be doing and regardless of other peoples reactions to those decisions. I want her to know it is OK to always be true to herself, because she is important.
She will only know this if she sees it, and so every day, because I love her, I start with me.