Am I overthinking this?
Content advisory: This post contains mention of harassment and child abuse.
I ask myself this almost every day. I've mentioned that I'm a trauma survivor, and as such, I've thrown my brain wide open to sensory stimuli in the hope that maybe - if I'm paying attention hard enough - I can prevent myself from getting hurt again.
No matter how many times I tell people about the punctuation marks of my childhood - the corporal punishment, the time I was forced to sleep with the trash in my bed because I'd forgotten to do my chores - maybe I'll feel justified in feeling hurt. The silent, and sometimes not silent, what the fuck reactions are a momentary salve.
I remember my stepdad throwing my brother up against the wall and growling in his face: "I'm not yelling at you. I've only raised my voice. Do you want me to yell at you?" He used a similar technique on our Lab-Great Dane mix: grab it by the throat, growl at it, show it you're the bigger dog, and maybe it won't bite. Do it where the other dog (er, child) will see, and maybe they won't bite either.
While I'm writing this, I can almost hear my mother saying, "Oh my god, Shelby, it wasn't so bad. Quit being a drama queen."
What the fuck.
So that's where it all started, I guess. I threw the door open, kept my eyes and ears peeled. As I've alluded to before, that vigilance didn't keep me safe. So I listened and watched harder. Hyperawareness and hypervigilance. If I have all of the information, I can predict all of the outcomes, and I can then prepare for all of them... right?
It makes me a great scholar and a great data analyst. Hyperawareness, hypervigilance, and the lens of weapons-grade autism make for conclusions of the kind that many people would never dream of. It's amazing when it's something people want me to do. But what if it's turned on others, unsolicited and uncompensated? Yeah, you can see where I'm going with this.
My Co-Star horoscope recently told me, "Your colleagues may view your directness as aggression when you're simply cutting through noise to find solutions." This made me wince. Granted, Co-Star also tells me that I'm constantly on the cusp of hot, passionate, intense romance, and we all know how that's going. So... yeah. But the point remains: I think that I'm finding the truth among the chaff. However, people seem to like efficiency more when it comes from amorphous authority, not from a twitchy middle-aged dyke with a caffeine habit who juggles five work flows while absorbing everything they can.
One thing I am not, though, is impulsive. I've learned the dangers of impulsive. And a few weeks ago, after almost nine months of observation, I filed a complaint at work that got someone fired. Even as I hit send on that email, even as "Free Bird" spontaneously played on the radio, I wondered, "Am I overthinking this? Maybe it's not so bad."
Then I remember that suicide prevention is focused on the distressed, not those inflicting the wounds. You can't stop every harm from occurring. Teenage me couldn't, standing frozen as I looked up the stairs at my dad pinning my brother to the wall and snarling in his face. But, looking at who I am now, I know to trust my gut... even if my brain doesn't.
If you are a survivor of sexual assault and need a compassionate ear, please visit rainn.org for free, confidential resources.
If you are in the United States and are in a mental health crisis, please consider calling 988.
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