I have been thinking a lot about how much change we have gone through in the last six months. Everything from being stuck in quarantine to changing how we handle school, work, finances, social lives, grocery shopping and even going to church. All of these normal routines that we all had down to science and a routine were all of a sudden, gone, in a poof.
As a trauma survivor, my instinct is to run. Run from the people who scare me, run from the people that love me, run from the problems that plague me. Being a survivor of sexual trauma has me wanting to run away from myself sometimes. Who am I kidding? A lot of the time! So when COVID-19 arrived and shit hit the fan, my instinct was to flee from it.
Luckily for me, the place I prefer to escape to, usually, is my room. It’s safe there. I have control there. It’s mine. However, like anyone, after about three days, my room shifted from a place of safety, to more of a prison. While I am very introverted, I was also quarantined with my family: my mom, dad and sister. I knew from the moment our governor declared lock-down that my emotional state could end up in jeopardy… only for the most part… I was actually okay.
Has that ever happened to you? Where you expect one thing from yourself, but the total opposite happens? That was me.
While I was getting antsy and wanted to leave my home, I was doing okay in quarantine. In fact, while the world around me was panicking and worried and anxious, I seemed to be thriving. How? Why? I spent days trying to figure that out.
There are two types of trauma survivors that I have personally encountered. One, someone who may have been targeted through their routine and now prefers to not have any specific routine. The second (which I identify with) are those who practically worship their routine. And when that routine gets disrupted in any capacity, big or small, it feels like the world is on fire, crumbling to ash while letting the smoke slowly strangle you to death. I imagine that is the mindset that COVID-19 forced upon many. Usually, that is how I react to changes in my routine. If I made plans and someone cancelled, that spare time that I now gained has me in all kinds of discomfort. If we changed the location of a meeting, or a time, it makes me rethink my whole day, sometimes more than that. Because one change has all kinds of effects. When changes and transitions happen in the life of a healing trauma survivor, it can take a toll, making you feel like the only control you had in your day was suddenly ripped from your fingertips. It almost feels like the universe’s way of laughing at you, daring you to try and develop a controlled daily routine, only for it to be snatched away as the punchline of some cruel joke.
What’s even more weird, is that it almost felt like I developed a routine that gets put in motion when things do not go as planned… but what did COVID-19 do? It threw me for a whole other kind of loop… I had never felt better.
Living in a world of constant anxiety and a label as powerful as PTSD, every little thing has a potential of setting me off. It kind of sucks. However, when COVID started throwing all of these big things at us like global shutdowns and telling people to stay home… I felt comfortable as everyone around developed anxiety and fears of the outside world. Do I sound crazy yet? If not, keep reading.
Being the single resident of my lonely, anxious, traumatized world was exhausting. Having to explain myself over and over again for the things I did was boring, repetitive and annoying to myself and to others from what I could sense. When people started getting anxious and reacting in fear to the virus, I no longer felt like a single lonely resident anymore. I had neighbors! I had friends! I had people who were living in a constant state of anxiety and flux just like me. In the words of Taylor Swift “It’s nice to have a friend.”
Since I wasn’t feeling so lonely anymore, I felt empowered. I felt calm. I could sleep. I could eat. I could relax. I cannot remember a time when I could do all of these things or feel all of these things as frequently as I have in the last six or seven months. Don’t get me wrong, 2020 has been pretty crappy thus far, but having people understand what it’s like to live inside my head, even if they don’t realize it, gives me such relief, a breath of fresh air that I had never before experienced.
Transitions are hard for everyone. I am well aware. Routines are often what get survivors of trauma through their week, and with that all gone, we have to find ways to restructure our lives, our realities, our routines. Then we will have to do that all over again probably a few times as we move forward… talk about exhausting. Hang in there! The beauty is that we are all learning how to change and adapt, and what a great time to be having conversations with people about a situation that we can all meet each other at from some perspective.
Flourishing With PTSD 