PTSD

Relationships are tough enough as they are.  It's no mystery why most of them fail; without a considerable amount of determination and cooperation with each other, it can turn into a war zone.

When there is a large amount of history behind the relationship, things can get even more sticky.

I've often wondered if I have a smaller version of post-traumatic stress disorder.  My earliest memories of life are blurred images and sounds of yelling, screaming, crying, pushing, hitting, and fear.  So much fear.  Sometimes I remember glimpses of being happy, of my parents being happy, but it's much less rare than the horrible things I tried very hard to not remember.

The thing is, I've been haunted my whole life by that fear.  The gut-wrenching, deep-stomach-sinking fear of someone you love.  When my adopted father started to get vocally violent shortly before, all during, and for much afterwards the divorce with my mother, I found myself plugging my ears in the fetal position on my bed.

When I talked with Alex about her relationship life, I admitted to her that I never had a boyfriend during school because I avoided relationships with guys whether they liked me or not.  I've always been a hopeless romantic, but even though I was lonely, I was afraid I would end up pinned against the wall with a bruise on my face and children crying in the corner.  My entire life was spent swearing I would never, ever let myself fall into that hole or drag my little ones into it.

Rewind to over a year ago, and I'm in the kitchen of our small apartment, snatching a large knife off the counter to defend myself and my home from whoever the hell it was masquerading as Tristan (trust me, I can tell). In that moment, that flash of silver and blur of arms, I saw a little girl who looked a lot like me standing in the doorway.  I knew she was just part of my mind, but something chilled me and drove me to fight that much harder for survival.

But my mother taught me well.  I grew up to be a fighter, not a runner.  I fought back in the best way I could without causing damage, which was reciprocation.  And Jake had taught me how to disarm opponents, so I didn't have to fear weapons no matter how they were weilded.  Learning to observe behavior in others served my own sanity well, since I was able to clearly see that Tristan wasn't even aware of what was going on.  So when I finally found myself pinned against the wall with hands around my throat, I silently pleaded for the man I loved to resurface and save me before one of us passed out or died (yes, I had my own hands around his throat and squeezing).

The hardest part about moving forward is forgetting the past.  Sure, I've forgiven easily enough.  I love Tristan like no other, and forgiving him was much easier than I thought it would be.  Forgetting, well, that's an entirely different story.  Only an absolute idiot with a death wish forgets what went wrong the first, second, third, fourth and iffy-fifth time around.

This past month has been epic in shoving aside and burying what I remember oh so clearly.  Things don't bother me like they used to, and last night I had a dream in which I not only confronted the root of my fear, I shot it 3 times in the chest with a bow and quiver of arrows.  In the past, if something went wrong, the horrible fear would surface and I'd end up in a seizure of sobbing and hyperventilating.  Now, so much less goes wrong to begin with and the little things, while in principle and logic bother me, don't create chest constrictions or lung compressions.  I consider that progress.

So what do I do when new information surfaces?  Like how, according to an anonymous source (I gave my word, no backlash, so we're leaving this at that), I was continuously the subject of jokes and taunts for the last year between Tristan and our mutual friends.  My stomach sank as I read this, and I instinctively wanted to confront Tristan about the validity of the information.  I'm no idiot, and I'm not about to be made a fool yet again by the "same" dude over and over and over and over again.

However, I am no idiot.  I wasn't an analyst for the Unit because I'm easy to look at.  After a moment of consideration I realized how stupid it would be to confront the man I love about something someone with emotional issues (possibly sprinkled with jealousy) said.  Not only that, but Tristan and I had just spoken earlier tonight about trust, boundaries and where we stand as a couple.

People have continuously asked me if I am sure things are different this time.  Especially, as I described earlier, things haven't been picture perfect in the past.

How do I describe the way he looks at me, the way he touches me, the way he talks with me?  Even tonight, when we discussed the propriety (or lack of) hanging out solo with friends of the opposite gender and I was totally botching my attempts to NOT sound bitchy, Tristan was still wonderful.  I'd dreaded even having the conversation because I remembered the many times we've had the same topic before, and it never ended well.  To my very big surprise, not only was he calm and collected through our talk, we actually came to a compromise.  A real, honest-to-goodness compromise.

While it's difficult to forget, love makes it much easier to let things go.