Be advised this post mentions sensitive topics including self harm
In 2020, I decided to prepare for trauma. When the toilet paper was still on the shelves, I was digging for articles on how to handle the impending mental health crises. Cognitively I knew what was coming for me. Some bad, bad shit for a brain I barely wrangled on a good day and I wanted to prepare.
But you can’t prepare for something you’ve never experienced. My logical attempt at easing into trauma by acknowledging it was on my doorstep was just another way to feebly assert control.
I remember posting Instagram stories about how I am very sensitive to smells and was sure the smell of Pine Sol Blossom that I got to wipe all the touch surfaces in and outside my apartment, would eventually be a trigger. But that’s not what got me.
At the time I was getting undercuts. This is a haircut where a portion of your head is shaved near your neck. Relatively common in Jiu Jitsu in folks with long hair because training rips it out.
So when things partially opened enough for me to go to my barber. At last! A semblance of a regular day-to-day. I jumped to book an appointment and found them removed from the website. So I went to their personal Instagram. Pulling up the profile, I shrieked NO at the top of my lungs and laid facedown on my floor. It was cool on my skin. They’d moved back to where they’re from-over the sea. This sudden absence unplugged months where I didn’t cry.
I would grow out my undercut. I’m not finding another barber. It was them and only them. I texted my friend “just having another meltdown because my barber left”
Another?
If I hadn’t been crying for months, what had I been doing? Why did I call these things that got me all out of sorts all of my life, Meltdowns? I couldn’t explain, it just fit. I had no idea it was a huge word in the Autistic community because I wasn’t it in. I was 3 years from diagnosis, 2 years from even considering I could be Autistic.
I was no stranger to Anxiety, but going for groceries in 2020 was on another level. My chest felt like someone poured molten metal into my lungs. I sweat so bad. I couldn’t think of how dystopian it was to talk to someone through thick plastic as everyone behind me in line-for the first time ever-kept a respectable distance and didn’t crowd me by existing. My hands would be shaking as I left the store.
To kill the experience, I’d walk home repeating the same phrase over and over to calm myself down. Like “you’re gone now, you’re gone now”.
Coming home I’d shower. I didn’t know how contaminated I may have become. I would zone out and start rocking in the shower, knees to chest, “you’re home now, you’re home now, you’re home now”
I would try to relax and do some yoga, but tears would come and I would hate it. Wanting them to stop, I’d hit my head, pull on my hair, grunt, rock. Start repeating things again. Sometimes, I’m not be able to control it and the tears come freely. This is when my urge to destroy objects rises.
One night in the endless string of 2020, a plate broke from my neighbour closing their door too hard. I got so angry, I personally smashed the rest of the collection my floor. Then I was plateless. And the time when traffic outside my studio was so agitating, I violently ripped out the drawer of my desk, the contents scattering across my floor as the drawer hit the floor with a huge crash. I then kicked it hard to the wall, smeared my hands through all my papers crumbling and ripping them. I had a sudden urge to stab myself with a pencil in the leg but resisted because my brain caught up to my impulse. I’d minor experience with sh before, but the consequences I could vividly imagine always served as control. Dropping the papers I huddled in the corner.
“Calm. Down, it’s ok. You’re ok” over and over and over.
I struggle to think if anyone believes me about this, because no one has ever witnessed it. My anger, yes, has been seen. Rumors have been spread about my actions when I’ve been publicly angry. But I’ve done everything I can to control it as best I can. I knew early on this behaviour that felt sudden but also built up was not appropriate, not right.
Some may see it as personal discipline, but that energy goes somewhere-inside. I excuse myself, find isolation and go off. The meltdowns exist. I’m an expert marauder because if I’ve worked for you-this has happened in your bathroom. If we’ve had an argument on the phone, this has happened after we hung up.
I don’t recall a specific talk or instance where I learned young my feelings were wrong. It was like a gas leak. I observed a lot and this fed me the information that if you were bad, no good will come of it. I saw lots of kids-boys, really- act the fuck out. And I always thought, that must feel so good. Their “antics” never scared me, I wanted to do it. Openly.
For someone who really likes to be in control, even down to scheduling my pandemic trauma, controlling my meltdowns was always in service to others and to be good. But when I hit my mid 30s, something started to shift. The scroll of civility I’d written my life upon ran out of room, and getting back from lunch one day at the warehouse, my control had run out.
to be continued