Adventures du jour!
Got triggered hard yesterday; still a bit freaked out. WOW is it hard to be rational in moments like that. Riding it out via music, burning a candle, tea that is strong and hot, clipped fingersnails (typo but Imma leave it) so I won’t tear them all off, adding new ink in the good pen where I’m crossing off the to-do list. Real things.
I ended up ripping out the scene with too many texts last night and rewriting it, having another character sum them up, adding her opinions and commentary. This somehow managed to cut 500 words. WHEW. Then I made a valiant attempt to get caught up on Webtoons.
Slept for shit; got up and the one hip had locked up hard. Zero surprise there; that hip seems to get associated with some of the darker stuff with the ex. I mostly did the foam roller this morning, then went out for a walk to my favorite tree, where I leaned against a big branch and zoned out for a while. Then came home and danced angrily at days gone by. The power keeps futzing out so I can’t do the first thing on my list (formatting a book on the PC–I have GOT to find a workaround for that). I’m sorting through stories to review for an anthology and watching a movie off and on. Later, I’ll try to pick apart another section of text-based AI nonsense: what is it picking up on in my input that makes it spout the particular nonsense that it’s spouting? And not some other nonsense? I feel like I might know but can’t put it into words.
…Talking about getting triggered; take this as a trigger warning because I veered slightly into details…
Getting triggered used to be so constant that I really didn’t notice it; it was just my baseline state of existence. Panic attack at Target? Sure, why not. Feeling like I’m being followed by that white SUV on the highway? Why wouldn’t it? People’s faces melt; their voices change. Everything’s black and white when you’re triggered, mostly black. Looking out of that that mode toward anything else seems naive. Of *course* everything should have the worst possible interpretation. Of *course* I’m the only rational person in the room and everyone else is a fool.
When I get triggered, I have just broken things off with the ex and am shaking at the thought of having to ask to use his jumper cables to restart the car’s dead battery during Covid. I am still married and trying to push a boulder of care and frustration up a mountain of contempt when he comes home in a bad mood after work and puts his headphones on, snarling at me when I tell him supper’s ready. I am a new mother with my hands full with a high-speed toddler and we’re both starving while he fixes food for himself and then shuts himself in a room in the basement to play a stupid video game. I am a new lover and watching him hold a dull steak knife to his wrists and telling me that he’ll kill himself if we argue one more time. I am falling in love over burritos and hearing that he used to stalk me in the computer lab while I was ignorantly chatting with friends over Usenet groups. I let it slide, the way all red flags slide when they’re mixed with rose petals underfoot.
None of this is real anymore; none of it actually applies; it just feels that way for a little while. I have enough insulation now that I can remind myself life is better and richer and gentler than it used to be. Nothing needs to be so black-and-white: I can stand down now.–And when it passes, I feel tired and petty and childish; I want a mountain of cinnamon rolls that I can’t possibly eat, slathered with butter.