Living with the enemy...

I wanted to post about the mercy of this day, which is now yesterday.  Many words are already penned, saved for when I might be able to finish them.  I wanted to post about mercy, but what I find myself writing is about living with the enemy.

It is a difficult thing to do...living with the enemy.  It is a difficult thing to do when that enemy is you.

I do not know when this day will end for me.  Just as I do not know when the pit bull attack will end.  This day was decidedly different, but my body is responding, in part, as if they are one and the same.  No matter how much I want for that not to be so, it does not matter, at least for now.

Uncontrollable tremors.  A sudden flood of tears.  Nausea that oft gives way to vomiting.  Fear washing over me anew.  One moment I think I have found a balance and the next it begins.  Again.  My body against my will.

I want to write of mercy, but mercy is not trapping me just now.  Mercy is not why, when I have hardly slept in a week thanks to that horrid nightmare, I am still awake in the middle of the night.  Mercy is not why this day is not yet over.

There was one moment, though, I shall mention.  The pain of the biopsy was utterly overwhelming and completely unexpected.  A wave of pain so intense that the unbelievably sharp pain that followed was almost missed and yet it was not.  Then again the wave came, followed by more pain.  I was so very close to fainting.  I did not think I could last through the third wave, yet I did.  I do want to write about the great mercy of that time, but this is not that...although it is a mercy in and of itself.

[Yes, I know I am being confusing, but the other post must wait.]

The surgeon told me that she wanted me to know that she was not doing what she was doing to hurt me.  She was doing what she was doing to help me.  She repeated that at least once, but I think even more than two times.  She wanted me to hear her.  I suppose a part of her knew that I would need those words in my hears to eventually make it through this day.

I am admittedly hazy about much of this morning.  Primarily because of the multiple triggers for my PTSD that took place.  But I am thinking that she repeated her words when I mumbled "I know" because an automatic response does not mean that I actually heard her.  And I am thinking that she understands that sometimes the hearing is...delayed...for lack of a better word.  The words are spoken into the ear.  The ear takes them in.  But the completion of the hearing them does not happen until such a time as they can be received.

I am not saying that I have received them yet.  Certainly my body has not.  I wish it had.  I am weary of living with the enemy.

For a long while, I have wondered if I could truly write about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I cannot.  I know this.  Maybe some day, but I also wonder if there are really words that can capture what it is like.  I suppose this is because, although I am no expert, my experience with PTSD would be different from yours.  We might have some things in common, but the heart of my battle would not mirror yours.

And, I think a large obstacle is that I face this battle because of a rather poor decision made a little over a year ago that was wrapped in the betrayal of a lie spoken because the person knew the offer of spiritual help were ones I had wanted to hear for months on end.  The violence that followed was the beginning of  my PTSD, but it is patently clear that the unexpected and indescribable violence of the pit bull attack wiped out ever step I had taken forward in the nine months since that first event and set me back further than I can actually face.

Last fall, the panic attacks began and fear became something I would never have fathomed possible.  Yet I had made strides in that battle.  I had gained a modicum of control over my body.  Now, I have none.

That is not to say I live in a state of constant panic attacks, but I live in a state of constant battle, whether I am aware of it or not.  Take the dream, the nightmare, of last week that felled me.  During that day, I had laughter and peace and silly moments.  I did not spend the day brooding and dreading and dwelling.  I closed my eyes to sleep completely unaware of the fear within me that would spill over.  Not that I was unaware of the fear per se, but that the spilling would happen because my mind is my enemy.

My mind is my enemy.
My body is my enemy.
My emotions are my enemy.
The enemy is me.

I can work and want and hope for this not to be so, but really only time will change this.  Time enough to find balance. Time enough to achieve distance.  Time enough to hear.

Until then, I am living with the enemy.  Today, I had someone see that up close.  Okay, many people saw me, just as they did in that courtroom, but this was someone I would see again.  She saw me weep and tremble no matter how hard I tried not to, not matter how hard I tried to contain my physical and mental and emotional response to a trigger that was not actually harmful to me.  By that I mean, I was not being hurt physically.

So, during the second part of the morning, when I was, in fact, enduring great physical harm to my body, a part of me noted the words of the surgeon.  I noted both the words and that it was important to her that I hear that the pain I was enduring was not an act of violence but something necessary to hopefully heal my body. I still have physical pain. I am still bleeding. That part of this morning has actually not ended.

But also, since this morning, whenever I become still, when the television is silent or my apps are off or the music stops or the phone call ends, I feel the sensations that are a trigger for me. Tremors begin. Tears spill over.  Nausea rises.  Fear overwhelms. Panicdesparationanguishconfusionshame fills me.  And I can no longer ignore the fact that I am living with the enemy.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!