I am not fixed as such. I don’t claim to be sorted, or that it is all over. I may never be able to utter those kinds of words. I am ok with that.
What started as a sense of things having shifted has become more, and I know I have reached a kind of plateau. I have crossed a line. I have moved into a different space. Take your pick, whatever language works for you. For me, I’m confident that things are not how they were.
It has been well over a year since I first started talking to other male survivors, and ten months since I started working with my therapist. I have spent the last six months working very hard to understand what happened to me and the impact it had.
I would describe it as separating things out so I can see them clearly. Which bits are abuse, and the results of abuse? Which bits are me? Which bits need looking at? Which bits are mine to keep?
I think I still have bad dreams, but they are less vivid, and I don’t really remember what they were about. My sleep is still short, and I am woken on high alert, but we are blaming cortisol for that bad habit.
There are no flashbacks and there haven’t been for some time, so I feel comfortable claiming that as over, mostly, probably. Dissociation just doesn’t happen. It is kind of there, like a pull, a muscle memory maybe, the sense that I could slip into it if I wanted to, let it happen. A breath or two, a slight re-focus, and it passes. Nothing I can’t handle.
There are some things I am struggling with, not in a bad way, just adjusting, I suppose. I wake each morning without panic. Which, on the face of it, is of course an excellent thing. The thing is, the absence of the familiar can throw you off balance. If you suddenly no longer had severe headaches, you would still wonder when the next one was going to start. That.
I lived with a lot of fear and hyper-vigilance, which has faded. I mean, I still do it in certain situations. I can’t help myself. It just happens. Which then leaves calm. Peace. No turbulence at all.
Now, that’s not right, something must be about to happen. Nope, nothing, still calm. This takes some getting used to. It’s not that I’m not relieved, of course I am, sort of, possibly. Maybe not.
I have spent five decades living a certain way, carrying certain things, coping despite the damage done. Some of it could be categorised as habit, the way I know to do things. Other things were imprinted, embedded, programmed. To the naked eye it is hard to see the joins. Part of me, or pared into me?
I am learning that the absence of them does not mean it is all done and dusted. I have to learn how to do things in a different way. I go to react and the normal process has either gone, or been replaced with this new and unusual response. Adapting to normal behaviour feels more difficult in some ways.
It is like only being allowed to speak French, or having one arm tied behind your back, or being handed a new set of emotions and told these are your updated feelings.
I find myself surprised that they work, that nothing bad happens, no repercussions, nothing goes wrong. It makes me nervous and unsure of myself. Unsteady, and suddenly no clue how to do things.
The most stark, and frankly terrifying version of this, was being suddenly plunged into a conversation about abuse with a real live human standing in front of me.
I have spoken to many people over the years about abuse, listened to disclosures and stories, and witnessed emotional conversations. I have spent hundreds of hours talking online, long involved typed chats. I know the language, how to navigate, how to explain, and how to listen.
This was new. Post-therapy, the absence of all the familiar tools and methods, by which I mean things like the ability to just dissociate if it gets too much. This was a sudden, out-of-nowhere discussion that found me looking into someone’s eyes while I told them I had been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused, and then watching him look in my eyes and hear the words ‘me too’. I am hearing his story, feeling it, and connecting. I can clearly see his hurt and trauma.
I feel an unfamiliar confidence in my ability to hear these things, and a deep understanding of what I am listening to. I know what to say and what not to say. It is the strangest, most positive, grounding experience.
After it ended, and I was alone, I sat for ages thinking and feeling all these unusual emotions. I am not used to feelings like calm, strength, and quiet. They disturb me.
I am very aware that I have just participated in a two-hour conversation that I used to find harrowing and difficult, and that would have left me drained and emotional.
This might be the new normal. Whatever that is.
Essays From The Shadows will return soon with Volume Two