Brains

I thank you all for your encouragement, and support. Please, keep it coming. My brains are still scrambled. One relaxing weekend is evidently not enough to undo months of stress. No big suprise there, I guess.

I have heard that repetition of certain behaviours or situations actually carves physical pathways into the brain. There is a neural equivalent to "a rut", and it's easy to fall into it. My rut is anxiety, hypervigilance, and self-effacement.

I learned it when I was young, through all the years I lived with my mom and step-dad. Be quiet. Stay out of the way. Don't do anything that might make someone else upset. For example: My mom used to become enraged when she had to do laundry. Therefore, I hardly ever put anything other than my socks and underwear into the hamper to be washed, lest I be the target of one of her rages. My efforts to be careful and not disturb the status quo were that detailed.

(And yes, even though I'm naturally not a sweaty person, my clothes weren't as clean as they should have been.)

It's something I always did, so I tend not to notice when I've slipped back into my old habits. It feels natural and normal to me. Always ask what the other person wants to do first. Don't have an opinion of my own. There seems to be a subconscious mechanism that kicks in, preventing any of my own feelings or preferences from showing up in my consciousness, when I'm in that state. It's a lot easier not to cause trouble when you don't have any preferences. They all go underground, and then I get writer's block, because it's tough to write a snappy blog post when you don't have an opinion on anything.

I can drift along in a fog of varying density for quite some time. I haven't kept track of the durations. I'd like to say that it gets shorter every time; that I'm getting better at coming back to myself. I don't know if that's true.

Anyway, that's where I've been, and even though I'm conscious of it now, I'm still automatically slipping back into those behaviours. It's my natural, unconscious reaction to stress. Once the fear is in me, it's not easy to let it go. I'm not convinced that I'm safe, yet. I wish I could just snap out of it. Trust me, if I could, I would. I need more time.