It's Retro Flashback Time

... but not in a fun way.

If we are supposed to learn stuff from facing challenges, then I'm right on track.  Apparently what one learns from being an adult in conflict with an aging parent is that all the crap from your childhood, the issues you thought you'd so successfully left behind in the dust, were actually just waiting for an opportunity to re-assert themselves.  Dammit.

In case anyone needs a refresher: I work with my step-dad, and due to incredibly complicated and nasty business politics we are currently opposed on some major issues.  This would be bad enough if he were only my boss.  Being opposed to one's boss who is also one's dad (with whom one has had a highly emotional and unharmonious history) is a recipe for psychological disaster.

The force of my reactions caught me off my guard.  I didn't realize how deep in over my head I was until I had my first serious panic attack in two years.  By "serious" I mean that in the middle of a friend's New Year's Eve party I got overwhelmed, went cold and sweaty all over, and had to run to the bathroom to clear out my gastrointestinal tract in the most efficient way possible (i.e. from both ends at the same time).  Yay I am so fun at a party!  Small mercies: the only bathroom in a house full of people and kids was actually free when I needed it.  Also, better a panic attack than my other thought: "I've come down with the stomach flu and all 30 adults and kids here tonight will catch it from me!  I am the spreader of terrible disease! *guiltguiltguilt*".

Poor Ken, who had been enjoying himself, had to leave the party to drive me home, but he was a very good sport about it; as were my friends, who didn't hold any grudge against me for ralphing into their wastebasket.  (I did rinse it fully before I finally surrendered the bathroom to another guest who was outside, knocking to be let in.  I advised my rather shocked hostess, on my way out the door, as to what had transpired and "you might want to disinfect that".  Lo, the shame!)

I have been back to my friends' house several times since The Incident, however last night was the first official party with lots of people and even some I hadn't met before since New Year's Eve.  I was a little nervous.  But I was fine.  In fact, I had a great time.  Yay, sometimes I actually am fun at a party!  I think it helped that since that panic attack I invested some quality time into figuring out where the hell my head is at.

I find it helpful to remind myself that I am 41 years old and no longer at anyone's mercy.  Yes, my future somewhat depends on the decisions of a man who is widely agreed to be moderately loony, but ultimately I can take care of myself.

In the wee hours of this morning I woke myself up screaming from a nightmare in which I had discovered my mother's body hanging from a noose in my childhood home.  There was also a scene in which a little girl was being gripped by a parental figure by her upper arms as the parent dangled her threateningly out of a second-floor window.  (Neither of these things physically happened in my childhood.  Still, the symbolism was apt.)

So, that's how I'm doing.  Grappling with a shitty past that has been resurrected to haunt me.  I'm telling myself what I learned in New Age class: these old injuries come up in order to be healed.  I'm working on it.