How my front door triggered my PTSD.
It took me a long time to admit that I could so easily be sent into a state of panic, and it almost cost me my sanity.
Hey unicorn babe,
I’m am giving you a TRIGGER WARNING. This newsletter contains descriptions of sexual assault that may be distressing to some people. If this one is too much for you, that’s perfectly legit. I love you.
It was cool summer evening. Well, morning. My husband and I got home around 3am after a day of partying with our support bubble - at their apartment, of course. When we came into our apartment, we climbed into the elevator with several strangers, all dressed for a party, all in their twenties. This was very unusual considering:
A. We were (and are) the middle of a pandemic.
B. Very few people live in our building, as it’s in central London. Most of the apartments are uninhabited. We have theories on this mystery, but nonetheless, having a ton of people coming upstairs at 3am was not something we’d ever seen before.
When we got upstairs, the music from the apartment above was pounding against the floors, the walls of our two-bedroom flat quivering with shitty techno. I started to feel a wave of panic wash over me. I realized this reminded me of something; the deadened music that was still so loud you could make out the lyrics, the stale air inside the flat, the darkness in the lightless room.
It reminded me of the night I was assaulted at a party in my 20s.
This is the sexual assault that most stands out for me in my memory (as there have been multiple instances). I actually hadn’t thought much about it over the years, but having re-entered therapy a few months prior to this night, my therapist and I were finally accessing those memories to help me heal from them.
It happened upstairs at a party. I’d gone to bed, near to black out drunk. I remember the party host coming into the bedroom. It must have been his bedroom that I’d decided to sleep in. All I remember is someone trying to take off my clothes. I started to resist. He said, “It’s OK. It’s me. It’s Zach.” His real name, by the way. He deserves to have his name said out loud. I froze. I didn’t want it to happen, but I was too drunk to stop him, to scream, to resist.
As the music thudded against the apartment wall, they began to close in on my again. I could hear voices outside my first apartment door. I had a full-blown flashback panic attack. I felt outside of my body. Like my heart was going to explode. I was once again that helpless drunk girl trapped inside of a room with a man who thought he had the right to my nearly unconscious body.
My husband tried to soothe me. He even went upstairs and told them to shut the fuck up. He called the cops. Nothing happened. Given we were both pretty intoxicated, once we got into bed, he soon fell asleep. The room was still shaking with the music from the party upstairs.
We have a tiny alcove outside the apartment with a second door (a fire door) leading to the communal hallway. I kept getting up to check the lock, to make sure there was no one trying to come inside. I walked around the apartment once, twice, and three times to be sure no one was hiding in the corners. And then I heard voices outside in the little alcove. There were people inside my space.
I told myself I was hallucinating. The man and woman’s voices I was hearing were part of my panic. They grew louder. I opened the door and sure enough, there was a man and woman arguing. They had clearly walked through the fire door in order to get privacy, unaware that there were people inside the apartment. They were probably drunk or on drugs or both.
They apologized and left after I asked the young woman if she was OK. I was afraid, but instinctively protective of her. She said she was OK. I still don’t know if she was really OK.
My insomnia has gotten worse ever since that night. The lockless fire-door. Anyone can come through it. They can come into a portion of my apartment without invitation. It felt violating. It felt like someone could come inside my apartment, inside my body, without my permission. The metaphor is not lost on me, trust me.
For months I did nothing. I didn’t admit that the door was a substantial trigger for me. That hearing it thud on its hinges with a gust of a wind, the mailman, or a guest sent me into a stress state. I wanted to just forget it. I live in this beautiful apartment with my husband and I love it here.
After nights of sleeplessness, months of agony, and never feeling safe enough to fall asleep, I asked my husband to put a latch on the fire door. He got the latch, installed it, and I started sleeping again. It took me nine full months to ask for what I needed. Part of that was processing and discovering that the door was the trigger (sometimes we block our own ability to see a trigger as part of our maladaptive stress state) and partly because I thought that admitting I needed a latch to feel safe was admitting defeat over my PTSD.
Do small things, whatever they are, to make your space more comfortable or to feel safer. If going somewhere makes you feel off-kilter and afraid, don’t go there. If a person is sucking up your energy, always leaving you on edge, don’t hang out with them.
I put the latch on and you know, what? I haven’t needed to take Xanax in order to fall asleep in 3 days. That may not sound like much to you, but for me, it is everything. For the first time, my nervous system is calm enough to let me let go for one fucking second so I could fall asleep. You cannot put a price on that.
We’re allowed to do things to feel safer. It doesn’t make you weak, it makes you a strong ass B for admitting you’re not some statue, but a flesh and blood human being with pain. You cannot heal if you keep pretending you aren’t hurt. And that’s just the plain truth it, babe.
That’s what I’m taking away from all of this. And I hope you will, too.
This week’s mantras:
I will not withhold comfort from myself.
Strength is trying to heal, not denial.
I am worthy of calm. I am worthy of wholeness. I am whole.
I will love myself.
I love you very, very much. Have a great week.
XOXO Gigi
~Vibe of the week~
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That’s it for me this week, little unicorn cutie. Remember to take time to breathe, meditate, and practice mindfulness. If you start to feel burnt out, take a break. Drink water. Have orgasms. I love you.
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