And so it begins

Let's decorate the house for the holidays!!!

My family is super excited, my son is shifting boxes out of storage, vacuum cleaners are vacuuming, and we are having the annual debate over whether to use “traditional cranberry sauce” (from the can, natch, with proper lines molded in place) or the deconstructed homemade sauce.

And I feel… absolutely nothing. Not depressed (yet), but like a totally detached outsider looking in.

For many abuse survivors, this is definitely not the best time of the year. It would be foolish to claim I speak for all, but I've known a great many who are just looking for a way to teleport themselves past all the forced fun that's about to occur.

Intellectually, I know the detachment is the sign of a severe depressive state starting up. I can recognize signs of dissociative behaviors. Why not? I know that this is the season for getting memories back. I know that every year, getting to February or March seems less and less likely.

I suppose this is growth? I know I'm about to crash. Again. And I know my family will be in the blast radius when I do.

So I'm going to talk to my family about it, talk to my doctor about ramping up my medications, and thinking about getting my tail back into some sort of therapy program.

So why does this feel like a failure? Is it because that, having recognized a cycle, a survivor nevertheless feels powerless before it?

Or, have I bought enough into the societal “every man must be rugged, self-reliant, and keep a stiff upper lip” nonsense that I feel minimized realizing that I'm not?

Have I bought enough into the religious construct, “if you just pray enough, do the right prayers, etc everything will be fine?” nonsense? Or, “God won't give you more than you can handle.” Or the one I really loathe, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”. Praying for a less painful outcome sure as hell didn't work for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not sure what I could hope to achieve.

No idea.

But I guess need to move from a position of procrastination to getting some phone calls done today before the curtain of dissociation falls.