How my trauma shows up in my healthy relationship

Dear readers,

I am writing to you on February 15th, the day after Valentine’s Day and also National Side Chick Day - as my mom graciously shared this in our family group today. Life lately has been a rollercoaster of emotions - feeling a mixture of sadness, frustration, anger, and happiness. It is interesting because I started this year feeling confident, happy, and hopeful. I was eager to take on 2023. And like most of us I manifested, created a digital vision board, and wrote my goals down. I did not plan for the wave of depression and burnout to kick in one month in, but so it did.

Well, I guess I should start from the beginning with my story. In the last few weeks, I have been feeling really sad. The truth is I miss my parents, my siblings, and my family. I miss my partner and being able to see him and spend time with him. I miss my dog. The combination of feeling homesick + seeing my perpetrator’s face all over social media I think did it to me. No matter how many times I click “not interested” on Tik Tok or block/mute mutual friends, the algorithm still somehow brings him to my feed like a nasty disease.

So, here we are, trying to write to help center and ground me because there is only so much a weekly therapy session can do for me. If you have been to therapy then you know that the hard work is truly done outside of therapy. The work starts with you. Showing up and completing those mini assignments your therapist gives for the next session. It is up to you if you decide to use those tools.

In therapy, I have two goals for myself this time around. 1. To tell my story, my whole truth, and 2. To work on communication in my relationships with my parents and my partner.

Well, the truth is that my trauma still shows up in my relationship. My tendency to overthink, overreact, and race anxious thoughts circle almost every day. The lack of trust and assuming the worst. Over apologizing and constantly saying “sorry” to keep the peace and avoid good conflict/healthy conversation and disagreement in fear of the past repeating.

I spent Valentine’s Day - a day I think is overly marketed by Hallmark, but a day that my parents always made sure to celebrate in our home. My mom made sure there were sweet treats on the kitchen table when I got home from school no matter how long of a day she had and my dad always had a card and a small gift of his love for both me and my mom. I love love. Love to me means peace, connection, hand-holding, communication, hugs, caring acts, etc.

Well, would you believe me if I told you that I thought it was too good to be true? As I sat at my kitchen table looking around me and seeing the flowers, edible arrangements, cookies, dinner delivered to my doorstep, a series of gifts spread out, and a man on the other end of the phone staring back at me with the biggest smile, I could not help but wonder if this was all real and if in an instant it would all disappear.

Oh, the way trauma can show up in our relationship.

After a lovely virtual dinner date with my boyfriend and getting showered and spoiled with gifts and sweet treats - I almost ruined the entire night by asking the infamous survivor question “ why are doing all this?” and “ Why are you being so nice to me?”. As these words came out of my mouth last night, I realized I could not take them back after seeing my man’s face look extremely puzzled by that question, almost as if his lips formed to say “Why wouldn’t I?”

He left me with a phrase that I think was the “pinch me so I know it’s real” moment that I needed. He said to me “ I mean you know what this is right.” and now I looked at him puzzled because no sir, what does it mean…

Trauma.

“We’ve been doing this for a while now and I would hope you know what you mean to me by now”, he proceeded to go on about us and our relationship and provide reassurance.

Now I feel silly and overwhelmed. The over-apologizing kicked in shortly after we hung up. Saying sorry in fear that my moment of feeling extremely small and overwhelmed by the kindness would have this boy go running for the hills because of feeling “crazy”.

Well, it did not.

Trauma. Funny how the word crazy shows up. My perpetrator called me crazy all the time when I was expressing my boundaries and speaking up btw. Gaslighting. Trauma

“It is almost too good to be true” as I shared with my therapist in session today. He smiled and laughed and said, “what is”. I answered and went on a rant about my relationship of almost 2 years and how I cried out of happiness and was overwhelmed by the amount of love I received from my partner… he laughed again and so did I because at this point it was the fear creeping in. He reminded me to TRUST. He asked me a series of yes or no questions which consisted of:

1. Has he done anything to violate your boundaries? No.

2. Does he respect you? Yes

3. Does he listen to you when you voice concerns? Yes

4. Do you trust him? Yes

So trust him Dr. H said. Damn. He is good.

Trust can be scary especially after your boundaries were violated so many times with someone who you thought you could trust. Dr. H reminded me that my man is not my past. My man is not my perpetrator. My man loves me and respects me. 2 different people.