Letting Go in the Midst of Silence

Letting go of relationships has always been terribly difficult for me to do, be it a friendship, lover, family member, and even some acquaintances. I read an article this morning about letting go while keeping and remembering the good parts of the relationship as well as the bad and most importantly remembering what that specific relationship taught you. For me, it seems most of my relationships with others end abruptly with little to no closure. This is a huge trigger for me as it seems that all of the significant relationships in my life have ended on this note. Even now, if we are back in contact with one another, communication is stifled. It seems funny to me that humans seem to have such a problem with communication when we are the one animal on the planet that has been blessed with a gift that is relatively easy to use, even if it is complicated at times. I’ll admit I am one of the worst at this myself but as I grow older I cannot explain how it makes me feel to be able to be brutally honest with someone for them to not respect me enough back to give me an honest answer when asked.

After my first boyfriend broke up with me we went back and forth multiple times in my attempt to get back together; I am still uncertain as to what his expectations were. We would get back together for a weekend, and then not speak for months at a time. This fueled my anxiety by making me wonder what I did wrong, or what I had done to make him ignore me. The silent treatment is probably one of the most cruel and disrespectful actions one could take against another, in my opinion. It leaves the other person completely invalidated that they were ever even meaningful in your life to begin with. It does not matter how long the relationship lasted or in what capacity it was in, if I am left with nothing or no explanation, I automatically start to blame myself.

During the turbulence of the aftermath of my first breakup, I began speaking with a man I met on vacation in Pensacola Beach while on Spring Break my senior year. He was stationed in Virginia Beach not long after we began communicating by phone. I fell pretty hard for him, and even used my graduation money to drive out to see him that summer. My parents would not let me go alone, so my mom went with me and we spent a week on the oceanfront and I fell head over heals for my AT (Aviation Electronics Technician). We talked daily for hours at a time, wrote letters back and forth, and sent each other gifts. I left to go to college in August of 2000 thinking I was in a relationship with him so when I left my hometown and got settled down in my dorm I tried to give him my new information for contact. I attempted to call his phone for days with no answer. About a month or so went by and I finally got his barracks mate on the phone. He informed me he had been in the brig for attempting to fail a drug test to get kicked out.

His father was an officer and pulled some strings to instead send him to the brig and forced him to finish his enlistment. Evidently during this time, he met another woman and had begun a relationship with her. She was pregnant and in his command, so they both got in trouble for fraternization and he was sent to another command on the west coast. Eventually she followed him and they were married. The funniest part of this story is that he never once told me any of this, I found it all out on my own after months of attempting to call and his roommate make excuses for him. Finally the roommate was tired of covering for him and told me everything. I never spoke to him again, but it was not by my choice, it was his.

Later that semester I had joined a sorority although I had not been through recruitment or anything like that. My friends ended up pledging after they went through rush and then brought in the rest of us later in the semester. We had a dance coming up and we were all expected to bring dates. I automatically flashed back to high school and the torment I went through trying to find someone to go with back then and my anxiety immediately began to raise. We were working on a float with another fraternity for the Holiday parade and I ran into a man I had previously met on a trip to Washington D.C. I had been nominated to be a delegate to National Youth Leadership Forum my senior year in high school and I had met a few other people from the state during that trip. I thought, well, I know him well enough, I should ask him to go with me to the dance. I did, he accepted and I was shocked.

We went to the dance that night and my friends also had dates from the same fraternity. Afterwards we all went back to their fraternity house to finish up the evening. We played card games and watched television and eventually we all split off into the couples we went to the dance with. I had sex that night with my date and I believed it was because he actually liked me. We left the next morning and from that point on they no longer would speak to us. This went on for over a week when we finally learned from another fraternity member that they had used us as part of their fraternity initiation. They were supposed to all have sex with a girl and then not talk to her again. Me and my friends felt like the biggest idiots for having fallen for such a dirty trick.

The dehumanizing feeling one is left with after being silently discarded is immense. It is something that can stay with someone for a very long time, I know because those events took place in the year 2000 and they still hurt to write about them now. I have never really told those stories before, and while it feels good to let it out, I am amazed that at this point in my life, I have had many more than the above leave me with the silent treatment, I even did it once to one of my very best friends, which I wrote about my regrets in an earlier post.It is hard to explain what exactly the silent treatment does to another human being if you have never experienced it, but for me, I can assure you it is agonizing.

I’m going to try to stop torturing myself with those who choose to employ this tactic against me. They do not deserve my time or attention if they can not give me the simple respect of an honest answer, even if the answer is “I don’t know how to answer that question at this time.” My experiences have left me with a person that cannot be anything but honest, as I know the damage that lies and dishonesty cause in all relationships. As children we are brutally honest with one another with little repercussions for our communication skills, why do we loose so much of this as we age? I hope if you have read this far that you too will commit to being more honest in your daily interactions. I wonder what the world would look like if we stopped being afraid of effective honest communication instead of the holding onto the bitterness and isolation a lack of communication seems to cause. It is a world I will strive to create, and I will not apologize for it any more.

Back to the basics

Having PTSD has taught me numerous and countless lessons in my life so far but the ones I have the most problems fixing or correcting seem like they should be the simplest to overcome. Remembering to eat, or that I’m hungry, forgetting to set out something for dinner, the piles of random items placed with the intentions of one day making it to their assigned designation, the forgotten medication, freshly washed laundry still in the machine two days after you started them; I could probably keep going, but just simple things I used to take for granted that seem like such a massive accomplishment now.

I know it gets annoying and is hard to live with. I’m reminded fairly often by multiple people, so it isn’t just one person that notices. How I’m late everywhere I need to be, I don’t communicate effectively, I don’t know what social barriers are acceptable to cross with new people, and I either end up intimidated and shutting down or freaking them out to the point that they just disappear. Shutting down and being numb are no strangers to me.I spent so many years that way because the few times I did try to talk about it at various times in my life, I’ve always been asked to stop when I brought it up. Was I sure? What responsibility did I place on myself for putting myself in that position? Did I try to fight? Why didn’t I tell anyone in charge? The would have, should have, could haves already consume me daily since they happened. They are not something I have never thought about. But they are absolutely things that I could not control because ultimately the responsibility comes down to the person committing the action. I thought being quiet was the only acceptable thing to do about my past because after talking to others about my experiences and their rejection, it was really the only way for me to survive.

This afternoon my husband was snippy as is pretty typical during the work week, and for the obvious aforementioned reason of lack of housework I already don’t get done being the main troublemaker. Anyhow, we were discussing things and he made a blunt statement, that no one wants to hear about my past, I’m a very boring person (I know I am a nerd, but I still think this one is debatable), and I guess now that I’m not instant messaging with others, all I want to do is spend time on Facebook or this blog. I get it, my past isn’t pretty, but it is what made me, me. How am I ever supposed to heal from past wounds if I’m never allowed to grieve them, let them out, accept them, rediscover the person that was left in the aftermath, and continue to attempt to live a fulfilling life if I keep shoving all of it down for only my brain to consume itself with?

It is hard for me to feel comfortable in many situations while trying to act like everything is fine on the outside but all I want to do is run and hide on the inside. I think I have to get out my  past troubles before I can get back to the basics of living the life that I desire. I hope by using this outlet as my means of healing, I will be able to make more meaningful connections with people in the future, that are fulfilling and nurturing on both ends. When people ask me why I think and feel the way I do about things that are so different from the views I held as a child, but then make no attempt to meet me where I am at presently in my life, it makes it really hard for me to answer them. I usually end up saying something to the effect of “the eyes can’t change what they have seen and the ears can’t un-hear the things they were told.” I can adapt my beliefs to fit my new world beliefs, but I cannot and I never will be the person I was before the Navy and I wouldn’t want to be. PTSD and all.

Communication in the Social Media Age

There was a time when I was a young sailor that had seen many injustices to myself and to others. During this time in my life I began a relationship with someone I loved and valued deeply; as a friend. I had been raped several times by that point in my life and I was constantly being harassed by other members in my command for sex. I began dating this man because he was smart, funny, and made me feel safe-plus almost all of the harassment stopped as soon as it become known amongst us lower enlisted personnel that I belonged to him. We had a great time for about a year, but the closer I came to my separation from the Navy, the more I started to panic about his upcoming extension which was to be followed by a cruise with the rest of my friends I had made the last three or so years I had been in Virginia Beach.

He began going on detachments for training and when he was gone the harassment would start back up. Slowly at first, but always there lurking around the dark corner entrance of my empty bedroom. My guy was not very good at communication and hated talking on the phone even more. I began to feel isolated and panic even more at the thought of being alone and I began to seek a new relationship to fill the void.

I eventually reunited with a friend I had known since my mom and stepfather’s marriage at the age of seven. We decided we were going to attempt to start our lives over as we had both suffered tragedies during our short twenty-three years on earth. As my separation date encroached with warp speed, we grew closer together while my guy all but disappeared behind a computer monitor. I cheated on him and finally broke up with him after I left my command so I could not be charged with fraternization if things went ugly. We communicated on and off and eventually he left to go to sea.

Things with my destined roommate deteriorated quickly and before I knew it I was relying on coins to surrvive. After much turmoil, I left my latest home in Newport News and reluctantly come back to Arkansas, but a completely different corner than where I was raised. I quickly got a job and apartment but realized even in Arkansas and in an old one bedroom apartment my minimum wage job and unreliable hours were going to require me to have a roomate.

I started looking around work for possibilities and realized there were no real possibilities. I did have a new intrest in my love life at the moment and we ultimately decided to move in with one another. After my then ex-Navy guy got off cruise a few months later I found out he was still expecting to move to Arkansas for us to be together. I panicked and told him to keep in touch and we would see how things went.

He did not call many times the next couple of months, so I continued my living arrangements. One of my squadron mates was being transferred back to the west coast and stopped to visit on his journey across the country. He informed me my guy still had intentions of moving in with me but I needed to let him know what I was planning on doing. I got mad. I never answered his calls again. We finally were on each others MySpace for awhile but he eventually deleted me, as I rightfully deserved. I never got to apologize for that series of terrible treatment, but I hope he knows I am truly, very sorry for it.

Since that time I have been treated the same way by many people. I always thought I deserved it because karma was paying me back. I have vowed since then to try to be as honest and open with others as possible, avoid the silent treatment when I really want to use it, and try to meet each person with respect where they are currently at.

If you do not want to do, say, answer, dress, come, go, just say so. People can handle the truth much easier than they can handle being lied to and then finding out about it at a later date. It seems like the more invested we become in social media and technology the easier it is to block others from our lives rather than civilly discussing matters and continuing or ending relationships from there.

I have vowed since 2006, when I did this to my friend, a friend I miss deeply and valued greatly, to speak my words when necessary. I take time off if need be, but I will always let whomever it is know that I simply need space. I hope that they know I will always hold space for them as well, and if they ever wish to return, I’ll give them back their space.

 

You are not alone

I decided to start this blog so that I would have a safe space for me and others to tell their stories of the past. I have learned that the more I open up to others outside my comfort zone, it only ends up leading to isolation. I hope that this blog will be able to offer a place of comfort, healing, and support for those that may have had similar experiences or just have never been able to let their voice be heard. The stories in this blog are all real, however names and other identifiers will always purposefully be changed to protect those that were involved. I hope through this blog I am able to bring more awareness to mental health and how it effects us on a daily basis. I hope that those that are seeking comfort or peace are able to find it here, and if there is an untold story that you bear inside you, that you find the strength to one day let it out. I held mine in for decades and I can promise you it did more damage to my physical and emotional states than I would ever like to admit.

I recently befriended another man, although I am a married woman, in an attempt to make a new connection outside of my comfort zone that I thought may understand me. I had a bad feeling about sending my message along with friend request as I did not know him, however there was something inside me that made me just hit the send button after I typed out my message. He accepted my request and told me that I could talk to him about my PTSD so we began chatting. As we continued I began to realize that when I spoke of my past, he never had any reply to my statements. I started to feel uneasy about telling him so much personal information, but I thought, well he is a veteran with PTSD as well, surely he would say if it bothered him. As the week progressed I kept getting the gnawing feeling that he was beginning to distance himself from me.  I tried to send him a message this past Friday to find I had been blocked. I thought, this must be a mistake.

I had just told him the previous day that the silent treatment and lying are two of my biggest triggers. We had just spoken a few hours before and it seemed as if things were fine, but he had become unusually quiet. When I went to send him a funny picture and my messenger told me that “This person is not receiving messages from you at this time” I thought maybe my messenger app was messed up. I reset my phone, and tried again, and got the same message. I then tried to go to his profile and it flashed “no content available.” I was shocked, as I had no real indication that things were that bad in our communication at all. I tried to text him to see if what I believed to be true was so. He got a bit accusatory stating that I was basically wrong and he did not have me blocked. I told him my reasons for thinking that I was and then I never heard from him again. I decided I am not going to waste my time opening up to people anymore that do not really want to be a part of my life or commit the time to understanding me and why I do and behave the ways that I do. This brought me to the creation of this blog.

This was the first person I have opened up to outside of my family since leaving the Navy for the most part and this experience has left me horribly triggered but I know its beyond my control. I had friends when I was out of the Navy but they were not knowledgeable about my past. I had attempted to tell my story once before to a friend after a drunken night of liquor and was confronted the next morning with “Leslie, please don’t drink liquor ever again.” I had remembered some of the subjects I had talked about the previous night, but not all. I took it that I needed to keep my mouth shut about it and deal with it in my head, like everyone had always preferred I do before. I shoved it down for several more years until I finally got a DWI a year after my sons birth in 2010.

I did not know who the person I was had become. I had always grown up with the thoughts that I would have children and a family. I finally had that, and I almost threw it all away because I was mad at my fiance about something that doesn’t even matter anymore. I realized there was something very wrong with me and my behaviors but I did not know what it was. I drank on and off for the next two years trying to fight to keep the bad thoughts away and perpetuate my life of denial until I could not handle it anymore. I was enrolled at Arkansas Tech in my last semester of my bachelor’s work and I was triggered by a discussion about learned helplessness and how women use this to get ahead in life, by acting like bimbos, playing down our intelligence, and these were the reasons that we were raped. I went off, and it was the first time I have ever stated to anyone that I had been raped in my life, and not just once.

I sat around for about a month after stewing on that conversation. I got mad about it every day and then I started researching rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and finally I found it, military sexual trauma. When I read the description and symptoms of what the Veteran’s Administration termed MST, I thought immediately, “This is me!” I started therapy at the VA on Halloween of 2012 and have been in various groups and independent therapy as well as marriage counseling since that time. I also decided to obtain my Masters degree in Counseling and I am a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. My hope is that others will see similarities in my negative behaviors and make positive changes to overcome them, as I try to overcome them myself. I hope you enjoy your time here and learn new ways to connect and heal with one another.