Perception

Jen here again, from the Media Team. I, like most people, probably have undiagnosed CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that comes from generational trauma that comes from being raised by people, who were trying their best, but were living through their own trauma. My family isn't perfect, as if anyone has a perfect family. 

I have my psychological scars. I was never physically abused, but psychologically? Shit. On my journey to healing, I've come to believe in the last year or two I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum (I'm on the wait list to be tested) & I'm able to look back & see how much my mom is like how I was as a young adult freshly on my own.

I was quick to anger & did my own screaming & banging. I was not the best mom. But I understood the importance of self-reflection & the wonder that is highly effective meds. That's the biggest difference between us.

I am able now, since I've worked on getting my anxiety under control, to see just how fucked up my parents really are. Have you ever experienced someone angrily cleaning at you?  When my mom gets mad, she gets loud. Slamming things, screaming and yelling, sometimes just because you were the first person she came across. 

For some reason, this has resulted in a marked anxiety of being perceived. This has come out  in really weird ways. Before I had a car with automatic headlights, I would feel really weird turning on my headlights around other cars. I hate playing any kind of competitive game: cards, board games, even video games with a larger social aspect. It makes me feel wrong, bad. I can happily watch other people do these things, but I can't do them myself. 

Perception is danger. Being noticed feels wrong. Yet I feel, like most people, a need to belong if only a little bit. We're social animals. We need each other. 

Where I was fortunate was being a) an oldest child with a 9 & 10 year gap between my brothers & me, and b) having an animal loving uncle who had a girlfriend who became like a second mom. They let me escape, hang out with their multitude of pets, & let me tag along when they visited their friends who owned a horse farm. 

I learned more about socialization from those animals than I ever had from other people. I was told to make myself big, to be seen, when I was among the horses & they were spooked by snow falling off the barn roof. With them, I was safe. I needed to be perceived.

I still struggle with being seen. Acknowledged. Things like being complimented are becoming easier to accept, though it still often confuses me. Why am I being praised for behavior that, for me, is normal? 

Growing up around older adults has also had a positive effect on me. Because I was often around older adults who were not my immediate family, I learned what adulthood could look like: full of humor and compassion. I was only nominally treated like a kid. I did get teased by the occasional adult about me being quiet (I never was a talker) but that was in good natured jest. 

Those adults had their own trauma, yet they were able to be happy, healthy people. I have a feeling all those animals they had helped. Whatever generational trauma they had never affected me negatively. I'm certain they all had their own version of CPTSD, growing up in the 60's & 70's. There was so much post WWII paranoia, Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War really messes a person up. Even with all that they were the parental figures I needed & I am grateful to them. 

It's for my memories of them that I choose to heal, to reflect, to be a better person. It's for my own herd of pets that I know how to listen. It's for my own adult child (there needs to be a word for that) that I try not to project my trauma too much. 

As for one of the last times I was screamed at by my mom & she asked “What, do you think you're better than me?” I can now say yes. Isn't that the whole point?