Triggers

Saturday was a great day! It was gorgeous and sunny, but not too warm. We walked early in the morning and then went into the pharmacy for a refill of my inhalers, and then we went to the market to see Kenny. I got two orders of pad Thai, and one mango salad. My God, I love his food!

When we got home, it wasn’t long before it was lunchtime. Lunchtime comes early when breakfast is at five. There followed a brief nap in the sun and then I got busy weeding, but weeding is very hard on my back, and every time I stand up after doing a lot of pulling, I was dizzy. So, I didn’t last long. Besides, who cares? No one is ever in the backyard except me—except Pete and Ali from down the street. 

After a couple of rounds of weeding and resting, I had a nap in the sun. I love doing that when it is cool enough to sustain the heat of the sun. And then Her Highness and I did a long walk along a shady trail. At the entrance we met a gentleman and Sheba barked at him. She barks at everyone, and I hate it, and I apologise to everyone. 

But this gentleman liked dogs, I could tell, and we fell into a conversation. And suddenly I thought he stammered, and I asked him if he had a speech impediment. He said he did and that he had noticed mine. His name is Charlie, and I hope I see him again. I was so happy to meet a fellow stutterer—and here on the island. 

The weed fields are dying, so I don’t think that I’ll do more weeding. The great browning has begun, and since the foreseeable forecast is only sunshine, the transition will be quick. Watering responsibilities will be ramping up. I’ll be doing a thorough job both today and tomorrow because on Tuesday, I’m going to visit Dianne at Nanoose Bay. She rents a seaside cabin there every summer.

Friday night, I was watching a movie that contained a scene wherein the chef of a restaurant comes out of the kitchen and yells angrily at two employees. For this scene, the camera is close in on the chef; his upper body and face fill the frame. And he yells, and I had a seizure.

My father would spanker me like most other fathers at the time did. But sometimes he would lose control, and I learned to fear those times because his anger gave him strength. There was a time I remembered those events. The memory of them had me learn the alarm: his footsteps on the stairs and he came down to punish me became my cue to hide or flee. His steps were different when he was mad and coming for me. They were hard and I could hear the anger in them. But there was no getting away from him, I remember that.

But now, I can’t for the life of me remember the beatings. I can only remember the steps on the stairs and the panic the sound would instill in me. My downward mental spiral began, I think, when I suddenly remembered long forgotten memories of how alone and ignored I was.

The point of the story here, is that my mind somehow put all the bad memories of my past out of reach to me for the first 40 years of my life. Then a bunch came back, but not all. And I don’t remember the beatings.

What I understand from Dr. Shoja I s that the memories are there, and I believe that my seizure on Friday night is due to my past experiences even though I can’t remember those experiences. I have autonomic responses to a shitload of things. My speech reflects anxiety, just as my seizures do, and people being angry is a HUGE trigger for me. Dogs being angry triggers me.

And it’s all out of my control—whatever ‘my’ means. I separate ‘myself’ from my mental illness/my subconscious.

Today is bright and sunny. I shall water and we’ll likely go to Silva Bay to have lunch at the food truck. It’s My Day. We shall enjoy it!