So, my update the other day about an incident at my daughters’ school was rather nonsensical. Ranty and anomalous, not the sort of thing to be taken as anything other than an at-face-value example of a heightened emotional state caused by continuous triggers to my nervous systems. Where do I go from there? How do I channel all this into some productive resolution for my children?
The simple answer is there is no simple answer!
First, I’m going to wait. It is day four since I apparently terrified the employees at the school by shouting at them that they all need better training (not excusable! Understandable, given what they’ve put my family through, but never excusable!) and that weight in my stomach hasn’t disappeared. I’m having nightmares in the brief flashes of sleep I’m managing, I’m seeing fights everywhere and making everyone around me miserable. It took me over twenty four hours to realise this is what was going on and it took a further day before I got to a place where I could start to manage it (hence this update). So, I need to do as much self care as I can manage, not skip meals, drink my water and just relax until this feeling goes away because if I don’t I know the sort of spiralling I could do. My depression is always triggered by my cPTSD and I don’t need a rage spiral, a trauma spiral and a depression spiral all at once. No one has the time or patience for me to undo five years of intense therapy and hard work on myself.
So… I wait… I’m going to listen to podcasts and colour in my nature colouring book. I’m going to get lost in Austen and listen to Bill Bailey read his book on happiness. Just generally think of myself until this weight in my stomach has disappeared and I no longer feel that I need to run away or scream or attack the people around me who love me every time they ask me how I’m feeling.
Second, I’m going to continue my work in education advocacy and adding my small, individual voice to the larger, louder conversation on the need for more inclusive education practices. I’ve been a part of this conversation for around four years now and I feel I’ve finally found my place in life. I’m not a big voice, despite how loud my gob is! But we don’t need big voices. As my mentor and friend Mike, a retired teacher himself, told me many times, it’s not about being the biggest and the best, it’s about keeping the conversation going. I’m proud to be a small part of that and it’s all I want. Just that small piece.
Third, I’m going to focus on ensuring that my children, from those conversations, see that I’m fighting for them. Even if I lose, they need to see that I never stopped fighting for them. Looking back on my own childhood, very little was done right. I was abused, neglected and deliberately goaded into various toxic or dangerous situations. But through it all, my mother never stopped fighting for me. That’s important.
I wish I could add a fourth and say that I’m going to work on the community projects I’ve set in motion to keep me focused on my goal of confronting multigenerational trauma… But I’m so tired that I’m not sure I’ll manage that too…
So… Three points of focus for me right now, channeling the inner rage, frustration, disappointment and cPTSD to fuel that focus… Because the gods know I can’t use sleep, food and normal energy to fuel it!
The Neurodivergent Bee 