What I’m doing and why I’m doing it—Journaling for Mental Health: A 30-Year Journey
What a terrible day! Well, it started out o.k. But then I got home and things started going down hill. It was cool up until the time my dad got home. We had hot dogs for dinner, my dad was going into the dining room with a hot dog (in a bun) in his hand. Trouble (my dog) ran up to him and snatched the hot dog out of his hand. The hot dog fell to the floor and he kicked the dog and started screaming at him then at me for not picking up the mess! He got more mad at me than at the dog! Then, to make matters worse, boyfriend #2 called me and started telling me about how all my friends came up to him dissing me so bad. Saying that best friend #1 told them that I was a loser! So now, I don’t have any friends except boyfriend #2. Oh…big friend. I cried for at least an hour! I can’t wait for best friend #1 to get home so I can find out if boyfriend #2 was lying or not. I feel so alone! My dad probably hates me, I have hardly any friends left in the world. And it’s all because (the friend part) of best friend #1. Damn! This happened once before. Maybe it could be boyfriend #2 who is lying. I don’t know who is, but all I know is, because of someone I don’t have any friends. My dad loves the dog more than me, Sheesh! I feel so alone. All I can do is avoid my dad and find out the truth from best friend #1.
And there it is. I skipped a few entries to get to this one, but this is important. What happened with my dad on this day is one of the earliest memories I have of him yelling at me for no reason. When people talk about something being “seared into their brain” this is what they’re talking about. I don’t remember what drama was going on with my boyfriend and best friend on this day that made me so upset, but I remember in vivid detail the scene in our kitchen where my dad flipped out on my dog and me. This may have been the first time, at least that I can remember, but it was absolutely not the last time. The repetition of events like this is the reason I learned not to speak up about anything. Because when I did, or even when I didn’t, I got this reaction from him. It wasn’t even always what I said, it was what I did. I didn’t write about it in a journal, but the slamming of kitchen cabinets because I brought home something he didn’t like from Taco Bell for dinner even though I got what he said he wanted. Or getting angry at me because I didn’t peel enough potatoes for dinner which meant there wasn’t as big of a pot of mashed potatoes for the three of us. I could not say or do anything right.
The trauma from living with someone like that is the reason it has taken me so long to speak up about things. Even with my husband. He knows I have something to say that may disagree with something he has said, but he frequently has to almost beg me to say it. The fear is crippling sometimes. My husband has never yelled at me or ever responded to me like my father did, and yet, if a kitchen cabinet accidentally closes too hard, my heart drops and the anxiety kicks in. This is why my PTSD diagnosis is “complex”. It wasn’t just one trauma that I’m trying to overcome, it’s many. This incident being one of the first.
You might wonder where my mother was while this was going on. She was there. She was dealing with her own mental health issues and did absolutely nothing to intervene when he did something like this. One therapist that I had in the past called it “traumatic invalidation”. I needed her to defend me. I needed her to step in and make him stop yelling at me all the time. She never did.
It’s important for me to share this particular entry because I didn’t write much else about him. Not until my senior year of high school when things got really bad. I continued to write about friend drama and all the many boys I had crushes on. They were the distraction I needed. As I read this early journal I was almost tempted to ask a psychologist friend of mine if it was normal for me to be so boy crazy. The obsession with boys and school drama seemed excessive. It may have been, but I’m learning now that it was a way for me to block out what it was like living with my father.
I’m looking forward to the day when I will remember the happy moments with as much vivid detail as the traumatic ones. Those happy moments weren’t in these early pages though. It was a few years after meeting my husband that they truly started.
Until then…
Leave a Reply