#CPTSD #PTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MentalHealth #Recovery
CW: child abuse, suicidal ideation
She knew before I knew.
Long before the diagnosis came, she knew.
Stealthy emotional flashbacks bound and throttled me.
I didn’t know I was frozen in time.
Freeze and flight were twin captors that caught hold of me when I was born.
Generational trauma. Immediate trauma. I was in a prison I didn’t understand, much less realize that I was a resident of it. I was told to forget the violence that terrorized me. A photo taken when I was about five shows the desire for death in my eyes. That was the girl who opened the door while the car was in motion, long before child-locks and car seats were common. I understood the contempt that loomed over my existence.
A chance offer to adopt a ballerina of a dog arrived as I was getting divorced 20 years ago. She was demanding, peculiar, and needed to be tucked in just so every night. If her bed wasn’t perfect, she’d toss the covers back, come find me, and stare until I followed her back to her bed and tucked the blankets around her perfectly. The princess and the pea, only with dog beds.
As I self-medicated and dissociated for years in my fortress of solitude, she clung to my side when I was shutting down to the core of my soul. She rested her chin on my shoulder when I cried on the floor. She lay by my side after I had knee surgery, resting her face next to mine.
Her rare barks were reserved for squirrels and moments when she sensed I was regressing and needed protection.
Her spirit left me years ago. I’ve lived in a dogless house for 15 years. A new companion has arrived. He’s older and set in his ways. He too is peculiar and demanding, and he likes his blankets just so. He has his own emotional quirks, so we get along just fine.
He prefers rabbits to squirrels. The rabbits tease him on the other side of the fence, popping up and bouncing away at a leisurely pace. He's a real-life Scooby Doo, a big brown dog with a blue collar who’s mostly a chicken and is a thrall to scooby snacks.
He doesn’t have her extrasensory power to sense I’m upset before I realize it myself, but he does ground me to the earth. We go for our walks and immerse ourselves in nature by keeping a sharp eye out for bunnies in the back yard.
They see into us in ways that aren’t obvious, but they’re true. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves, and it’s healing to think that my ballerina of a dog was reassuring me when I needed it the most.