We’re in the middle of a PTSD bubble. I’m driving, and Aaron is in the passenger seat. We’re approaching Ventura Boulevard from the Hollywood Hills, and we’re on the way to Hugo’s restaurant to meet two of my dear friends. In a week’s time, I will be going to NYC for the Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 9 premiere and Aaron is freaking out.
Moments before, everything is perfect. We’re driving along, and we’re talking about normal things, probably some minor detail about the trip, and then all of a sudden Aaron is yelling, “I can’t believe you’re leaving me.” He hurls his phone at the dashboard. Once. Twice. Then he opens the door and gets out of the car in the middle of traffic.
I’m shocked. I can’t go get him or try to remedy the situation, and the light has now turned green and all the cars are moving so I have to drive and turn left on Ventura Blvd. I pull over to the right as soon as I can and I look at my side and rear view mirrors. I can see him wandering away and I wait to see if he will come back.
Eventually he comes toward me and I can’t remember how he got back in the car, but he did. And he is out of his mind. He doesn’t know what to do with all this freaky rage. I ask him if he’d be willing to take an Uber home, and miraculously, he agrees.
Inside the restaurant, I lie to our friends, and tell them that Aaron suddenly felt ill and had to go home. Then, I sit through dinner, shaking, and sick to my stomach, pretending everything is normal.
This was in 2017. Before we had a PTSD diagnosis.
Posttraumatic stress disorder can be crippling as PTSD symptoms creep into everyday life. A person with PTSD may be feeling fine one moment and a few minutes later they’re suddenly reliving the traumatic event while on the bus on the way to work. This may lead to anxiety symptoms like heart palpitations, sweating, and shortness of breath. Bt the time the person with PTSD gets to work, their anxiety level may be so high that the slightest noise can make them jump or even scream.
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The first time I went to an Al-Anon meeting I was in boarding school at age 19. I went for spring break to visit my friend Nina’s family in NJ. She was a recovering drug addict and alcoholic.
I don’t remember anything about that trip except that she went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and I was next door at the adjacent Al-anon meeting (friends and family of alcoholics). I don’t remember anything specific that was said, I just remember feeling so odd to be in a place with strangers. Recovery was a world that I didn’t know existed, and that day, I could never have imagined how many more meetings I would attend in the decades to come.
In the subsequent years that followed my boarding school life, I attended meetings in Winston Salem, NC while a freshman at North Carolina School of the Arts studying classical flute. And then in Boston while at Emerson College studying theater. Each meeting I attended brought me an ever deepening sense that there was a place where I could be me, grow up and develop life tools and adopt a language that enabled me to explain the experiences I had. Most importantly, a sense that I wasn’t alone.
Our lives are etched with PTSD. We are coming to terms with how the fabric of our lives has trauma woven into it. It’s time to pick new colors, new patterns and maybe even un-stich a bit to get back to the good stuff we started with. It’s like in knitting, when you try to take the loop off the needle. It’s not easy if you’re inexperienced. It’s messy and trying to sort it out makes you feel like giving up and throwing the whole thing away.
For me, it’s been a rollercoaster ride, but honestly, most days we’re really good. We feel so lucky and the more we get to know how other people suffer from PTSD, the more we feel blessed along with a bit of survivor’s guilt. That’s not to say that normal life can’t turn into a field of landmines. Writing projects that move on without you or exclude you, friends you love moving away to pursue opportunities, bills that need to get paid, messages pinging on your lover’s cell phone, attending anything social like a dinner, a coffee date, a wedding or funeral but without the significant other due to work conflicts or finances.
What I want people to know is that I feel so much gratitude for all the blessings that have come into my life because I met Aaron. I have felt the entire time we’ve know each other that we met for a reason. And I do believe it when people say “life is not happening to you, it’s happening for you.”
Here’s an oddity: Aaron and I never argue. About anything. We get along in every way possibly imaginable. We have tricky times and very stunted communication when he’s in a bubble, but so what. I dare anyone to try having a normal conversation or making plans with a four year old who is freaked the fuck out, scared out of his mind, angry, defensive and living in an adult body, with a cell phone a car and an adult relationship.
My favorite class at Emerson College was called “The Brain and Human Communication.” It was taught on the second story of an old brownstone right on Beacon Street, just a block away from my amazing studio-apartment-homework-party-hangout-pad.
The class was taught by a brain surgeon from Mass General Hospital and it was a bit odd that I loved it so much because my focus in my four years of schooling was classical music (North Carolina School of the Arts), and theater (Emerson).
I studied like crazy. I disregarded my other classes and spent endless hours at the library. I felt like I was discovering the information for the first time. I followed all the guidelines to create the perfect set of index cards and fully prepared for my final speech.
I had grown up with alcoholism in my family and I thought it would be interesting to find out what happens to our brains when we drink. So the the topic I chose for my final was “how alcohol affects the brain”.
It’s fascinating. The molecules of alcohol are so small that they begin to be absorbed right in your mouth. (Maybe that’s what makes that first sip so good?) They can permeate cell walls by penetrating the blood brain barrier.
They create a chain reaction where molecules and neurotransmitters move and adjust. When you sober up, everything goes back to the way it was (unless you’re a chronic drinker in which case neurons can die).
I was so fully prepared for the final report and when I stood in front of the class, something took over and I set my index cards aside. I spoke extemporaneously about the intricate nature of the brain and my teacher wound up having to cut me off because I didn’t stop talking. He thanked me and told me it was enough. I sat down. He gave me an A.
When I first met Aaron and found out that he was a sober alcoholic I remembered years of thinking that dating alcoholics was for those crazy Al-anon types. The ones who are really weak and attracted to the very thing that’s just not good for them. Feeling pretty good at around age 40, I had taken a nine year break from Al-anon.
When Aaron’s PTSD symptoms first emerged, I went back to meetings on hands and knees. We had no idea it was PTSD and for about nine months, my thinking was that these “episodes” must be dry drunk episodes. Dry drunk is a syndrome caused by an alcoholic who is not drinking but hasn’t made any behavioral or emotional changes. They act as though they’re still addicted.
In our worst moments with PTSD, Aaron was going to AA meetings every day and calling his sponsor on the east coast. So the term “dry drunk” didn’t make much sense. I went to my meetings and although we both consider ourselves lifers in 12 step recovery, we were not getting relief from the PTSD at all!
In fact, it was confusing because I’d be in a meeting trying to describe what was happening while keeping the focus on myself, and I think people assumed this was stereotypical alcoholic behavior and I felt like I was bad at Al-anon for not being able to “detach with love” the way I assumed they meant. Even my beloved therapist thought that Aaron must lack self esteem when I would tell him how upset Aaron would become at the mention of an ex boyfriend. Even he never suspected PTSD.
I went to meeting after meeting. I took service commitments did a “90 in 90” which means I attended 90 meetings in a 90 day period. Aaron kept going to his meetings and although we ultimately received help from multiple places, we found in our respective 12 step meetings a foundation that was priceless. So although these programs didn’t address PTSD or secondary trauma directly, we felt supported, heard and accepted there at times when we were most afraid to let those closest to us know what was really happening. Our personal life was unpredictable and chaotic. In a 12-step meeting you get structure, dependability, consistency and a loving community of people who are not judging you or giving advice.
Whenever PTSD grabs Aaron, and he becomes his four year old self, he is scared and thinks he’s dying and there is no one in the universe who will help him and that there is no-one he can trust. He’s falling through empty space in the universe and it terrifies him.
Detach with love? Who in their right mind would let a four year old deal with it and not hold them, love them, and make them feel safe at any cost? The difficult part is that he often does not want anyone near him as he does not trust anyone or anything. So I can’t hold him and love him through it.
It’s odd. During many of the bubbles, Aaron will respond to me like I am Roman, or Cory, Aaron’s mother and father, his grandparents at whose house he spent the night after it happened, Cory’s sister who walked in and then left the garage while Aaron was being abused. Even the police, who terrified Aaron further by bringing Cory to the front door of Aaron’s home.
These bubbles play out like I’m the culprit and the savior. He is terrified of me, and yet he needs to know I’m not going anywhere. He is frozen with fear that he is being left alone or that he might be left alone. In order to help him and to avoid triggering him further, I’ve had to find my own way of how to be there for him in spite of my feelings. Most people who have experience supporting someone with PTSD learn that they can not show any emotion without making things much worse.
Any negative emotion or bit of upset energy coming from me during a bubble is the equivalent of pouring lighter fluid on a flame. Even though I’m scared, mad, enraged, bitter, tired, frustrated and hurt. I have learned to appear neutral and often times I have to remove myself physically in order for us both to be safe and to hide my energy. Learning to take care of myself is another blog post altogether.
“Linda, does he know how lucky he is? You are so supportive. You’re an amazing person for doing this, for sticking around.” Many people have praised me, and that feels uncomfortable to hear. I feel a great sense of purpose, and that I am needed. We both feel seen, accepted and celebrated every single day by each other and also by our immediate family and friends. Aaron says, “It’s almost like the universe gave us the perfect relationship to help us withstand the ups and downs of living with mental illness.”
I agree.
Featured image by Kate Gillie
This post is part of a series intended to be read in sequence. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to start with 1. INCITING INCIDENT, 1976
Wow. There is so much here to think about. So grateful you guys are saying these words.
i think it’s impressive that you have always been able to separate Aaron’s behavior from his character. somehow from the beginning you seemed to be able to identify that this wasn’t HIM. i find that very impressive. i think people often struggle to do this, even with people they have known for 20 years. or even when we do know the reason behind the behavior, we can’t always tolerate it. you guys are lucky to have found each other.
I agree, Cindy, and Linda’s ability to do this has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Indeed, this gave me a little bit of safe space to begin to recover. I’ll be forever grateful to Linda.