I started going to counseling to see if there was a way to,
change what my mind was conditioned to think and do from an early age. Due to
childhood trauma, in certain situations my first thought and reaction is to,
hide. Hide and don’t be seen. If I hide and turn invisible I’ll be safe, if
they can’t see me, I can’t get hurt. I do this because someone I have never
met, had issues and had dealt with them very incorrectly.
I was nervous about going to see her the first session. Ever
since I knew sort of what had happened and how it might have affected me, I had
thought that a counselor would, of dig into my mind and have me try to remember
things that I know, might be there but haven’t come up. The first session she
stated she wasn’t a digger and I was so relived. She believes that if you
remember something, you remember, but if you don’t, she’s not going to look for
it.
For as long as I can remember, whenever I was in an
uncomfortable situation, a situation where someone is yelling at or near me or I’m
in a new place, I would turn invisible. I would just be as still and quiet as I
could be, mom tells me she has never seen someone breathe that quietly before,
but it’s what used to keep my safe. Now that I’m twenty almost twenty-one, that
instinct or coping skill is no longer needed. However; because I’ve done it my
entire life, I don’t know I am doing it until, I’ve dug myself too deep and I
can’t get back up from being the quiet, invisible girl in the group or at the
workplace. Since I have started seeing our lovely counselor, she has suggested
I try a couple new coping skills to still be safe and me. Part of it is to go
or do something I wouldn’t normally do, like going into a store that I’ve never
been into. Doing something small, but safe, alone. So far, they are going
great, Martina and I went shopping with a friend to a place we have never been,
and tonight we are going to dinner with a group for a birthday dinner.
Every job I’ve had, have been in customer service. You know,
the place where everyone goes when they have a problem? Yeah, I’ve only worked
there. At work, I am normally at the Customer Service Desk which is, as we
know, usually where all the angry customers come to yell and accuse. I had an
upset customer come to the desk while I was working. He didn’t really yell at
me, but he was already angry and was set to yell at someone. He raised his
voice at me, and I shrunk. I shrunk into myself so much that I felt very small.
The only reason he was upset was, because we didn’t have the item he had ordered.
After explaining that I could call the vendor to try to figure out what’s going
on, he took down my name and left. After he had left, the vendor didn’t answer.
I asked my head cashier if she would call back the customer because I couldn’t
get yelled at for not having the information he wanted, when she asked why, I
told her, “PTSD, trauma and yelling don’t mix well.” She shrugged it off and
laughed. I then asked a manager and told him the same thing when asked why, he
sort of chuckled but, he told me he would. The next day I had an email from my
manager saying that he had contacted the customer and taken care of everything.
It was that interaction, that small interaction, where he didn’t even have to
yell at me for me to shrink and try to be invisible that I thought, “This is
stupid! It’s your job to deal with people, he wasn’t even mad about anything
you did!” This was a week before my first session. Now have new things to do
when customers like that come to the desk, like putting up a “shield” in
between the customer and I, so I know that it can’t and I shouldn’t let it get
to me. I also am trying to remember not to shrink, but to stay the same or even
get bigger, but to continue to stay calm. Not shrinking has taken a little
longer than the shield, but I’m working on it, and that’s what matters.
Earlier this week an older lady came through my line, on one
of those glorious days that I’m on a register, and when I got to ringing her
up, she looked at me and said, “I just must tell you how gorgeous you are,
you’re just so pretty. I love the way you act and your _____ personality!” she
kept repeating this while I rang her up. Now, I don’t remember what she said
about my personality, all I remember is a thought I had after she said it. All
I thought was, “If you knew me, you wouldn’t think that.” However, after she
told me that, I couldn’t stop smiling. I’ve also never had a negative thought
like that, when someone has complimented or pointed out my personality. I don’t
usually let strangers in long enough to see it. Until that moment. For a moment
I let someone in, I let a stranger in, a new person that I didn’t know and I
didn’t’ get hurt. I was still safe and nothing happened. Although the moment
only lasted probably five minutes, the only thing that matters is that, someone
saw me for me. Not what a stranger has made me.
Since my first session, I’ve decided that, I was given a
very small demon from a someone I have never met, who has a hold on how I think
and the way I have always acted, and I am going to get rid of it. It’s not mine
to carry and not mine to deal with! I am tired and done, with thinking and
acting in ways that are no longer helpful, and ways that don’t always keep me
safe. I’m going to get rid of it, because a small child shouldn’t grow up
thinking that this is how you must be to stay safe. It’s unfair and mean what
that stranger left me, and I’m dealing with it and fixing what they did.
