It happened again tonight, like it’s happened too many times to count. The fact that I've had so many moments like this, makes me uncontrollably angry. In this specific, quick but seemingly everlasting moment, I feel trapped in this room with no way out. An innocent bath time with my toddler daughter turned upside down by the relentless presence of traumatic childhood memories. What feels like an eternity truly happens in a few blinks of an eye:
Blink once. All is normal, I’m fine. Drying her off in her expensive monogrammed towel.
Blink again. Any sense of normalcy is gone. I’m not looking at my daughter’s tiny body anymore. I’m looking at my tiny body.
Blink again. I need help. If she sees me panic when I see her naked body, what feelings will she absorb about her own naked body?
Blink again. I called for my husband’s help. To find peace in the dark spaces of my highly irrational mind, I need him to see that I am not hurting her in the way I was hurt in the dark spaces of my childhood.
Blink again. My husband didn’t hear me call for him. I’m choosing between falling apart in front of my baby while dressing her little body, (which the mere thought of makes me want to crawl out of my skin), and running away down the stairs, leaving her cold and alone. I wish my husband would hear me and take over - make the pressure stop.
Blink again. He arrives. We’re now trying to decide which is more traumatic for me - dressing her myself or me watching a man dress her. There’s no good solution.
Blink again. “Woman up,” I say inside. I can do this. I have to do this because she can’t see this type of reaction to her little body. I need to hold it together.
Blink again. Deep breaths and it's over.
I did it and she never knew any of this was happening inside or outside of me. Our family talks often about big feelings and how it's okay to have big reactions sometimes. But I don’t feel she’s ready to feel my big feelings about my trauma yet. We put jammies on. I brush her hair. I wait for the moment where I can fall apart by myself. Shaking from anger, I realize this is another moment he stole.
I make it as far as closing my own bathroom door. Sobbing, I now take my own clothes off, of course never looking at my body, this thing that is mine, but too many have seen and touched. I desperately want to shower, a little bit because I am still sweaty from a run, but mostly because the memories make me feel so unclean. Leaning up against the grimy shower wall, I just let it out. I’m sick of the echo of my own tears. But just as quickly as they came, the tears stopped, mercifully. I feel a bit of strength return. I try to tell myself I did right by my daughter today. I cared for her with mostly no sign of the torment I was feeling. I don’t think she saw how trapped I felt in this trigger cage. Someday I will tell her my truth so she can learn from it. So she can protect herself. Someday she will understand the walking I do for her. The barely upright walking I do through my trauma, all in her name. In the name of love.
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