I remember the screaming

I had a pretty heavy triggering moment last night, and despite having gotten past it, I guess I wanted to share with more than my immediate support group.

My wife(both of us RBN) made a mention last night during a conversation, talking about how we were never allowed to have a problem unless it was a world-ending problem - if you weren't melting down right this second, it must not be that big a problem, right? The only way to be heard, at all, was to have big, outsized emotions and responses - without making yourself a scene, you didn't even exist.

It got me thinking about how similar my experience had been. About my outsized emotions and responses, my fights with my Ndad. Him screaming was not an uncommon thing, but that wasn't what hit me last night. It was mine.

I remember the screaming. My screaming. I heard myself - not words, but how my voice sounded when I'd scream. How it felt tearing my throat apart on the way out. The shapes my face twisted in. The haze over my mind when I was so angry that all I could do was pour all of my tiny self into the one thing that would get anyone to pay attention - and how little good that attention inevitably ended up being.

I got to remember all of that, and watch myself remembering that, as I just crumbled from the inside, all in the glorious slow-motion of self-aware memory. I could feel my emotional stability degenerating, as I went from stunned, to upset, to teary, to quietly shaking as I tried to sob quietly. 33, in my own home, with my wife right there, I was still stuck in the first instinct to push that down and keep it to myself.

I remembered a little after that that I was in my own home with my wife right there, and some hugging, cuddling, and sharing got me calmed down pretty quickly.

I'd just like to take a moment to say I fucking love my wife. I would not have made nearly the progress I have recently without them, and it has been so wonderful just being able to have feelings in front of someone without it having to be a world-shattering crisis.

It's still a very close memory that I've been kinda stuck on, but it's no longer sucker-punching me, so I can face up to it. That's helped me realize something - some of the truth behind a thing I've been saying to describe how I feel the last few years as I've gotten mental health assistance, therapy, the whole shebang - that it feels like there's so much more of me. And there really, really is - that memory was surprisingly strong because it was my entire self channeled into brief moments of flawless fury.

But I'm not that scared, furious kid anymore. I've grown beyond that. That anger isn't everything I am anymore. It's not gone, but it's...so much less of me, now. That anger isn't my identity anymore. It's a feeling that I, this person, experience.

For those of you who stuck through this essay, thank you for taking a moment to share the experience with me. I hope some of it is informative for y'all too. You are more than your trauma, your hurts, your fear, your abuse, your anger, your upsets. There's so much more of you than the pain you've been forced to exist inside, and I hope you all get the chance to see that and grow past it.