On taking the tiniest steps

I have been feeling a sense of dread all week.

At first, I thought it was just because I have so many things to do this week, deadlines and projects, physical therapy appointments for my youngest, and travel for my oldest.

But as the week went on, it grew deeper and more intense, finally settling into my chest and stomach, limiting my ability to breathe and swallow easily.

Oh, hi there, complex-PTSD. I see you need some attention again.

The calendar is what, I think, is promoting this new sense of foreboding and the lack of oxygen that comes along with it.

Before Crisis and After Devastation

Next week marks one year since the final blow to my marriage.

365 days. A trip around the sun.

I think my body somehow knows that we are back in the timeframe where my life shattered, but even as I type, I am trying to minimize it in my mind.

I knew it was coming. I knew our marriage would be over. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. We’d been sleeping in separate rooms for months. There had been countless broken promises and betrayals. I’ve been through much worse than this in my life.

Surely it wasn’t that traumatic.

Except that it was.

We went to dinner for the last time together on a “date” and said a lot of words. Good words. Beautiful, loving words. Words that danced together to define our future as a couple, despite betrayal and abuse.

One week later, the words were the exact opposite.

I don’t want to be a husband. I don’t want to be a father.

I never wanted to be a husband. I never wanted to be a father.

Lysa Terkeurst likens these events in our lives to how we mark time – BC and AD. “When we have personal marked events in our own history it can feel like BEFORE CRISIS and AFTER DEVASTATION. It’s a line in time. One that’s so sharply drawn across your reality, it not only divides your life, it splits open your memory bank and defiles it.”

Exactly.

It helps having her words define what I so deeply feel, because my tendency is to minimize traumatic events, to push them away, and try to plow through my days.

It. Never. Works.

The Trauma

The trauma (that’s what I call the combination of physical and emotional symptoms that so powerfully well up in me from time to time) will always fight to be heard, desperate to defend and protect me from whatever new fresh hell could be just around the corner. It has no discernment and is ruthless in its pursuit of protecting me.

There are many reasons (not just the events of a year ago) why trauma is embedded in my body, lying in wait, ready to take over when there is any sense of danger, real or not.

In fact, I believe that the events of a year ago were so traumatic because they were combined with all the other trauma that I had not responded to or dealt with in a real way.

Over the last brutal 365 days, I’ve learned that the very best way to respond to this trying to be helpful but mostly not at all helpful part of my psyche is to acknowledge it as soon as possible and recognize its power. Not deny that it’s there. Not call myself lazy for struggling to focus or get out of bed. Not pretend like everything is totally fine.

The abruptness of my own personal BC to AD, is teaching me that when this overwhelming, trauma induced feeling sets in, it’s time to begin taking the tiniest steps.

The Tiniest Steps

Back when I worked as a consultant (before staying home with my children – so a lifetime ago), I had this phrase that I would use to help businesses understand why it was so important to focus on seemingly foundational, basic functions, and not just plow through to make more profit.

“Sometimes slow is fast.”

It means that if you push forward without having the fundamentals in place, it will actually take you longer to achieve your goals. Essentially, sometimes the fastest way to get to where you want to go is by slowing things down.

Although I was really good at helping Fortune 500 companies understand and implement this concept, I never once applied it to my own life…until I had no choice.

I never wanted to be a husband or father.

The level of emotional dysregulation and overwhelm I felt every single second of the day after hearing these words is difficult for me to describe. It’s difficult for me to write about and share. I can feel the panic rising up in my throat as I even recall it.

I felt absolutely frozen for weeks.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t eat or swallow.

It felt difficult to even speak.

I couldn’t read.

I couldn’t pray.

Everything felt cold and still, yet also screaming with pain.

It was the worst trauma response I had ever experienced in a lifetime of trauma responses.

Because I felt so immobile, physically and psychologically, it was impossible to do anything other than take the tiniest steps possible each day.

My therapist helped me establish some “rules” to follow to help me take these tiny steps. We called them the 3 Dubs (the 3 W’s).

1. Water
2. Walks
3. Words

That’s it. For the first month, my only real priorities were to drink enough water, go on one walk a day, even if it was just to the end of the block, and some words – read something or listen to something or write something in my journal or talk to someone about how I was feeling.

3 Dubs. My tiny steps.

The idea was that if I could do this every day, it would help calm down what was physically happening in my body and allow me to begin to heal.

(I should add that we had already practiced a ton of breathing exercises for full on panic attacks and I began taking an anxiety medication earlier in the summer. Both were prior to the BC/AD moment. Thank the Lord I had already started to address the anxiety a bit before my world crumbled.)

As my therapist and I discussed these 3 tiny steps, I was immediately resistant.

What about working? I need to support myself and my kids now!

What about homeschool? It’s my son’s senior year. He needs to graduate!

What about the house. I am on my own in a house that is far too big for me to take care of on my own. I need to keep up!

I need to do these things. Not go for a walk and journal!

She very gently said, “If you don’t get back to the basics, you won’t be able to do any of those things anyway,” and it hit me.

Sometimes, slow is fast.

A year later, I can see how much those tiny steps have changed my life.

I still do all three, as a priority, each day.

Water

I have learned that the act of drinking water helps calm down the nervous system. Weird but true. There is research that shows when you feel anxious, drinking a small glass of water will help reset your body, as it distracts the mind and requires your nervous system to do something other than panic.

Water is an important neurological reset and staying hydrated makes me feel better anyway.

Walks

One walk has grown to three walks a day (mostly because we moved to a townhouse without any yard, so I have to take our service dog, Sammy, out for regular walks/potty breaks).

At first, I had to force myself to go on these walks. Now, they are one of the best parts of my day. I love the little sidewalks around my complex. Butterflies are everywhere right now, and I frequently see little hummingbirds flitting by.

I notice the brilliant colors in the sky early in the morning and as the sun sets. I see the mountains that surround my town in the distance. I laugh at Sammy acting a fool when he wants to play with another dog out for a walk with its owner. I call a sweet, encouraging friend and talk as I walk.

It’s a become an important, delightful reset.

Words

In the beginning, the only words I read each day as part of this practice were proverbs. It may sound strange, but I had been doing some sort of prayer or devotional/wisdom reading every single morning of my life for more than a decade. Suddenly not having the capacity to do it was jarring.

I remembered someone saying once that if you wanted to start reading the bible again in a gentle way, to just read the one proverb each day that corresponded to the date. So, on the 1^st of the month, read Proverbs 1. There’s no guesswork or decision to be made.

What’s the date? OK, that’s what I will read.

I am so glad the Sprit prompted me to take this approach, even though it was quite different from what I was used to doing each day. Here’s why –

I needed a sense of right and wrong. I needed something to ground me in what I knew to be true, in the face of overwhelming lies and gaslighting.

Reading a proverb each day reminded me of the most basic tenants of life and faith.

There is good and there is evil.

There is hard work and there is laziness.

There are rich and there are poor.

There is wisdom and there is folly.

There is justice.

There is care.

There is love.

It grounded me and my thoughts. Within a few weeks, I felt able to actually read again – books focused on Betrayal Trauma and Abuse. Topics that only a few weeks earlier would have made me want to vomit and cry.

My tiny little steps slowly became a longer stride, and eventually a full sprint towards healing and life.

Life Goes On, One Tiny Step At A Time

I am clearly still in the mess of it all.

It’s been a year.

There have been so many beautiful, wonderful, life saving things that have happened this past year. And the past year has been the absolute worst.

Holidays and birthdays celebrated alone.

My child’s surgery and recovery navigated alone.

Bills piling up from said surgery and recovery, paid on my own.

It’ s been a year. My body knows it. I know it.

The difference now is I have learned to respect, and even embrace the trauma as it tries to build a protective barrier of hypervigilance and fear.

My body knows that I need to take some tiny steps for a bit. I’ve learned to listen to it.  

Resources

Journaling

One of the best ways to sort through all the chaos in my head has been to journal each morning. Here is a picture of all of my journals from the past year.

Journaling works for me because I need a place to get it all out, before I can really started to untangle the mess of anger, gratitude, resolve, bitterness, grief, relief, purpose and hope that I feel.

Kara, a friend of mine, has been doing this for years and is huge advocate of the benefits of journaling. So much so that she is hosting her first class on journaling. If you are looking for a place to help you begin this practice, she’s where I recommend you start. I am taking her class as well, so maybe I will see you there!

Books

Here are just a few of my favorites from the past year:

All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir

It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People

Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles

Prayer

If you would like prayer, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will happily pray for you this week. 

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