TheBanyanTree: PTSD

[Monique Young]

            There should have been no problem. My mother’s visit was an
innocuous annual or bi-annual event, no big deal, a few hours only, and my
trepidation beforehand was, I well knew, out of proportion.

            A simple visit, that’s all. We’re not the closest of mothers and
daughters, but not the farthest apart. There is a chance I suffer from
post-traumatic stress dating from my childhood, a very good chance, but she,
by her own admission, had no part in that. Hers was a simple neglect, a
benign neglect, an ignorance of what was going on around us, a blind eye to
what was going on and a deaf ear to what was said in her presence. No, she
had nothing to do with it, but she is sorry all the same.

            We are all sorry, at one time or another, aren’t we?

            A simple visit, that’s all it was.

            And at the end of the day, when I was done with the visit and
done with work, it all being intertwined for that day, you came to see me,
as you always do on Thursday night. And when we went to bed and then it hit
me, slowly, a dawning that came upon me from places I didn’t even know
existed, and the incidents themselves weren’t even the issue.

            She never tried to protect me. No one tried to protect me. I was
alone, and anyone could hurt me and no one cared. She was never there.

            And you held me close and told me that I was safe, and that no
one would hurt me.

            And you told me again. You looked into my eyes, and you told me
I was safe.

            And then you told me again. You looked into my eyes and told me
no one would hurt me.

            And I believed. I knew I was safe. For that moment, I knew it.
And I slept with that knowledge, that comfort, all night.

            The next night you assured me again, and I knew I was safe.

            And the next, though I didn’t need the assurance quite as much.

            By the end of the weekend I needed the assurances less, safer in
your love, in the knowledge that all I had been brought up to believe and to
know was not right.

            I am safe now.

M


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