On Emotional Demolition
I am typing this as my coffee shop plays "Feel this Moment" by Christina Aguilera ft. Pitbull and I think it is most fitting and appropriate
I think about this CJ Hauser quote about the moon. I will not state it verbatim but it goes something to effect of how beautiful and bright the moon may look from afar but up close you can see the craters; the celestial hits it has taken and yet she still shines bright. I don’t want to say that is how I feel about myself as it would betray some weird self aggrandizing and borderline corny appreciation of oneself but I think about that quote often. Don’t get too close to me or you will see, not only my post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation and the textured skin I try my hardest to maintain with Paula’s BHA solution; but don’t get too close or else you will notice the less than tolerable emotional spectrum of a 28 year old woman. The emotional craters that makes one human and the same emotional craters I struggle to extend grace to. Thankfully, I have a vessel of flesh that does not explicitly state I have an ACE score of 9 or that I have endured enough trauma in my pinkie than most folks will experience in their lifetimes. And for that reason I need you, reader, at all times within 10 feet of me.. lest I bless you with my sardonic wit or whatever emotional defense mechanism that may deceive you into thinking I am okay and haven’t graced the presence of therapist for more than 10+ years.
But as I turned 28 this year this is exactly the kind of attitude I want to make an intentional effort to let go of. This aloofness, this stubbornness that is often masked by wry humor. I want self compassion. I want nuance. I want the messy grey area. The unsure feeling and the acceptance of the absurd. I want to be able to make space for the multitudes. Common understanding of people who have endured or experienced capital T trauma is that they go off the rails and engage in risky behavior that counts them as just another statistic. For me, the experience of repeated and chronic traumatic experiences impacted me in my ability to over-correct. It’s admirable if I sit and think about it long enough. How cool is it to be violated in the most damaging of ways. In the emotive, in the physical and in some instances, sexually, and come out the other side with an insatiable need to ratio every fucker who has ever done me wrong?
Lol.
Surely, something must be wrong with me? In the best possible way perhaps?
I overcorrected. Borne out of need to predict a wholly unpredictable environment, these skills proved redeemable. Being hyper-sensitive and naturally emotionally attuning myself to others and anticipating their needs before my own? Relationship building 101. My uncanny ability to make sense of peoples micro facial expressions within half a second and finish their sentences? You are sharp, Marlene! These trauma responses were acceptable and it allowed space for redemption or some altruistic mode of behaviors that I hoped could cancel out out the shit I had dealt with. It was a farce though. A hot mess of epic curation. I was an exposed nerve who had overcorrected.
Surely, I don’t know much but what I do know is that as I parse out why I am the way I am. I am living through a period of emotional demolition. I often wrote that trauma in my childhood and my later adolescence was my emotional demolition. I scanned the angsty journals I kept so close to my chest. I reflect on those journals nearly 12 years later and I was, as the kids says nowadays— fried. I was cooked as my elder gen-z self would say but I think 28 has been an inflection point of sorts.
I move from one emotional demolition to another.
A refashioning of sorts. A proverbial, I finished the puzzle and now I must destroy said puzzle and put it back together without the fervent need to finish it as a means of overcompensation. Put the puzzle back together as a means to deliberate and intentionally understand why each puzzle piece fits together the way it does. A sensory experience of sorts. Yes. But also one that is about “integration” which is a core tenet of post traumatic growth research. It is an effort in understanding how each experience or puzzle piece has left an indelible mark on me. It’s not rushed in an effort to conform and relish in how I’ve managed to overcorrect most of my 20’s and somehow succeed, but one that seeks to understand how terribly unremarkable and “okay” I am and come to terms with that. A sort of personal addendum to the longstanding quotable question of “who are you without attaching yourself to every fucked up thing that has happened to you?” and more-so an understanding that I am all of this fucked up things *points at self* and yet so much more so
and I think that’s beautiful. (I might be joking)