My Nervous System Is Getting Its Ass Kicked

So 28 days in, everything feels like too it's much, happening too fast.  It’s all too loud and too soon.  It feels a bit overwhelming and that fucking sucks!!  My poor nervous system can’t seem to decide between fight, flight, or freeze.  I did not have any words for any of that. 

Recently though I was talking with a Sister from another Mother who is a retired Veteran, and among other things, is a grief counselor, and she introduced to a word I had never heard before - titration.  It is a term borrowed by trauma therapists from the chemistry discipline – gotta love science.  It’s basically a way of adding something slowly, in controlled drops, to figure out what you’re dealing with. 

In therapy, the methodology works the same way.  You break down overwhelming experiences into tiny, tolerable drops.  Instead of letting the whole thing hit ya at once, you take it in pieces.  It keeps the emotional flood from wiping ya out and gives your nervous system a chance to catch up.

She shared that with me after I told her about something that happened on my first day back to work.  On my drive home, I hit a bump.  Not a real one, but one that left me pulled over to the side of the road crying my eyeballs out.

I always called Bride on my way home from work, to hear about her day and share about mine.  When we were in Oregon that drive was 50 minutes or so, here it is closer to 8, but we still did it every day.  My routine was simple, pull out of the parking lot, turn right and make an immediate left and mash the call Beautiful Bride button. 

On my first day back, I did it without thinking.  Turned right, made the left and mashed the button.  And that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The water works kicked on full blast.  I had to pull over and let all that come out.  After a few minutes, and a pile of tissues later, and eventually I made my way home.

After that first day back, I drove home a different way.  It took longer but I did not feel like I could go that way.  Truth is, I didn’t want to.  

That, apparently, was a microdose of pain.  I hit the memory, felt it, and then had to move on.  I literally had to keep driving.  I couldn’t stay there.  That was titration, whether I knew it in that moment or not.  This week I am going to start driving home that way again, on purpose.

I know I may still have to pull over.  I know I may still burn through the puffs plus.  But I also know that it won’t hit quite the same way every time.  So now, with this new word, this new understanding, I’m going to try to be more deliberate about how I do this.

Not avoiding it anymore.  Just learning how to walk into it without getting totally wiped out - controlling the drops best I can.