Inspired by BurningBee’s fabulous comic about realising how the world is different when you are properly medicated for ADHD, I’d like to posit my thoughts on complex trauma (C-PTSD) and how it’s like carrying around a big rock. Sadly I don’t have anywhere near the talent of BurningBee, so it won’t be illustrated (but if you want to illustrate it, hit me up).
Continue reading Complex trauma or carrying around a large rockMonthly Archives: February 2023
And then there were more stories about relationships
The first being this excellent piece from Roxane Gay, “The Honeymoon Hasn’t Ended“, which talks about how fucking weird it is when (usually hetero) couples seem to actively resent being in relationships, their spouse and their children. The way that marriage and relationships are seen as a chore, or suffering to be endured.
Please people, find happiness.
The second was this quote from a response to a letter in The Guardian, “I miscarried, while my best friend had a healthy baby. Is it time to move on from the friendship?“
It sounds like part of the problem is you don’t feel properly understood. An event that’s become such a big part of your life and emotional landscape doesn’t seem to take up the right amount of space in how she understands you; like the map you have of yourself and the map she has of you don’t match. That makes it really difficult to have a friendship. It’s hard to connect when you’re not even really seeing each other.
And I connect with this statement as I felt massively misunderstood by a now ex-friend last year. There was more to it, but that is part of it. The friendship is over, the impacts are not. Unlike the advice in the remainder of the article, I don’t think there is a chance to resolve things. I’ve spoken to a lot of people since the event, and no one, those who know both of us or those who are further away, suggest that there is any way to repair the bridge that was set on fire.
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A story quote on relationships
I began reading this short story by Will McIntosh called The Savannah Liars Tour as part of a Lightspeed Magazine (Issue 68). This paragraph summed up several conversations I’ve had recently with people.
You never love someone the way you do when you’re twenty. When you fall in love at thirty, or forty, your past comes with you – your broken hearts and shattered illusions – and there’s just so much of it, so many additives and preservatives mixed in that your emotions are never as pure as they were when you were twenty.
The Savannah Liars Tour by Will McIntosh
The conversations I’ve been having relate to how I could never replicate the relationship I have with James with anyone else. Not with Scott (who I’ve been with for 15 years) and not some future partner. James and I fell in love and started a relationship at a very formative time of our lives, we built templates for ourselves for things that we value and look for in other relationships, but the deep trust and understanding are very much one of a kind. No matter how much I may want to, I will never trust anyone else as much as I trust James. It’s something that frustrates me from time to time, but as that quote says, my past comes with me and things will never be as pure.