Triggered Ain't Knocked Down

I had a bit of a "triggering" conversation yesterday. For all the absurdity of that word, it's what it was. Basically, I felt someone was trying to create a sort of power game around me. They swore they weren't and were actually very reasonable and balanced in their explanation later on, so I don't know if I was right or overreacted. It was triggering for me because it immediately reminded me of someone who not only tried but very successfully got into my head and manipulated and hurt me a while ago.

My instinct this time around was pretty furious and it was a very resounding fuck off. One good thing to come out of that whole story was that it helped me define my barriers and boundaries, not to mention led me into therapy and helped me become more confident in myself.

I do see myself as confident now, which makes the contrast between who I am and who I was at the time this person took advantage of me...glaring and infuriating. I see how needy I was, how dependent on their approval, their good will, and it infuriates me to think I ever needed that. That this bad person's empty words and malevolent tactics could add more value to who I was. It just boggles the mind that I was ever so lacking in confidence.

Anyway, back to yesterday. I don't know if this other person was indeed trying to play me in some way. I have reason to think they weren't. On the other hand, I notice in myself a lot of reluctance to trust new people in my life. There are some people I'm not suspicious of and whom I can genuinely trust 100% (or near enough), but that takes a very long time and a lot of shit experienced together.

When I was younger, I'd trust you like that. Just because you knew how to say what I wanted to hear. Now though, I'm learning how to stand inside this grace period where you don't know someone well enough to know if you can truly trust them, and yet that's okay. Old me would've needed a confirmation, would've done anything to end the uncertainty. Because old me was scared and really wanted to find the people in this world she could rely on.

I still do, but I screen them a lot more than I used to, and I realize that's a "gift" from that encounter.

I was a bit disappointed in myself yesterday, as this conversation progressed. See, we're led to think that healing from a toxic relationship or a bad situation is kinda like being inoculated against it. Like okay, once I'm healed from what you did, it will make me immune to people like you, to situations like this. So I was a bit miffed that it didn't. That here was this similar situation, that it had found me, and that it had irritated me.

I thought I was above that, somehow.

Then I calmed down a bit, and realized sure, it triggered me (for lack of a better word). Except last time something remotely similar happened, it didn't mildly irritate me. It knocked me down completely. And for better or worse, I didn't get knocked down yesterday. Not even close.

I laughed 'cause it's the Covid-version of inoculation in that it doesn't stop you from getting infected. But it makes it less severe ~~(yeah right)~~.

Joking aside, I realized we might be mistaken in our collective understanding of trauma work and of the healing process in general. There's a tendency to see things very black and white. Either you're vulnerable or you're not. Either you're sick or you're not. Maybe it's not like that, though. Maybe you can just fly by danger and get clipped, but without falling down entirely. And that's a victory in itself.

This person I was talking to yesterday told me I was being very guarded. I said damn right. I used to think people who were guarded were sad and depressing. We still think that, to an extent. I mean, who amongst us isn't tired of the "hurt man who no longer trusts anyone but meets the girl with the golden heart who teaches him to trust again" trope?

I was thinking about that trope yesterday, and how maybe there's some sense to it. Maybe that guy is tragic, but presumably the younger version of him, the one that got hurt enough to become like that was more tragic. So maybe what we're witnessing now is actually a marked improvement.

I don't know.

I recognize in myself these walls that didn't use to exist before, and some of them were certainly erected through pain. It's as clear as if there was a blue plaque on them, informing you. Some also came through developing my confidence, my faith in myself. I'm simply at a point where I see a lot more clearly what's right and wrong in how I interact with the world (what's deserved, what isn't, what's striking at my weak points, what' genuine), and so moderate my interactions accordingly.

I wonder, through it all, if I should be sad about that. There is a certain nostalgia in realizing that I was a very trusting kid, a very open person. I still am, but not in the same way, and I realize now that part of my life ended abruptly and with no warning. I would've liked some warning, maybe just to say goodbye to that more innocent, naive version of myself. To let her go gently. So there's definitely a sadness around that.

But is it, in itself, a sad event? I don't think so. I'm happy with how I am now. Then again, I thought the same "back then", so who really knows? I'm glad, though, to know there's some protection, some rails around. It might be sad in a sense, but I think it would be a whole lot sadder to get knocked down again and again in that same way. I don't know how many times you could take it.