Fourteen days later - illness.

14 days after the letter telling me to get in contact with the police.

I remember when I was training, most of us believed that people got ill when stress stopped. So going on holiday would trigger relaxing, and relaxing would let the weight of all the hurt and all the wounds be felt. It is safe to be ill and so we are...

Yesterday, perhaps it started Monday? But today, my sacred Wednesday - day off - I am so ill, and I'm feeling the bone crushing sensation of the utter and complete end. Psychologically I feel locked up in a box. The air is grey with sadness. My lungs feel full of feathers, I can't stop coughing, I cant think, and I feel so, so sick I had to make myself eat.

Every part of me is poisoned with panic. The four years of my son's despair and constantly waiting to hear that he was dead, hearing suicidal intent in his voice and not knowing what to do. Powerless, an overwhelming sense of wrongness. My husband, like a wax dummy, all love drained from him. The cruelty in his voice, the disdain and anger. Then the psychotherapist. 

The autonomic nervous system doesn't forget. Every physical memory of similar trauma is reloaded. It burns through me like a black sun. My heart beats too fast, the blood sings in my ears. I dreamt last night that I was dying. I was so sad, but not scared. I felt that I was letting people down. Now I feel like I'm trapped in fight flight with no where to run to, and nothing to run from. Periodically I shake. 

I use this model of trauma response - see YouTube:

So, this is how it is.

This illness, this replay of terror is my catabasis, my descent.

I will let it burn through me, to allow it, to feel it. It is as bad as this. State 3...trying to reset.

The police station was an attempt to destroy my ability to work. I am suffering the effect of someone's malice. I was in the lion's den.

Always start with a realistic appraisal of your situation - tomorrow I will let myself shake.

On Friday I will build upon the ruins.