Write now. Worry later: A guest post by Shawna Ayoub Ainslie

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advice, anxiety, gaslighting, guest post, Shawna Ayoub Ainslie, trauma, words make us survivors, writing

“I fashioned word keys for every lock. I found and freed my heart.” (Photo by Flicker user Iain Cuthbertson, Creative Commons license.)

I could have dodged forever. I did for years. My story goes that I wrote my honesty in poems before I switched to lies. I found Fiction like drugs behind a gas station. I used it to get a righteous high. It was an avoidance tactic. I wanted to write my story, but I was afraid of who might read me. There are truths and then there are truths, and what I needed to write was ugly.

It was vicious. A knock-down, drag-out fight with myself that lasted years before I was able to scale the walls abuse built around me and dive into my story, full healing ahead. Why? Because even before I wrote my truth for anyone but myself, I worried about who might read it.

And when I worried about who might read it, I worried about who wouldn’t want me to write it.

Raising my voice to my toddler might be triggering me

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Bessel van der Kolk, discipline, domestic violence, Frances Rae, no hitting, no screaming, no smacking, parenting after trauma, raised voices, re-traumatize, Shawna Ayoub Ainslie, Stigma Fighters, The Belle Jar, The Body Keeps the Score, trauma, trauma after abuse, triggers, vulnerability

If raising your voice to discipline your child triggers/re-traumatizes, who needs the time-out more? Photo by Flickr user Brendan C (Creative Commons license).

I don’t want to yell, and I certainly don’t want to smack. I don’t even really like to scold my son. Yelling and hitting trigger me, whether I witness it, experience it, or am the one dishing it out.

This is a post idea I’ve been on the fence about writing. I drafted it a while ago, then let it languish–because my son’s age-appropriate, tantrum-y behavior improved; because I wasn’t sure of what all I wanted to say on this topic; and because no one wants to associate her sweet little one with abusive behavior.

I want to say outright that the only smacks my son ever gets are when I swat his hand if he grabs something I’ve told him not to grab. This isn’t intended to sound preachy, but I do not believe in hitting children. I don’t believe in hitting anyone.

But I do have to raise my voice sometimes, and I don’t like it.

Dual awareness, or, I learned a new psychology term and will write about it

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anxiety, Babette Rothschild, dual awareness, panic attacks, psychology, psychotherapy, PTSD, The Body Remembers, trauma, treatment methods, writing about anxiety, writing about trauma

For survivors of trauma, I’m learning that the ability to practice dual awareness is vital to healing.

Dual awareness, according to trauma specialist Babette Rothschild, refers to the ability “to recognize that I’m feeling upset right now…that I might even be having a flashback, but what’s going on with me right now has to do with something from the past, and I’m aware of where I am in the here and now, which is separate from that memory of the past.”

In other words, it is an acceptance of the past and the present at the same time.

I wish I could just say ______ and you’d believe me

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anxiety, believe me, domestic violence, failing, no end in sight, trauma, trying, trying means failing

I talk a really good game sometimes.

I blog about writing, mothering, and trying, and sometimes trying means failing. Who wants to blog about failing? Or even read about failing?

Nevermind. I know there are those out there who want to read about how others fail. I know there a few out there who want to read about how I personally fail. I can write for days about my own traumas, and against gendered violence, against racism, against apathy or lack of compassion or both passive and outright aggression, but there is no happy ending. There is no ending at all, really.

All this shit just keeps going.