Whispering Wyrd

I was having a good day early yesterday. Just going about my daily life when, out of nowhere, memories came flooding in. It was like someone threw open a door I didn’t even know was unlocked and allowed the monsters in. One memory at first, then another, then many more.

Before I even realized what was happening, I was hyperventilating. That’s when I knew I was in trouble.

I went outside and walked. That helped for a while, but my nervous system was already lit up. Fight-or-flight had taken over now. My body was reacting as if the past was happening again right now.

By evening the intensity had returned with a vengeance, so I meditated longer than usual. It steadied me enough to be able to eat. But when I went to bed, the nightmares came almost immediately. I woke up gasping for air, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst right out of my chest.

It’s astonishing how powerfully the body remembers. My mind knows I’m safe, safe in our home, in this present moment, but my nervous system doesn’t always get that memo. When it’s triggered like that, it’s like a terrified child has taken the controls. Except this child lives in an adult body with adult strength.

When I woke up from that nightmare, I was throwing punches. Trying to defend myself from something that happened long ago. I maybe slept an hour in total.

But what unsettled me even more than the nightmare was where my thoughts started drifting afterward…

Anger.

I realize now that anger used to be my shield against fear. And that shield almost destroyed me in the past. When I felt that old heat flicker back to life, I got terrified. Terrified of hardening myself again. Terrified of losing the progress I’ve fought so hard for. Terrified of slipping back into patterns that nearly cost me everything.

I even found myself craving benzos. That scared me.

So I did the only healthy thing I knew to do at the moment, I told my wife the truth. I told her how bad it felt. I told her I was craving the benzos. She took my hand and we went walking. That helped. A lot.

Today I’m still reeling. I don’t know if the flood of memories triggered a withdrawal wave, or if the lack of sleep just amplified everything, or if it’s simply the nervous system doing what nervous systems do when trauma resurfaces.

What I do know is this… I didn’t give in and I didn’t numb it. I didn’t lash out. I didn’t isolate. I didn’t pretend I was fine. I walked, I meditated, I talked to my wife. I stayed present.

That’s recovery.

It isn’t linear and it isn’t pretty. It ain’t candles and pixie dust. Sometimes it’s nightmares and pounding hearts and white-knuckling through the present moment. But it is survivable.

I promised when I started writing that I would keep it real. I won’t sugarcoat this path. I share the good days and the hard ones because I remember what it meant to me, in the dark depths of acute withdrawal, to hear someone say, “I went through this too, and I’m still here.”

If you’re struggling today, if old memories have ambushed you, if your body feels like it’s fighting ghosts, you aren’t broken. You’re healing, and healing sometimes shakes things loose.

We aren’t defeated just because we were triggered. We keep walking. We keep breathing. We keep choosing to do the next right thing.

Amituofo
~Buck