Should have been a warning of rough seas ahead
Should have been a warning of rough seas ahead
I knew when I was planning my week last week there was something off. But there have been moments in the past year that have been off that worked themselves out. There have been rough days where I have had added stress. It’s in those moments my self-preservation kicks in. My focus narrows to tasks at hand that have to be done and making logical decisions without emotion. Anything extra gets pushed to the background to be handled later. Let me explain.
My spouse had a rough childhood. Mental illness runs in their family along with abuse. They have never hidden this part of their childhood from me. In fact, my first introductions to my soon to be life partner was not long after a mandatory health and safety check in a hospital. I have always left the communication open but know that reliving trauma is not something to be handled flippantly. So, when last year their mental health deteriorated, we both agreed to the long haul of therapy.
Therapy is a blessing and a curse some days. I am thankful everyday that my partner is willing to do the work and relive the traumas to work towards a better life for themselves, our relationship, the relationship of our child and others around them. But when you already have mental illness preying on your mind and then the therapist accidently touches too hard on trauma than expected, the results can catch everyone off guard.
When their therapist reaches out to you, the red lights and sirens resonant to the core of your world. Then the conversation happens, and we are now talking about in-patient therapy. That is when self-preservation kicks in. In a blink of an eye your world can change to having someone help with certain things in your life to now having to fill a void you weren’t planning for. Being asked your thoughts, my logic kicked in. “If it’s needed, if it gets them to a better place, if it gets them stable, why would I stand in the way.”
But in the back of my mind, instead of panicking about what I will have to change and have to say, I am thinking what time I will have to get up to get my child to school. I am thinking how to re-organize my day to ensure I can pick them up from school. I am thinking how to make dinner preparations easier, so I don’t have to spend a ton of time in the kitchen or a ton of time cleaning. I am thinking what kind of conversation I will need to have with my partner and what small things I can do to ensure that his mental health isn’t dipping further down. What activity can we do together that may lighten their stress.
What I am not thinking of is what dinner to make (spoiler we ate out a lot of days last week) or what I needed to do to manage the extra pressure I put on myself. It didn’t even occur to me that I missed some planned blog posts and changes I wanted to make to start working on my wholeness. It wasn’t until the sea began to be less rough that I even realized I wasn’t focusing on myself.
But we are in this boat together. I have told my partner and now their therapist that I knew what was in their history and am not afraid of this journey we are on together. I am aiming for us still being together when we are old. This portion of the sea just happens to be something we both have to get through but get through together.
