“I didn’t know you were so stressed out…”
Glancing over at J, I focused on the orange fluorescent lights flickering in darkness through his glasses as we drove southbound on the freeway. Sensing the involuntary disappointed downturn of the corners of my mouth, I quickly averted my gaze out the passenger window so he wouldn’t see.
You didn’t know I was stressed out? Because me doing dishes at 6:30 in the morning is normal?? How could you not know?
With a sharp inhale, I willed myself back to calm while my thoughts turned to the last time I was this agitated: the night of the 2020 election when I found myself obsessively cleaning the shower at 9:45. Furiously rubbing Comet with bleach powder in a counter-clockwise motion, over and over again into a stain that had never washed out in the last 6 years. “But tonight is the night,” I’d told myself. I would bend this to my will, unlike the political process outside of my control.
It didn’t work. But boy, did I try.
It was a recurrent theme, this over-functioning response to anxiety.
Reinforced time and again, after every fire put out, every emergency dealt with. Every time I impressed someone by being so “calm” and “in control” while I took more and more on in order to avoid dealing with the scary emotion of it all. I’d spent years unraveling this learned behaviour, figuring out the difference between doing things from joy vs creating the illusion of control.
I thought I’d made so much progress, yet here I was again, falling back into the same patterns.
Was I disappointed in J, or was I actually disappointed in myself?
Of course you’re stressed, M. You got your first court subpoena for a child abuse case and you testified under oath for the first time in your life! You’re supposed to be on edge.
My thumb and forefinger massaged the furrow between my eyebrows as I took in another steadying breath.
It wasn’t what I’d expected, but then again, I’d spent all morning conjuring every worst case scenario while washing the dishes and re-arranging the bedroom furniture. Imaginary spiders fell into my eyes as I cleared out a white wall appropriate enough to FaceTime in to court. I read and re-read my well worn notes on the case, tracing my fingers across my cursive script as if the keystrokes of my documentation hadn’t already been seared into my memory. The self-doubt I’d carried for the last year and a half since I’d watched the family walk down the hall morphed into acrid regret, sucking the moisture from my throat while I gave my testimony. DHS’s stamp of approval did nothing to settle my unease.
Even then, I knew.
I knew it would hunt me down some day. I knew the name before the police office laid the subpoena down on the table, stepping away quickly so we could maintain 6 feet for social distancing while I reluctantly picked the heavy envelope up.
The prosecutor was grateful for my meticulous level of detail – courteous, deferential even.
It wasn’t me on trial, after all.
And yet… 8 hours later, traveling to our friends’ house to have a socially distanced front porch hang out on this wet Pacific Northwest March evening, I was still on edge.
“… M? I can’t hear your thoughts, you know. You have to say what you’re thinking.”
“… I’ll be fine.”
He sighed.
It’s not him, it’s you. You keep pushing him out, holding him at bay. Holding everyone at bay.
“Well, can you call someone? Like, I don’t know… someone who’s maybe testified before or… H? He’d be good to talk it over.”
“It’s already done. And I don’t feel like talking about it anymore.”
J recognized the finality in my tone and gave my hand a squeeze.
“Okay…
He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but promptly closed it.
… okay.”
I knew that flash of worry so well. The way he treaded so lightly, as not to disturb a land mine. Me, for all my “resilience”, tip-toed around to not set me off.
I hated it.
But I also dreaded hearing yet another well-intentioned person say:
“That sucks. You did your best. It’ll be okay.”
Or even worse, watching the discomfort grow on their faces as they tried to find the right words to say. Feeling the need to now comfort them after I’d dragged them down with me into the dark secrets of my mind, knowing they were never given a chance to ready themselves for what they were asking for. Providing them the opening for a quick conversation pivot yet again as we try to reckon with the words we all wish I hadn’t said.
How many times did I need to be burned by that scenario to know it wasn’t worth opening that door again?
No, in these moments I don’t need to seek out anyone’s empty reassurances or words of comfort.
I don’t need people telling me I’ll make it through.
I can tell myself these things perfectly well enough on my own.
And if it comes from me, maybe I’ll be more inclined to believe it.
What I need are 36 degree rainy nights with unsuspecting friends, snuggled in sleeping bags to keep warm outside while we try to make the best of these weird pandemic times.
I need to lose myself in the details of work from home muting mishaps and silly Uber Eats drama, mundane tales of this big wide world outside of parental negligence, daily depression/suicide screens in clinic and unhealthy coping mechanisms with a straight line to alcoholism.
I need to ground myself in “normal”.
To remember what it feels like to dabble in the mildly broken.
To remind myself I can live there too.
To convince myself to hold on to these bright spots as well as the dark.
***
Photo taken of Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park.
***
Visceral reactions to witnessed child abuse/trauma is normal.
But if it lasts longer than a month, you may have Secondary Traumatic Stress. It’s a known phenomenon amongst healthcare professionals who take care of children who’ve suffered from abuse/neglect (which is where I first heard about this), but it also has been recognized more recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re interested in learning more in how this relates to the ongoing pandemic, please click HERE to this AAP article: Tips for recognizing, managing secondary traumatic stress in yourself.
If you take care of children at risk for abuse/neglect, The National Child Traumatic Stress Network is a great resource as well, specifically this self-care resource. It sounds trite when you go through the checklist, but I utilized many of the practices mentioned here, including writing this post after it happened in 3/2021.
If you find your self-care efforts aren’t enough, please seek professional mental health counseling. If you’re a physician or medical student in the US, you can reach out to the Physician Support Line at 1 (888) 409-0141 for free and confidential support, 7 days a week from 8 am to 1 am EST.
We must take care of ourselves if we’re to continue doing this important work.
Much love,
M