Had a couple of big ahas this week. A friend pointed out that trauma survivors will often choose high adrenalin professions: cop, fireman..night-time taxi driver.
I brought that nugget to counseling. I was happiest as a deputy sheriff while working at the most violent facility. Eight alarms per shift, each responded to as if a deputy's life depended on the speed of showing up. As a taxi-driver, I drank cups of coffee and bottles of Mountain Dew and Jolt Cola, kept myself amped and made a living while keeping safe, but ever vigilant. I was/am an adrenalin junkie. I do not sky dive, bungee-jump or hang glide. I do tell stories of anxious moments in my life, or dangerous-violent scenes of movies by engaging my own nervous system in a fraught reproduction of the emotions of the participants. I also describe parental brutality with occasional quick slaps of my hands that crank me up and startle onlookers. Counselor said, "You're showing me what was done to you."
I attempt to enroll people into my plan to eliminate violence from parenting by including some ferocious displays of parental anger or frustration, which actually is me putting myself into the agitated state where I am so comfortable. It's like momentarily resetting my agitation level to my "normal," which is vigilance turned way up, preparation for being attacked is in place. Sometimes it is interpreted as "my passion," but I actually don't know how many people might find it scary. It's also exhausting and stressful, not serving me at all.
I actually only noticed the anxiety when I felt it in counseling. Here I was, sitting quietly talking, then I was suddenly cranked. I may have been recalling something, and noticed that felt like I was standing at the edge of the roof of a building, I was so anxious. What I realized yesterday, was that I was doing that all the time, and not noticing it. If I told a story of someone facing a rushing locomotive, I tried to make myself and my audience feel the fear by my telling. If I had no one to tell a story to, I could recall it to myself. I might jerk with the shock of being hit by the locomotive, or by an attacker, or ferociously respond to a daydreamed attack, putting myself into the "fright or fight" mode. But I was putting myself into that anxious place.
I realized I had also been denying myself the comfort of reclining on my couch. Counselor says, "Why don't you try it at home this week?" "OK."
So I laid down to watch a movie. About a team of American soldiers in Iraq whose job was to defuse bombs. So maybe I missed the point of the exercise. This week I'll try it again, with maybe a comedy.
