There are a lot of things I think about while hiding.
There are a lot of things I think about while hiding in the alcove next to my refrigerator, huddling close to the smooth wooden cabinet, appreciating the way it juts out, blocking any view of me from outside the house.
For example.
For example, I think…
It’s okay, babe. Nothing is wrong. And this will pass.
The person banging on my door will give up and leave. My shoulders will relax again, my breath will return, my heart will come back to rest in its usual spot, its usual rhythm, and I will forget that I was here behind the refrigerator.
It will become a regular evening again.
It always does.
Well, unless this time it doesn’t.
I wonder about that too.
I wonder…
How long do I plan to stay here.
Why am I holding this spoon.
My tea must have cooled by now, the mug is getting heavy in my hand.
I wonder how long it’s been.
I haven’t heard them leave the porch.
I haven’t heard them leave.
Do I dare peek around the corner at the clock on the stove?
But maybe then they will see me, maybe they are still there, maybe they’ve moved to the side of the porch and then they will see me because the curtains facing the kitchen are slightly open.
Slightly open.
I wonder what it would be like to be someone who didn’t flee in terror at an unexpected knock on the door.
I wonder what happened to me, what made me into someone who immediately, automatically, unthinkingly intuits the worst case scenario and seeks the nearest hiding spot.
And also, what is wrong with people. Who knocks on a door unannounced in the middle of the night?! Who even does that.
And yes, okay, it’s only 7pm, but it’s pitch black and I’m not expecting anyone, and there is no way I’m opening that door. There’s no way I’m even going near the door.
There is no way I’m going near the door.
I have heard too many stories from women friends.
Too many stories, told in that eerie flat voice. I have heard the words, “I knew I shouldn’t open the door, but…”
Never open the door.
Never open the door.
Why am I thinking about the Swedish girl, what was her name, the one who was leaving for India. Nina. I took her flat in south Tel Aviv after my divorce.
It was a small loft in a corner of the fourth floor of a (loosely) converted clothing factory in a not-great neighborhood. It had bars on the windows and the shingles were asbestos, and I loved that place.
Oh right, the door. It was a wide metal door, very wide, with a sliding lock.
People would come and bang on it. And shout threats. Nina owed a lot of people money. And it turned out my boss at the bar had no intention of taking care of all the tickets we’d gotten for being open past midnight, which all had my name and address on them, and I don’t remember exactly what happened with that but there was drama.
One time I got a call from someone who said they were at the bar looking for me, to arrest me, and that Omri, the owner, had gone out the back door instead of explaining that it wasn’t me they wanted. I stayed with a friend for a while.
Mainly when I think about that door, I remember being curled up in a ball in the corner, waiting for the angry people outside the door to leave. They would yell about how they knew I was in there, and I remember wanting a cigarette so badly, and shaking.
Sometimes they would slip an envelope under the door, strategically placed halfway so they’d know if I moved it, and I would leave it there for weeks. Mostly I just waited.
Lots of waiting.
Lots of waiting.
While I am waiting now, I try to think about this as a systems problem.
Like, how about a good sign for the door.
For example: No Soliciting.
Or possibly, better, what about this?
A Person With PTSD Lives Here, Do Not Knock On The Door Because She Can’t Handle It.
Or maybe just PLEASE GO AWAY.
Or maybe the signs need to be inside of me. Maybe see a hypnotherapist, create new responses to knocking on the door. Seed calm and steadiness. I still don’t have to open it. I can just be calm in my not-opening, in my non-response.
Preventative measures, it couldn’t hurt.
It couldn’t hurt.
I am wishing I had my cell phone in my pocket, why don’t I just carry it with me.
No, that’s nuts. Do I really want to be someone who can’t walk a few feet to the kitchen for half a minute to pour herself some tea without having a phone for company?
Actually, yes, maybe, because it would be so nice to have right now.
And because this is not the first time I’ve been right here, cowering, frozen, waiting, shallow breath, trying to feel the ground beneath my unsure feet.
This has happened dozens of times. And if I had the phone I would know how long I have been waiting, and I could text my housemate and tell him what happened.
This is always comforting. He’d say that it’s probably the kids of that couple that look like spies, collecting money for the basketball team. And I’d say no, because they didn’t knock next door, I would have heard, it was only here. And anyway, this wasn’t kids. That was an adult knock: firm and determined, and it repeated.
And he’d say maybe it was the neighbors. He would run through all the possibilities and ask if I wanted him to come home, and I would feel better.
I would feel better.
I think I hear a car driving off.
I wonder what it is like not to have PTSD. What is it like for a knock to just be a knock, just information. Oh, someone is at the door.
I wonder about whose fear this is.
Tiny me, maybe. When I was little I had recurring nightmares, for years, about people breaking into the house to kidnap me. They’d surround the house, and then one of them would bang on the door, and I’d hide.
Or maybe it’s older than that, from before I was even here, fear that is energy residue or cellular memory, inherited genetic or cultural fear, Jewish fear. Maybe this is the received collective memory of the Inquisition, of pogroms, of Gestapo pounding on the door.
Or maybe it’s from my adult life. Maybe this is the fear that comes from Not Having Safe Space, maybe this is the fear that comes from the lived experience of being without a home for eight months, maybe this is the fear I didn’t let myself feel when things were desperate.
Maybe I don’t need to know.
Maybe I don’t need to know.
I am gripping the spoon and my hand hurts.
There is a small cut on my finger.
I have been staring at the can opener on the counter for a very long time.
It is okay now, I can peek around the corner at the clock, it’s been seven minutes since I last looked.
I could walk to the couch. Or crawl, maybe crawling is better. Not going to crawl.
I make it to the couch and sit there for hours, not moving, keeping myself as distracted as possible, because who wants to feel this much nervousness, who wants to listen to the monster chorus of Why Can’t You Just Be A Regular Person Who Can Deal With Shit, This Is Not A Big Deal, It’s Just Someone At The Door.
One day this will pass. This will pass, this will pass, this will pass.
It passes.
I find my way back.
To breath, to steadiness, to trust, to this moment which is now, where I am safe.
I sleep peacefully through the night, and the next day in the light of morning it is just a remembered moment, without a charge to it (remember when I freaked out completely when it was probably just a neighbor?).
The next time will be a little easier, and then the time after that.
I get back to the daily work of taking exquisite care of myself, cultivating steadiness, resting and breathing on the floor, talking to my body, talking to me-from-then, talking to incoming me, talking to me-now.
Being a glowing beacon of warmth, permission, acceptance, safety. And of course, the tricky art of self-forgiveness.
Asking curious questions. Changing bits and pieces in the video game.
I practice the tools from the emergency calming techniques kit so that I can access them faster next time.
I find the thank you in my thank you heart. I name everything around me. I am here. I am okay.
I am here. I am okay. I am practicing
How commenting works here, and an invitation to play.
This is exquisitely vulnerable territory here.
And while each of us comes to this with different background and different experiences, we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. And: people vary. We have different needs and different approaches, and that’s okay.
In order to ensure safe space in this sweet corner of the internet, we commit to not giving each other advice, not analyzing each other, not telling people what they should try or how they should feel. We make space for each other so that everyone can have their own experience.
We do our best to meet ourselves and each other with as much grace and warmth as we can.
You are welcome to leave hearts, pebbles, flowers, soup. You are welcome to share things that were sparked for you.
May we all have safety, comfort, clarity, everything we need. May we all have the spaciousness and presence to meet our patterns with understanding, and layer on new experiences, rewrite expectations, let go of all that is done.
♡
– o –
“May we all have safety, comfort, clarity, everything we need. May we all have the spaciousness and presence to meet our patterns with understanding, and layer on new experiences, rewrite expectations, let go of all that is done.”
Yes. <3
<3
I put a sign on the door. Friends laughed at first, but I suspect some made their own once they learned how effective it was.
Here is borscht, prepared exactly the way you would like to have it. I was making borscht and tweeting about it the day we first interacted on Twitter, so it will always remind me of you. I am also sending warm wishes for comfort and peace.
I disconnected my doorbell. My apt is on the second floor so if there are people knocking I can’t hear them. Mostly because the mail scared me and then during the bad years there were people knocking to give me papers that someone was suing me because I couldn’t pay my credit cards.
It hasn’t escaped me that this is not unlike what I have done with my heart – disconnected the doorbell and hid on the second floor, which makes me miss the imagined scary callers, but also makes me miss whatever wonderful things might be there, too.
A breath for safety and alcoves.
<3 When I moved in, the previous owner apologized that the doorbell doesn't work. I thought, oh not at all, that is a FEATURE as far as I'm concerned! Amen to safety and alcoves, and love for your heart.
I also took away the doorbell. A person has to open two doors to knock on my front door. I can lock both of those and do if I see someone selling goods or politics or religion in the neighborhood.
Friends know to email or call well ahead of time (ringer always on silent, sorry!). Unsolicited knockers and callers can go away.
Sometimes I don’t even bother making that much effort to hide.
I like knowing I am not the only one who does not always care to answer doors. Strong negative reactions to it today because I answered the door to a stranger yesterday after mistaking him for someone I expected.
Leaving a pebble and ??
That was supposed to be a heart <3
Ahh, leaving a nice fresh cup of tea that doesn’t ever go cold.
o o o o o
????????????
Oy, my commenting rookie mistakes! Those were intended to be flowers, loads of beautiful flowers. 🙂 As many as you’d like, to scatter all over your space, or bury your face in a lush bouquet, or float petals in the bathtub, or all of the above. <3
{{{Havi}}}
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…and I am in that corner too, right now – in the apartment upstairs.
For me it’s the phone. For more than 25 years, I’ve dreaded the phone ringing unexpectedly. Not just middle of the night calls, but at any time of the day. Caller ID helps some; I know who I can ignore. But I wish they wouldn’t call.
Oh my yes. Phones & doors. Me the introverts needs predictability and routines. I need plans and schedules. Unplanned ringing phones and knocks on doors rattle me, even on very good days when I am not juggling monsters. Sweet besos to everyone here. It’s okay to dislike these things. Just because it is not everyone’s “normal” does not mean that it is not normal for us.
This string of Me Too comments is making me so happy.
I hide from knocks on the door unless expecting someone, and only pick up the phone if I recognize the person calling.
I didn’t know there was a whole secret society of us out there. solidarity! (but no soliciting!)
Add me to the Me Too club…
Phones. Doors. Even emails.
Especially when I’m *not doing well,* I want to stay away from all forms of contact.
Who wants something from me!? Go away! I can’t help you. I don’t have what you need. Please don’t ask because I might not be able to say No and I can’t handle saying Yes for the sake of you when it would be unkind to me because that’s what I used to do all the time and NOW look at me! I can’t even receive your call/knock/email like a normal, sane person. So please, please, please. Leave me alone.
[Deep breath.]
My desire for safety is okay. I can give it to myself in the ways I know how. And I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. #importantreminders
Yes that makes so much sense! <3
This is so familiar to me. Our last landlords wouldn’t notify us before sending their yard maintenance workers. To them it was just a normal part of property management, but to my trauma-brain, strange men wielding power tools suddenly appearing at eye-level with our bedroom window was a sure sign of impending crisis. I would be asleep in bed and the next thing I knew, I would have instinctively rolled off and underneath the bed, to remain there in full reptile-brain for the next hour and a half.
It’s interesting how the monster narrative changes as healing progresses. In the early stages of processing childhood trauma, it was always, “what are you acting like an abuse survivor for? You know you made all this up for the attention! No one is fooled by this act!”. These days it’s more often, “What, this again? You’re HEALED, remember? Counselors didn’t spend all those hours on you so that you could hide under the bed!” But I’m having an easier time reacting to the monsters with an attitude of, “oh, you poor goofballs. You just want to help, and you’re super bad at it, and it’s kind of funny. Shrug.”
Flowers and fancy rocks for ever’one!
<3<3<3
DO NOT DISTURB works wonders on doors, also is my favourite feature on my new phone. Everyone gets to leave a message that I don't hear until I'm ready to play it, and then I decide when (or if) to call them back. I'm so sad that so many of us go through this, but I am so very glad to know I'm not alone and that we all understand for each other what it's like!
_o_ + <3
I still get a little start-and-freeze moment when my phone rings, even though I know it’s not [incredibly distressing person who used to insist on talking to me over the phone]. It’s been YEARS, but that instinct is still there, making my adrenal system go haywire. I wonder sometimes what it must be like to greet the phone ringing with curiosity and excitement. Mostly I turn my ringer so it’s very quiet, and I put lots of numbers in my phone’s contacts with their ringer set to None.
So… yeah. Another “me too” comment. <3