“My heart could take a chance but my two feet can't find a way...”

I miss dancing. I have had people ask me why I let “Kevin” prevent me from attending dance events. People have also mentioned that there are other venues where he isn’t an organizer or a participant. Why don’t I attend those?

Yes, there are other venues, but many of my social contacts and people with whom I enjoy dancing aren’t there. The dances in the East Bay are convenient. The dances in other parts of the bay are lovely, but going to a dance and knowing only a couple of people is difficult. It's hard to rebuild a social circle when you have anxiety and other issues. 

However, people have a point when they remind me that Kevin is one person and I shouldn’t let one person have such an influence. I know that. I know it’s all in my head. I know that I am giving Kevin more power in my life then he merits. I know all that, but regrettably my amygdala does not. My issues with Kevin touch upon some deeply held trauma. I can’t simply turn my trauma response off any more than I can cure my diabetes.

It is easy for people to dismiss a mental condition because they cannot see it. That is one of the reasons I believe that mental health and diabetes are so frequently compared to each other. Diabetes is hard to see, but left untreated, it has significant consequences. 

The same way I have to treat and deal with my diabetes, I have to deal with my PTSD. I have my good days and my bad days. I take my medications, I do my best to control the factors that I can and hope that I will make it through the day. However, diabetes is slowly killing me. (I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but I don’t know how else to put this.) My mental illnesses are causing my social life to slowly erode. I hate it.

As a diabetic, I don’t walk into candy shops. I could. There are often sugar free alternatives and a very small amount of candy could be dealt with if I am prepared for it. There may be consequences, but they are manageable. It’s also stupid for me to walk into a candy store, because the more likely outcome is that I will harm myself by eating too much sugar.

I hope you are seeing the parallel. I could go to dances where Kevin will be attending. I can probably have a good time and if there is a bit of drama, so be it. However, as someone with PTSD, my problems are not because of one person. It’s that the situation is a loaded and threatening one and so the more likely outcome is that I will harm myself. Kevin is just the likely trigger. He is the candy in the store.

I can’t explain all of my PTSD. In short, I have Daddy issues.

All right, I am being flip, but it’s true. My father would promise to do things and when something better came along, he’d would change his mind and his plans and would recognize that he had done so. I think I was about 16 when I realized that I could not believe anything my father promised. If, for some reason, my stepmother decided that she needed something for herself or for her daughter, whatever my father promised me was no longer a priority.

My father always meant well. He would apologize for ruining my plans or for not being supportive. He never did anything about it and he never stopped the behavior. My stepmother and stepsister lost his house, his savings and ruined his health and to the day he died, he couldn’t blame them. It was always my fault for walking away from him and not supporting him.

I remember I asked him once, what resources did he think I had? How many times did he have to choose my step-sister over me before I gave up? I was the good girl who followed the rules. I kept curfew, I didn’t use drugs or alcohol, I didn’t run around with gangs. This is why my sister got a sweet 16 party, a car and an incredibly expensive wedding for a marriage that lasted, I kid you not, 364 days. She left her first husband the day before their wedding anniversary.

I learned to believe only in the tangible things that my father provided. It was cash in hand or I wouldn’t believe it. I did my best to protect his grandchildren from his fecklessness. 

Regrettably, I have a weakness for men like my father. It takes me a long time to  stop believing the promises, accepting the apologies and forgiving the transgressions. I hurt myself in these relationships. Kevin is a good example. I never understood that his promises and apologies weren’t worthwhile. He had his own agenda and when my needs weren’t compatible, Kevin threw me away.

I am sure there are those of you who are nodding their heads and sagely seeing the parallels between my PTSD and my recent issues with Primary and Secondary. You are right. Secondary would promise me the sun, the moon and the stars with the full intention of delivering them. Then Primary would remind him that if he didn’t give her the moon and stars, she wouldn’t see him. All of a sudden, Secondary would have to backtrack and try to explain how he had really meant to give me just the sun. He can understand where I became confused, after all Sol is a star, so he wasn’t going back on his promise, I had just misunderstood. (This is gaslighting, right?)

I fall into this trap with a lot of people in my life. They promise (or I think they have promised me) something. I believe them. Then they tell me that I misunderstood them and that they didn’t really mean it the way I had taken it. The PTSD kicks in and I wrap myself in another layer of self-loathing for being so incredibly stupid to have trusted them.

I really miss dancing. While there were problems, dancing was joy enough to overcome them. Kevin isn’t the first organizer to make me feel unwelcome at a venue. He isn’t the first person who was unreasonable in his reaction and blamed me because I was one of the straws that broke the camel’s back. Kevin was not the first to lash out of me for things way beyond my control. What happened with Kevin was that when he did it, the joys of dancing weren’t enough to overcome my personal demons. 

I’d like to fix my PTSD. I wish it were as easy as snapping my fingers.

Today’s song is funny for me because it’s about how a person doesn’t feel like dancing, set to one of the most versatile and danceable beats I have ever heard for dancing. 

Edit: I updated the content and fixed some spellings errors.