Triggers
No, no talking about guns. I’m a Democrat, people. 🙂
But what I do want to talk about, as I pour the world’s biggest glass of coconut rum and a splash of Coke Zero for color, are some of the things that make me crazy.
Don’t say rape around me. It’s just a woman thing. I don’t have any stories (that I know of) but this society takes it too lightly and I’m liable to start throwing heavy objects at those who think it’s cute to use the word in everyday rapport.
Not a fan of the word abortion either. I don’t think I have to explain why. I volunteer at Planned Parenthood and donate when I can. I love the local staff and enjoy having a glass of wine or marching in parades and rallies with them. I vote in their favor wherever possible because they are pro-women’s health. They just happen to provide a service I can no longer say out loud, even though I would die to defend your right to have one.
Don’t say a word about my hair. I mean it. Because I squelch the explanation that I got burned really bad as a kid, that for the last 28 years it’s been a sore spot with me because my hair density was reduced by 50% and never grew back. Just … don’t ask. Ever. You just got more of an explanation than I’ve ever given anybody. Don’t look at me and don’t talk to me about it.
And now, I’m not sure which word here is the trigger, but maybe I’ll just say “Dilly” and that will suffice. Because, yeah, heebie jeebies take over me from that nickname someone else gave him.
I guess enough time has passed that I can tell this story. Since apparently it’s become a theme.
I had an executive title at a company. In a cruel twist (we came to refer to those events as “days that end in Y”), he thought it would be cute to take the customer-service-rep turned executive-assistant and declare that she was my boss.
I rather liked the girl, and felt bad for her. She didn’t ask for it. He was being a dick to get a reaction out of me.
So I swallowed the bile when he moved her into my office. And I taught her EVERYTHING I COULD.
You want to give me a twist, motherfucker? That was mine to you. I gave you a competent young woman who was able to hold her own in your 14-carat fuckup of a company.
I quit shortly thereafter without an ounce of notice, with six active job offers waiting for me as soon as I was free.
Everything was getting to me. I mean, everything. Hateful notes from some asshole I had to edit who was always turning shit in at ridiculous hours and making me stay up half the night to accommodate. Then I’d get death threats (I still have a whole bunch of them) for how I edited the shit he wrote while he was on a coke-and-stripper binge.
But it was Dilly I had the problem with. He not only enabled the dysfunction, but he spent more time thinking up ways to create it than actually trying to figure out how to make the company profitable.
But the kid being promoted above me (and I love her, by the way. Genuinely think she’s a great person) did me in. Done. It wasn’t her fault and I never punished her for it. But the camel’s hump was just about deflated and that was a ton of bricks that beat that bitch into the sand.
So, let’s just say something along those lines might have happened in the last week or two. And once again, I look to God and hope and pray that I can hold my composure as I wait for my ultimate reward that never really seems to come. I’ll take that reward in any form, mind you. Some have it all; the rest of us wait and wait and wait for something, anything, to go right.
Don’t get me wrong — I will always do my best in every life domain. And I will never blame the wrong people. But as I’m going through a variation of the above situation again AND on top of that, the world’s biggest what-what is also finding a big fat chunk of favor (undeserved, I believe), I’m having a Double Dilly moment.
That’s the thing about triggers. They fuck you up when you think everything is fine. (And really, what is fucking me up is something I never wanted till I realized I couldn’t have it. And I’d probably hate it if I did but everything changes with one stupid fucking moment.)
There’s no limit on how far triggers will suck you back into the past or how long they will hold you down … or just how far they will push you. Your reaction is unpredictable. And not entirely irrational. Whatever it may end up being.
Maybe Dilly gets his wish. He always wanted to break my spirit … to shatter my hope, my faith, my trust. To become as jaded as everyone else.
You win this round, Dilly. Maybe I should have learned from you in the first place. I just never wanted to live this life without the idealism that sometimes completely fools me into getting through. …