Part 13. The Lemon Box

The lemon box…what better was to keep our new toys hidden than an inconspicuous gift box with pretty lemons on it. Inside was a fairly vanilla starter kit of trying new things. Neither of us really had any clue what to do with this shit, but I was determined to keep chasing that feeling, especially with where my mental health was at this time. I needed that feeling, desperately.

Now seriously this isn’t a really smut blog so wait for the book, but I will say that I broke again the night we tested out those toys. We spent hours exploring, really the longest we had ever gone. I am blessed in that Ryan has always been very generous, but for the first time I didn’t feel bad to taking so much of his time. Weird but kinda nice.

I talked to my therapist, who gave me an enthusiastic hell yeah and virtual high five, at the increased libido. I however wasn’t convinced, don’t get me wrong I was thoroughly enjoying rolling over to his twin bed for some attention. Suddenly fairly confident the answer would be yes. Weird but kinda nice.

I felt like there was something more going on there but I still did not have the communication skills to share what I really meant, I still did not truly know how to express my feelings or even what those feelings were. I felt like it became a life raft, giving me just enough to keep going.

My mental health tanked as more and more things piled onto us, the house continued to be delayed, work was full blown nightmare, tension continued to grow with my unhealed trauma and relationships, and our storage unit became infested with mice... I was trying desperately to implement the things my therapist was telling me but I continued to feel like a failure, she recommended finding hobbies, and being active. But how the hell was I supposed to do that I was barely standing. We did EMDR and it really did not feel helpful, I was asked to recall the feeling of the moment of trauma. I had no answer, I did not know what it felt like because I was already so numb. I didn’t allow myself to feel or experience things at face value, only allowing the overflow out. I felt like I was letting her down and being “bad at therapy” while couldn’t I just get it out, I could intellectualize the trauma and I could find and understand multiple points of view but I wasn’t “letting go”.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU LET GO?!? I started giving her only the easy things going on, I stopped trying to get to the other stuff. Maybe it was healed, what does healed feel like anyway? I mean a cried about it was that it? Something still did not feel right though, my soul still felt so heavy.

I will never forget the moment I felt a wall go back up around my heart. I FELT it, literally felt my body shield my heart. I got a image of it walling off in my mind. Weird and painful. It came as a simple misunderstanding, but it fucking wrecked me. I didn’t want walls going back up around Ryan.

Since moving in with the Rents, I had started going to my husbands Pool League Matches. I would go from time to time before but now I went pretty religiously. I needed to be out of that house, and I needed to be near Ryan. One fateful night Ryan doesn’t show up to the house to pick me up, panic immediately starts boiling up my chest. Anger and despair, I waited and waited until I finally call him. He’s already at pool. I have a full blown fucking melt down, I am scream crying into the phone about how he forgot about me, and he left me behind. He immediately feels like shit, and is offering to come get me. This is not my finest moment and I am definitely not proud of my tantrum, but it was a on nervous system breakdown I was over the deep end for sure. There was no turning back now.

I screamed No, continuing the tyrant of you left me’s, and you don’t love me, whatever else insecure crap was to come piling out of my mouth. I believe there was also some hanging up, and ignoring calls…again not proud but that’s where I was at. I have since apologized…But in that moment I thought for sure I was losing my favorite life raft, that was it I was going to be alone, alone. I got in my car to go for a drive.

I drove for more than 4 hours, longest drive I ever “needed”. That’s Weird, I really did need it.

I could not tell you what towns I went through but I can tell you I cried even harder on the drive back. I was beyond embarrassed at this point, exhausted with a killer headache. I finally got back and slinked upstairs keeping my guard up. I had never witnessed conflict resolution in action beyond role playing as part of Peer Mediation in Highschool, which no one took all that seriously. I was also still triggered, I felt abandoned and scared and I did not know how to articulate that.

When I got back it was clear what damage my explosion had done, written all over his face. Awesome, I feel like absolute trash I have again hurt the feelings of the worlds nicest man. He immediately started apologizing and trying to hold me. Holy Shit, even after that volcanic bullshit this man still just wants to love me? Fucking weird, but holy shit I am so relieved. I let me him hold me and the world felt slightly better. The wall still firmly intact though, I had no idea how I was going to fix that.

I am so grateful for Ryan’s ability to get me to talk. He has worked at it for years, gently asking and gently loving me to get me to tell him what was going on. To open up and share my thoughts, he just wanted me to talk to him and let him know how he could fix it or do to help me. I am so grateful he did because if I never found my voice I would not have made it this far. He gently pushed me to tell him, but it was so hard. Words would literally be stuck in my mouth unable to escape. I was losing my fucking shit. I felt like I could explode any minute.

I was becoming completely unhinged, crying at work and in my car and in our room. I was grasping for hope and coming up short.