You are enough. Your voice matters. This is something that I need to remind myself on a daily basis. I’ve found myself in kind of an old familiar place of late. Numerous events in my life brought about feelings of old, and along with those feelings, the desire to handle events in a darker fashion. The world that I grew up in was just that way. There is a certain “comfort” to maintaining a way of doing things. Routines are comfortable for most of us. The problem with this particular routine is that it’s not healthy, nor is it good for my future.

Lately it’s been the “Perfect Storm” for me. A combination of work stresses, dealings with contractors, and the arrival of an unwelcome person outside of my core “family” members all seemed to show up at the same time. I’ve worked long and hard to handle all of these kinds of situations, but suddenly found myself drowning in self-doubt, anxiety, and worst of all, hostility. Hostility in my mind turns to violence. That has been my comfort zone for a good part of my life. No, this is not a thing that I’m proud of, it’s just a fact and a part of who I am. If someone wronged me, they were handled. It seemed clean and quiet. I had no feelings for the other person(s) involved. It was business.

At this point in my life, I’ve grown much and, again, work hard to see things from a different perspective. I surround myself with more positive people, remind myself of everything that is good in my life and do the best I can to be a good human. Everything seemed to be going along almost as if I was on cruise control. Work life, home life – I was good. Then the beginning of the storm came.

Work stress. We all have it. Some things seem simple enough and I truly believe in going in, doing my job and leaving. I want nothing more. I do however believe that if you show up at work, you work. This standard is for everyone involved from the very top to the last person on the list. When that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t sit well with me. I’ll leave that there.

Contractors. We recently had a large company send out a team to mark up everyone’s yards in our neighborhood so that they could prepare to put new wires underground. The lead up to it was less than coordinated. One day we had like 30 trucks just converge on our streets and guys going all over spray painting everyone’s grass and throwing flags down. Most of the workers were reluctant to give information as to what they were setting up for, so it made everyone in the neighborhood a touch edgy. It turns out they were the first part of several groups that would come into the area to begin a project of burying cables underground. Once the spray painting was completed, the next group arrived with shovels and machinery. Now I was getting nervous. By the second day, there was a group in my backyard digging 3 holes that were up to their shoulders deep. O.K., now I’m ready to flip out! I asked the guys digging what was going on and none of them spoke English. I’m pretty handy with my Google translator, but didn’t have my phone on me and to be honest, I was too worked up to even think of it. I finally found what appeared to be a supervisor. I began asking questions as to why they were digging up my yard and why I wasn’t advised. This conversation went south in a hurry. He was dismissive, rude and mildly confrontational. (Here comes the old me!) In a quiet voice, I explained that no one steps foot onto my property without some form of invitation, period. I won’t go into everything that was said, (legal reasons) but when I was through, he never came close to my home again. I contacted the city after this episode and was told it was AT&T putting new cables in and they had easement rights. The layout of my neighborhood was sent to me and basically my entire backyard is an easement! This is where the feelings of being voided out, looked past, ignored, all of it come rushing to the surface. I was on fire, an out of control fire! It became so bad that I couldn’t talk, and if I did it was to mutter a few incoherent words or cussing. I needed help and fast!

On the same day that this was all happening, my wife shared that a “relative” was coming into town. This particular individual sets off pretty much every sensor that I have. He reeks of people I’ve seen and dealt with for the better part of my life, and I wasn’t ready for this. Not now, not with everything happening.

I have a very protective nature towards people in my circle. I look at them as though they’re an extension of myself. If I feel that someone in this circle is at risk, I want to eliminate the risk, quickly and quietly. This “relative” was definitely on my radar and, in my mind, viewed as a threat. I had several discussions with other family members and stated my concerns and asked that we all band together to maintain a frontline of protection for those I felt could be harmed. By this time I was just reeling. I’d reached a point that I was in full shut down for fear I was going to lose control. I had to reach out and ask for help. I needed to get things back under control and find out how this happened to me.

I was able to get in to see my counselor and it was decided that the overwhelming number of “triggers” hit me at the same time. “The Perfect Storm”. The bigger question was where did all of this anger come from? What is it within me that was causing so much damage? That is the big question, for which at the time of this writing, I don’t have an answer. More digging into my stored memories/events will surely bring about the reasons for this happening. I’m always a little nervous looking back on things. There are some memories that you don’t want to revisit. Painful things that have formed me into who I am. I just keep telling myself that I’m worth it, I want feel good again.

“You are enough, your voice matters”. It’s important to me to hold this. It’s important to all of us to feel like we’re enough and that our voice matters. Often times we can be dismissed by even the closest people to us. Maybe not intentionally, but it can happen. If you carry things or harbor darkness, it can turn into something even uglier, quickly. Trust me on this.

My counselor knows me well and how to deal with me when I’m hypervigilant. The most calming thing that she said was, “Robert, look at me, you are going to be alright”. I believe her because she’s helped me get there before. I am enough and my voice matters.

I stated before that not all of my blog postings would be warm and fuzzy. Life is messy, and some of us out there carry things that at times are just too heavy. It’s alright to say that. It’s alright to reach out to someone and say “I need help. I can’t do this by myself”. Isolation, while it may seem like a good response for these kind of events, is totally the wrong answer. I’ll quote a good friend here, “Stay out of your head, it’s a bad neighborhood.” True story. Some neighborhoods are so bad we need to be guided through them, and that too is alright.

If you suffer from any kind of trauma, or have “unkept” items rolling around inside of you. Do me a favor, reach out, ask for help. Seek the assistance from someone that has the knowledge and wisdom to guide you through that bad neighborhood. It will work out better in the end. I know, I’ve been to that dark edge and it’s not a good place to be. Remember, You are enough, your voice matters.

I’ll see you on the road…

~Zombie~