Night Sweats

Every once in a while I have a wee little panic attack. It always happens at night, it always happens when she is tired and very, very sleepy. Truly, I don’t think my body knows what to do in a healthy relationship. Instead of busting out all of sheer terror of being in a relationship and being vulnerable and being known onto a person who clearly isn’t a fit for me, therefore legitimizing and/or misplacing all of that anxiety, it leaks out my eyeballs. Slowly. Onto my impossibly soft baby blue pillow case. My eyeballs leak until I feel like I can’t breathe and then I quietly tiptoe downstairs and heave and cry and not breathe until I am done. Ragdolled out of me.

On the nights when she is awake, she stays in bed. She tells me she knew I could handle it. And, although I would prefer not to have to handle it at all, she is right.

It’s really hard to be in a relationship with someone you can tell anything to. I tell her that her beloved brother is an asshole. She nods. I tell her when I don’t know about us and I feel shaky. She holds me. I tell her I worry about her death. She takes my hand.

For a traumatized kid where it wasn’t safe to say anything; what is this mushy garbage?

I can see now, inside of this goodness, that I had so many more mental puzzles to work through when I was with the abusive guy and then the guy who was a perpetual victim. I got to head into their worlds, anxiety in hand and figure out what was messed up about them and then back out again. My anxiety left on their pile of relationship unreadiness.

In a lot of ways, for a kid like me, it is easier to be with the screwed up partner. The wrong choice. Easier than being with someone who is just going to take my hand and love my regardless.