I have never been kicked out of a place before, but that changed the other night, and I am not the type of person to lose my shit like that. I will leave a place before I lose my cool, so I am surprised at myself, actually. It wasn’t expected, but there were three things going on all at once that triggered PTSD.
Here’s a little backstory on something that happened recently: I had seen OC out a couple of times with the woman he’s dating. I didn’t think it bothered me; perhaps I suppressed my feelings, but my feelings weren’t towards them. My feelings were about how I felt when he ghosted me, and for whatever reason, those feelings came back in full force, as if it had happened all over again. I didn’t eat or sleep well for about a week, and I had that same knot like I’d been kicked in the stomach that I had two and a half years ago. I don’t understand why I had these feelings except maybe the stress and depression around the holidays also triggered something else that I have yet to deal with.
OC’s girlfriend happens to be a bartender at a place I sometimes go. I think she’s a nice person, and I never have problems with anyone. I happened to be there when she was working, and there were cute puppy videos on the tv we were watching. She then showed me a pic of her dog and said something about her boyfriend of six months (surprised he lasted that long with anyone). Then we got onto the subject of the boyfriend (OC). I told her I had dated him, wish I’d never met him, said I think he’s sneaky and a liar and filled her in on my side of the story. I don’t think she knew he and I dated. I told her I hope she breaks his heart. I wish nothing bad on her whatsoever, but perhaps she is also avoiding the red flags and warning signs that I had.
In the meantime, someone else walked into that bar that I hadn’t seen in quite some time, and it set off another trigger. I don’t know what happened, but my mind just shut down at some point. I was still talking to the bartender when someone else that knows nothing about me piped in and started talking shit to me about me. First of all, I’m not going to let anyone talk shit to me, especially when they don’t even know me enough to attend my funeral. This is a person that has zero room to talk, but I suspect she gets her information about me from a frenemy, so that’s when I lost my shit. I told her to fuck off, told her to shut the fuck up, called her a stupid fucking cunt, and at some point I don’t remember what else I said. I must have been blackout angry by that point. Actually, I was yelling, which is something I never do unless I have just had enough. It’s been a long time since I’ve yelled at anyone. Maybe it’s what I needed before I exploded inside.
Between PTSD triggers, anger, and alcohol, that was it for me. I was told to leave the bar, which I was attempting to do at that point anyway, and I was getting up to leave and gathering my things. I think they thought I was going to physically attack her (I’m not a fighter), so I was grabbed and pushed out. Not a loss, actually, because it’s the place that I feel a lot of the douchebags I’ve written about here hang out; I just like the music there.
I have never dealt with certain things that have happened to me, because I find it difficult to talk about and blame myself for a lot of it. Now that I’ve identified a trigger or three, maybe I can begin to work with it in my next counseling session.
Free The Burden 