Sleeping Thru Summer

Finally, the end of summer is near.

I'm certain that this was the worst summer of my life as I can't recall any others that were as horridly oppressive with endless days of excessive sunlight that lasts too long; heat and humidity that suck the life out of me (and maybe you, too?); and the worse thing of all, a drought, as the icing on the misery cake.  I assure you that for me, a lover of cloudy and rainy days, endless days of hell-sent sunshine with no rain for weeks and weeks on end is tantamount to torture.

Through this dreadful summer season, I was also attempting to work through some significant trauma that unexpectedly surfaced in mostly a massive way after my mother and aunt died within 5 days of each other.  The trauma was lifelong, I knew of it, was diagnosed with it, but was very much not aware of the extent of it until my mother died and then my aunt died. Then, within days of their deaths, an historically extremely difficult and narcissistic relative - who played a significant role in some of my aforementioned lifelong trauma - upped their toxicity to a level even I didn't think they were capable of.

The carpet that had been hiding all the trauma "dirt" that had been swept under it for decades just could not contain it any longer as if a giant wind gust had burst through the door, tossing the carpet aside allowing all the dirt to escape, as it swirled all around me like a giant tornado filled with every bad thing that had ever happened and/or been done or said to me.

Obviously you can't ignore a giant tornado of bad things/thoughts so now that the so-called dirt of it all was everywhere I had to start trying how to figure out what to do with it all.

You're thinking I pulled myself up by the bootstraps? Grabbed the bull by the horns? Seized the day? Danced like no one was watching?

Well, no.

What I actually did was spend an exorbitant amount of time in bed or on the couch. Ruminating, ruminating. I spent way too many days reliving some pretty bad stuff and trying to make sense of it which is a true lesson in futility when you're trying to figure out how people can be so absolutely awful when you yourself are not an absolutely awful person (I'm only awful when I'm hungry). 

When I wasn't overthinking during the day, I was sleeping, which is what you do when your brain is so overworked that it has no choice but to mix up a batch of whatever hormone causes excessive sleepiness just so it can get a break from what you are putting it through.

So there I was, sleeping the summer days away and trying to work my way through a lifetime of crap* that had been delivered to me from the people whom I had loved the most.

Not exactly the "summer fun" everyone talks about.

In actuality I've never been the summer fun type anyway. Because of some autoimmune conditions that have gotten worse in the last decade plus a real deal diagnosis of Summer - or Reverse - SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), I can't be in direct sunlight without paying a hefty price. Part of all that is I'm photosensitive so being out in the hot summer sun brings on a whole litany of torment for me up to and including breaking out in a wildly itchy, oozy rash on any skin that's exposed to the sun. 

Spotted Sharon in the surf

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that once it starts feeling like summer, I draw the dark curtains and hide inside the house, crossing off the days on the calendar until the cooler fall days arrive and the sun becomes less evil.

The bonus of doing that is that it has made sleeping all day a lot easier.

But one cannot just sleep their life away and so as the sun sets on the Summer From Hell 2022, it is time for me to toss aside my sleep mask and locate my bootstraps so that I can do my best to pull myself up from them.

As anyone who has or knows anything about trauma will tell you, it never leaves you. 

"They" say you can heal from it but I think healing just means finding a hypothetical shelf where the trauma can be placed instead of carrying it around on your back or in your arms all day, every day.

That way, on its shelf you know it's there, but you lose the burden of its weight...and, trust me, I will take that any day of the week. Trauma is wildly heavy.

Now, with the cooler weather upon me along with its ability to allow for clearer thinking, I wake up from my summer slumber and do my best to start building a shelf.

*The causation of my C-PTSD is familial, situational and medical.  It was the mostly the familial aspect that was prevalent during this summer.