On the way to Igor’s today my mind went to a memory that I don’t like to think about. It is a memory that I have locked off and put in solitary confinement. As that wasn’t enough to protect me from this dreaded memory I also installed locks, guards, barbed-wire and other defenses such as denial, repression and a fire-breathing dragon or two to guard against it entering my consciousness. However today this memory got free and it surfaced into my conscious mind. At first I resisted it, but it was too strong. I relented to the memory and went on a trip in my own personal time-traveling anxiety machine, and went back to the day that He-weasel lost his job only two short months after moving to Austin. I remember all the details of the moment like it is a photo that I have studied and that someday soon someone will test me on it. ”Where were you?” What were you wearing? What music was playing in the background?” “What exactly did He-weasel say?” “What did you do after?” I can tell you all these things and much more in the most minute of detail. And I can tell you that today, almost three years later, that when I think about that day that I feel sick. Not just a little nauseous, rather full on PTSD related nausea that requires a couple of slurps of Pepto Bismo and an Ativan chaser.
As I was reliving this horrible day in my head I started to do a comparative study and tried to think of a day that might make me feel sicker—not that I wanted to feel sicker, my masochism does have its limits, I just wanted to know that there had been worse days in my life. And I could find plenty of bad days to turn to. Trust me, there have been plenty. Let me give you a sense of how many. One therapist that I saw for only one session, told me that I had too many traumas for her to process. Just her hearing my history had given her a bad case of vicarious traumatization. I tell you that not to brag (I am truly not a trauma overachiever) about my impressive trauma history but just to make it clear that I have some shit days I could call on. When I thought about the top ten traumas I couldn’t get any of them to feel worse than the day in Austin that He-weasel lost his job. This is what is really interesting. This is what made me see the significance of this memory that came to mind. It isn’t true that there are no worse days than this one. I think anyone would say that one’s husband losing their job is not as bad as almost getting killed. In the hierarchy of shit it is clear, obvious and indisputable that death is worse than job loss. But as much as I tried to make these other memories feel worse, I just couldn’t. For today the job loss felt like the worst thing that ever happened to me.
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