Or maybe it’s just the mind. There’s that whole thing about your cells in your body replacing entirely at 7 years. That used to bring me some comfort that my body, the one I have today, is one my rapist never touched. I don’t know if that’s a credible fact or if that’s a popular misnomer. I haven’t been compelled to go verify it.
This evening acid went up my esophagus and burned my throat so bad it felt like I was drowning. This hasn’t happened in many years, and it’s stress. I downed some almond milk and then water, I’ll have to be careful for a few days with what I eat. I thought I was doing an excellent job avoiding irritants but I know it’s stress getting worse lately. I started getting regular muscle spasms again, it’s my system’s warning shots, it’s the last stage before constant intense migraines, never ending pain, and an inability to continue working. My mitigations like massage and botox for tmj haven’t been available since January and my stress hasn’t gone down or sustained, it’s increased with less relief and very few outlets.
I recently switched PCMs and I like this one. After some reluctance I decided to try a muscle relaxer again, hoping it’ll be a helpful tool until I can get back to other things that helped manage symptoms, and hopefully won’t be too sedating.
So here’s what I just realized at 2am, today is my rapist’s birthday. Once I know details about some people they just stay in my brain, even if I hadn’t thought about it for years the recall is still there even if I’d rather delete that info and save space for more important things. It is unfortunate a good friend in Arizona who shares a name with a former lover, also happens to share a birthday with the biggest predator I ever met. Seeing today was Josh’s birthday on social media reminded me of what else lands on this date. Things have been stressful for everyone, things are on fire and nothing is normal. I was already in steady decline and working to calmly slow that roll, and try to turn it around… but I guess my cells still remember what today is, and I’m spitting up avid and I feel nauseated and awful.
There’s some irony in just breaching the topic of consensual non-consent, I didn’t even realize how close we were to this date when that conversation was happening. I like the idea of taking something and changing its context, and being able to rewrite the script while knowing you have control and the ability to cease as needed. I can also see it being triggering or bringing out an unexpected reaction, I guess we’ll see how that goes.
It finally sank in last summer I couldn’t go back to a baseline or reset to “before,” but that’s not a loss. I didn’t have to hang on to things that didn’t serve me, and what I’ve been subjected to doesn’t get to define me. Sometimes unexpected things strike and I need to remember this.
This stomach acid and all the icky feelings that come with it need to go away.