shutdown

Yesterday I was supposed to have a date with this guy, I’ll call him Frank, who is very confident and possibly a little skeazy, so I was already a bit intimidated and could feel myself automating into Good Little Girl mode.

I was tired, and it was a gorgeous Sunday, and Emm and I had just gotten to our beautiful housesit. I wanted to go on the date, but I didn’t want to go on the date. Driving two hours, what a pain, and this my last chance to rest up for the new week.

And then, barely an hour before I should have been getting ready to go, Emm came and dumped on me the depths of her pain and rage over my latest return to dating—not, as I’d thought, because it triggered her pain over Phil’s death three years ago, at least not exclusively, but moreso it seems due to her pain over my abandonment, the way I disappear.

It made perfect sense, and it cut me to the quick. Sent me plunging straight down a shame spiral of the fact that I am not a good father OR a good mother, because I can’t provide and I can’t nurture either. (This is not true, of course, but I always go to worst-case, black-and-white thinking in a shame response.)

Oh, man, I just plummeted. I could see it happening, so there was that, but I didn’t have much energetic fuel in the tank with which to interrupt it, and anyway, to a certain extent those feelings simply need to be felt.

So in the midst of this, I texted this guy Frank and canceled our date only a couple hours beforehand. I was so scared. I fully expected him to be angry, to accuse me of playing him, to be a dick about it—and when he wasn’t, when he was very sweet and understanding instead, it had me in tears. Well, I was in tears by then anyway.

Then he called. I ignored the call.

He texted, and I waited a couple hours to text back. I just didn’t have any energy to manage his feelings when I was already trying to manage my daughter’s and my own.

And that’s when I realized that another of my challenges in love is shutdown mode.

I was legitimately activated into a pain place and a shame spiral. Saying so to someone I’ve never met was much too vulnerable, but not saying so is also vulnerable, and I was in such anxiety over the anger he might direct towards me.

From my shame place, I had no bandwidth for talking with him and communicating clearly about why I was canceling the date or when I could reschedule it or what was really going on. I just had no access. I had shut down.

It’s a challenge that, for the duration of however much time I spend in a shame response, I stop being able to engage. It isn’t entirely fair to the other person. Yesterday I was thinking, how will I find a man compassionate enough to understand my trauma healing journey and the ways I’m learning to regulate myself back from a freeze-state shutdown?

Today, though, I have access again to my rational thinking. And if I’ve learned one thing by now, it’s that the path to finding a compassionate partner is through being compassionate first to myself. If I can’t create safe, loving space for my own discomfort, no man ever will.

So yesterday served as a reminder for me to hold my own pain gently. My daughter shared with me some ways that my behavior has hurt her, and in addition to supporting and validating her, I also had to support myself. It’s hard work.

No saying, I’m still a recovering codependent, so in addition to managing my own big emotions, I was looking for the balance of how much it was appropriate for me to help my daughter manage hers—and if I had talked to Frank then, there was just no way I was not getting sucked into thinking I had to manage his.

I’m glad I can let myself plummet now and feel the bad feelings, knowing that in a little while, I’ll be able to climb back up and out. At least I don’t have to hide from the feelings or do something self-destructive to make them go away.

And I’m glad that, even though I sometimes still go into freeze-mode shutdowns under extreme emotions, I can take care of myself and hold my boundaries there.
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The rest will heal, as L. R. Knost writes, “not with time...but with intention.” I’ve come far enough to trust myself that I can get the rest of the way. ​