Thoughts on trauma, and the acceptance thereof · 7:07am Jun 19th, 2021
It's been a while since I've actually... written anything like this, so I hope you can forgive in advance. This is going to be rambly.
So... at this time, as I type this, it's just shy of midnight. An hour and a half from now, it'll be two months exactly from when the fire broke out at my old apartment complex. I'm still glad I got out, don't get me wrong. But Darkness, do I have regrets.
Trauma's a bitch that way, you see.
I still hate myself for not being able to save Colton, our kitty. All I have left are pictures and memories. And yeah, I mean that, I hate myself.
Never said this shit makes sense.
I can't handle a wood fire right now. I don't know if I ever will again. So the idea, the mere prospect of a cold winter night and starting a fire in a nice fireplace, curling up with cocoa under a blanket with my hubby, that old schtick in pop culture? not happening.
Can't handle the fucking BBQ aisle in stores either. I get a whiff of charcoal briquet and my stomach does a triple flip and definitely does not stick the landing, let me assure you. Lucky I haven't puked yet.
... I find myself still turning down the pet aisle to get stuff for Colton. Two months on, and it's still an absolute punch to the gut every time I do it. That hurts the most. As horrific as it was, and as sad as it is to lose all the stuff, salvage notwithstanding... the loss of Colton's the worst part. I keep waking up at odd hours, thinking I need to get up to feed him. Yeah, even two months later, in a new apartment, in a different part of the same city.
And I don't know what to do to feel okay again. I feel... lonely. But there's no bringing things back to normal.
There's always those 'if you had a time machine' questions, what you'd do... I'd go back to rescue our kitty.
They say that acceptance is part of the grieving process... but how do you accept that someone that's part of your family is gone? We barely had him a year, and as much of a nutbar as he could be, hubby and I both adored him... he saved my life that night, I'm absolutely sure of it, and he paid the ultimate price to get me off my ass and out of danger.
... I miss him.
*hugs tight* I keep typing out things and then deleting them :(... Nothing's going to make it any easier. I miss him too, handsome ;_; But I'm beyond thankful that he was there that night :/
;_;
I cannot tell you how to feel, but I can give you insight into the situation and maybe assure yourself in your own feelings by giving you my thoughts if I were in your shoes.
If you believe the cat saved you, then feeling bad isn't going to make living any easier. If I were saved by my kitten and couldn't save him/her, then I would have no choice, in my mind, but to live my life as full as I can and without bringing myself down for living through the event. I value my life very much, and so the prospect of dying to me is scary, and I also do not want to be saved by someone or something I love just to lose them. Trauma is definitely a bitch. I cannot really help you like I want because you are still in the grips of that. As time goes on, I implore you to try and look back on the situation in different mindsets less marred by the trauma of the event.
To me, self-reflection is very important in the grieving process, but it is hard to get to that point without being self-destructive. Once you start to get there, as I said, I implore you to consider the situation in different mindsets and see the good that has come from the event.
Rest in Paradise, Colton.
*squeeze* Processing like this is important. You're doing the right thing. And yeah. It'll suck. That ball of memory will bounce around your head and hit that button and you'll find your heart freezing and your stomach flipping. But over time, the button gets smaller and smaller, and the ball has more buttons to hit. It'll never go away - and that's a good thing, in the long run - but you'll learn to turn that grief into fondness, the caution into love.
Keep safe, beautiful. You're loved. And you're doing just fine.