Heading into a tough time of year

[artfox]

Even though we're still buried under lots of snow here, spring is around the corner. And while everyone else is excited (and I'm looking forward to it as well), I also have a knot of anxiety. This time of year has a lot of bad associations for me, and it can stick around until late summer or into fall.

I understand why I feel this way. Spring is when my unBPDm and I moved in with my ex-stepfather (N/sociopath), and all the chaos and violence that entailed. Spring is when things got really, really bad and my hour-long walks home from school were spent sweating over what would be waiting for me when I got home. Spring is when the night I thought he was going to kill us both happened.

And summers were bad when I was little because I was all alone with my angry, raging mom. When I was older, they were bad because I spent them with my dad. A reprieve for me in one way, but a constant worry too, because I felt like I was shirking my responsibility to take care of my mom.

When we change the clocks and the days get longer, that's when I start to feel kind of twitchy. I want to enjoy the spring and summer. Here's hoping I can this year.

[newlife33]

It's good that you can honor and recognize those feelings and associations with the times of year.  I struggle greatly in January for that same reason.  I feel that part of the recovery process is being aware of all of our seasonal triggers and processing them slowly as they come.  I hope in time spring becomes a beautiful and renewing time of year and those old triggers fade away.

[openskyblue]

Spring was once a very tough time for me too. My exhusband (NPD, sociopathic) would get very revved up in Spring.  When you wrote about sweating out that walk home worried about what you would find there, that struck a chord in me. I used to pull into our driveway and get so nervous I had to sit there and remind myself to breathe. I'd look at the spring flowers I'd planted that were blooming and wonder how everything could look so beautiful when my life was so miserable.

I learned that in Chinese medicine, spring is considered a time of violence and upheaval. Leaves are coming out on the trees, plants thrusting up out of the ground. It's not considered a bunnies and prettiness time of year at all. Somehow that helped me feel better. I had to do a lot of work to reclaim spring. I try to get outside as much as I can and walk around in nature, breathe. Spring is beautiful where I live.

Good luck to you. I hope you can reclaim spring in a way that feeds you.

[artfox]

openskyblue, yes! I remember that, looking at all the lushness and beauty, and just feeling bleak. It's so unfair to for anyone to feel that way.

The idea of spring being a time of turmoil and violence is interesting. I like that others have seen the rawness of it as well, and that the expectation of it being joyous is cultural—not necessarily an "all humans" thing.

It was just a couple of years ago that I realized why this time of year is so hard. I'm hoping that being able to connect it to something will help. Thank you both for your kind words!