From Wikipedia
Here I am in Costco about to heave a 50 pound bag of dog food into my cart when I am struck by a direct hit to the heart by the Abandoment Fairy. Suddenly, I cannot breathe, my heart hurts and feels like it is about to fracture into pieces, the tears are pouring down my cheeks and I feel liked a complete idiot in front of all of these people who are trying so hard not to look at me. I am trapped at the back of the store in the back corner and I cannot bring myself to do anything more than lean against my cart and hope that I can become as invisible as the Emporer's New Clothes.
My friend who is an RCMP officer is on duty so I send her a text - please help me - I am having an all out melt down in Costo. She is my one hope for this moment as my therapist is booked with clients and just cannot jump to my rescue even tho if he could he would. I don't even care if she arrives in her uniform in a marked car - I just want someone to come and get me. She texts me back that she is so tied up that she cannot come to get me but she would phone my therapist. I know she feels badly that she can't come and that adds another layer of "guilt" because I try so hard not to be a "needy" friend. Won't work I text her back. Now I am really lost and on my own. Esme is in the car and if I can just find my way out of the store, past all of the people in the food court, past all of the people in line at customer service, past all of the people waiting to be checked out with their purchases then I can get to Esme and she will help me breathe. Damn you Costco for not allowing my therapy dog to come with me into the store. I get to the car, I sit with Esme, she rests her soft and gentle head on me and I look deep into her beautiful brown eyes into that soul of pure love and slowly I can start to breathe enough to gather myself to drive home and there Esme and I stay for the next 2 days......we go out only for her bathroom breaks. We go to the river once by ourselves for her to swim and for me to sit on the shore and cry. This happened 3 weeks ago today at about 11am. It seems that I will forever be haunted.
What triggered this episode? Well the "perfect storm" that blew in layer by layer for about 4 days. Each layer on its own is manageable but when the layers come one on top of each other I simply cannot hang on and gradually I feel that smothering " I can't breathe" feeling and then when I least expect it - wham, a direct blow to the heart. I want to crawl into the fetal position and just lay down and die but I can't. Life does not afford me that luxury. I have to "fake it 'til I make it" or in this case - get the heck out of the store.
My parents never ever meant for this legacy of lost love to be my consant source of challenge. They parented the best that they could, given the parenting practices of that generation and based on their own childhood experiences with their parents. What happened to their marriage and to the subsequent experiences we 4 children had were not in their master game plan. I do not blame them directly for what I live with on a daily basis. It is what it is.
Children suffer many forms of "abandonment" and often no one actually physically abandons them but rather it is the emotional and pyschological abandonment that can often create the life long battle. In my life, I was "abandoned" on every level........not to sound dramatic but to just be "textbook" about this issue. At 17 years of age the "abandonment" set me up for 20 years of sexual abuse at the hands of a relative. I was very much a young 17 year old.......far from the 17 year olds of today. I was starving for attention and "love" and I became the prey that walked right into the crosshairs of a champion bounty hunter. Once I started the process with the RCMP and they began their direct and forcefull interrogation of this molester information started to be unearthed that has led my police officer, my therapist, my trauma worker and I to all believe that there is a very good chance that my mother knew what was going on but for some reason felt unable to intervene. Abandoment at its most sublest and it hits like a sledge hammer 25 years after the abuse began.
I am unable to share those thoughts because even tho the police recommended a laundry list of charges against this person the Crown Counsel could not follow thru due to a change in the Criminal Code years ago and thus, hands tied, they could not formally charge this person and so, there are "facts", etc. that I have to be very careful about speaking about. But know this - this abuser did actually admit to this abuse in front of my therapist - so we all know that he knows he did it, the police know that he did it (they interrogated him so well that they got him to the point of almost saying THE WORD but they just could not get that word on tape.) Crown knows that he did it but......a change in the Criminal Code saved his sorry ass from being hung out to dry. Sexual abuse cases have no statute of limitations but they are subject to being handled under the Code as it was written at the time of the offense. We have a "legal" system not a "justice" system.
And so yesterday I saw my therapist for the first time since my experience in Costco and I explain the layers that led up to the final trigger that led to the implosion. I cry, he listens, I cry some more and he nods his head. He knows that I can verbalize the feelings and the triggers and that I learned what this heart shattering feeling is. He knows that he has taught me the pyschological underpinnings of this issue. But he also knows that knowing the facts is not the same as feeling the feeling. We talk some more and I leave - completely exhausted and drained from reliving the moments and sharing that hurt and trying to box it up and put it up on the shelf with the other boxes labelled "Abandonment Issues". I walk out into the sunshine and I vow to try to make it a better day. And it was......and it always will be. Time does not heal all wounds but time affords me the luxury of learning how to live with the fallout.
There will be many more "Costco" moments to come - this I know. It is what it is.
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