I figured something out

I emailed an old friend today with an explanation of what happened with my son, and I have been a complete emotional wreck for the remainder of the day. I realized why I don't really think about it, and why I rarely talk about it in great detail.

It's really like having been raped (and, having been raped, I can say that). It's like reliving being raped, explaining to someone that you've been raped, and hoping they believe you because people often disbelieve that sort of thing. It's a remarkably similar feeling to what I have when trying to explain to people I know are skeptical about the legitimacy of any individual rape experience. I've spent the whole day in a PTSD-ish haze, where everything, from the wrong kind of music to the wrong words to simply a thought is enough of a trigger to reduce me to complete breakdown on the spot. It's like having a literal ball of anxiety in the middle of my stomach, and it is trying to come up through my throat. It's been a miserable day.

I'm just so used to this story being part of the things people know about me, or not telling people the majority of the details, or any of it; usually it's just a curt, "My ex-husband took my son in the middle of the night." Remembering the circumstances around it, the details of the day, all of it, is just overwhelming, and I still don't know how I functioned in that time period - although I also don't remember a lot of it, honestly, until I moved into the shelter.

It makes it worse to explain it to someone who knows all of the parties involved, which means that I have to include nuance. I like keeping it clean and short; all of the rage and hurt are too much to reconfront again.

Maybe I won't have to do it again. I don't know what she has to say, but it's almost like waiting for a verification that yes, this really happened, even if this is just my perception of it, and I'm afraid - irrationally, I know - that it's just going to be rejected as my being hysterical, because that's what happens whenever I actually try to talk to the ex-husband in question about anything more emotionally charged than the weather (like, say, the symptoms of the same ADHD that leaves me periodically barely functional demonstrated clearly by our son).

Anyhow. Hopefully the ball will be gone tomorrow.