It began with the teetering pile of clean clothes on the floor waiting to be hung up.
You have no idea the pre-work I’ve gone through tonight to simply hide on my closet floor with my laptop. It’s been a whole to-do; my dogs are exhausted from following me from room to room.
The clothes were remnants of last week’s extended trip I’d taken to New Orleans and then my hometown. Bringing home a cold (along with a nasty, but life-affirming, emotional hangover) had left my brain too full of gunk for unpacking.
I’d been running on cold meds, Liquid IV, and negative bandwidth since I returned on Tuesday. Add that exhaustion to the week’s abhorrent, depressing-as-hell political events? My thoughts had been full of thick honey.
If you give a procrastinator some honey…
Hanging the laundry uncovered the small ottoman I keep in my closet. I positioned the accompanying throw pillow against the corner to make a makeshift chair, the way I sometimes do when I need a place to decompress. I took a step back to admire my space.
I’ve written previously about my private little closet oasis. I do some of my toughest writing in that closet. It had been a while since I’d been able to relax in there with my thoughts and I missed it tremendously.
Closet Space: Trauma, Denning, and Managing the Urge to HideAnyone else with a trauma history just hanging out on their closet floor right now?medium.com
I decided it’d be a good night for writing, something I’d been struggling to do lately. Not just this past exhausting week, either: it's been over a month since I published anything.
Maybe I wasn’t ready to fully look at or share the reasons for that yet, but it was about time I stopped avoiding one of my favorite things just because I was afraid. Yep, tonight was the night I’d push my way through this writer’s block.
Inspired for the first time in weeks, although for what specifically I wasn’t sure, I was off and bustling.
Sounds great so far, right?
As usual, I took the extra energy to make my environment perfect so I could focus to the maximum and put all of my energy toward breaking through this wall.
Before long, however, it went beyond merely an act of self-care: I was shooting for an A++ with extra credit in Closet Preparation.
I prepped so much that it became compulsive, spending far more time tonight setting up the perfect writing nook than I’ve actually focused on writing. By the time I actually sat down, I was tired.
Writing about experiences with abuse and recovery can arouse tough feelings that naturally aren’t always comfortable to look at. My brain, ever hypervigilant, now insists everything must be just right before I can start writing.
I can totally see how my subconscious gets there. Attempting to foresee and control my surroundings gives me the illusion of control and security my CPTSD-wired mind is always chasing. It allows me to procrastinate addressing the trauma memories while telling myself I’m accomplishing something.
Until I felt at ease enough to reach back to that place, my mind wasn’t going to allow me to focus on writing. Unfortunately, as a trauma survivor, I’m chronically unable to feel at ease for long.
Preparation as a trauma response: Fawning
This instinct to overprepare was well-ingrained during my period of abuse. It was in my best interest for me to anticipate his every need.
Fear of his moods kept me fluttering around, fawning and trying to juggle his every need to keep him happy. Anything I wasn’t ready to face, I simply learned to dissociate through.
A nice thing about learning the patterns and behaviors of my dysregulation (when I actually am able to recognize them) is that it can stop me from getting too stuck in the cycle.
I think that’s one of my biggest fears: getting stuck in that dysregulated state and not being able to see it. Allowing my past trauma to hold me hostage.
While not always immediate (as I said, it’s been over a month since I published), this recognition triggers me to take action, prioritize my rest and sense of safety, and process uncomfortable situations rather than avoiding them.
That’s a big reason I feel called to focus on and learn so much about mental health. We should all be able to recognize these signs of distress in ourselves and others.
The productivity ballet: An elaborate dance of avoidance
There’s a tight balance in allowing myself to prepare enough to feel safe, but not so much as to become overly avoidant, paranoid, or spiral over the many other negative feelings with which survivors are often plagued.
And seeing as this behavior is most definitely a trauma response, it can be so freaking annoying when it actually pays off. It almost ends up looking to the outside world the way I wish I genuinely intended it: self-loving.
So I try to find the balance. I allow myself to get cozy. I fluff the ottoman’s pillow. I plug in my laptop, take the dogs out early, shower, and even slap on a luxurious face mask.
Cozy P-Jams. Warm socks. Light jazz. Cactus tea mug within reach (see above).
Stalling? Avoidant? Of course not, darling — just lighting a candle to set the stage for my breakthrough!
All to finally buckle down and… stare at my folder full of half-written articles for hours.
Is it midnight already?
Now here I am: skin glowing, toes toasty, back supported, every need satisfied… Yet I’m stalling from writing by writing about what I’m currently doing to avoid writing.
I haven’t even started yet, but here I am wasting time because I was struck with the need to get this thought out about how I was wasting time.
Wait a minute. Waste of time or not, it was pretty fun to get out. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to feel like? Damnit, I got me again.
So is overpreparing a maladaptive, avoidant behavior, or is it simply me knowing my needs? Is it possible that it could be some moving target in the middle?
Maybe there isn’t a “ready”.
Maybe I do my best work when I allow myself to be scared but do it anyway.
Maybe I’m meant to embrace that uncomfortable, ever-shifting middle ground — between stalling and readiness, bustling and rest, avoidance and awareness — and do the damn thing anyway.