hurting. honing. and healing through relationship PTSD — doriana diaz
“as an adoptee, i was born into abandonment, therefore, consistency is crucial to my safety and trust. i neglect to rely on those who cannot assure me they are capable of staying, which in turn restricts me from expressing vulnerability with passers-by.
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within the last 3 months, i had to let go of a relationship that i depended on for the last 5 years of my life. during those 5 years, we both entered college, i graduated from college, i met my birth mother, lived abroad, and i arrived at the gates of many heartbreaks and many hallelujahs. he was my bones, muscles, and tissue.
i had never been so sure about anything before. after losing it, i questioned whether or not i was good or even capable of loving at all. this primary relationship was my first time truly exchanging the depth of my humanity with another being. in that, i spent the majority of it, processing my adoptive trauma as i earnestly entered into adulthood. the trauma from my adoptive journey presented its complexity while we were building our love in this primary relationship. 2 years ago, i met my birth mother for the first time. in that time, i began to explore how the loss of her rippled itself to every corner of my existence and influenced my performance as a lover, companion, and partner.
i was suffering from abandonment PTSD; uncovering my demons of unworthiness, loneliness, shame, and disappear. as an adoptee, i was born into abandonment, therefore, consistency is crucial to my safety and trust. i neglect to rely on those who cannot assure me they are capable of staying, which in turn restricts me from expressing vulnerability with passers-by. i learned not long ago that i have been existing like this for the entirety of my life, simply to prevent myself from grieving another lost love. but in loving, we are inherently risking, we are putting ourselves through possible loss. i held onto this relationship because i didn’t want to suffer under the weight of unworthiness. i didn’t want to return to my feral habits of biting and clawing my way back to self-love. i relied on the relationship to define it for me, which kept me complacent in my own agency, kept me dependent on another’s humanity to represent my worth.
no matter how you experience the process of relationship PTSD here are some common tools and suggestions to enhance the process:
rest.
exit wounds need to be tended by laying your bones down in order to conserve energy for your resurrection... whenever you are ready. take the time to recharge and redeem your spirit. listen to your dreams. i know i spent the first couple of weeks, after many sleepless nights desperate for a moment of relief, and those moments came through dedicating my time to rest.
honor your anxiety.
when those feelings arise, daring to take over control, breathe. you are enough. you have nothing to prove and you owe no one anything. you only owe yourself. my anxiety arises when my body is trying to communicate with me, but the vessels are clogged with blockages and barriers making it hard for the message to come through. those blockages have nuance.
unclog the blockages.
be gentle with yourself, return to your grounding rituals, and feel good practices. to remove the blockages within my vessel, i had to first acknowledge them, then commit to implementing their ratification into my daily practices.
give yourself permission to uncover new truths in your own time.
welcome this new way of being, even if it feels uncomfortable. sit with the burning heat. you are carving away the sharp edges and this takes time. in unmasking myself, in peeling back the layers of my loss and the subtle variations in which it has proven itself to take form within my interactions, i have arrived in an unknown territory. an unknown territory will mark itself with new truths.
claim the residual pain and debris.
just because the person is gone, doesn’t mean the painful debris disappears. i had to claim that for myself, even though what lies within it, i was still fearful of. in order to claim it, i had to examine its inner workings. i was fearful it will seep its way into my next union and contaminate my love. for a long time, the debris consisted of my birth mother’s pain, the pain of hers that i chose to carry as my own, that pain built a home inside my bones and took up more space than i’d ever care to admit within my body. over the last couple of years since being in reunion with her, i have realized it is not mine to carry. with that realization, i have been able to forgive. not only her but myself and the little girl inside me, who was a victim of her abandonment.
learn your vices and restructure their detriment.
for me, the fear of loss, and loss itself in real-time, has been the factor that propels me to behave in ways that are inauthentic to my soul. those who have stepped into my inner circle and threatened me with their absence are not worthy of my love. but in learning that, i have restructured my response to it. now, loss enables me to call upon spirit to remind me of my resilience, and give myself over to its gentle hands to knead me back to nourishment. i can surrender to every phase i have been chosen to work through. i understand and accept that the debris will arise again, and when they do, i will remember to trust that everything i need is already in me, trust all the progress i have dedicated myself to. i might have to perform patience to relocate it but it’s there, waiting to burst through all my newly adorned cracks and creases.
accept grief and invite the process to run its course.
you deserve to grieve. the only way is through. don’t rush yourself through the process just because it cuts deep. the only way is through. i conditioned myself to behave in a specific way within our partnership to protect myself from him. i realized that not only was i desperately petrified of grief, but i grew dependent on the pain. in any relationship, we are not only in union with our lover, but we are in union with ourselves, therefore putting our needs first is crucial.
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BY DORIANA DIAZ
(SHE/HER)
doriana diaz is a storyteller, shapeshifter, and sensitive spirit rooted in Philadelphia's soulful rhythms. she is the founder and curator of the diaz collections (@thediazcollections)— an archival vessel channeling ancestral exploration of Black artistic wellness. doriana is the self-published author of mami calls me gabriella and sunphases, both released in 2018. her words have appeared in platforms such as; Nappy Head Club, Black Women Radicals, GROW/N Mag, Saddie Baddies, SYLA Studio, Black Girl Magik, We Heal Too, The Kraal, and many more! she believes words have DNA; they sit under our skin, erupting into soft and vivid explosions through our veins like lighting. those who breathe the bloodline into narrative/story form will one day move beyond this dimension but their writings remain a loud whisper from within the caverns of their wounds/glory/power/presence. our words are our inheritance.