Triggers
The curve balls that life can throw you are pretty crazy… I never expected to be writing a blog, to be sharing such personal accounts of my life, and especially not regarding this theme. I had the privilege of volunteering tonight for a local womens shelter. I helped wrap Christmas presents for families as they “shopped” in a room full of donated gifts. I can’t help but wonder if these women ever imagined in their wildest dreams they would someday be residents of a shelter to protect and keep them safe. Measures are taken at shelters to ensure safety including security gates, buzzers to allow entry, police presence and security cameras. Security cameras can be used to protect…or they can be used to control.. and here enters into a trigger of mine that I never imagined I would worry about it.
Cameras were initially installed in my home for pure reasons. I wanted a way to check on my fur-baby when I wasn’t home. To make sure my pet was safe, had food and water, and for my well being so I didn’t worry about them. But what the cameras turned into, were a means of control over me and to always be able to keep tabs on me.
A quick glance into my history with my abuser… My abuser was extremely possessive, jealous and controlling throughout our relationship, and calculating as well like many abusers are. Nothing happened all at once, everything was gradual like the story of the frog/boiling water. So it started out by:
- checking in on my social media; deleting friends, pictures, messages, blocking people,etc.
- screening my cellphone; intercepting texts, responding back with hateful messages.
- cutting friends and family from my life that he didn’t like and felt threatened from.
- quitting jobs to make him feel more comfortable and less threatened.
- money was monitored by my abuser, with no access given to me. Any transaction notified him immediately and a follow up text of why I spent this and on what was asked. So being monitored and listened in on conversations was just “normal”……
So, back to my trigger….
We had multiple cameras positioned through out the home and one on each entrance/exit. Anyone that came to visit, I was questioned as to why they were here and our conversations listened in on. One of the last few incidents before I left my home to seek safety elsewhere, my abuser listened in on my phone conversation and then called to yell at me afterwards. I thought I took precautions by hiding in the back closet away from the camera and whispering, but that wasn’t good enough. I later would sneak out the garage door because I could pretend I was doing laundry and I would sit in the garage inside my vehicle and talk on the phone. This became my normal… I would turn off the cameras only to have him turn them back on. I would unplug the whole system only to have him plug it back in. I felt stuck and trapped and anxious which all comes flooding back to me whenever I see a camera. Whenever I see friends pull out their cellphone app and check in on the dogs, it all comes flooding back. How do you deal with triggers? I don’t know… I’m hoping with time they will lesson? I”m hoping that one day in my future I can walk into a business and I don’t instinctively search for security cameras, and I’m hoping that one day I will only attribute cameras to safety….not control.
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