I've had enough of doing things scared.

For the always scared, and the always doing.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with complex PTSD after enduring a childhood of sexual, emotional, physical¹, and spiritual abuse. My childhood sucked more than it didn’t, and it fucked me up. I’ve spent my adulthood doing my best not to seem fucked up. At 32 years old, I’m still trying to therapy, medicate, long-walk-through-the-woods, solo-travel, read, etc. my way through all the ways my brain isn’t suited for relationships, careers, and self-care. I want to be someone with a happy middle and ending, and I find myself drawn to people who claim to have found theirs.

During a solo-trip to Japan. Something only a well-adjusted person could do.

The most common sentiment I see online and in snippets from self-help books I’d rather blow my life up than ever read, is this idea of “Do It Scared.” Do the thing that scares you. Say the thing even if your voice shakes. Stand up even if the floor is disappearing beneath you. So on, so forth. It’s good advice!! Most people probably need to hear it!

However, one of the lovely lil symptoms of my CPTSD is that the moment I have to trust myself to make any decision, my brain acts as though I’m in a foreign country dodging gunfire on behalf of imperialist oligarchs when all I wanted was a stable income. I’m sweating. I’m pooping (what the fuck, body). The decisions could range from texting a friend back who didn’t reply to my bid for connection in 24 hours, to moving to a new state so I can finally live with my partner. From starting a conversation with the barista with cool tattoos, to spending two weeks in Japan by myself. Each decision is a landmine waiting to kill me. (Not if I kill myself first! Haha, just kidding…..unless?)

How I feel deciding whether to text my friends because what if they changed their mind about being friends between yesterday and today?

I’ve had many people compliment me on my ability to do Big Scary Things. For example, I quit a six-figure tech job to open a bookstore during an international racial uprising. Then, after receiving national recognition for my business and making it my entire life for years, I sold it and moved to start a sabbatical. “That’s such a big decision,” said with wide eyes. “Most people would be too scared,” said with gentle admiration.

Here’s the thing: when everything is scary, as in my body genuinely cannot recognize the difference between getting a rude email and having my life threatened with a gun…it all starts to feel the same. Does that make sense? I can decide to let go of financial wealth and stability to open a community bookstore because the fear and trepidation I felt making that decision was no different than choosing to adopt my dog.

At best, this is a weird, accidental superpower where I’m capable of making my wildest dreams come true because I push through that same level of fear every day doing far more mundane things. At worst, it leads me to undermine my fear, anxiety, or doubt in situations where it was absolutely warranted and would have saved me heartache and suffering. As a result, I’ve been operating at a level of mistrust in myself that can’t be understated. It’s difficult to tell when I’m scared because something is actually off and I need to spend more time and consideration on making a decision, and when I’m scared because my child self was neglected when she needed care.

My coping mechanism has been to surround myself with Logic, an iron box around my Heart and Mind that would sometimes crack a window to let either speak for a few minutes before locking up tight again. It worked² for awhile, until I realized that by trying to hold myself to the rigidity of my personal Logic, I was inadvertently forcing others to abide by it as well. And because of my evangelical Christian background, a lot of my Logic mirrored that which has oppressed millions of people for centuries (I’ve written about this). Realizing this, especially after having friendships and relationships fall victim to it, was devastating. I grew fearful of my brain, again.

The throughline is that I am always, without reprieve, Doing It Scared. And I’m fucking exhausted. This isn’t a sentiment that works for me anymore.

But what other choice do I have with a brain like this, I thought to myself yesterday as I filled in a drawing of a cat in a witch hat in my adult coloring book. I’m just coming to these realizations and it’s a fair question, I think. I wish I could take my brain out of my skull, boil it, set it out in the sun, and boot it back up again, but I can’t. I’m stuck with this menace.

So I’m coming up with my own inspirational phrases for people like me who are always afraid, and always doing, and sick of it. They are as follows:

Do It After Running It Past Your Trusted Loved Ones
Do It With a Backup Plan
Do It With Time (The Time Will Pass Anyway)
Do It When You’re Less Scared Than You Are Now
Actually On Second Thought Maybe Don’t Do It

I’ve been practicing a few of these lately, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

With love,
Dionne

The Bits

I’m currently reading “What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo, the inspiration for this investigation into my own CPTSD journey. Can’t recommend it enough…I’m gonna be processing it for a long time. Did anyone else get wrongly diagnosed with BPD as a young woman, leading you to believe you were inherently fucked up instead of a product of the lack of nurture and unstable nature in your childhood? Are you also in therapy every week? Just me?

1. An adult hitting a child with an object or their hand is physical abuse, regardless of whether you call it “spanking,” or if you “turned out alright.” I remember every time I was hit. I remember how it felt waiting to be hit. How humiliating it was being told to pull down my pants so the fabric wouldn’t absorb any of the hits and the pain would be more acute. It’s abuse. Go argue with your therapist about it.

2. Counterpoint: no it didn’t.