I had this posted in another thread, but decided that it would be better to move it here. I realized that it would probably be more "understood" here than where it was posted. And I wouldn't get more "triggered" by again being in a place that would again lead me to be misunderstood.

I began responding to a comment that was made about how we have gained in technology and no longer use horses and bayonets. And actually that was wrong. I was just going to "leave it at that" but I felt a need to continue in how I reacted overall in viewing this election.

Actually, horses were used in Afghanistan, I noticed that because horses are my passion. And we do still have bayonetts on firearms for our troops. Horses have been so pivital to human beings from the moment we climbed on their backs. They never cease to amaze me in all the ways they have been used by human beings. They have also been a tremdous help to me in my life too.

Yes, I can relate to "voter fatique" I think that a lot of people feel that way, especially in this election because so many people are struggling right now overall.

As for me, as I tried to view this election, not really having a strong feeling for either candidate, I found it "more" challenging. I feel that I looked at this election in a very different way than I had ever before.

But I was also "triggered" a lot and I felt "alone" with that. I had so many flashbacks, and these flashbacks were different. As with others that struggle with PTSD, I often just "reacted" and I didn't really know "why" all the time either. And then I had to "back track" because I know I "got strong minded".

I had so many things come forward this weekend and I thought to myself, how would anyone understand this in me? At the same time I had things that I was called on to do in my life where I didnt really know if I was going to be able to "hold myself together" and do what I needed to do either.

I didn't really realize how much I was so affected by my childhood. I thought I got "past" it all, never really realized I would ever address it again like I am now. All the anger and picking at one another displayed in this election really challenged me. I had so many flashbacks of the terrible school bus ride every single day all of my childhood. And to the depths of me, I remember just trying so hard to understand "why" other children behaved like they did. It was just brutal and they never let up. And it didn't just stay on that school bus ride either. That challenge created even more challenge in my home too.

I had an older brother who I think had some autism. Back then no one "knew" about it and children that had it really struggled and were often very misunderstood and punished for something they could not help.
That is what happened with my older brother as he was constantly "harshly diciplined at home" which only made him worse. Then he was picked on merceslesly on the school bus every day which only added to his struggle. All of that was going to challenge me all my childhood, I was very afraid of him, yet at the same time felt very sorry for him. And I remember his bedroom, how my mother had to make his bed with shower curtains and put them on the floor too. My brother wet his bed and the floor for several years.

When I watched the second debate and saw these two men circling each other, it was very "distrubing'. I remember seeing my father and older brother doing that many times. I especially saw that happen as my brother got bigger. One day they got so bad that they started their heated exchange just outside my brother's bedroom which was near the stairs. And they wrestled and I could see a tremdous amount of determination and anger in both. And my brother was going to finally take out years of anger at my father. And it ended up where my father was thrown down the stairs.
I thought that one of them was going to die that day.

I was always so frightened, and I was always going to pay for my bother's anger in some way too. I was so afraid to tell, because I thought that fighting would get to a point where one of them would get seriously hurt too.

And all the while I am experiencing these triggers, I am also so worried about my daughter. I know I talked about that in another thread. I had to go and comfort her and I was so worried about her. And I was so worried that I would not hold up somehow with her. I was so worried because I was also having so many flashbacks about how I was so challenged in my own marriage. And she is the same age as I was when I had her, and that pregnancy, I did not feel safe. My husband had gone out, got drunk and didn't come home and I was 9 months pregnant. I did not know about "binge alcoholism" and all his friends like to party hardy too. I was considered unreasonable because I failed to see how it is just "acceptable" behavior.

My husband finally sat and talked to my daughter and he was honest. He told her that her mother (me) was the one that raised her, and he was the one that made that extremely challenging for me. He finally told her as she was crying and trying to make the right choice while still feeling love for her boyfriend, who is also a "binge alcoholic". Binge alcoholics insist they can control their drinking, and they can go a while and behave, but they can also just drink into a black out and not come home at all. My husband would do that, he peed our bed and even got up and went to his closet and peed all over his clothes. He was blacked out and didn't even know what he was doing. And it is very hard to talk to them after they "black out" because they do not remember how bad they were.

It is not the way I want my daughter to finally understand her mother's pain. However I do have remind myself that a lot women end up dealing with this problem. I try to tell myself it wasn't my fault that my daughter saw me fix my husband and felt she could do the same.

When I watched the first debate, I ended up washing my kitchen walls at the same time. I had not done anything like that for a while now. So I thought I was getting back something I could not seem to do. Then after a few days and so many other challenges going on at the same time, I realized why I did that. Well, that is how I used to handle it and that goes way back too. I used to "have" to clean my room and try to make it pretty somehow growing up. I realized that as I was so challenged, I tried to make things better by somehow seeing if I could make a better "safe" place for myself. I used to clean for my mother too, somehow I thought it would make things better if her home was cleaner. And in my own marriage, my house was cleaned constantly too. And I put a lot of effort into making my home look so cute and homey.

I would have to say that as I was always "smaller" than others around me, especially the men, I never liked tall men or men with lots of muscles and in the back of my mind I always felt they were time bombs somehow. And my history clearly shows they were. I have a picture of myself in Kindergarten, I am frail and thin and my hair is chopped off. My hair was chopped very "short" because I was so stressed that all night long I used to twittle my hair to try to relax and self sooth. My mother could not comb it out so she cut it off.

The school bus ride, well my brother wanted to pick on someone else, he never could do it back in school so I was his target for that too. A target, wow, I know what that is, that was me in so many ways.

As I watched these two men make angry faces and speak some "untruths" I sure have lots of that in my past. My husband and my brother both did that to me. I had a flashback of one time when my brother threatened me and made me eat ants one day when we discovered them in the sand we were playing in.
I was so little then too. God, I had forgotten about that, it was minor compared to the other things he made me do.

I remember one time on the bus when I got so angry at the other children, I stood up and asked them to stop, please stop, and they completely ignored me and just kept at it.

I think to myself, how will anyone really "understand OE"? I thought that I grew past all of my troubled childhood, I really never realized it hurt me the way it did. This disorder has been such a big challenge, and sometimes I react and it really takes time to realize how it is connected to so many challenging things from my past.

Open Eyes