Last June I started to have an unfamiliar feeling of longing. It wasn’t a fleeting feeling, it was a deep in your gut longing. The kind you can’t get rid of no matter what you do to distract yourself. I don’t think or process aloud, instead I spent a few weeks silently trying to understand what I wanted. To protect myself from being overwhelmed with emotion, I reverted to an old behavior and crawled into bed. It’s hard to hurt yourself or anyone else if you are in bed alone.
I miss being crazy. That thought hit me recently when I realized clarity had returned. It was easier when I had blender brain and all the thoughts were scrambled. I was stuck with reality and it was worse than I realized. I have PTSD and Attachment disorder, I have labels and disorders. What a drag.
As I was lying in bed a thought attached itself to the feeling of longing, it popped into my head: I wished someone was holding me. Then the thought came again. It surprised me. The first time, I shrugged it off as weird and fleeting. The second time, I laid there and thought more about it. I tried to remember if I had ever before desired to be held but could not recall. It was years before I could accept a hug from a friend without recoiling and often it still makes me uncomfortable. I’m only comfortable hugging children. The year before I asked my eldest for a hug and then we stared at each other for a few tense moments. My mother started hugging me last year and I want to hug her, so I do, but it feels very unnatural and strange. Now all of a sudden at this age, for no reason at all, I’m longing to be held. What’s happening to me? I miss the way I didn’t feel.