Assorted Garbage

I’ve been getting really severe headaches and migraines for the last week and a half. I’m sure it’s stress causing them, but I can’t seem to relax. 

I’m embarrassed about it because it seems silly, but one of my triggers is broken fingernails. It’s not that they gross me out or that they make me cringe. It’s that the sight of them, or even having them described to me will cause me to have a panic attack. 

Yesterday, we were all in the car together and my girlfriend’s grandmother started going on and on about her broken fingernail. (Just remembering this is making me feel panicky). 

I said, “Please stop. I’m sorry, I know this is silly, but I have a phobia. Please don’t talk about your broken nail anymore.” 

She ignored me, kept talking about it, and then shoved it in my face. 

I was in tears by the time we finally parked the car and I was able to get out. 

Every time they had a big fight, my dad would pack a suitcase, take it out to the car, and leave. He always came back, but what I learned was that conflict is dangerous, conflict drives people apart, and relationships are fragile. 

Eventually my parents divorced and my mother remarried. Things were different in her new relationship. This time she was the one who packed the suitcase. 

I grew up believing that relationships were fragile. Something as small as an unpaid bill or a dead car battery could be enough to destroy everything. Every fight caused another crack in their relationship. They loved each other a little less after each fight. 

I carried these lessons into my first relationship where I put up with horrible things because I’d learned that relationships were too fragile to survive even small conflicts. The idea of saying, “It hurts me when you do that” was unthinkable. 

My girlfriend and I have been together for five years now and every time there is conflict in our lives, we grow stronger. Every time we deal with hardships, it pushes us closer together. 

We’re at a place in our lives where I feel grateful for the difficulties we face, because we come out stronger in the end. 

It reminds me that we both came from rough places. We both came from families that didn’t communicate honestly or respect one another. We’re both trauma survivors who grew up without examples of what a healthy relationship looks like. 

And yet here we are, with a healthy relationship and a (relatively) stable life.