February 2, 2024
Chapter 30: Relaxing
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Adult children have trouble
relaxing or having fun.
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As a kid I never knew what to expect.
Would Dad come home drunk or sober? Happy or angry? Would he hug me or hit me? Would Mom reassure me or remind me of what I’d done wrong? Would my parents get along tonight, or yell and break things?
Living with this uncertainty made me hypervigilant.
I learned to constantly scan for threats, signs of unrest, tension, anger, conflict, or some other trouble.
I did that for so long that I lost the ability to not do it, to drop my defenses and relax or just play.
So eventually I found myself living on the edge of fight or flight, chronically braced against disaster.
And in this way tried to control my anxiety about living in an unpredictable universe.
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