“It’s Just a Panic Attack”

I’m trying to remember when this occurred. I think it was as my partner was miraculously healed from his organ failure (see previous post), but not long after. At this point, I was aware of 4 of his family members being involved. One was about to leave but I didn’t know when. I thought he was still there.

I was getting pretty wound up. First, partner is dying, then he’s not. Keeping the house clean – BIL#1 was clueless, from how to sweep the floor to how to tear off a bag from the roll. He didn’t know how to call for an emergency. This became an issue.

I was having trouble breathing. Sweeping, pulling up heavy, full, bin bags, throwing out the detritus that collects if you don’t throw it away. Bending over is always a problem. I had to do it, over and over, and along with a dusty house, and the emotional stress, triggered a good sized asthma attack. I got panicky. I called my partner and asked for someone to come stay with me. Just in case it went south.

I thought two people were with him but it turned out, it was just BIL#1. BIL#1 arrives in the house about 10-15 minutes later. He didn’t know how to call emergency. I explained how it worked. He said okay and went to get a snack.

Now, I’d been sitting very still for at least 15-20 minutes. I was breathing ‘normally’. But if I’d tried to get up, it would have instantly been where it was when I called.

BIL#1 didn’t ask me if I needed or wanted anything. Water? Tea? Medication? Food? Nope to all. He did get his snack though. He comes back, says ‘It’s just a panic attack. I’m going back to your partner’, in a dismissive tone and leaves.

I was in shock. Pretty sure my mouth hung open. ‘Just a panic attack’ floored me. I know people who have panic attacks and it sure and hell isn’t something imaginary. It was insulting to the people who suffer from this, and hella insulting to me, as it’s something imaginary, just out for attention.

And second, he left me. He. Left. Me. Even now, weeks later, I’m shocked. If I had tried to get up, say to go to the toilet, I could have passed out, it was that bad. Just thinking of this day is tensing me up. Dismissive, ignorant and insulting, all in one easy sentence.

It took me 1 1/2 hours before I was able to get up and get a cup of tea.

I learned a lot about my BIL in that moment.

Catch up

I keep thinking, Oh, I’ll remember that! I’ll post in a couple of days.

Of course, I don’t remember.

I was in the hospital in august. Got out the 10th. I was triggered by the filthy house. Couldn’t breathe. They kept sending me home, and I’d be back in a couple of hours. The hospital system is so overwhelmed they do everything to keep from admitting people. When I was admitted, and then released days later, I was feeling pretty good.

The partner had to clean the house. Like, really clean it. Within a couple of days, he was sick. I was expecting this. He is the only person allowed to be sick in this household. If I’m sick, he’s sick in a couple of days, and it’s worse.

He went to bed. Whined continuously. Took little baby steps to get to the bathroom. Really milked it. I helped him, made sure he had food and water (something he doesn’t do for me) made sure he took his meds, etc. But honestly, I thought he was faking. Then he developed a fever. He wasn’t faking.

I kept trying to get him to call for an ambulance. He kept refusing. Until he couldn’t move, at all. Couldn’t get out of bed for the toilet and you can guess where that went. He didn’t tell me, but I found out when taking his temperature, he’d spiked up to 104f/40c. If I’d known, I would have called for an ambulance if he liked it or not. Finally, he admitted defeat and called for an ambulance. His fever was no longer too high, it was only 102f/38.8c. The ambulance service told him it wasn’t life-threatening and refused to pick him up.

So we called a secondary service – for non-life-threatening medical issues. They took him to the hospital for …what was the term? Public service or some such. Word got out quick and his family started showing up to take care of him. Which was good, he literally couldn’t raise his hand to drink and the nursing staff was so short staffed, they couldn’t care for him.

In short order, the oldest brother showed up. After a couple of days, he comes home from the hospital and says: he’s had a stroke and multiple organ failure. He has hours to days to live.

This was a lie.

It was gaslighting.

A couple of days later when I enquired about his organ failure, he says, quote. Orgain failure? He’s never had organ failure. I asked about his stroke, and my BIL waves his hand, It might have been a stroke, but MRI is indeterminate.

He gas lit me. For funzies. See, I can’t leave the house. I equate leaving the house with death. So I weigh each thing – is it worth dying for? Well, when I thought my partner was on his death bed, I said yes, it’s worth going out for. BIL says, but I thought you couldn’t leave the house? (but his tone was AHHA! I knew you could, you’re just faking it. Wanting attention.)

Ever since then, he has literally ignored me. He does not respond when I make a comment. He looks either through me or not at me at all. I’m not invisible. I do not exist.

There are many things I can bring up about my BIL, and I will. I don’t know all the ends and outs of what abusive behavior is, but I figure one or two things he’s doing would qualify.

I will be going into that in the next post. Hopefully soon. I have no one to talk to, so this is it. No one to talk to here, either, but better than just sobbing all day. I’m tired of crying.

Ghost Kitty

I’d had my best friend for over 20 years. She was my heart, the reason I kept struggling, the reason I stayed here. But her pain became too much and I finally did the unthinkable. I put my kitty to sleep. Oh, god, the pain is still too fresh.

I told my family, I hope the hell she comes back and haunts me, because life without her would be unbearable. So this might be wishful thinking. It might be my mind protecting me from life without her. If so… sure, okay, I’m in.

The day after she passed, I hear a meow. About four feet from me, at ground level, but so faint it sounded like it came from outside. I turn and look at the spot. I say “hey, baby“. And that was it. The meow sounded a little frustrated, as if she’d been trying to get my attention for some time. The interpretation would have been: ‘WTF happened? I wake up from a nap and the world has changed. Mom, are you listening to me? Mom!‘

Then nothing more. I figured that was it, I got a meow, and count myself blessed.

And then – last night.

As usual, I wasn’t asleep. It was so late, it was early. I’m curled up trying hard to go to sleep. I hear a faint meow – coming from the hall, just outside the bathroom door. My heart literally stopped. I debate with myself. The one, single, blessing I got from her passing, was I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to feed her. She was a night eater. It was hard enough in the last couple of years, but I’d be damned if I was going to get up for a cat that doesn’t need food!

This has been her routine for a couple of years. Go use the sand box. Announce it loudly, until someone (me) came and inspected it, told her she was a good girl (and yes, I was blessed she remembered where her box was. She was going senile at this point. And yes, she wouldn’t stop yelling until I told her she was a good girl.)

So I debate, get up or not? And I concluded I would hate myself if she made the effort to appear and I ignore it. I check the time. 5:30 am. Her usual time for wanting to be fed. I got up.

I have not gone to the bathroom alone in over 20 years. The last couple of weeks has been rough, not having her guard me as I did my business. I got up, used the toilet, said; ‘Okay, baby, let’s go to bed.’, in the hope that 1) she wouldn’t demand I ‘feed’ her and 2) she might actually come. I get in bed and hope I feel a little bounce and weight movement – but nothing. But I had a meow! And that made me happy, even if it was at the crack of dawn. I fell asleep.

A couple of hours later, I wake up, bladder insistence. I lever myself up, so I’m sitting on the edge of the bed – and freeze. Again, my heart skips a beat. Under my palm was a wet spot. It was freezing cold.

She didn’t do it all the time, but she frequently drooled in her sleep. And my bed has an electric blanket – there are no cold spots on my bed.

I turn the light on and check the sheet. There is no way a ghost kitty could leave physical evidence, right? I mean, I really don’t know, but I checked with the light on. There was no wet spot. But it was cold there, warming as I touched it.

Did my baby sleep with me? I want to say yes. But if she didn’t, if it’s just my mind protecting me from the grief, I’m okay with that.

I’m so sorry

I’ve been gone for so long. Yikes, over a year! I’m alive, which is saying something in these times.

I’ve been meaning to post for months but keep getting interrupted. And I think, ‘oh, I’ll remember that, it was pretty nasty, it can wait‘. But I don’t remember it. Them, rather.

I need a place to vent and this is the only place I have, where I am not known or where I don’t have to be a Smiling Sally. I can be mad here. Snarky. Sad. So, very, very sad.

Things to say, so there might be a blitz of posts. I will do my best not to disappear again.

If there’s anyone still here, thanks for sticking around.

Now I’m scared.

They got my hopes up, damn it. Now I’m actually scared. I had managed to get into a comfort zone, ignoring things or just getting on with it. Now I have a dangling hope of escape and it’s scaring the hell out of me.

I’ve been having some tests done on my memory. Not sure if I’ve mentioned my short term memory loss. I can’t hang on to a thought longer than a few seconds. Or as the old expression goes, in one ear and out the other.

About four years ago, I’d been tested for dementia. It was past due for a re-test. My memory is even worse. But they’ve been talking a lot about other things. Lots of side glances and knowing nods. Asking if I want to talk to people and being very willing to make sure it’s ‘on the sly’, or at least, so it’s stuck in with their normal scheduling. Talking about getting me my own income support, about women’s shelters, about emotional help. I didn’t even tell them about the murder attempts. Or maybe I did, using other phrases or word clues that they recognized, that I didn’t know I was giving.

They wanted to know, if I tested positive for dementia, what I wanted to be done. Would my partner care for me? Lots of other pointed questions.

A few years ago, I was free. But the government switched their position and so it was, it was the street or back in with my partner. I chose my partner. But if I ever leave again, there will be no going back. And the government has screwed me once. They can do it again. And I’ll have no backup, no net, no hope. I’ll be totally screwed.

The last (and only) time I tried calling a helpline, I hung up before they answered. My hands shook for hours after.

They’re going to have to do some almighty talking to make me think it can be a permanent freedom. If there’s a remote chance it can go sour I won’t even start it. I can’t take that kind of fear.

I’m too tired for this shit.

The other day, I asked my partner where the large ace bandages were. I’d done something to my knee while sleeping, suspect I’d laid on it in such a way the joint slid sideways slightly. It hurt like hades and was difficult to walk on. Now, I didn’t tell him why I wanted the bandage or what I think I’d done. I just asked him where the bandages were.

Two days later, he had a ‘broken rib’.

He can’t tolerate it when it isn’t him that is the sickest. Broken bones are the unprovable go-to for being suddenly, without reason, sick. His bones have been brittle in the past, but he’s been on the ‘normal’ scale for some years. Yet he can break bones by – breathing. Sitting. Laying down. When he has a broken rib, he finds it difficult to walk. Tells me constantly he’s an old man, now. He grunts with each step. Moans picking up a cup. Takes baby steps. The problem with all this – he only does it when he thinks I can see or hear him. He takes tiny steps until he can’t see me. Then he walks normally. It’s so incredibly childish. I tell him to go to the hospital. He says there’s nothing they can do for him. I think there’s only so much faking you can do and you can’t fake an x-ray.

This is only one example. It happens every single time.

And I’ve recently had a couple of things happen that have kind of freaked me out. He knows about one of them but not the other.

I was cooking some chicken legs. Put them in the oven, set the temp and the timer, gave them 30 minutes. The timer goes off, I check on them, and decide they need another 15 minutes. I could not, for the life of me, set the timer. I’d push the little clock icon and it kept telling me 17 hours – I couldn’t get it to change! (it was 5pm.) After messing with it for a few minutes I finally went to ask him for help. About 2 inches to the right of the clock icon is a dial, that you turn, to set the timer. Remember, I’d just set it 30 minutes previous! The second he turned it, I remembered, yeah, that’s how you do it. But when I was trying to do it…my vision kind of ended on the clock icon. I didn’t even see the dial just to the right. It wasn’t there. I didn’t think there was something there. It was just …blank. This hasn’t happened again since then, but that scared the crap out of me.

Then a few days later. I feel an abrasion on my finger. Look at it and see this scab like thing. My nose had been running so I thought it was a bit of dried snot I’d not noticed. Tried to wash it off. It didn’t wash off. I look closer. There’s a divot in my finger – a gouge about the size and shape of a long-grain rice, with this tiny, hard scab. It’s deep (rice size), but it’s not red. It’s not sore. No blistering. Just a gouge with a tiny scab. I have no memory at all of hurting myself. I have no idea how long I’d had it (must have been some time, it was pretty much healed by the time I saw it. Or noticed it, rather.) And that scared the fuck out of me. I didn’t tell him about it. I didn’t want to see what he’d do to himself to top that.

Come to think of it, I think he did top it. Maybe a week later we were expecting an amazon delivery and his medication. The door buzzes, he goes to answer it. He thanks the amazon guy, sets the box next to the door and goes into the kitchen. I ask what the delivery is. He bitches that the medical people only delivered one box. I’m looking at the amazon box. I tell him its an amazon box. He says his dry goods delivery got shorted, he’s only got one box. He has gotten very forgetful lately. But that kind of confusion, I don’t know. I do know it happened after the oven incident.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. The problem with dealing with a known lier is you can’t tell when they’re telling the truth. And I’m sounding paranoid. One of the tells for getting gaslighted is you start thinking you’re crazy.

Or, as one of my ‘friends’ once said, maybe you are crazy.

I did have an appointment to have an MRI, before an as yet unset appointment with the memory people. I had a massive asthma attack and had to cancel the MRI. I asked him to call the memory people to see if I could still be seen without it. The front desk woman wanted to ‘reschedule’ the (as yet unset) appointment for six months. Partner said that the decision was above her pay grade and to have the doctor call. The doctor has not called. He has not followed up on it. They already ‘lost’ me once, missing two years of follow-ups. I guess I’m going to get lost again. I could call, myself, of course. But for two things. I’ve developed some weird-ass phone phobia. And I have a real hard time with accents, I have to watch people’s lips.

One of the reasons I put these two incidences on this post was to help me remember them when I ever get to see the memory clinic again. It may not matter.

I’m tired. Not necessarily physically tired, but emotionally tired. I don’t feel like I have any endurance left. I can’t just keep on fighting it.

I’m also having some language problems and the social problems that come from it. But that is for another post.

I am a meat sack with no value.

Many years ago, I saw a meme/questionnaire or something, that posed this question.

A woman was at a funeral and saw a man she really liked. She wanted to know him better, but he left before she could talk to him. What did she do, to find and meet with him again?
Answer: she killed someone, so he would show up at their funeral.

To a sociopath, people aren’t people, they’re just meat sacks to manipulate into doing what is wanted.

First, Trump tweets something incendiary. Then waits.

Someone with a gun, usually young, white and male, goes out to kill those people that Trump doesn’t like. And, also, maybe these young white men don’t like. He is being patriotic by taking care of a problem Trump has identified.

Next, lots of people are dead, sometimes including the shooter, and a city goes into shock and mourning.

Trump announces he’s going to go visit them, at the place of shooting or survivers in hospitals. Sometimes, they ask that he doesn’t come, but he does anyway.

Protesters are fenced off a long way away.

Trump supporters are found and given the opportunity to meet with the president. They take selfies, lots of smiles, handshakes, and compliments. Media are not allowed in, but there are WH photographers there to catch the heart-melting moments.

This is a pattern that has happened how many times? 4? 6? Enough that I see a very distinct pattern.

Trump knows when he goes to these places of mourning, people will give him an ego boost. Trump’s handlers are making very sure of this, by ensuring the place he is at, brings in the Trump supporters. (Like the last one, with the infant that had been release, being brought back for a photo op. Babys, aww.*) How long have they been doing this?

To me, this is the pattern of a sociopath. In his case, it’s murder-by-proxy, with his twitter posts. Waits for the deaths. Goes to the place of the tragedy. Meets his supporters who shower him with love. He is desperate for the accolades. Repeat.

Trump knows what he’s doing. He knows some ‘crazy/patriot’ will go out and kill a lot of people. He’s not just okay with this, he needs it. He doesn’t see the dead people as people. They are pawns, just as the shooters are, in him getting what he needs. Approval. Love. Accolades. People calling him ‘sir’.

*When I first saw that photograph, of Melania holding the infant and Donald standing next to him, thumbs up and a big smile, my first thought was he’s happy because this infants Mexican parents were dead. I read that the brother of one of the dead parents said they were Trump supporters. So I guess they’re happy their baby got to meet their hero.

What does this have to do with me? It’s background anxiety, ratcheting up more each day. America, a country I love and respect, is going crazy. Russia, blows up a nuclear-powered rocket, echoes of Chernobyl. China is building up to a social cleansing in Hong Kong, reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Central and South America are in melt down. The United Kingdom is pushing hard for a hard Brexit, cause …oh hell, that’s complicated. Dictators and death are on the rise. There is nothing I can do about it, except go about my daily life and hope I’m not blown out of existence some day. I’m collateral damage. I am a meat sack that has no value.

I’m a woman of means!

I was once advised there were two subjects that would have the most negative impact on your marriage. Sex and money. And boy, ain’t that the truth.

Up until now, I felt fairly confident I couldn’t lay the charge of financial abuse at his feet. Sure, there were a couple of times where he was on shaky grounds. Like when he sold the family car to a friend of his. He didn’t volunteer how much he sold it for – and I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask because I knew very well he basically gave it away. I never saw a dime of it – he didn’t even just give me a couple of bucks. It went into a drawer and was handed out over the weeks, you guessed it, to his friends.

Or the time he was given an envelope of cash, which he kept in my desk drawer. I didn’t count how much was in it, I really didn’t care. But a few months down the line, I happen to see the envelope and wonder how much it was. I opened it to find 120 USD in there. When we got it, it was a good 1 inch thick. He refused to say what he’d done with it, except when I said, What did you do with it? he said: I can’t do anything with dollars! Which is, you notice, not an answer. He gave it to ‘friends’, I’m sure. For me not to notice him taking it, he had to have come sneaking in while I slept, and take out a few bills, here and there. He really can’t be trusted with large sums of money. He gives it away to ‘friends’. And I’m sure his ‘friends’ would dry up if he suddenly didn’t have cash to give away.

So, now we are caught up.

His brother recently gave him some money. Ah, let us tell it like it happened. He comes in, and says, while I was visiting brother, he told me he’s giving away some money to all his brothers and their wives. He gave me Eleventy-Thousand dollars!* in this breathless, over the top voice, that tells me he’s lying. This voice is one I recognize when he’s trying to either get a rise out of me or when he doesn’t want me to look too closely at it, but at whatever he says next. He says: He gave me Eleventy-Thousand dollars and I’m giving you half! You’re going to get Sixity-Hundred dollars! You are a woman of means! You’re rich! You can do anything you want with it, it’s yours! The money arrived last week, you’re rich!

At this point, it’d been almost 6 weeks since he got back from his family trip. I said: so it took you a month before you got around to telling me, and another week since you’ve actually had the cash?

He looks at me blankly. I don’t think this was part of his pre-planned conversation. He continues: now that you’re rich, you can help pay for any appliances that need to be replaced. ahh. There it is. The take back. Every single thing he has given me, he has taken something back. There is no free gift. New paint on the bedroom walls? Get rid of the hundreds of book. New carpet? Give away the dvds. Trip to Egypt? Stop smoking. New monitor? Oo-aw, so pretty, I think I’ll keep it.

Then the next day; you’re a woman of means, now! You can pay for your own charity. Me: you’ve always paid for both of us. Are you saying you refuse to pay mine now? Him: you’re a woman of means now! …nickel, dime, nickel, dime. And he’s clawed back a good portion of the money.

Due to some circumstances beyond our control, he has the money in an account of his other brother. Technically, it’s not ours. But we have access to it. Or rather, he has access to it, I do not. But all I need to do is ask him for any of it that I want, and he’ll get it to me. In my world, that’s called a gatekeeper.

Now I was already suspicious over the way he presented this wonderful opportunity to be a woman of means. And the take-backs. I’m suspecting something is off. So I asked him to show me the money in the account. He pulls it up, but does not open the full monthly account. The total shows not Eleventy-Thousand bucks – it shows Twentity-Two Thousand… and change. It showed, in other words, double the amount he told me.

My heart died just a little bit.

And I’m not sure why, but I didn’t press him to open it fully. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Why the hell I did that, I don’t know. I’m a coward? I couldn’t face that he would do that to me.

Now I sit here and wonder what I should do. I can;

Take the money, literally, have him pull the amount given to me, in cash, and stuff my pillow with it. It can be bolt money – used if I need to run.
Leave the money in the account and use as wished, because hello, even the fraction he’s willing to give me is more than I’ll ever see in my life.
Refuse the money, because my sense of moral outrage wants to one-upmanship him.

I could also ask him to again open the account. After all, he’s told me I can have access to the money any time. So that account holds ‘my’ money. Then, open the account fully and make sure there was only Twentity-Two Thousand in there, and that there hadn’t been One-Hundredity-Thousand at first, before it being moved along.

He’s starting to sound like a drug lord. But no, he’s not smart enough to be a drug lord. I will take his reason his brother was giving away his money before he died, so it doesn’t get tied up in taxes and lawyers. His brother would have to give away money to everyone, so no one contested they didn’t get what they should have.

The thing is, this whole thing has really stressed me out. What do I do? I’m such a damn coward. My heart is having a rough time of it. And by that I mean, it’s beating arhythmicity. I’m hyperventilating, breathing on the top of my lungs. I’m dizzy. My hands shake. I’m actually afraid I won’t make it through the night. I could die in my sleep.

And he gets all the money to himself, gets rid of me, and he’s innocent as hell. Fuck that. If I go, I want to take him with me.

No, I’m not going to kill him. I’d have to clean up the blood. No. I … seriously. The only thing I’ve ever, ever wanted, is for his family to know what a fucking dick he is. They all think he’s this kind, generous, caring, sweet guy. don’t you just love him to bits? But he’s not.

And his ganking me out of a lot of money (and making sure I have to go through him to get at it) means I can add financial abuse to his list.

*Eleventy-Thousand dollars exaggerated for comedic effect.

EDIT: all kidding aside. I realize I need to make something clear. The amount of money gifted to my partner is peanuts. I am poor – I’ve been poor all my life. Any amount of money that pays at least my monthly rent is a lot of money. Most people would consider it their coffee money for the month.

Hysterical

Back in my day, says the granny, they were called buttons, or hot buttons. When someone was emotionally manipulating you, they were pushing your buttons. I don’t think, or at least don’t remember, an expression for getting triggered. Perhaps ‘trip’, as in having a bad trip, which could happen even without pharmaceuticals.

I do have buttons that are going to guarantee setting me off. Injustice. any-ism. Inequality. Abuse. I get angry.

I had recently watched an Australian show about a woman with 2500 ‘split personalities’, which they now call Dissociative Identity Disorder. I didn’t buy it at first, come on, 2,500 of them? But by the end of the show, I was willing to concede it could have happened. A couple of weeks later, I saw a show about Sybil. Rember that movie/book? With Sally Fields. Sybil had 12 ‘personalities’. This show was called Sybil; a brilliant hysterical? Filmed in 2014. The premise for this show was Sybil was a con, her psychiatrist was a con. It was all faked – seriously, 12 personalities?

I don’t have any triggers about Sybil. I watched it with my kids, I only had good memories of it. So I wasn’t sure what had triggered me. And boy, was I triggered. I couldn’t sleep, my heart was racing. My hands shaking. My mind spun around. They wanted us to believe 2500 personalities in one person, but not 12 in another? And my god – hysterical? They called Sybil hysterical?

And boom, that was it. They called her hysterical. She was angry. She was hurt. She was defending herself. Hysterical? Oh, hell no.

That’s how it happens. A woman get angry? no no no. She’s hysterical. A man can be angry. He can be enraged to the point of murder. But its women who are infantized. Demeaned. Crippled by the social expectation to eat it. Swallow it down. Don’t show anger. If you don’t, you will be called ‘hysterical’.

Fine, you think the Sybil case is just a big con. Fine. Say that. But say she was hysterical? Fuuuuuuuuck no.

I am not hysterical. I’m angry. I am fucking pissed. In the immortal words of JI Jane, ‘Bite my dick‘.

Shake it off

My partner was gone a couple of weeks. When he got back, lots of things were discussed. But the thing I want to talk about first is my hand waving.

A few hours after getting back, he says ‘come here’. He’s standing about 5 inches in front of me. I figure I’m going to get a hug. I brace myself. I can do it. I can take a hug. His hands reach up – but it’s not a hug. He’s going for my face. He’s going to touch my face. Not hit, just touch. I can’t stand having my face touched. I don’t know if he saw something in my expression or if my face wasn’t his target. His hands sweep up, past my face, and bury themselves in my hair. He says: you washed your hair.

I don’t know why he feels compelled to make these kinds of comments. Every time he touches me, he mentions my skin is dry, like I didn’t know that. I won’t let him put lotion on my back (the only place I can’t reach) because every single time he does, he hurts me. He puts so much pressure on, it’s like he’s trying to oil bovine leather. I can feel every ridge of his fingerprints, as he scrapes up and down my back. How does he even do that? Is my skin so sensitive I can feel them, or is he doing some kind of angle and pressure that turns them into sandpaper?

So, he says ‘you washed your hair’. I back up, smack up against the refrigerator. I slide to the right, away from him. I walk into the living room (only a few steps) and I see I’m making ‘go away’ motions with my hands. At least, in my head, they are ‘go away’ motions. Also seeing it as someone standing, looking at myself, they look remarkably like ‘flapping.’ I was so distressed, I was literally beside myself.

I think the main problem was I got surprised. I was braced for a hug and that didn’t happen. But for pete’s sake, all he did was touch my hair. How that triggered hand flapping, I don’t know.