triggers.

Once upon a time, I learned about a thing called triggers.
Triggers  are small things, memories, perhaps, that bring up attitudes and behaviors in current situations reflective of that past event or person.

I have triggers.
One of which manifested itself last week.  I didn't realize it at the time (as if anyone would...), but in forcing myself to continue to process, I was able to navigate through memories that pretty significantly affected my emotional response.

Who would have thought that something I experienced six years ago would come back to affect me so strongly?  And yet it did.

A friend told me to just get over it.  To let it go.  To not let it affect me anymore.  His intentions were good, but I think we make ourselves do just that - push it down, let the past stay in the past.  When we do so, however, we hurt ourselves even more profoundly.  It prevents us from really dealing with the event, which leaves it sitting in the back of my mind for me to address years later after it has steeped in regret and disappointment.

I think that's what it is - disappointment.  I'm disappointed in myself.  I allowed myself to be manipulated in the same way a second time.  This situation triggered an emotional response reflective of that of five years ago, and the process of figuring that out took nearly a week.

For that week, I was a wreck.  When people asked me how I was doing, I would crack.  If "the situation" was mentioned, I couldn't hold myself together.  I cried several times a day for five days because I couldn't make sense of it.  I couldn't make sense of the tears, the situation, any of it.  Only in allowing myself to feel that way was I able to give myself the time and space necessary to figure it out.

Patience.
We serve a patient God and yet I am sometimes so unwilling to be patient with myself.  I expect myself to be able to adjust, to be able to process so quickly and it's just not a reasonable expectation.  We must be patient with ourselves.

I'm still not there yet.
Much is left to be learned from this, and I refuse to shove it aside for the sake of easing my mind.