From November 1st to December 26ish my life is a constant state of anxiety, when I'm not home. I get super excited all year for Halloween but dread for the night to be over because I know when i wake up Christmas trees and lights and decorations will have started to appear. And that for me is not a happy thing. Its not a joyous time of the year. Instead I am reminded of Christmas eve 18 years ago. I know a lot of you reading this have heard this before but I personally find it comforting to talk about it and I hope someone who needs to read it and can relate will find it and hopefully find comfort. I was 12 at the time and living in Florida with my spermdonor (father) My mom and (step)dad loved in utah with 3 of my siblings. I flew to utah and we drove to Nevada to spend Christmas with my grandparents. On Christmas eve my grandparents went to their room to sleep, my parents and 2 younger siblings went to a spare room to sleep and then my older brother and I slept on couches in the living room. Right by the Christmas tree that was lit up. Sometime in the middle of the night my brother woke me up and told me to quietly follow him to the bathroom. I did. He locked the door and proceeded to rape me. He told me if I ever told anyone he would tell them I'm lying and he'd kill me. Then it stayed a secret trapped deep inside my brain until a couple years ago. Where it came to me and haunted me ever since. To this day anything playboy, Christmas tree, Christmas lights, and certain sexual things trigger me like no tomorrow. I've been working on them and trying to lessen the struggle but anyone who has PTSD its not a snap of the fingers kind of deal. And I have soooooo much trauma from childhood that I need to work through that I get overwhelmed A LOT and if it gets too bad I shut down. I recently have been told I have dissociation and that has felt the most right when it has come to "diagnosis" from over the years. It explains a lot. So just know that I dont "hate" Christmas I just HATE the memories I have with it. The other 3 times he raped me weren't specific occasions so I really dont get triggered by certain things.
