Early morning. Baby squirms and attaches to me. I unlatch her after a few minutes. She resumes her squirming. She attaches, I unlatch. Attach, unlatch. Please, no more, I say in my mind.
I get taken back to when I'm saying 'no' to the doctor. My mind says no no no, my body tenses, anger starts to simmer away.
The gooey sensation from accumulated overnight bleeding adds to the atmosphere of discomfort.
This time, I climb off the bed. Baby squirms again bit but drifts off to sleep just as quickly.
I pace around the house, sit on the couch, look at my phone. Baby peeps just once. I walk out the front door into the fresh morning air instead of rushing to the bedroom. The sun is yet to rise over the neighbour's roof across the road but already bright enough to see all the scenery. It has been many years since I took that scene in. Birds chirping and singing away noisily. I hear cars in the distance, people starting their early morning commutes. Monday. It is already too bright to stare at the clouds in the horizon, that is, above the roofs.
I breathe in the damp dew scent that won't be around for much longer.
I realise that this time, because I was not vocalising my 'no', I got taken back to the last time I did not vocalise my 'no.' I gave a verbal consent for the catheter when my intentions had all along been to refuse it. It was the same emotions of wanting baby to stop with the sleepy comfort suck, the quiet of the early morning family bed, the monkey-mind going where it will.
I identified my strongest no.
What am I saying yes to?
Of course there's plenty I say yes to, once I re-framed the question!
Now, what to do when the cause of PTSD is the person one spends the most time with...?
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