"Define Danger"

by Charity

Deborah's thoughts and feelings continued to be tangled with my own when we woke up this morning.  We woke up easily despite having lost half the night to insomnia, no doubt brought on by too much caffeine late in the day.

We were thinking about having to go out in the world again, something we've always dreaded.  Fleeting images of sitting on the train, surrounded by people, our back not against the wall, because seats near the door are so hard to come by.  A feeling of danger.  No specific danger, just the everyday danger of being surrounded by outside people.

"Define danger,"  Allegra said to me.

This was not what I wanted to hear, and I let her know so.  How many times had I had this conversation with Mary, where I said how I felt about something and then she responded by saying how she thought how I might reframe my viewpoint so that I would feel better.  They're my feelings.  I have a right to them.  I'm trusting someone very close to me to validate my right to my feelings, and she responds by telling me how much better off I'd be if I'd change my point of view.  She would say it ever so kindly and supportively, but she'd invalidate my feelings nevertheless.

So I got angry at what Allegra said.  She held her ground.  On a rational level, I know that her intentions, and Mary's intentions, are well-meaning.  But my feelings are my feelings.  If I ask for validation, I want validation, no matter how much I'm contributing to my own problems by feeling those feelings.  It's a lack of validation that factored so much into why we were traumatized in the first place.

I'm not going to make either Mary or Allegra see things differently.  But please....don't make me feel even worse.