When My World Flipped Upside down, Pt.6
Part six.
Part 6: The "Crazy" Truth and the Trauma Timeline
I’m sitting in my therapist’s office, a trembling sweating mess. "I am not crazy, but nothing is wrong." I say it out loud, and it sounds like a riddle designed to break your brain. Fortunately she could make sense of it and here is kind of what it boiled down to. The suppression of survival mode.
The first handful of Skirts Up episodes have been released. When I relisten to them, I cringe. Most people just hear me talking, but I can hear the invisible seams. I know exactly where we had to stop recording and paste a different track at the end because I had a seizure right in the middle of the session. Only I notice the glitch. I’m not sure if the fact that no one else notices makes me feel better or just more invisible.
I’m seeing my therapist twice a week now. We spent the first few sessions digging through my history like archeologists.
"What was growing up like?" she asks.
"Very normal," I say.
"How would you describe your work history?"
"Hectic. Fast-paced. Detail-oriented. The way I like it."
Then, I notice it. A pattern I’ve lived but never recognized: nearly every major ending or beginning in my life—every job change, every "note-worthy" trauma—happens between February and April. Interesting right?
The Real Reason
She asks if I have "work trauma." I think of physical injuries. "No," I tell her.
"That’s not what I asked," she says.
She asks why I left my most recent job. I give her the "interview answer," and I see her lips twitch. She’s trying not to laugh. I’m being funny because wit is my armor, but she isn't buying it.
The truth? I was a practice manager hired to make an animal hospital profitable, only to be hazed daily by a staff that didn't want me there. It was my dream job, and it was miserable. Before that, I opened a pet resort. I spent a year crafting it into a pristine, well-oiled machine, only to have corporate let it run into the ground while I was on maternity leave. I returned to chaos. The team was left to make decisions well outside of their scope of responsibilities including writing schedules and assigning daily task. Within four days of my return, a dangerous dog that should have never been in my resort attacked a 17-year-old high schooler.
I woke up to the frantic call— an ambulance ride, police report and emergency vet visit later I’m left knowing that a 17 year old girl will forever be traumatized with permanent scares as a reminder. Corporate wanted a scapegoat, so they made me fire the kid who should never have been in that position in the first place to make scheduling and duty assignments. My team ghosted me. I quit. I never realized the anger I held for the company. They loved me when I was winning for them, but they didn't have my back when I needed a "supporting leg."
The Mirror at Home
Then we get to my favorite job. The one I got by pure luck in a small animal hospital. I loved this place. The knowledge was intoxicating. I loved the high of an emergency and the predictability of a check-up. Always learning.
To my shock and horror, talking about this job makes me ugly cry. That place felt like home for many years and I loved these people so much, yet I felt completely abandoned after I left.
"Why do you think this hurts?" my therapist asks.
"I don't know," I sob. "I just worked so hard to please the doctor."
I realized I had taken the brunt of everything—the angry outbursts, the volatility. Once, my pay was docked because I stepped into the parking lot to meet a tow truck that was retrieving my broken-down car. It was hurtful and confusing. But then, a few days later, the doctor felt bad and gave me a random $300 cash bonus. This wasn't a one-time thing. I loved her because she did incredibly nice things that kept me afloat as a single mom, but those gifts always seemed to come on the heels of a penalty.
As I sat there talking, it hit me like a physical blow. It hurt so bad to feel abandoned because I had found comfort in the familiarity. The why it felt like home.
The unpredictability, the "predictably unpredictable" moods, the being noticed only when I was wrong—it was the exact dynamic of my childhood. I was seeking out these narcissistic relationships because they felt like "home."
The "Ah-Ha"
This was the moment the lens shifted. I started seeing the patterns in every relationship, work and personal. My body wasn't just "glitching" with seizures; it was reacting to a lifetime of suppressed “not being enough.”
But how do you fix a brain that’s been wired to find safety in chaos?
That’s where the real work began. Next up, I’m going to tell you what Brainspotting actually felt like—and how it started to unstick the gears of my soul.
Explained by Neurologist, Dr. Carolyn Taylor
Author - Samantha Mandell, RTT Practitioner
