Dear S,

(Continued from Part 1)

…because there was other stuff going on too.

I haven’t even mentioned that M’s wife, looking after her with such dedicated care while working full time, has also been grieving the death of her sister from cancer.

And then this other thing happened in our family that I can’t talk about cos it’s not resolved, but it’s being weighing heavy as a concrete overcoat for a year and a half now, casting its dark shadow over everything

And this ongoing, gigantic, unforgivable reality of Palestinians being bombed in their thousands – civilians, children, so many children – and we’re supposed to absorb it like it’s normal, as if it’s justifiable.

For me, this has all transmuted into a fear that manifests as hyper-vigilance when I leave the house: every raised voice of a human to their dog, any aggressive scolding of an adult to a child, sends cortisol shooting through my body, whilst also gripping me in dreadful impotence. Not so much fight or flight as simultaneous Fight and Freeze.

My cruelty-radar has always been sharp, now it feels out of control.

Anyway, S, that’s enough for now. I’m sorry, it’s a lot. Like I said, I’m only telling you because, maybe in the smallest circle of my world at least, some kind of equilibrium is emerging. Bones can heal. Pain can ease. Episodes of CPTSD can be (re)settled.

I’m still aware though that some losses – individual, global – are irretrievable. We love stories to end in redemption. But oppression is not always paid for by its perpetrators. And trauma recycles through future generations. But… erm…I don’t know the end of this sentence…erm, perhaps only that so too does hope. And sometimes, justice.

(To be continued…)