Hi Shade...
It's a terrible enough feeling, this state of being overwhelmed, without being blamed for it besides. I hear all that ignorant assuming too. In all these years, I haven't been able to change anyone else's mind about why I am the way I am, so I have given myself permission to let 'em think whatever they want, but the rule is the conversation with me is over when they start hauling out the blame. At that point, I remind them of the boundary, and it's "I gotta go".
I clearly remember my first attack. I was far too young to "decide" to do it to myself. I was playing outside at my gramma's cottage - my most 'favoritist' place on the planet. I was only four, and so still very small, and I looked up at the tippy-tops of the willows I loved to play under. When you're that little, it never occurs to you to look at anything except what's right in front of you. Until then, I had never noticed how high the sky was, how big the trees were, or how small I was in comparison.
I freaked. I felt like I could be crushed under the height and weight of the world any minute. I couldn't breathe. I was utterly terrified. I ran into the cottage and hid under the kitchen table and wouldn't come out. I spent all my time inside the cottage after that time. My whole family thought I'd gone completely crazy. Maybe I did. But my favorite place on the planet became one that I feared and loathed more than any other because I was expected to be outside all the time. When the cottage was sold at the end of that year, I was incredibly relieved.
No...I didn't "do it to myself". I was too young to be responsible for what was happening to me. Thirty years later, I still feel desperately small and vulnerable when I go outside...and the trees are still too big for my liking, and the sky is still too far away for my comfort. I can see that it is all beautiful, and I can appreciate the beauty, but I can't seem to forget or stop feeling uncomfortable about the fact that everything is sooooo much bigger than me.
