Spin and PTSD Featuring My Ex

Perfection is nonexistent. Life is built on a learning curve—the little constructs in everyday life that lead us toward a peaceful life, not a perfect life.

A week ago my work team went to take a spin class. Now, if you know me, you know I do not like spin. It goes beyond spin classes though – I do not like bikes. I don’t like riding them outside. I don’t like the electric kind. I don’t like driving next to people who ride them (I’m sorry if that’s you, it’s not you, it’s the bike…I promise). I do not like cycling at all in any form or any space.

Weird… right?

One of the fundamental things we learn to do when we are growing up is to ride a bike. After my training wheels “magically” fell off my first bike, I got a beautiful two-wheeled bike from Santa. It was purple and had these beautiful shimmering purple tassels hanging off the handlebars. I rode it all the time. I rode it to my best friend's house. I rode it to the park. I rode it in circles around our cul-de-sac. I loved my bike.

I cannot pinpoint for you the exact moment I started to detest bicycles. I can’t even give you a range of time. I don’t know how it happened or when it happened. I know that one day I liked them and then I was in college and I was hiking a bike up a giant hill in Pullman, Washington getting kicked by peddles.

So somewhere in there, I subconsciously decided I didn’t like bikes.

It was that simple.

My furry and frustration toward them is unwarranted and a little unhealthy (if I’m being honest).

Until a few years ago when I was invited to a spin class. Now while I wasn’t thrilled about the workout of choice, I was looking forward to the potential of making new friends.

The girl who invited me was acquainted with my ex. We will call him Crab (because Harry Potter references are fun). She was someone who had known him in the Navy and had reconnected with him only a month or so beforehand. I didn’t know her, but I felt a little threatened.

I’ll tell you now, that I had no reason to be, not because I didn’t trust her, but because I didn’t trust him. That and she was/in a happy committed relationship.

My relationship with Crab was a myriad of ups and downs. Bigger downs than the ups could ever equate to. I had found messages to other women multiple times on his phone that left my already deep-rooted trust issues, grounded even further.

Before you come at me for going through his phone, I was insecure and his behavior was aggressive and off. I could have waited for him to come to me about it, but my anxiety was too high and he never would have. He would have lied to me about it over and over again and then somehow manipulate me into believing something was wrong with me.

I do not condone going through another individual's personal device unless warranted. If it comes down to that, there are most likely other issues that need to be addressed - personal or relationship-wise.

I digress.

This friend of his had invited me to a spin class with her and her sister. I said yes – Open to the idea of getting to know this girl better so that my insecurities about their friendship could subside. On the night of the class, however, Crab and I got into a fight. He was mad at me for saying yes and for even thinking about going to the class with her. He felt threatened that I was going to steal his friend from him.

Yes, his friend. I was not allowed to be friends with her until he decided it was okay.

It was an explosive fight, much like the ones we were having every night. It left me in tears. I was scared I was going to lose him because I was trying to build a relationship and get to know someone he valued as a friend. If I walked out that door, I was risking him leaving, which he had threatened to do…again…

By the time I showed up to the class, I realized I booked the wrong one. I was flustered. I was running a few minutes late. I had been sobbing. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt lost and alone.

Fortunately, the woman at the desk helped me to my bike, clipped me in, and got me ready to go.

I made it forty-five minutes through the class. The tenderness from the recent events had me barely holding on. Between the music, the tempo, the volume, and the people the room started to feel small. I could feel the walls closing in around me. My head was spinning more than my legs. My breath was aching for air, desperate to bring life back into my body. My eyes were struggling to hold back the fountain of tears slowly leaking through.

I remember trying to get myself off the bike feeling stuck, with my shoes clipped and locked into the peddles. I ended up unstrapping my feet and getting off. I hustled past the girl at the desk, stopping for just long enough to inform her the shoes were still in the clips. Concern was all I saw in her eyes while a flood of tears fell down my pink, sweaty face. I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I was sad. I was scared.

That was my first spin class.

A heartbreaking moment in my life. A genuine moment in my life. A moment of learning. A moment built in love and sadness.

So when my team went to do, what we call ‘team sweats’, at a local spin studio, I made it thirty minutes before the room started closing in on me, compressing everything in my head and chest.

It’s been two years since that relationship ended, and the effects have lived on.

It doesn’t feel good to admit because I have worked so hard to move through the pain of that relationship. The hurt that came with it. I have worked to make myself better for my faults and my wrongdoings as much as I have worked to let go of the hurtful words, thoughts, and opinions that I started to believe were true.

And still, I have days when moments like that come flooding back in vivid memory, pulling me back to a moment in time that is no longer now.

So, I had a PTSD moment.

The most important thing I did though, was feel. I felt it all. I cried. I did not finish the class to prove to myself I could. I did not worry about what anyone else would think. Instead, I let it move through me.

I was blessed to have a friend who came outside to support me and remind me that these are my feelings and Crab doesn’t get to hold power in my life anymore. I didn’t grow because of him, I grew because I chose to.

Healing takes time. Trauma lives in the body and the smallest thing can set off a memory. Next time you find yourself reliving a painful moment, know that you are not alone. Give yourself space to self-soothe. To cry. To scream. To run. To do whatever you need to do to release that moment and bring the power back to you. These moments are real and they live on and that’s okay.

Love Always,

Riss