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

Warning Signs

Fact: love is blind. If you say otherwise, you haven’t been in an unhealthy relationship (and I’m incredibly grateful you haven’t had to experience that!). I’m not talking about Nick and Vanessa Lachey’s social experiment. I’m talking about real nitty gritty tough relationships that teach you a thing or two about yourself. That love is blinding. Like a car in the night with high beams right in your face. That’s what I mean.

We have this innate ability to gloss over what other people notice because we are too busy basking in the glory of who this wonderful person has made themselves out to be. That is until it’s just the two of you and then the mood shifts. The lights dim and the person that was shining is now barely visible. The darkness they bring makes us question our sanity and our reality. The pretty words whispered in the dark and mental manipulation have us stuck, unable to speak honestly to friends and family because we committed to this. Because we said yes. Because we convinced ourselves that everything has to be all right and we’ve made sure everyone else thinks that way too.

The truth is, our friends and family may know already. They may have already addressed this with us. They may have already seen the shift and change in our demeanor, our words, and our actions. and they recognize that this isn’t a healthy change because they know us better than we wish they did at this particular moment in time.

By the time the warning signs are clear to us, it feels too late. it feels like being stuck inside some demented dream where as hard as you try, waking up doesn’t seem to be an option. Instead of admitting to everyone else (who would welcome us back with open arms) and ourselves (the admittedly harder of the two) that we were wrong, we lock the shackles ourselves and toss the key across the room. 

There are a lot of toxic people in this world, and I don’t necessarily blame them to an extent... we as a society are not (generally) taught how to feel, communicate, and live healthy emotional, responsive lives. Especially if you grew up in an unhealthy environment it means your entire learning experience was built in a state of emotional instability fostered by a severe lack of self-awareness. How would you know where to even begin? How would you know if you’re even doing anything wrong? 

Truth: you probably wouldn’t. The knee-jerk reaction to defend yourself when someone approaches you about their feelings as a result of something you did is instinctual, a survival mechanism that continues the cycle of toxicity within your behaviors as well as the relationships you enter into.

Relationships can be amazing for growth – someone comes in and shows us a mirror to expose all the toxic traits we exhibit and is like ‘Wake up mother fucker, you got shit to fix.’

And in reality…healthy or not, we all have things to keep working on and fix. Life is a constant adjustment period

Because in my life experience (in which I have only had the pleasure of experiencing the two most dramatic ends of the spectrum), I believe this can go one of two ways: one partner says ‘Oh yeah, you’re right. let me have a closer look at that mirror. it’s time to make some changes,’ while the other throws themselves a nice pity party and hunkers into a doomsday bunker like the whole world is out to get them. Then they get so comfortable in there that the thought of getting out wouldn’t just be the end of the world, but the end of everything they’ve ever known. Then they would have to admit that they are kind of a shitty person and look themselves in the face… and that’s a scary thought. 

I’m going to be real here: at the end of the day, we have all been a shitty person to someone or about something to some degree. Even if you are the best person in the world, you’ve had to learn and grow in some capacity. The difference is choosing self-awareness vs. choosing to stay stagnant. Sometimes that is what friends are for.

While I have slightly digressed, no one deserves this treatment. If you have been fighting tooth and nail to grow and be a better person every single day in a tough relationship, you have most likely outgrown your partner. Listen to those closest to you. Hear them out.

I cannot say enough how important friends are. They are a solid reason for support because they will see the waiving red flags long before you do. Especially if you are, like me, easily swayed by pretty words and attention from any man who might be willing to give it to you for five minutes. (Yes, I realize that might sound a little pathetic, but it’s true! I’m here to own it and also am 100% working on it.)

My point is that your circle of friends is going to know you. They will start to see your spiral. They will notice your change in behavior before you do. They will see the shift, the distance, or whatever else it may be. They will know something is wrong or off. They will come in as the knight in shining armor to confront you out of love and the safety of you.

Speaking from experience, when my best friend approached me about my ex, while it wasn’t the most graceful of approaches, I disregarded it and we ended up having a full fallout 6 months later. We have happily been reunited since then but that was a stressful time. I couldn’t understand what she saw because I wasn’t looking for it. I also didn’t think I deserved better so instead I justified the actions and behaviors of my then-partner. 

But she saw the change, she saw his possessive nature, and whether we were close or not at that point, she saw a change in me that didn’t feel right. She knew and acknowledged what I couldn’t at that point in my life.

This wasn’t just isolated to friends. My sisters saw it too and they were much more forward about it with me. Again, I was in denial because I just wanted to be loved. I wanted a certain life and I was willing to compromise myself and my happiness for it even when I knew it wasn’t right.

Today I like to think I’m a little more self-aware than that. that if my friends approached me about a situation, I would easily be able to say okay and re-evaluate what was going on in me and in the situation itself.

So, my advice to all those going through it, listen to your friends and family. If you trust them and if they know you, they seriously just want to help and want the best for you. They love you, more than someone who controls and manipulates ever will. They want your freedom while that other person wants you caged. 

There will always be lessons that have to be experienced to truly be learned, and one’s friends and family won’t be able to save you from. While the honesty provided by those closest to you may sometimes hurt, they love you and it will come with grace and care for the person that you are. 

If you are in one of these situations right now, struggling to get through another day. Fighting yourself and the person you love. Searching for hope while watching the security in your life slipping away. If you’ve heard the words from others, and if you have denied them to protect your ego, I want you to know I see you and I feel you. You are on the edge of a new beginning. The first thing you have to do is let go and embrace that it’s going to be okay. The care and self-awareness I hope you one day have for yourself will be carried by those closest to you until then (and I promise, they don’t mind).