Content Warning: Brief mention of intimate partner violence
10 years ago, almost exactly to the day, I experienced an act of sexual violence from an intimate partner. Who I was and how I navigated the world began to change. In slow motion at first, eventually picking up steam.
Also, Spring of 2016:
I am the most confident, fulfilled, and bold I’ve ever been. I am coming off recovering from ankle surgery and taking the world by storm. I have a cabaret performance (an art form I dabbled in on and off for about a decade) and feel on top of the world. It’s the best I’ve ever felt on stage singing (also, I look fucking hot).
I’m still sleeping with him. The shock hasn’t melted away yet.
There I stand, feeling my absolute best and my most broken.
The cracks start to crumble, and darkness seeps in. I meet shades of myself I never knew. Adopt traits and outlooks that are foreign to me.
There are stretches of goodness and calm. But the murkiness always lays just below the surface.
Summer of 2025:
I am about to celebrate 3 years sober and decide to treat myself and my best friend with tickets to Broadway’s Just in Time.
I know I will enjoy the show. Jonathan Groff is one of the greatest talents of my generation, and I love music from the Bobby Darin era. I go in with high hopes for a great time and leave with my mind fucking blown and a part of my heart healed.
Groff’s performance…an athletic and artistic feat. Bobby Darin’s story…one of tenacity and passion. The blurring of lines among actor, audience, and character creates a level of connection I haven’t felt in many years. I am invigorated and reminded of the power and purpose of the arts. Jonathan Groff’s final monologue (I wish my brain could have retained a magical quote for you, but alas, while the feelings are vivid, the details are vague) shifts something in me that needed to be moved.
Also, Summer of 2025:
I start a cabaret workshop, my first since 2016. I haven’t been on stage in any form since 2022; my confidence is low. I am still struggling with my health and weight, and I forgot how nervous singing makes me. But I miss the stage. And this workshop is in honor of a beloved mentor who has passed. So, I show up.
Within a couple of weeks of the class starting, I have my empowering Groff experience, but I start to notice my hypervigilance is more present. I’m also not sleeping well.
Hypervigilance is one of my least favorite attributes of C-PTSD. It’s fucking relentless and exhausting. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON is playing on loop again. I bring this up to my psychiatrist.
I go through the symptoms and how they are presenting in my body. I tell her I know these flare-ups happen and I have tools to better deal with them, but it is helpful if I can figure out what set it off. Tends to truncate the time Eloise is in overdrive.
She asks if anything is new. I bring up the cabaret workshop and say, “Naturally, it has me a little nervous, singing has always made me nervous, but normal nervous. I haven’t done this in a while, but I have done it many times. I guess it’s been a long time…come to think of it…I haven’t done one of these in 9 years…it was right around when…”
Real-time lightbulb moment.
“…it was right around the choking incident.”
I burst into tears.
We have a winner, ladies & gentlemen.
A fun thing your brain on trauma can do is conflate things that have no real business being conflated. When your brain gets into this zone, it goes into survival mode. It literally thinks things are a matter of life and death for you…meanwhile, you think you are just casually singing Once Upon a Mattress in a rehearsal room on 8th Avenue.
I sign up for a fun, creative challenge. Eloise goes through her files and links it to a moment of physical danger, and on come the panic attacks, restless nights, and spiraling.
The good news: I recognize this right quick thanks to all the work I’ve done in therapy.
The bad news: It’s going to be a sad summer.
I know there are only two ways to deal with this: stop the workshop or ride out the pain until the performance is done.
I opt for the latter. I have the tools, support, and knowledge I need to weather this. I am confident the result will be one of catharsis and empowerment. I need to be conscientious, but this will ultimately be good for me.
About two weeks before showtime, I start to doubt this line of thinking. I am in hysterics, believing I am pushing myself in an unhealthy manner, and I am going to backslide on all the work I’ve done. My spiraling is spiraling.
I am tired of being sad and dealing with the suffocating grief that has come up with this PTSD relapse.
I am drained from being on edge all the time.
Maybe this is just something that can’t be a part of my life now. Or ever. Sure, that’s a depressing and debilitating thought. The stage is my home base, my safe space, my superpower. But I’ll find other passions. I’m resourceful and scrappy and obnoxiously excitable.
Then I think of Jonathan Groff. Of Bobby Darin. Of Connie Francis.
How alive and whole I felt in that theatre.
How in love I am with the connection created in one of those rooms.
How I am built for it.
I spent years dissociated and disconnected. It’s overwhelming when it falls away. Terrifying, really. But, my god, so much better than the alternative.
I decide to power through.
I do the show.
It’s a blur, but it’s magic.
And this past Wednesday, I did it again.
I have yet to figure out the exact rules for gauging when it’s healthy to push yourself and when it’s a recipe for disaster. But I do know if you pay attention, learn your body, and surround yourself with the right support, the trial and error of life gets easier.
Getting on stage last summer could have backfired. There is a version of this story where I get stuck back in hypervigilance and dissociation and must start from scratch. But I had something immensely valuable to hold onto. That moment in the basement of Wicked, watching an actor put it all on the floor, and reminding me what I’ve been missing.
And for that, I say, thank you, Jonathan Groff.
Leave a Reply