Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 5 — Unexpected Trauma Response

“Trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory.” Bessel van der Kolk

For Christmas, a former sister-in-law of mine sent me the T- shirt I’m wearing in this photo . I had been cleaning the house and probably doing some deep thinking, so I decided to text John. On January 12, 2021, at 3:33 PM, Ginger Bliss wrote: Before it comes up again, I can’t have sex with you anymore. It’s an unhealthy pattern that isn’t good for me. I regret nothing and will treasure many memories of you. I can now let go of the hope of you loving me because I no longer take that as a sign, I am unlovable. I don’t want to live the rest of my life on my own. I want to share this wonderful, awful, joyful, sad, funny, simple, and yet sometimes painfully complicated life with someone who treasures my heart and adores me for all of my beautiful crazy ways. I am now lovingly letting go instead of desperately trying to hold onto an idea of something that doesn’t exist. I finally accept what you have been telling me for years, we do not have a relationship, and you do not want one. I do, however, so I have to stop. For whatever we have been to each other, though, I am grateful for the experience of loving you. But on a lighter note I know you prefer, I can now take a selfie wearing a silly T-shirt, laugh at myself and invite others to laugh with me, and while it isn’t true that EVERYONE loves a Ginger, many do love this Ginger and I’m liking her a little more ev eryday too. ❤️

John responded that evening with this text.

The following email exchange with Ginger references the definition of gingerly I shared on the title page of Section II, Being Ginger Lee.

On Jan 22, 2021, at 8:33 PM, Ginger Bliss wrote: My name is Ginger Lee...I don’t want to be this (gingerly) anymore. I can see I’ve gotten much better in many areas of my life, but I’m scared I will not be able to really change related to men. I think maybe that’s what is wrong. I fear I’ll never be able to really change in this area. It’s like I revert and forget everything I’ve learned in their presence if I care about them and end up feeling bad about myself. So anyway, I have more work to do...

On Saturday, January 23, 2021, 04:59:46 PM CST, Ginger Rothhaas wrote: This needs to go in your book! I have always thought gingerly meant gentle...this definition is so interesting. You will be able to be with a good man. More so than ever. This is a new chapter.

Ginger was so right to provide me with encouragement, but I don’t think she even realized just how long and hard a road it would be to have a healthy relationship with a man. It’s probably a good thing neither of us did. It proved to be so much harder than my issues with food and was the hardest, most complicated issue to unwind and understand. It wasn’t that I needed a man in my life to be happy, but I desperately needed to understand why I couldn’t have a healthy relationship with one if I wanted it. It felt like it wasn’t a choice, that I was just destined to behave the way I did, and I wanted so much to behave differently. I just hadn’t fi gured that issue out yet and it felt like the key to truly being able to step into and fully embrace who I was and could be. I don’t like unsolved problems, and my mind wasn’t going to be able to rest until I figured this one out.

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