The Miserable Ones

It's not insignificant; it's my life; it's my mood. I thought I had made peace with my obsession, but my definition of self-respect, self-worth, and confidence is still determined by my weight.  

 I only wear sweat pants so no one can see the shame layered on my hips and thighs. I don't want to leave the house because I'm too fat, and the house is tired of sheltering me and my insecurities, tired of hiding me inside her judgmental walls. But I'm too afraid to leave the house at this weight.

I really don't want to live at this number. I'm not suicidal, but I would rather be dead than be this fat.

And I can only guess my re-awakened obsession with my fat might have to do with the nightmares and memories reminding me even more of my shame and damage.

And I'm upset. I miss Therapist, and we don't see him for another week and a half. We don't know where to turn for support. We have no one.

It doesn't matter anymore.  

"He that lives upon hope will die fasting." ~ Benjamin Franklin

“Life has killed the dream I dream.” ~ Les Miserable

Self-Inflicted Solitaire

Self-Inflicted Solitaire

Emptiness lingers on inside,

A constant, unyielding pain,

Competing with despair that thrives

While the blues pour down a drenching rain.

A hollow wind storms in my conscious,

Acutely aware of what never will be,

As troops of sadness methodically marches

Chanting songs of pain and misery.

Loneliness strangles attempts at laughter.

Alienation has given birth to an ache.

Time has been wasted constantly chasing after

Part of a world that threw me away.

Isolation becomes an obligatory guard

When fumbles at acceptance fall short of the need

So that all my tries leave me unwanted and scarred,

And I'm stranded in wounds that endlessly bleed.

Then lessons are learned from trying to belong

To a world so different from my own.

The wounds of rejection keep my cold and withdrawn,

But I'm too hurt to feel anything less than alone.

Metaphor

I am a proofread, amended manuscript.

An altered copy of the undesirable original

where history was unnecessarily edited:

Delete this. Add that.

I was broken down into parts,

each line, each word, each letter

declared this blue-eyed literary initiative all wrong.

The authors claimed I was filled with mistakes:

disconnected, superfluous, unstructured,

fragmented.

Each page was rewritten

until I was nothing but

a collection of multiple revisions,

decidedly unfit for publication.

But authors don't write stories.

Stories write stories.

I am my own story,

my own unfinished truth,

my own work in progress,

my own creative effort.

And in the beauty of our revisions is where our story will be told.

Accepting my Unacceptance

I feel moody.

I feel like nobody likes me.

I feel fat.

I feel ugly.

I feel disgusting.

I feel like saying, ”Physician heal thyself” because I tweet all kinds of positive and inspirational sayings and expressions on Twitter, and I believe them at the time, but later I feel so distant from what I expressed just an hour earlier.

I am having a hard time on this Tuesday, what other people are calling Christmas. It is always hard on Christmas. I would love to give to the littles what we never had. Loving parents. A cozy, safe, decorated house. A house full of gifts and good cheer. A feeling of acceptance. A sense of belonging. 

Acceptance is something I am really struggling with right now. Maybe it stems from a lifetime of trying to be perfect and never feeling like I belong, always wanting others to accept me as some proof that I am normal. Can't I just be normal by my own definitions? Why do I have to rely on others to delineate normalcy for me?

But still I do. If I see others receive attention or friendship without me, I wonder what is wrong with me that I am not included. I feel I am normal for someone with my frame of reference. For what I have been thorough, my actions can be expected. But I long for more, and I quit whatever I am doing when I feel I am not perceived as part of normal.

For example, at work I quit trying to be friends with my colleagues because I sense they feel I am different. So I'm keeping my distance. But in keeping my distance I'm not giving others the chance to find out that my “normal” might be quite good. What I am doing instead is leaving others before they can leave me.

And while I know that is what I'm doing, I don't know if it will change. I've been judged too much in my life to hang around and be tolerant of others continuing to tell me I'm different. And, also, while different can be good, people don't want to stick around long enough to find out.

But then I think on what Theodore Roosevelt said: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

I am a fighter. I do not lay down for anyone. If I have to keep failing at friendship and acceptance, then so be it. But . . . just maybe . . . there is one person who can accept us for who we are and what we can offer. I hope it's worth all the pain to finding out.

I'm over this.

(This post was written in partial protest by members with differing opinions.) That's normal? Right? :-)

Where I am From

I am from scattered I love you's and sometimes hugs

            To frequent cursing and steady neglect

To the occasionally thrown salt shaker aimed at my head

I am from a scruffy man who smells like whiskey and drugs

Where “twit’ and “brat” are his least offenses,

            leaving boo-boo's and ouch's on a too-young heart.

                  

I am from the mother’s adage:

      Always buy quality; never settle for less; you don’t need a man;

                         I’ll give you a reason to cry

I am from no ma’am, yes ma’am,

I’ll never do that, I’ll always do this,

            Yes ma’am, yes ma’am, yes ma’am

I am from bullies and teasing and make-good threats

          To empty swings, lonely lunches, and night-time sobs.

                     To the inheritance of silent screams from another splintered mind.

I am from sharpened razors, the uncle's whiskey, and swallow-me pills,

               From trying desperately to forget

                         To no longer being able to remember

I am from self-deprecating thoughts and hope run dry

             To hearing voices tunneling through the echoes of my mind.

                         To a steady stream of you'll never be close to good enough

I am from failures and mistakes and what was I thinking

            To I'll try again just in case

                           To listening to the one who is slowly teaching me

                                     I am so much more than where I am from.

Just another label

The time since March I spent away from the blog was generally a happy time.  I finished school, obtained a job, and have spent the last four months enjoying my time at my work. 

Apart from work, things are falling.  There are still issues around intimacy I can not escape, and every time I go through these issues I recreate the traumatizing experiences all over again.  And I’m to blame.  Tonight was no different.  And because of my self-inflicted actions earlier, I have lost myself inside my mind.  I can’t tell where I am and who is there.

During our last session with Therapist there was something we wanted to say to him but the gatekeeper was stationed and the thoughts couldn’t crawl around the wall.  I felt so frustrated and angry.  I didn’t know what the thought was but I knew we needed some type of support from Therapist for which couldn’t be asked. 

Almost as soon as we got to the car and it was safe, I realized what needed to be said.  The discussion in our session touched on abuse and that’s when the feelings came up to say something to Therapist and get support.  When we got to the car the littles were upset and had said they wanted a hug from Therapist. 

I don’t know how I feel about this.  Since we’ve been discussing issues of intimacy, there has been more trust developing for now.  And the adult in me thinks it is brave that they would want a hug.  I think they deserve a hug. 

The adult me also thinks it might be precarious and bad boundaries to ask for a hug.  What would he think?  Would we regret it?  I believe and hope the littles would feel safe and receive the support needed.  Therapist is the only that believes them and I fear they might look to him like a father-figure.

I am sure there is a nice, tidy, demeaning psychological label such as transference to explain what is happening.  I loathe the idea that our feelings our reduced to psychological jargon.

I have compassion for the littles and will do everything ever possible to keep them safe and sound.

 I close this with the feeling once again that feel so much more, but said a lot of nothing.

I think I'm just dead.

Conversation with Sleeplessness

Hello, Sleeplessness, my old friend.  Care to join me in reflection?

There is shame typing these words.  I feel embarrassed that I have not written since March.  There are things we do not talk about and would rather go without.  Cowardly, I know.

These emotional, late nights make me reflective and pensive.  I was thinking of the ones who made me: the ones who created, shaped, and formed this undesirable, inferior, socially-awkward waste. 

I was thinking of the first one who damaged me, who taught me no touch was safe and that even as an adult few people would believe me.  And I was thinking of sending him another letter.  I even know what I want to say.  But no words I can write will ever make him feel as bad as I feel every waking breath of my life.   

My words refuse to be written.  Everything is in my head but none will come out.  My thoughts peek around the corner of consciousness to see if it’s safe to come out. 

And I think to the mother right now.  Is she not my mother?  Whose mother is she?  I don’t understand why she doesn’t love me.  Was I not a good girl?  Did I not try to be the perfect child so she wouldn’t be unhappy?  Why does she not talk to me?  I tried to be good.  And there is a chasm in my heart where I wanted her to be, where I wanted her to fill it.  But though she lives, we have no mother.  And I don’t know where I went wrong.  I must have disappointed her.  And that breaks the bits even more.

A sense of dread percolates inside me.  I fear the worst is stealthily prowling towards me, advancing on me, waiting to pounce and take me as her prey.

Most telling of this mood that has descended upon me was a social event I went to this evening.  A group of unfamiliar women, a plethora of wine, a buffet of indulging food, and a lively book discussion.  I was awkward.  I do not have the skill of social interaction.  I know they thought I was silly and nothing to contribute to the discussion.  And I feel inferior.  I feel they all know that I am damaged, split, and unfocused. 

A part of me can almost live with the secrecy and shame of abuse, but I feel everyone knows as if it is written on my forehead.  Any intelligent person would have walked away from the book club tonight and thought that I wasn’t “all there”. 

I know I will live with the shame of sexual abuse for the rest of my life; but, dammit, I hate that other people can sense it in me like a dog senses fear. 

I’m exhausted from wreaking of sexual abuse and dissociation, yet Sleeplessness makes me languish in my stench.

Are you there God? It's me.

My eyes are blurry and my head is fuzzy.  The tears keep breaking the ledge and blazing a trail down my face.  I have taken one too many meds.  The migraine has pounded consistently today, as it has the last week and longer. 

I really don’t know what is wrong with me, and I have no one to tell.  I have pushed Therapist away; we won’t see him for several weeks.  I didn’t mean to push him away, but I’ve been so dissociative this week that it just happened.  My members have been so active that it is beyond description and explanation.  I fail at words.

I’ve been student teaching the last 3 months.  The last three weeks seem to really be worse, and I haven’t been completely present for them.  I feel the switches take over me during the classes.  I notice that my brain dissolves and the content knowledge seeps away.  I ask a question but don’t remember what I’ve asked, much less the answer.  I am losing time.  I feel myself become someone different.  It is not safe for me to be in a classroom.  It’s not that the students are in danger; it’s that I am in danger.  I am finding myself becoming emotional and teary in front of them. 

Away from the classroom, my coping skills have revolved around alcohol, prescription meds, and more prescription meds. 

One of my classes is a remedial class, and they have been abusive to me.  One of the girls called me a “white n”, a derogatory word used for black people.  Irony is that she is black herself.  The day this happened ended I called my university supervisor sobbing.   I haven’t stopped crying since. I left school this particular day and got so drunk I believe I had alcohol poisoning.  I took sedative drugs and passed out after I made myself throw up.  I’ve done this twice.  Yesterday Husband and I went out on a date to a movie.  I had been bawling all day so badly and had a migraine so terrible that I took his prescription tranquilizers, some of mine, and my migraine meds.  I ended up bawling in the middle of the movie, then passing out.  Husband tried to rouse me, but to no avail.  I woke up five minutes after the movie ended and credits rolled.  After I got home, I went to bed and I didn’t wake up again until 12 hours later. 

I’ve been bawling today till my stomach hurts.  I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me.  It’s so bad I can’t catch my breath.  Something hurts my heart and my members so badly it can’t be named.  I keep having flashbacks of people hurting me.  The uncle.  The neighbor.  I’m having flashbacks of hiding in my closet, and I can see everything around me like I’m really sitting in there.  And I cry and cry and cry.  And it won’t go away.  And I don’t know what this has to do with student teaching.  I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I don’t know. 

The irony is that for a while, the tears felt good.  For weeks I’ve been numb and rock-like.  Cold and distant.  Just blank.  Once I started crying I felt better.  I could feel the refreshment of pain again, and it was a relief.  But I’m over it now.  The pain is too much.  I’m ready for the numbness.

I am really trapped.  I need help.  And I really don’t know where to go from here.  I am hiding during the most important semester of my life, and I don’t want to.  I really don’t want to.  God, help me.

To You

I want you to hear the words I can not speak.  I want you to search for me where I’ve been forced into hiding.  I want a safe, warm hug from you where only coldness lives.  I want you to help me to cry when I can not face the tears myself.  I want you to help me as I’m forbidden from being human. 

There is more to me that meets the eye, and I need you to know it.

M.I.A.

I am missing in sight.  You will look for me, but you will not find me.  My words you won’t understand, my writing you won’t know.  I am disappearing in plain sight.  Please don’t look for me.  I surrender.

It's all over but the crying

I have told him I want a separation.  I’ve moved into the guest bedroom.  Every step I take away from him he is a bewildered little boy, not understanding how this could happen to him.  Whatever he’s wondering, it’s been happening a year and a half.  I feel I’ve told him every step of the way what his behavior would lead to.  But inevitably, according to him, it’s my entire fault.  

He says my internal system doesn’t communicate well enough.  (Well, god damn, why didn’t he just say so and I would have fixed it already!)

He says he only married one of us; he didn’t bargain for the plural lifestyle. 

He says I take him for granted. 

He says other things, but I don’t remember what they are.  I ask him to write them down.  He says no.

I know he feels alone.  He has alluded to suicide several times.  I doubt my decision to leave sometimes.  I keep asking myself if it’s really that bad that I would betray the covenant I swore before God.  The only reason it’s not bad right now is because we aren’t really talking.  But it is that bad. 

I’m grasping at straws for how to cope.  The negative thoughts slink back in, wanting me to hurt myself some way or another, some way to be able to catch my breath and fill this hole in my heart.  Anything to numb out.  Any way to make myself think of something else.  I would very much like to melt away.

Cheers to complications!

TRIGGER WARNING

********Talk of intimacy and sexuality *******

I told Therapist recently that I didn’t think the problem was with my marriage; it was with me.  While the trouble with my marriage isn’t that it’s all me, all of it has to do with me.  I don’t know any more if I dislike Husband, or I just want to be with someone else.  I know for sure I don’t want to be married again, and I long for the days when we become independent and self-sufficient.  And that will happen this semester when we are done with student teaching, we graduate, and enter the work force (hopefully). 

The issue is more complicated.  The issue is I want to be with a woman, not a man.  Every time I am *with* Husband, I feel sullied and unclean.  Recently we were intimate and I started crying the tears of a child half way through.  When Husband had finished, the tears wouldn’t stop.  We curled up and sobbed.  Husband said he was sorry, but we commented that even though he’s sorry he keeps doing it; he keeps asking for it.  He said it made it him feel like an abuser.  And yet, he keeps asking.  And that makes us look at him like an abuser, which makes intimacy even more difficult. 

There is a woman in the vast outer reaches of our life with whom we are attracted.  And it seems she is attracted to us.  We saw her yesterday, and she hugged us twice.  We get butterflies in the stomach when we think of her.  And we think of her a lot. 

And that is that.  It’s complicated.  Not all of us are on board with being with a woman.  Leaving Husband?  Maybe.  But not because a woman is involved.

But, cheers to complications and shutting my eyes!  They make the inertia of this life seem even less tolerable.   *insert sarcasm*