White Knuckles

I am dissociative.  My brain is foggy, and I can't think.  My head has a far-away ache.  There is chaos living inside that I cannot describe would I even be allowed.

I'm a little bit hungry, but feeling empty is keeping me calm even though I'm coming off the rails and in over my head.

There is so much to say, but I don't know what it is.  The tears are scurrying behind my eyes and the rallying cry to keep "it" away from me is called.  I have not enough focus for this post.  I am zigzagging like a ping pong ball in my brain, and there are chinks in my thoughts disrupting its lineage.

What I would say if I could is that I need a hug, I need a hug, I need a hug.  I need the safe touch of someone who cares, who understands, who would let me cry on a shoulder.

No sooner do I write that then Tina gets angry.  I grow so tired of her indignation.  So much of the time it feels directed towards me.  A few tears slipped by her, and they started to make me feel better, but then she wiped the tears away and cut me off.  What started out as nascent feelings of clarity and lucidity give way to being blank again.

I don't know how I'll get through the night.  I'm trying to stay away from pills that will serve to dull the ache of unrevealed pieces and to find other ways to ground myself.  It's not going so well.

I started by going through my entire collection of iTunes music and deleted hundreds of songs I don't remember buying and greatly dislike.  Where did they come from?

My dog Maybelline is here with me, softly sleeping, and unaware of the turmoil in which I languish.  They say dogs are intuitive to human suffering.  Not her.  She is as blank as I am.

I'm tired of being blank.

Thus, I surrender to the meds that whisk me away to where it doesn't hurt as much to be vacant, and into the numbness I sink willingly and gracefully.

Getting Schooled on my Failures

Today has been a difficult day for us.  In the region where we live, the students have already gone back to school, and all my teacher friends are posting their unabashed optimism and excitement for the new school year.

I feel left out.

I feel like a failure.

I feel grossly incompetent.

I still castigate myself on why I failed as a teacher.  Husband asked me last night if it had not been for my eating disorder, would I still be teaching.  I responded that my eating disorder would have made sure I wasn't teaching or working in any manner for that fact.  And so it would be.  My inability to cope with life would have energized my eating disorder, regardless of the type of employment, and made working a fright and an impossibility.

I do think I have some skills as a teacher.  I am caring, outgoing, and understand my content matter and how to convey it to students; however,  I am not by any appearance skilled in handling stress, chaos, or anxiety.  My eating disorder and dissociation came between me and teaching,  and teaching will forever lay at my feet in the throes of death.

So today is long and disturbing.  I'm paralyzed by the memories of my own inadequacies and deficiencies.  I can not move; I can not breath; I can not speak.  I wish I were teaching, but even at my best, I know unequivocally I was never good enough.