I feel like such a failure today.
I stayed up WAY too late last night (actually this morning - until after 3 o'clock) knowing I had an 11:30 session with Michelle. During that time, I was also drinking; didn't help.
So I drank too much and stayed up to late, then the sound on my phone went off again (it's been doing that now for the past few weeks - the sound just shuts off so I don't hear any alarms or notifications) so I overslept and missed my appointment.
I really needed this appointment and now I feel like I've lost my best friend or something. Like I really screwed up.
So much is going on my head feels like it's spinning already...I really, really desperately needed this appointment.
Dammit.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Off Kilter
I don't know what's wrong with me.
Something is broken. I don't know what.
What's wrong?
I feel like I'm watching someone else's life go on and I'm just an observer. I feel like none of this is real. It can't be real.
The good and the bad and everything in between. It doesn't fit. Everything is just confusing. What was I doing? Where was I going? What was I saying?
Nevermind, I'll just play this round of scramble or I'll water this plant. Did I remember the other one? Oh I need to fill this...I need to do that...I need to cover that...I need to ....what?
I am in this mode of isolation that is painful because it keeps me from the people most dear to me, yet it feels like.... like.......a huge fish on your hook, you feel it pulling - hard - but you don't know what it is that has ahold of it.
When I was young - 16 - I knew two guys. They were best friends. I don't recall their names now. One was short with dark hair and lots of acne. The other was tall and slim.
The short, dark-haired guy had a cyst on his neck. The cyst kept getting bigger so he asked the tall guy to cut it off for him.
I sat across from them. They sat on a love seat and the tall guy pulled out a knife - just an average pocket knife - and short guy leaned his head back, giving tall guy access to his cyst.
He took the knife and he cut the cyst as the short guy winced. I said nothing.... just sat there and watched.
The tall guy cut some more, making a sort of cross cut over the cyst, which was somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a marble. There was no blood.
The tall guy then laid the pocket knife down and began to squeeze the reddened flesh around the cyst. As he squeezed it, white stuff came out - it wasn't liquidy, more like ricotta cheese. Sorry, I know that probably ruined lasagna for a million people but that's all I can think of to describe it. He cut again, kept squeezing, pulling more out....and I just sat and stared.
The reason I am writing about this is because it seems to exemplify what I am feeling...what it looks like, to me, on the inside.
Feels like I'm being squeezed from the inside and all this gook is coming out, spreading, spreading, spreading...it just clogs up everything, blinds me, blindsides me. I don't want anyone to see this. I am absolutely terrified of it. What will come out? What is in there? Will it hurt?
Who am I?
Something is broken. I don't know what.
What's wrong?
I feel like I'm watching someone else's life go on and I'm just an observer. I feel like none of this is real. It can't be real.
The good and the bad and everything in between. It doesn't fit. Everything is just confusing. What was I doing? Where was I going? What was I saying?
Nevermind, I'll just play this round of scramble or I'll water this plant. Did I remember the other one? Oh I need to fill this...I need to do that...I need to cover that...I need to ....what?
I am in this mode of isolation that is painful because it keeps me from the people most dear to me, yet it feels like.... like.......a huge fish on your hook, you feel it pulling - hard - but you don't know what it is that has ahold of it.
When I was young - 16 - I knew two guys. They were best friends. I don't recall their names now. One was short with dark hair and lots of acne. The other was tall and slim.
The short, dark-haired guy had a cyst on his neck. The cyst kept getting bigger so he asked the tall guy to cut it off for him.
I sat across from them. They sat on a love seat and the tall guy pulled out a knife - just an average pocket knife - and short guy leaned his head back, giving tall guy access to his cyst.
He took the knife and he cut the cyst as the short guy winced. I said nothing.... just sat there and watched.
The tall guy cut some more, making a sort of cross cut over the cyst, which was somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a marble. There was no blood.
The tall guy then laid the pocket knife down and began to squeeze the reddened flesh around the cyst. As he squeezed it, white stuff came out - it wasn't liquidy, more like ricotta cheese. Sorry, I know that probably ruined lasagna for a million people but that's all I can think of to describe it. He cut again, kept squeezing, pulling more out....and I just sat and stared.
The reason I am writing about this is because it seems to exemplify what I am feeling...what it looks like, to me, on the inside.
Feels like I'm being squeezed from the inside and all this gook is coming out, spreading, spreading, spreading...it just clogs up everything, blinds me, blindsides me. I don't want anyone to see this. I am absolutely terrified of it. What will come out? What is in there? Will it hurt?
Who am I?
Monday, November 19, 2012
Tired
Shame, shame, shame.
It permeates me. The past few days have been those kinds of days where I just wished I didn't exist.
I'm tired.
I'm lost.
I am ashamed.
It's very difficult to accept "I love you" from anyone, when there's not one single redeeming quality you can see about yourself.
My last session was beyond humiliating. So much so, that I almost didn't go today, which Michelle noticed.
"I'm glad you came today," she said, knowing a million parts of me were pulling me away, telling me to run.
Sue William Silverman wrote a number of books and is also a friend of mine on facebook. She's a very brave woman - she put things in her memoir about being molested and abused by her affluent father, and followed it with a sequel about sexual addiction and finally "Fearless Confessions" - a book about how to write about these things. Quite the appropriate title, I think.
How horrible it is, to tell. How frightening. Not just the details and grit, but what's going on inside you. The reality of your every-day breaths. Every thought that stabs you with how indecent you are, unworthy you are, useless you are. It's all this fucking game you play, to make everyone happy...to make everyone love you...even if you don't believe they do, you can at least see what it's like.
I believe Bill... but that's a double-edged sword.
I believe that he loves me, but I don't feel I deserve it. That hurts. I want it, but I am so afraid of it.
Life just sucks these past few days.
I am tired.
It permeates me. The past few days have been those kinds of days where I just wished I didn't exist.
I'm tired.
I'm lost.
I am ashamed.
It's very difficult to accept "I love you" from anyone, when there's not one single redeeming quality you can see about yourself.
My last session was beyond humiliating. So much so, that I almost didn't go today, which Michelle noticed.
"I'm glad you came today," she said, knowing a million parts of me were pulling me away, telling me to run.
Sue William Silverman wrote a number of books and is also a friend of mine on facebook. She's a very brave woman - she put things in her memoir about being molested and abused by her affluent father, and followed it with a sequel about sexual addiction and finally "Fearless Confessions" - a book about how to write about these things. Quite the appropriate title, I think.
How horrible it is, to tell. How frightening. Not just the details and grit, but what's going on inside you. The reality of your every-day breaths. Every thought that stabs you with how indecent you are, unworthy you are, useless you are. It's all this fucking game you play, to make everyone happy...to make everyone love you...even if you don't believe they do, you can at least see what it's like.
I believe Bill... but that's a double-edged sword.
I believe that he loves me, but I don't feel I deserve it. That hurts. I want it, but I am so afraid of it.
Life just sucks these past few days.
I am tired.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Whispered Wound
Forever spoken
Never heard again
The wound that rides
a whisper in the wind
Can they see it?
Will they know?
Do I look okay?
Do my scars show?
Who am I kidding?
Of course they see
It's like a disease
spread all over me.
Staring, I know
Their disdain and sneers
So I swing, swing hard
when anyone nears
The smile is pretty
beneath it, is rot
but this mask I wear
is all I've got.
It's all I've mastered
and I'm damn good
Sit still and listen
like a good girl should
Walk away quickly
when someone is kind
run, run away
they'll change their mind
There's alternate meaning
to every touch
although you ache for it
Oh so much
Remember the whisper
the wound's still alive
it's in the air
it still survives
Burning an inside
already marred
crisp with rage
with terror, charred
Memories choke me
like swallowing tar
get out, get out!
whoever you are!
Give me my mask
I'll smile a sweet smile
bitterly isolated
all the while
Because I know the truth
It's all a big front
To be perfect, wanted, loved...
To be whatever you want
This skin isn't mine
Lost long before
These chills you give me
I try to ignore
This ache in my chest
When I see your face
This dare to believe
In a different kind of place
My heart pounds
the whisper returns
Run away, Run away!
You're gonna get burned
But I peek through the curtain
and there he stands
Same as always...
same smile, same hands
Same kindness and face
green eyes that care
See beyond what I hide
Is there hope there?
Never heard again
The wound that rides
a whisper in the wind
Can they see it?
Will they know?
Do I look okay?
Do my scars show?
Who am I kidding?
Of course they see
It's like a disease
spread all over me.
Staring, I know
Their disdain and sneers
So I swing, swing hard
when anyone nears
The smile is pretty
beneath it, is rot
but this mask I wear
is all I've got.
It's all I've mastered
and I'm damn good
Sit still and listen
like a good girl should
Walk away quickly
when someone is kind
run, run away
they'll change their mind
There's alternate meaning
to every touch
although you ache for it
Oh so much
Remember the whisper
the wound's still alive
it's in the air
it still survives
Burning an inside
already marred
crisp with rage
with terror, charred
Memories choke me
like swallowing tar
get out, get out!
whoever you are!
Give me my mask
I'll smile a sweet smile
bitterly isolated
all the while
Because I know the truth
It's all a big front
To be perfect, wanted, loved...
To be whatever you want
This skin isn't mine
Lost long before
These chills you give me
I try to ignore
This ache in my chest
When I see your face
This dare to believe
In a different kind of place
My heart pounds
the whisper returns
Run away, Run away!
You're gonna get burned
But I peek through the curtain
and there he stands
Same as always...
same smile, same hands
Same kindness and face
green eyes that care
See beyond what I hide
Is there hope there?
Sexual Dysfunction (Warning: Raw, graphic)
Today was a very hard session, and I can't even identify the hardest part(s).
One thing I know is this is one of those times when I want to push away the very people I need - particularly Bill. I want to push him away so hard....no, no, no....no you can't come in, no you can't see this...Oh dear God if you knew....you can't come in.
And Cindy, I am content just letting her be there, just kinda hang out.
I don't want this. I hate this. I hate me. I hate my body. I hate what and who I am.
I will try to explain..... but it's rather um...personal and graphic and I apologize in advance for humiliating my friends and family. As far as me, well, I presently feel I have no dignity left. I am a shadow, with no substance. I feel vulgar, damaged.
I hurt myself the other night - intimately. Nothing serious, but painfully punishing.
I spent most of the day hitting myself (mostly punching my thigh or slapping myself in the head or face) as memories of my self-abuse flashed in my mind. This occurred even as I was in session today...hitting myself...it's like my arm takes on a life of it's own and I can't keep it from hitting me.
First let me clarify one thing: I do not and never have enjoyed masturbation. I've done it to satisfy my partners (mostly Gary). I don't like touching myself (barely can stand taking a shower) and I certainly don't like looking at myself. My ex-husband used to make a comment about my um...vagina that was, I suppose, intended to be a compliment but all it really did was imply that proper maintenance was required. That was back in the day when I felt it necessary to douche four times a week, or any time after sex. So, see, my body's always been ugly to me. Like it's not even mine.
I want to also point out that I have had a total of four serious relationships - two of them marriages. Yet, somehow, I am a "whore".....My father, brother, ex-husbands, and other key men in my life have said this to me and if they didn't say it, they treated me like one (like my most recent ex).
And, naturally, when you're standing on the cold tile bathroom floor with your father's penis in your hand and being told what a good little girl you are to do this for Daddy, that ugly, dirty feeling sets in, even if you're too young to understand what it means or where it comes from. Such conflicting emotions.
My family/friends yesterday encouraged me to tell Michelle (my therapist) about my most recent issue.... I wasn't going to do it. I started her an email, wrote two sentences, and then clicked "cancel"....too humiliating.
But then I thought about it....... a lot.
And today I told her. It was excruciatingly painful and humiliating but she was very kind and understanding. She asked me a lot of questions (first, obviously, if I was hurt).
So we talked about being a whore; talked about masturbation; talked about the reasoning behind my rationale.
At times I couldn't talk. At times I folded myself up into my own lap, pulled my sleeves over my hands, hiding every bit of my skin I could hide.
She kept assuring me..."It's okay, Cristina. You're okay. It's okay."
So I tried explaining to her, my rationale, stuttering breathlessly through the whole thing. It's the first time I ever told anyone that I'd done this before....sexually punished myself.
You start off as a whore, something happens and you want it, so since you want it, you're even more of a whore and since you're a whore and you want it, you must be bad, and if you're bad, you must be punished, and if you're bad enough to punish yourself, then you need to punish yourself for that, too. This is also the case when you do things for men, that you don't want to do (such as was the case with my ex) just to please them. Yep. You're a whore. The process repeats.
"Even now, sitting here, I can hear it in my head, over and over and over again. 'You're a whore! You're a whore!" (I also had flashes of an online conversation I had one, where he was drunk and put in giant bold letters, "WHORE!") - that, too, kept flashing in my mind and it was actually that image that had me crying on the way home.
That was my explanation. She sat across from me (I didn't look at her most of the time but I could feel her posture).
She sat quietly for a moment and then she asked me what I meant.
"I'm just trying to connect the dots for you so you understand what I mean."
She paused and then she said, "Cristina, I am never going to lie to you, and I am going to tell you when you're wrong. I am your barometer," she said, and I looked up briefly as she turned away to illustrate. She held her hands up to simulate a dial with a needle. She held her right hand in a circle, used her left pointer finger as the needle.
"This," she said, with the 'needle' all the way to the left, "Is okay."
She moved the "needle" all the way to the right, and said: "This is bullshit."
She didn't say it meanly, but she turned and looked at me and said, "Those dots don't line up. They don't match."
I was surprised by this. "Well, then I need new dots because these are the only dots I know."
She explained that women often try to take blame for their rape/incest, in an effort to have some control. This made me cry because it made so much sense....I had never thought of it before. I always blamed myself, "I shouldn't have been there," or "I should have said no" or "I asked for it."
Yeah....that's the mantra of many women, I suppose.
Then she made a comment that startled me: "...when you were assaulted."
Daddy never assaulted me.... well, only twice. But that was because I said "no" so it was MY FAULT. Other than that, he was always kind and benevolent.
I told her I had two lives. She asked why two lives.
"Daddy, and then the rapes."
Oh
"They were very different."
"I see," she says.
Either way, I have always been a whore.
Things got still for a moment, and I quietly cried into my kleenex, whispering to the wadded up tissue: "You know what I want?"
"What?" she asked.
And I cried harder, and I admitted, "Bill. He's never said or done one single unkind thing to me. Ever."
"That's what you deserve," she said. "I'm glad you have him."
And here I am....sitting in my office....
Wanting desperately to push him away.
One thing I know is this is one of those times when I want to push away the very people I need - particularly Bill. I want to push him away so hard....no, no, no....no you can't come in, no you can't see this...Oh dear God if you knew....you can't come in.
And Cindy, I am content just letting her be there, just kinda hang out.
I don't want this. I hate this. I hate me. I hate my body. I hate what and who I am.
I will try to explain..... but it's rather um...personal and graphic and I apologize in advance for humiliating my friends and family. As far as me, well, I presently feel I have no dignity left. I am a shadow, with no substance. I feel vulgar, damaged.
I hurt myself the other night - intimately. Nothing serious, but painfully punishing.
I spent most of the day hitting myself (mostly punching my thigh or slapping myself in the head or face) as memories of my self-abuse flashed in my mind. This occurred even as I was in session today...hitting myself...it's like my arm takes on a life of it's own and I can't keep it from hitting me.
First let me clarify one thing: I do not and never have enjoyed masturbation. I've done it to satisfy my partners (mostly Gary). I don't like touching myself (barely can stand taking a shower) and I certainly don't like looking at myself. My ex-husband used to make a comment about my um...vagina that was, I suppose, intended to be a compliment but all it really did was imply that proper maintenance was required. That was back in the day when I felt it necessary to douche four times a week, or any time after sex. So, see, my body's always been ugly to me. Like it's not even mine.
I want to also point out that I have had a total of four serious relationships - two of them marriages. Yet, somehow, I am a "whore".....My father, brother, ex-husbands, and other key men in my life have said this to me and if they didn't say it, they treated me like one (like my most recent ex).
And, naturally, when you're standing on the cold tile bathroom floor with your father's penis in your hand and being told what a good little girl you are to do this for Daddy, that ugly, dirty feeling sets in, even if you're too young to understand what it means or where it comes from. Such conflicting emotions.
My family/friends yesterday encouraged me to tell Michelle (my therapist) about my most recent issue.... I wasn't going to do it. I started her an email, wrote two sentences, and then clicked "cancel"....too humiliating.
But then I thought about it....... a lot.
And today I told her. It was excruciatingly painful and humiliating but she was very kind and understanding. She asked me a lot of questions (first, obviously, if I was hurt).
So we talked about being a whore; talked about masturbation; talked about the reasoning behind my rationale.
At times I couldn't talk. At times I folded myself up into my own lap, pulled my sleeves over my hands, hiding every bit of my skin I could hide.
She kept assuring me..."It's okay, Cristina. You're okay. It's okay."
So I tried explaining to her, my rationale, stuttering breathlessly through the whole thing. It's the first time I ever told anyone that I'd done this before....sexually punished myself.
You start off as a whore, something happens and you want it, so since you want it, you're even more of a whore and since you're a whore and you want it, you must be bad, and if you're bad, you must be punished, and if you're bad enough to punish yourself, then you need to punish yourself for that, too. This is also the case when you do things for men, that you don't want to do (such as was the case with my ex) just to please them. Yep. You're a whore. The process repeats.
"Even now, sitting here, I can hear it in my head, over and over and over again. 'You're a whore! You're a whore!" (I also had flashes of an online conversation I had one, where he was drunk and put in giant bold letters, "WHORE!") - that, too, kept flashing in my mind and it was actually that image that had me crying on the way home.
That was my explanation. She sat across from me (I didn't look at her most of the time but I could feel her posture).
She sat quietly for a moment and then she asked me what I meant.
"I'm just trying to connect the dots for you so you understand what I mean."
She paused and then she said, "Cristina, I am never going to lie to you, and I am going to tell you when you're wrong. I am your barometer," she said, and I looked up briefly as she turned away to illustrate. She held her hands up to simulate a dial with a needle. She held her right hand in a circle, used her left pointer finger as the needle.
"This," she said, with the 'needle' all the way to the left, "Is okay."
She moved the "needle" all the way to the right, and said: "This is bullshit."
She didn't say it meanly, but she turned and looked at me and said, "Those dots don't line up. They don't match."
I was surprised by this. "Well, then I need new dots because these are the only dots I know."
She explained that women often try to take blame for their rape/incest, in an effort to have some control. This made me cry because it made so much sense....I had never thought of it before. I always blamed myself, "I shouldn't have been there," or "I should have said no" or "I asked for it."
Yeah....that's the mantra of many women, I suppose.
Then she made a comment that startled me: "...when you were assaulted."
Daddy never assaulted me.... well, only twice. But that was because I said "no" so it was MY FAULT. Other than that, he was always kind and benevolent.
I told her I had two lives. She asked why two lives.
"Daddy, and then the rapes."
Oh
"They were very different."
"I see," she says.
Either way, I have always been a whore.
Things got still for a moment, and I quietly cried into my kleenex, whispering to the wadded up tissue: "You know what I want?"
"What?" she asked.
And I cried harder, and I admitted, "Bill. He's never said or done one single unkind thing to me. Ever."
"That's what you deserve," she said. "I'm glad you have him."
And here I am....sitting in my office....
Wanting desperately to push him away.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Untitled
My name is Cristina Johnson
I wasn't going to write this...it's very embarrassing and I have not yet decided whether or not I'll publish or post it. This is one of those catch-22's where you are so desperate to make a difference, so determined to inform and educate people, but it's at the sacrifice of your dignity, your privacy, and that of your friends and family. How much to say...how much to share? All of it? Just a little?
Today is the first time I have ever experienced the strongest urge I've ever had, to mutilate my genitalia. I hate it so much today. I want it gone, shredded, disappeared. I don't want it. It's ugly. It's sinful it's disgusting and dear God if I could take a razor to them, I would...right now. Render them useless.
I've read about this and I've even talked with and coached people who've endured this kind of "thing" and I never judged them, but I always thought, "Thank God I have never had that problem."
And now, here I am, standing in the same muddy pond with them, feeling those same excruciating feelings of wishing to God there were no such thing as a vagina, anus or penis.
Today I feel so bad, so rotten and dirty...filthy...
I have an issue with masturbation. I don't do it. My ex liked it when I did and often asked me to. He also often wanted me to use sex toys for his pleasure (sure as hell wasn't for mine). Still, when we split up, I took them with me (the toys).
I won't go into gory details but last night was the first time (that I remember) doing that...you know... on my own (that is, by myself, without trying to spare my partner [which I have often done] or please my partner). I actually didn't even remember doing it until I woke up this morning and found a broken "toy" in the garbage can. This happened to me once before: I woke up, shaken and startled that I had a "toy" in my bed. I had no idea how it got there, nor did I remember using it.
Once things started coming back to me from last night, I was utterly ashamed (the previous time, I didn't recall anything but this time it slowly started to come back to me). Even now, if I think about it, my body jolts and I am astonished. I abused myself....and now I want to abuse myself more, because I abused myself.
How fucked up is that?
Of course, the logical response to this is: "Masturbation is perfectly natural" or "Everyone has needs and everyone does it or has done it."
Yeah, but that's not me....I'm not "everyone" and to me, it's ...selfish....it's cold and disconnected...it's meaningless. Absolutely meaningless and Oh God So DIRTY! What kind of whore masturbates? Right? Must mean she wants it, right?
This is digging into my marrow....this is tearing me up. I feel like there's a sign around my neck that says "Stone me to death, I am a whore and I've done something really bad."
Another aspect is the DID....
Today I convinced myself that I would just throw them away (the toys), but then some voice inside my head just kind of laughed this wicked, frightening laugh. "Go ahead...I'll find another way..."
My DID friends will know what this means and what this feels like.
So I am stuck...stuck in this rut, hoping to get back on even ground.
Please don't be angry, disgusted, grossed out, repulsed or otherwise feel untoward, towards me. I cannot help this. I hate it. I hate it so much and I don't know what to do.
God I wish Bill was here.
I wasn't going to write this...it's very embarrassing and I have not yet decided whether or not I'll publish or post it. This is one of those catch-22's where you are so desperate to make a difference, so determined to inform and educate people, but it's at the sacrifice of your dignity, your privacy, and that of your friends and family. How much to say...how much to share? All of it? Just a little?
Today is the first time I have ever experienced the strongest urge I've ever had, to mutilate my genitalia. I hate it so much today. I want it gone, shredded, disappeared. I don't want it. It's ugly. It's sinful it's disgusting and dear God if I could take a razor to them, I would...right now. Render them useless.
I've read about this and I've even talked with and coached people who've endured this kind of "thing" and I never judged them, but I always thought, "Thank God I have never had that problem."
And now, here I am, standing in the same muddy pond with them, feeling those same excruciating feelings of wishing to God there were no such thing as a vagina, anus or penis.
Today I feel so bad, so rotten and dirty...filthy...
I have an issue with masturbation. I don't do it. My ex liked it when I did and often asked me to. He also often wanted me to use sex toys for his pleasure (sure as hell wasn't for mine). Still, when we split up, I took them with me (the toys).
I won't go into gory details but last night was the first time (that I remember) doing that...you know... on my own (that is, by myself, without trying to spare my partner [which I have often done] or please my partner). I actually didn't even remember doing it until I woke up this morning and found a broken "toy" in the garbage can. This happened to me once before: I woke up, shaken and startled that I had a "toy" in my bed. I had no idea how it got there, nor did I remember using it.
Once things started coming back to me from last night, I was utterly ashamed (the previous time, I didn't recall anything but this time it slowly started to come back to me). Even now, if I think about it, my body jolts and I am astonished. I abused myself....and now I want to abuse myself more, because I abused myself.
How fucked up is that?
Of course, the logical response to this is: "Masturbation is perfectly natural" or "Everyone has needs and everyone does it or has done it."
Yeah, but that's not me....I'm not "everyone" and to me, it's ...selfish....it's cold and disconnected...it's meaningless. Absolutely meaningless and Oh God So DIRTY! What kind of whore masturbates? Right? Must mean she wants it, right?
This is digging into my marrow....this is tearing me up. I feel like there's a sign around my neck that says "Stone me to death, I am a whore and I've done something really bad."
Another aspect is the DID....
Today I convinced myself that I would just throw them away (the toys), but then some voice inside my head just kind of laughed this wicked, frightening laugh. "Go ahead...I'll find another way..."
My DID friends will know what this means and what this feels like.
So I am stuck...stuck in this rut, hoping to get back on even ground.
Please don't be angry, disgusted, grossed out, repulsed or otherwise feel untoward, towards me. I cannot help this. I hate it. I hate it so much and I don't know what to do.
God I wish Bill was here.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Intensity in Love
My name is Cristina D. Johnson.
My session, today, was heavy. I was already shook up when I got there. I got some news and instantly started shaking, crying and got a headache, simultaneously. Funny thing is, it was good news, but it was so damn overwhelming. So I showed up to see Michelle very shaky an disoriented.
"Let's take a minute," she said, "Take a couple deep breaths."
I tried...felt silly. I always feel silly when someone says, "Breathe....take a deep breath..." (I even feel awkward doing it for the doctor, now that I think about it. Weird).
Anyway, as I predicted, she asked what my take was, on the dream I had about my father. I told her I was completely, absolutely lost. I had no idea. This surprised her.
The session kind of went all over the place - she triggered me once....one of those snapshots, like a lightning-fast emotional response to something she said, and then poof it was gone.
"What did you say?" I asked her.
She looked at me confused. I was confused. I started crying. I was reminded of something, but couldn't remember what I had been reminded of. It's so strange how those flashbacks work.
"What did it bring up for you?" she asked.
"I don't remember. What was it you said?"
She said she was talking about making mistakes ....
And I snatched a kleenex from the box on the table, where she'd set it for me. "He was so cruel," I whimpered. "So cruel." I started shaking.
"Punishment...that's what it brought up. There were no mistakes. You couldn't make mistakes," I told her, but without the emotional connection. I shed a few tears and it was gone. All that was left was the memory, devoid of any attachment. "He once punished me for holding the cat wrong."
Then we talked about re-parenting.....Cindy is doing a marvelous job at this. "Ron won't be able to re-parent you," she said. I suspect this is because of the extent of the abuse I went through with my father. Plus Ron also, unfortunately, has some of the same traits as my father....tall, powerful, and he has a way about him that's very much like my birth father. I am trying to work past that....as is Ron, to his credit.
And then...the most painful of all: the dream.
First she said she was very surprised that no therapist had ever spoken to me about sexual dreams about fathers who molest their daughters. "It's very common," she explained.
She also told me it's not uncommon to experience arousal when being molested. It's a physiological experience that the body cannot control. It's clearly more obvious for boys/men because, well, you know...it's obvious if they're aroused. But not so much for girls.
"I don't remember ever feeling aroused," I told her. "The only good feelings I recall are those of knowing that I was doing something right...doing something to make Daddy happy....Never do I recall being aroused."
She said we (women) often pile junk on top of it: how gross and disgusting and despicable it is, how wrong and dirty and we have so much piled up on top of it, that even if we were aroused, we wouldn't know it.
Which brought us to the dream. She said the dream was symbolic and - in her opinion, based on what I told her - had nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with Bill.
For me, the most difficult aspect of that dream, was the strong emotional attachment I was feeling towards my father as I initiated sex. The feeling of this very powerful love, was identical to that which I feel for Bill.
We talked a lot about this, about my authentic fear of this love for Bill.
"What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know. Doing something wrong? Saying something wrong? Being hurt. Being abandoned."
But there's more to it than that, even. Kind of like Cindy is "re-parenting" me, Bill is giving me this love that I've never had before and I am terrified of it...not used to it...
"You know," she said, "It takes a huge amount of courage for you to love him....to let him love you that way."
I cried...this heart-wrenching, desperate cry. Aching inside. So confused. So afraid. Hopeful but terrified.
The only other time I ever felt such intense love, was when I loved my father. Feeling that intensity is blindingly terrifying.
Yet....if I let it happen...if I just let it run it's course, I will (or should) re-learn love. Healthy love, instead of the toxic, abusive, painful love that I hold inside as a norm. This fearful, punishing love that sticks to me like velcro.
I wonder....
I wonder if I left Bill years ago, because of this intensity, in favor of a more superficial relationship, that would spare me from loving so deeply.
Thank you Cindy....Ron...Bill......
Bill.....thank you.
My session, today, was heavy. I was already shook up when I got there. I got some news and instantly started shaking, crying and got a headache, simultaneously. Funny thing is, it was good news, but it was so damn overwhelming. So I showed up to see Michelle very shaky an disoriented.
"Let's take a minute," she said, "Take a couple deep breaths."
I tried...felt silly. I always feel silly when someone says, "Breathe....take a deep breath..." (I even feel awkward doing it for the doctor, now that I think about it. Weird).
Anyway, as I predicted, she asked what my take was, on the dream I had about my father. I told her I was completely, absolutely lost. I had no idea. This surprised her.
The session kind of went all over the place - she triggered me once....one of those snapshots, like a lightning-fast emotional response to something she said, and then poof it was gone.
"What did you say?" I asked her.
She looked at me confused. I was confused. I started crying. I was reminded of something, but couldn't remember what I had been reminded of. It's so strange how those flashbacks work.
"What did it bring up for you?" she asked.
"I don't remember. What was it you said?"
She said she was talking about making mistakes ....
And I snatched a kleenex from the box on the table, where she'd set it for me. "He was so cruel," I whimpered. "So cruel." I started shaking.
"Punishment...that's what it brought up. There were no mistakes. You couldn't make mistakes," I told her, but without the emotional connection. I shed a few tears and it was gone. All that was left was the memory, devoid of any attachment. "He once punished me for holding the cat wrong."
Then we talked about re-parenting.....Cindy is doing a marvelous job at this. "Ron won't be able to re-parent you," she said. I suspect this is because of the extent of the abuse I went through with my father. Plus Ron also, unfortunately, has some of the same traits as my father....tall, powerful, and he has a way about him that's very much like my birth father. I am trying to work past that....as is Ron, to his credit.
And then...the most painful of all: the dream.
First she said she was very surprised that no therapist had ever spoken to me about sexual dreams about fathers who molest their daughters. "It's very common," she explained.
She also told me it's not uncommon to experience arousal when being molested. It's a physiological experience that the body cannot control. It's clearly more obvious for boys/men because, well, you know...it's obvious if they're aroused. But not so much for girls.
"I don't remember ever feeling aroused," I told her. "The only good feelings I recall are those of knowing that I was doing something right...doing something to make Daddy happy....Never do I recall being aroused."
She said we (women) often pile junk on top of it: how gross and disgusting and despicable it is, how wrong and dirty and we have so much piled up on top of it, that even if we were aroused, we wouldn't know it.
Which brought us to the dream. She said the dream was symbolic and - in her opinion, based on what I told her - had nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with Bill.
For me, the most difficult aspect of that dream, was the strong emotional attachment I was feeling towards my father as I initiated sex. The feeling of this very powerful love, was identical to that which I feel for Bill.
We talked a lot about this, about my authentic fear of this love for Bill.
"What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know. Doing something wrong? Saying something wrong? Being hurt. Being abandoned."
But there's more to it than that, even. Kind of like Cindy is "re-parenting" me, Bill is giving me this love that I've never had before and I am terrified of it...not used to it...
"You know," she said, "It takes a huge amount of courage for you to love him....to let him love you that way."
I cried...this heart-wrenching, desperate cry. Aching inside. So confused. So afraid. Hopeful but terrified.
The only other time I ever felt such intense love, was when I loved my father. Feeling that intensity is blindingly terrifying.
Yet....if I let it happen...if I just let it run it's course, I will (or should) re-learn love. Healthy love, instead of the toxic, abusive, painful love that I hold inside as a norm. This fearful, punishing love that sticks to me like velcro.
I wonder....
I wonder if I left Bill years ago, because of this intensity, in favor of a more superficial relationship, that would spare me from loving so deeply.
Thank you Cindy....Ron...Bill......
Bill.....thank you.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Sex with Daddy, a Dream (TRIGGER WARNING)
I call it a dream, not a nightmare. I described it to Bill as if I were telling him how to bake cookies - no attachment, no feelings. I felt nothing, yet his response was, "Wow that's a nightmare!"
It is? I didn't wake up sweating or shaking or crying.... isn't that what nightmares are?
I have never (or don't remember ever) having a dream or dreams of any nature about my father (or any of my abuse or rapes, for that matter). I have a snapshot of him in my mind - this vision of him from more than 20 years ago, and though I've been told he's now fat and bald, I remember him to be beautiful...so handsome, hair that women would die for...he was a fabulously good-looking man. That is what I see in my mind...
And that is what I saw in my dream.
Begin Trigger
*
*
*
We were in my apartment, only it wasn't this apartment...it was somewhere else. I recall that I initiated sex with him. I was aroused. In my dream, I was the same age I am now. He did not say anything, just smiled as I commenced to performing fellatio on him.
From there, somehow I was able to have intercourse with him while also receiving oral sex from him. Again, I was wanting it. I initiated it.
Next thing in the dream, we are sitting on the floor, and I was leaning against a bed frame. There was no mattress or box spring - just a space where they used to be. Beneath where the bed was supposed to be, were a few pair of shoes - one of which was a pair of little girl's black shoes. I remember thinking, "Wow I haven't seen those in a long time." There were other shoes but those stick out the most in my mind.
*
*
*
End Trigger
I told my father I was going to sweep while I could get to it...
As I began to sweep, I looked over and my father was drinking a glass of wine. I didn't know where he'd gotten it because, in my dream, I had no wine. Furthermore, he was drinking this "wine" from one of the margarita glasses that I left at Gary's house when we split up. I looked at what he was drinking and it wasn't wine; it was juice.
Coincidentally, this is what Gary's father used to do. He once told me, "I like to drink cranberry juice out of a wine glass so I can fit in."
Obviously there are things that stick out - the little girl's shoes....but one thing that troubles me deeply is, in the dream, as I was initiating, I was feeling the same feelings for my father, that I have for Bill. This hopelessly in-love feeling...this complete devotion.
It's worth noting, as well, that my adoptive father recently bought me a bed frame.
When trying to interpret this dream, I struggled. Usually Dreammoods is pretty good, but this left me blank.
It's also worth noting that I recently ran out of anti-depressants and have not been taking them. I have read that anti-depressants will amplify dissociation so I wonder if not taking these medications for a few days now, might have unblocked some things, along with my getting in touch with some intense new feelings that I have had with Bill.
After it all sank in....after I thought about it, I was saturated with shame. I felt like a whore. How could I even possibly dream this?? This is despicable!! *I* am disgusting! Who dreams this shit?!
Is this possibly me, getting in touch with parts of myself that I have never touched, via new, healthy, restorative relationships and feelings with new people?
I've never once given thought to whether or not I wanted to be molested. I didn't. Ever. Yet I willingly participated for a lot of different reasons. Some are obvious, others probably not. Being told by my therapist yesterday that it's okay for me to love....did that open up something?
Will these dreams continue? Will they get worse?
It is? I didn't wake up sweating or shaking or crying.... isn't that what nightmares are?
I have never (or don't remember ever) having a dream or dreams of any nature about my father (or any of my abuse or rapes, for that matter). I have a snapshot of him in my mind - this vision of him from more than 20 years ago, and though I've been told he's now fat and bald, I remember him to be beautiful...so handsome, hair that women would die for...he was a fabulously good-looking man. That is what I see in my mind...
And that is what I saw in my dream.
Begin Trigger
*
*
*
We were in my apartment, only it wasn't this apartment...it was somewhere else. I recall that I initiated sex with him. I was aroused. In my dream, I was the same age I am now. He did not say anything, just smiled as I commenced to performing fellatio on him.
From there, somehow I was able to have intercourse with him while also receiving oral sex from him. Again, I was wanting it. I initiated it.
Next thing in the dream, we are sitting on the floor, and I was leaning against a bed frame. There was no mattress or box spring - just a space where they used to be. Beneath where the bed was supposed to be, were a few pair of shoes - one of which was a pair of little girl's black shoes. I remember thinking, "Wow I haven't seen those in a long time." There were other shoes but those stick out the most in my mind.
*
*
*
End Trigger
I told my father I was going to sweep while I could get to it...
As I began to sweep, I looked over and my father was drinking a glass of wine. I didn't know where he'd gotten it because, in my dream, I had no wine. Furthermore, he was drinking this "wine" from one of the margarita glasses that I left at Gary's house when we split up. I looked at what he was drinking and it wasn't wine; it was juice.
Coincidentally, this is what Gary's father used to do. He once told me, "I like to drink cranberry juice out of a wine glass so I can fit in."
Obviously there are things that stick out - the little girl's shoes....but one thing that troubles me deeply is, in the dream, as I was initiating, I was feeling the same feelings for my father, that I have for Bill. This hopelessly in-love feeling...this complete devotion.
It's worth noting, as well, that my adoptive father recently bought me a bed frame.
When trying to interpret this dream, I struggled. Usually Dreammoods is pretty good, but this left me blank.
It's also worth noting that I recently ran out of anti-depressants and have not been taking them. I have read that anti-depressants will amplify dissociation so I wonder if not taking these medications for a few days now, might have unblocked some things, along with my getting in touch with some intense new feelings that I have had with Bill.
After it all sank in....after I thought about it, I was saturated with shame. I felt like a whore. How could I even possibly dream this?? This is despicable!! *I* am disgusting! Who dreams this shit?!
Is this possibly me, getting in touch with parts of myself that I have never touched, via new, healthy, restorative relationships and feelings with new people?
I've never once given thought to whether or not I wanted to be molested. I didn't. Ever. Yet I willingly participated for a lot of different reasons. Some are obvious, others probably not. Being told by my therapist yesterday that it's okay for me to love....did that open up something?
Will these dreams continue? Will they get worse?
Friday, November 9, 2012
It's okay? Really??
My name is Cristina Johnson
Oh what a day today has been. I was dreading my session with Michelle. I had a specific thing to talk to her about: That "feeling" of "breaking a rule" when it comes to loving someone.
As I walk in, she makes no qualms: You look like hell.
And I did. I have cried every day since Saturday - good cries and bad ones - and my mouth is so sore with fever blisters. "Yes," I agreed. "I look about as good as I feel."
"So what's going on?" she asks, her typical starting phrase.
I was afraid to tell her. How strange, I think now. How strange that I was afraid to tell her (or anyone, really) that Bill heard back from an employer here in CT and there's a good chance he could be home for Christmas.
I was scared, so at first, I didn't tell her. Instead, I told her about "the rule" and asked her what she thought about it.
"Where does it come from?" I asked. "Does the fact that Hannah and I are incest survivors have anything to do with it?"
Oh no...she won't let me off that easy.
"Where do you think it comes from?"
I said (cleverly avoiding my own responsibility for the answer), "Well, Hannah says she thought it might have to do with not believing we deserve it."
She said nothing, just kept watching....oh she doesn't let me off easy.
"But I don't think that," I finally said.
Her eyes widened and she said, "You just threw me. This is a different 'you'," she said. I would expect Hannah's kind of answer from you.
"No, no," I said. "I mean, I don't believe it consciously, anyway. And I don't believe it for Hannah or anyone else."
We spent a few moments batting back and forth about it and she finally - thankfully - helped me weed through the marsh of my mind.
"When people go through trauma - especially complex trauma like yours and especially when it includes the people who were supposed to protect and love you - it turns your perceptions upside down," she explained.
I'll sum it up:
Love always hurts. Duh. I know that. Anyone with any experience in it, knows that. But for me, as a child, the only two times I didn't do what I was asked (oh, so benevolently) to do by my father, I was either (1) sodomized or (2) strangled and suffocated. That's why it only happened twice. I learned to never tell him no. It also happened through the rapes...the many times when, if you cry or show any emotion or physical pain, they hit you. This taught me unequivocally, that love equals punishment.
"Who is going to punish you?" she asked me.
This is where it got tough, and I shrugged, rather childishly, looked sideways to the cream-colored carpet.
"My facebook friends?" I offered.
"What do you mean?"
"They'll ostracize me and chastise me and judge me."
"Right which would be excruciating for you, since you just went through that."
"Yes," I admitted.
"Who else?
I began to tear up, I whispered, "You?"
"Why would I punish you?" she asked, incredulous. "Now, now we're back to the Cristina I know," she said half-jokingly. "Listen, unless you have a gun and you're ready to use it on yourself, none of the decisions or choices you make are really my business," she said lightly. "What do you want?" she asked. "What does Cristina want?"
I was afraid to answer...still.
She wouldn't let up. "It's okay. Whatever you want, is okay. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, it's what you want and if it's not self-destructive or hurting others, then it's okay!" she stated.
This was when I told her about Bill and the job and I read to her the end of my last blog, crying as I read the words...remembering the feelings I had that day...remembering the power of them.
"So who would disapprove of that? Obviously Cindy approves and Trevor definitely approves. So who would disapprove?"
I, again, said "My facebook friends, you (meaning, her), Bill's family..." I cried. I cried not just because of these fears, but also because I was so afraid in that moment.
She said: "My husband is my best friend and I have to tell you that if I had to walk away from every family member and friend for my marriage, I would do it without question." She said she was telling me this because relationships are personal and because some need distance, some need closeness, some need to be shut off completely.
I ached with this resounding joy in my heart....I could feel it throughout my body, that I'd just kind of gotten permission to love. To love Bill. To want him here. To miss him.
Other things were discussed but this was the most important. I left with a sense of purpose and resilience and I felt elated to have these words echoing in my mind: "It's okay for me to love Bill? Oh my God it's okay? It's okay??"
I later went to see my medical doctor and he kind of hurt me...made me feel like a worthless piece of shit (which isn't really his tendency, just my own issues) but even that - even though I sat there crying as he was telling me I was beyond his scope of care - I left almost bouncing. "I have permission to love him! It's okay for me to love him!"
Nothing about this whole situation has made sense to me until now..... it's so much of that tangled barbed wire I speak of inside, that I have to untangle, but I found a loose end, and I ain't lettin' it go, not til I figure out how to untangle it. I don't want to lose this feeling. In fact, I want to expand on it. I want it to grow and bleed into everyone and anyone in my life. I want to not fear loving them.
But Bill.... Bill I love you. I always have. I miss you.
Oh what a day today has been. I was dreading my session with Michelle. I had a specific thing to talk to her about: That "feeling" of "breaking a rule" when it comes to loving someone.
As I walk in, she makes no qualms: You look like hell.
And I did. I have cried every day since Saturday - good cries and bad ones - and my mouth is so sore with fever blisters. "Yes," I agreed. "I look about as good as I feel."
"So what's going on?" she asks, her typical starting phrase.
I was afraid to tell her. How strange, I think now. How strange that I was afraid to tell her (or anyone, really) that Bill heard back from an employer here in CT and there's a good chance he could be home for Christmas.
I was scared, so at first, I didn't tell her. Instead, I told her about "the rule" and asked her what she thought about it.
"Where does it come from?" I asked. "Does the fact that Hannah and I are incest survivors have anything to do with it?"
Oh no...she won't let me off that easy.
"Where do you think it comes from?"
I said (cleverly avoiding my own responsibility for the answer), "Well, Hannah says she thought it might have to do with not believing we deserve it."
She said nothing, just kept watching....oh she doesn't let me off easy.
"But I don't think that," I finally said.
Her eyes widened and she said, "You just threw me. This is a different 'you'," she said. I would expect Hannah's kind of answer from you.
"No, no," I said. "I mean, I don't believe it consciously, anyway. And I don't believe it for Hannah or anyone else."
We spent a few moments batting back and forth about it and she finally - thankfully - helped me weed through the marsh of my mind.
"When people go through trauma - especially complex trauma like yours and especially when it includes the people who were supposed to protect and love you - it turns your perceptions upside down," she explained.
I'll sum it up:
Love always hurts. Duh. I know that. Anyone with any experience in it, knows that. But for me, as a child, the only two times I didn't do what I was asked (oh, so benevolently) to do by my father, I was either (1) sodomized or (2) strangled and suffocated. That's why it only happened twice. I learned to never tell him no. It also happened through the rapes...the many times when, if you cry or show any emotion or physical pain, they hit you. This taught me unequivocally, that love equals punishment.
"Who is going to punish you?" she asked me.
This is where it got tough, and I shrugged, rather childishly, looked sideways to the cream-colored carpet.
"My facebook friends?" I offered.
"What do you mean?"
"They'll ostracize me and chastise me and judge me."
"Right which would be excruciating for you, since you just went through that."
"Yes," I admitted.
"Who else?
I began to tear up, I whispered, "You?"
"Why would I punish you?" she asked, incredulous. "Now, now we're back to the Cristina I know," she said half-jokingly. "Listen, unless you have a gun and you're ready to use it on yourself, none of the decisions or choices you make are really my business," she said lightly. "What do you want?" she asked. "What does Cristina want?"
I was afraid to answer...still.
She wouldn't let up. "It's okay. Whatever you want, is okay. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, it's what you want and if it's not self-destructive or hurting others, then it's okay!" she stated.
This was when I told her about Bill and the job and I read to her the end of my last blog, crying as I read the words...remembering the feelings I had that day...remembering the power of them.
"So who would disapprove of that? Obviously Cindy approves and Trevor definitely approves. So who would disapprove?"
I, again, said "My facebook friends, you (meaning, her), Bill's family..." I cried. I cried not just because of these fears, but also because I was so afraid in that moment.
She said: "My husband is my best friend and I have to tell you that if I had to walk away from every family member and friend for my marriage, I would do it without question." She said she was telling me this because relationships are personal and because some need distance, some need closeness, some need to be shut off completely.
I ached with this resounding joy in my heart....I could feel it throughout my body, that I'd just kind of gotten permission to love. To love Bill. To want him here. To miss him.
Other things were discussed but this was the most important. I left with a sense of purpose and resilience and I felt elated to have these words echoing in my mind: "It's okay for me to love Bill? Oh my God it's okay? It's okay??"
I later went to see my medical doctor and he kind of hurt me...made me feel like a worthless piece of shit (which isn't really his tendency, just my own issues) but even that - even though I sat there crying as he was telling me I was beyond his scope of care - I left almost bouncing. "I have permission to love him! It's okay for me to love him!"
Nothing about this whole situation has made sense to me until now..... it's so much of that tangled barbed wire I speak of inside, that I have to untangle, but I found a loose end, and I ain't lettin' it go, not til I figure out how to untangle it. I don't want to lose this feeling. In fact, I want to expand on it. I want it to grow and bleed into everyone and anyone in my life. I want to not fear loving them.
But Bill.... Bill I love you. I always have. I miss you.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
It's Complicated
My name is Cristina D. Johnson
I was talking with Hannah last night via text, as we do almost every night. I was also talking to Bill, simultaneously - also, as every night.
I've cried, I think, every single day since Saturday, when Bill showed up for my birthday. Sometimes it's just a little cry, sometimes it's a sobbing, snotty cry. Sometimes it's just a quiet, keep-to-yourself cry...today it was an all-out, shaking, confused, terrified, time-for-a-klonopin-and-a-beer kind of cry.
My eyes hurt. My nose hurts. My lips hurt. (My lips don't hurt from crying, though....f'n fever blisters!)
Anyway, it was interesting to get validation from my 18-year-old protege' ...so young in her years, yet in many ways, so, so wise.
I was talking to Bill, as I mentioned. I took him to the airport Wednesday. My adoptive mother - Cindy - went with me (Bill asked her because he was concerned about me being alone, once I dropped him off). The ride home was relatively quiet, although we did talk a little bit.
But as soon as she was out of the car and I pulled out of her driveway on my way home, I cried all the way. Snow and rain began to beat the windshield as Winter Storm Athena rolled in. It seemed suitable, given the circumstances.
I must first, I suppose, try as best as I possibly can, to sum up what makes him so spectacular. First of all (and anyone who has ever met him, will attest to this), EVERYBODY loves Bill. Everyone. I've never seen an exception. His energy is calm. He is so laid back, so "chill" and open-minded. So, so calm. Just being around him and breathing him in, is soothing.
While he was here, we:
I'm sure there are many more things...many more.
I talked to Bill - told him this - and also told Michelle (my therapist) that there was this moment. This moment when it just hit me "I love you!" - it was the moment I saw him standing there in the front yard with roses on my birthday. When I felt every cell in my body explode, when I couldn't control my screaming and my legs couldn't move fast enough and I couldn't wrap my arms around him quickly or tightly enough. When I couldn't even speak, when my legs wanted to collapse...that was that moment, when it hit me, "Oh my God, you love him."
Of course, I've always loved Bill (don't forget we went through a lot over the past 10+ years) and when we dated before, it was just about the same - a few differences, but he was always consistent and loving and attentive.
Throughout my relationship with Gary he was my sounding board and although he never said a bad thing about Gary, he was always there to listen. Of course, now, it's different. Now he admits all along that he knew Gary wasn't right for me, but he waited...he waited for me...
I don't know what to think of that...
So back to the conversation with Hannah....
I told her, as I cried, (paraphrasing), "I feel like I'm bad if I love him. Like I'm being bad."
"Yeah, like you're breaking some rule or something."
"Yes! Exactly!"
It is a child-like feeling. You don't want anyone to know that you love someone....you don't even want to admit to yourself that you might love someone, so much that just a mere memory of his face, brings tears to your eyes that just won't stop falling. I'm afraid to tell anyone....why?
Where does this come from? And what does the fact that Hannah and I are both incest survivors have to do with this 'rule-breaking' thing?
Bill, through the conversation, said, "It's okay. I want you to question it. I want you to be sure about everything. I want you to question everything and be sure it's what you want," because, well, that's how Bill is. But he didn't really understand - probably can't understand - what even I and Hannah fail to understand.
What is this unspoken "rule" we hold ourselves to? Do not love. You cannot love. It's against the rules!
Where does this come from?
Today, I panicked, full-blown....oh God...that fear of that "rule" combined with this desperate need to see him again, have him touch my face the way he does, hold my hands the way he does, make me laugh the way he does, treat Trevor the way he does.... with so much love, appreciation and devotion.
I love him...I am afraid.... I love him....I miss him...I am afraid...
I want him home.
I was talking with Hannah last night via text, as we do almost every night. I was also talking to Bill, simultaneously - also, as every night.
I've cried, I think, every single day since Saturday, when Bill showed up for my birthday. Sometimes it's just a little cry, sometimes it's a sobbing, snotty cry. Sometimes it's just a quiet, keep-to-yourself cry...today it was an all-out, shaking, confused, terrified, time-for-a-klonopin-and-a-beer kind of cry.
My eyes hurt. My nose hurts. My lips hurt. (My lips don't hurt from crying, though....f'n fever blisters!)
Anyway, it was interesting to get validation from my 18-year-old protege' ...so young in her years, yet in many ways, so, so wise.
I was talking to Bill, as I mentioned. I took him to the airport Wednesday. My adoptive mother - Cindy - went with me (Bill asked her because he was concerned about me being alone, once I dropped him off). The ride home was relatively quiet, although we did talk a little bit.
But as soon as she was out of the car and I pulled out of her driveway on my way home, I cried all the way. Snow and rain began to beat the windshield as Winter Storm Athena rolled in. It seemed suitable, given the circumstances.
I must first, I suppose, try as best as I possibly can, to sum up what makes him so spectacular. First of all (and anyone who has ever met him, will attest to this), EVERYBODY loves Bill. Everyone. I've never seen an exception. His energy is calm. He is so laid back, so "chill" and open-minded. So, so calm. Just being around him and breathing him in, is soothing.
While he was here, we:
- Played in the leaves they raked in the yard (he got me good, dumped a whole load on my head)
- Danced in the front yard, to nothing but the wind
- Played cards and chess with Trevor almost every night (a real treat for Trevor - he adores Bill)
- He fixed all my storm windows (I couldn't get most of them closed)
- Put together my new office chair (no way I coulda done it)
- Looked at my car (I am apparently leaking antifreeze...he tightened the hose clamp, for now)
- Went to Aggie's Village Restaurant in Ivoryton - just down the street. Sat at the little bar and had breakfast together. Ordered almost exactly the same things.
- Sat outside on the porch, wrapped in blankets
- Cooked dinner together (twice)
- Went to Oliver's Tavern and restaurant on his last night here - ordered exactly the same thing, except I got bleu cheese and he ordered raspberry vinaigrette. (I have to point out that as we were sitting down, he stood there, and I asked, "what's wrong?" and he said, "I'm trying to decide if I want to sit next to you or across from you." So I moved over and he snuggled in next to me because sitting across from me was too far).
- He helped Trevor to earn money he needed to buy a couple things he wanted
- Cleaned up after me when I threw up (not alcohol-related), washed the clothes (twice) and cleaned out the washing machine.
- Went to the laundromat with me, helped me do the clothes
- Took out the trash
- Cleaned up while I was at my therapy session
- Sat on the couch, with every candle and incense lit, just talking after Trevor went to bed (we did this a lot)
- Went to Yankee Candle and he bought me another candle and himself a tart warmer with some great tarts, plus treated me to some, too.
- Bought Trevor a winter coat
I'm sure there are many more things...many more.
I talked to Bill - told him this - and also told Michelle (my therapist) that there was this moment. This moment when it just hit me "I love you!" - it was the moment I saw him standing there in the front yard with roses on my birthday. When I felt every cell in my body explode, when I couldn't control my screaming and my legs couldn't move fast enough and I couldn't wrap my arms around him quickly or tightly enough. When I couldn't even speak, when my legs wanted to collapse...that was that moment, when it hit me, "Oh my God, you love him."
Of course, I've always loved Bill (don't forget we went through a lot over the past 10+ years) and when we dated before, it was just about the same - a few differences, but he was always consistent and loving and attentive.
Throughout my relationship with Gary he was my sounding board and although he never said a bad thing about Gary, he was always there to listen. Of course, now, it's different. Now he admits all along that he knew Gary wasn't right for me, but he waited...he waited for me...
I don't know what to think of that...
So back to the conversation with Hannah....
I told her, as I cried, (paraphrasing), "I feel like I'm bad if I love him. Like I'm being bad."
"Yeah, like you're breaking some rule or something."
"Yes! Exactly!"
It is a child-like feeling. You don't want anyone to know that you love someone....you don't even want to admit to yourself that you might love someone, so much that just a mere memory of his face, brings tears to your eyes that just won't stop falling. I'm afraid to tell anyone....why?
Where does this come from? And what does the fact that Hannah and I are both incest survivors have to do with this 'rule-breaking' thing?
Bill, through the conversation, said, "It's okay. I want you to question it. I want you to be sure about everything. I want you to question everything and be sure it's what you want," because, well, that's how Bill is. But he didn't really understand - probably can't understand - what even I and Hannah fail to understand.
What is this unspoken "rule" we hold ourselves to? Do not love. You cannot love. It's against the rules!
Where does this come from?
Today, I panicked, full-blown....oh God...that fear of that "rule" combined with this desperate need to see him again, have him touch my face the way he does, hold my hands the way he does, make me laugh the way he does, treat Trevor the way he does.... with so much love, appreciation and devotion.
I love him...I am afraid.... I love him....I miss him...I am afraid...
I want him home.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Best Birthday Ever
This blog is going to fall incredibly short of what it is about, simply because there just aren't any words....for something like this.
Yesterday was my birthday. Started off pretty slow...actually it was pretty dull and even at times a bit depressing.
I went to the store to stock up on beer because my parents (Ron and Cindy, adoptive parents, not the parents I usually blog about) were coming over around 4:00 or 4:30 and I wanted to grab an extra 18-pack because they're on sale for $20. I also bought the ingredients to make my signature salad, some soda for Trevor. On the way home, stopped at the package store and picked up some nippers of UV Cake flavored vodka because my parents LOVED it, and so do I - just gotta do it in moderation!!
Also splurged a little and went to Homegoods and picked up a salad bowl ($9.99)....can't beat it, especially if you don't own a salad bowl.
I spent most of the morning texting Bill...he was actually the first one to wish me happy birthday, since he'd texted me at 12 a.m. to do it. He also called me and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was rather funny. He's so amazing and funny.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I sent him an electric skillet so he could cook in the motel room in the god-awful city where he's working. I suggested yesterday that he have chilli and sent him the ingredients and a quick way to make it. He was grateful, as always.
That's pretty much how my morning went. Texting Bill, didn't hear much from Ron and Cindy (she texted me once, to tell me happy birthday) but I figured that was just because she was hard at work, preparing one of my favorite foods: Baked stuffed shrimp.
Finally got a text around 3 o'clock: "ETA 1 hr" (from Cindy).
I was in the kitchen - I was texting Hannah how to make my signature salad - which I'd just finished and put in the fridge, ready to go. So I was texting Hannah and Ron and Cindy came into the mudroom. I opened the door to see handsful of bags and whatnot....apparently Ron was famished so we opened up some crackers and Hellagood dip. They had with them a silver-wrapped bottle and Cindy says, "I bet you know what THAT is!" and of course I knew - it was a bottle of Cake LOL! Anyway when I showed them the nippers I'd bought, they wanted to do one. Right Then!
So I got three out, we opened the nippers, cheered to my birthday, drank them down and I immediately was overwhelmed with sadness that Bill wasnt there - that he couldn't do a nipper with us, he couldn't be there with me.
"I need to call Bill," I told them. "I don't want him to be left out."
I called him, put him on speakerphone so everyone could talk to him. "Hi Bill!" they said, and I spoke to him and told him that I'd just done a nipper and I felt bad!
I told him I missed him. Told him I wished he was here.
"Well, then, why don't you come out into the front yard and give me a hug?"
All I remember after that is screaming, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" as I ran - RAN - to the front door and there he was....standing there, roses in hand.... I couldn't get the door open fast enough...
I flung the door open, ran outside, still screaming, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!"
I jumped at him, wrapped my arms around him, sobbed....just cried and cried...
We hugged. We kissed. Ron and Cindy stood at the front door watching. I don't know who else might have been watching - I didn't even think about it. Even now, I can't think of a single word to describe what I was going through in that moment.
I put my hands to his face, crying, "You're here...you came! You're here..." I could barely speak. We shook, I shook. My whole body was shaking - which lasted for quite awhile. I was so discombobulated. It occurred to me that I should bring him in the apartment...
He came in...Cindy was crying...
I was shaking.
I didn't know which direction to walk in. I was completely thrown. My head was swimming. I couldn't believe it was real. I kept touching him. I didn't want to let him go. It was like a dream.
At least two more times, as I hugged him through the evening, I sobbed. I cried. Bill even cried once.
Nobody was hungry....it was the funniest thing...and naturally, once things calmed down a little, we did another nipper, with Bill included this time. My hands shaking...
I was still crying.
"You should put those flowers in a vase, honey," Cindy said.
"Oh..oh yes..oh okay..."
Bill was there for me to ask, "Can you do me a favor and give me that vase?" (I have only one and it's on the top shelf where I can't reach it).
He got the vase down. I was so confused....I trimmed the roses so they'd fit...I didn't know what I was doing. I carried it to the sink...
I stood there, just lost... and Cindy said, "Cold water, honey. On the right." I laughed at myself, with a shaky laugh.
Finally as things settled a little more, we sat in the living room. I sat in a chair, Bill sat on the floor next to me, his arm resting on my lap. Cindy made dinner (a fantastic dinner), and Ron, Bill and I sat in the living room. I was just stunned.
"These are good memories," Ron told me. "These are the ones you hold onto."
Everything seems to be a blur, until we sat down at the table to eat, though none of us were really hungry! We were so overwhelmed! But dinner was fantastic and as we sat there, Bill said...
"Now that we're all together, Mr. and Mrs. Kuptzin, I would like to officially ask your permission to court your daughter."
My mouth fell open. Literally. (thankfully there wasn't any food in there)
"Absolutely!" they said, almost in unison.
Then at some point Bill gives me a box - a little white box - and he says, "I'm sorry I didn't have time to wrap it." I open it and it's a silver and gold butterfly necklace. So beautiful....
I was also given a pair of butterfly earrings from my canine sister - Bailey - as well as a new office chair from my parents.
I cannot adequately put into words, how astonishing this birthday was. It is very difficult to surprise me, but this past few weeks have been full of surprises.
Thank you...thank you Ron, Cindy and Bill for the most incredible, memorable, unforgettable, fantastic birthday I could ever have dreamt of.
I'm still reeling.
Bill leaves Wednesday and I will be so, so sad...but I have until then to enjoy the best birthday present I have ever gotten.
Yesterday was my birthday. Started off pretty slow...actually it was pretty dull and even at times a bit depressing.
I went to the store to stock up on beer because my parents (Ron and Cindy, adoptive parents, not the parents I usually blog about) were coming over around 4:00 or 4:30 and I wanted to grab an extra 18-pack because they're on sale for $20. I also bought the ingredients to make my signature salad, some soda for Trevor. On the way home, stopped at the package store and picked up some nippers of UV Cake flavored vodka because my parents LOVED it, and so do I - just gotta do it in moderation!!
Also splurged a little and went to Homegoods and picked up a salad bowl ($9.99)....can't beat it, especially if you don't own a salad bowl.
I spent most of the morning texting Bill...he was actually the first one to wish me happy birthday, since he'd texted me at 12 a.m. to do it. He also called me and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was rather funny. He's so amazing and funny.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I sent him an electric skillet so he could cook in the motel room in the god-awful city where he's working. I suggested yesterday that he have chilli and sent him the ingredients and a quick way to make it. He was grateful, as always.
That's pretty much how my morning went. Texting Bill, didn't hear much from Ron and Cindy (she texted me once, to tell me happy birthday) but I figured that was just because she was hard at work, preparing one of my favorite foods: Baked stuffed shrimp.
Finally got a text around 3 o'clock: "ETA 1 hr" (from Cindy).
I was in the kitchen - I was texting Hannah how to make my signature salad - which I'd just finished and put in the fridge, ready to go. So I was texting Hannah and Ron and Cindy came into the mudroom. I opened the door to see handsful of bags and whatnot....apparently Ron was famished so we opened up some crackers and Hellagood dip. They had with them a silver-wrapped bottle and Cindy says, "I bet you know what THAT is!" and of course I knew - it was a bottle of Cake LOL! Anyway when I showed them the nippers I'd bought, they wanted to do one. Right Then!
So I got three out, we opened the nippers, cheered to my birthday, drank them down and I immediately was overwhelmed with sadness that Bill wasnt there - that he couldn't do a nipper with us, he couldn't be there with me.
"I need to call Bill," I told them. "I don't want him to be left out."
I called him, put him on speakerphone so everyone could talk to him. "Hi Bill!" they said, and I spoke to him and told him that I'd just done a nipper and I felt bad!
I told him I missed him. Told him I wished he was here.
"Well, then, why don't you come out into the front yard and give me a hug?"
All I remember after that is screaming, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" as I ran - RAN - to the front door and there he was....standing there, roses in hand.... I couldn't get the door open fast enough...
I flung the door open, ran outside, still screaming, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!"
I jumped at him, wrapped my arms around him, sobbed....just cried and cried...
We hugged. We kissed. Ron and Cindy stood at the front door watching. I don't know who else might have been watching - I didn't even think about it. Even now, I can't think of a single word to describe what I was going through in that moment.
I put my hands to his face, crying, "You're here...you came! You're here..." I could barely speak. We shook, I shook. My whole body was shaking - which lasted for quite awhile. I was so discombobulated. It occurred to me that I should bring him in the apartment...
He came in...Cindy was crying...
I was shaking.
I didn't know which direction to walk in. I was completely thrown. My head was swimming. I couldn't believe it was real. I kept touching him. I didn't want to let him go. It was like a dream.
At least two more times, as I hugged him through the evening, I sobbed. I cried. Bill even cried once.
Nobody was hungry....it was the funniest thing...and naturally, once things calmed down a little, we did another nipper, with Bill included this time. My hands shaking...
I was still crying.
"You should put those flowers in a vase, honey," Cindy said.
"Oh..oh yes..oh okay..."
Bill was there for me to ask, "Can you do me a favor and give me that vase?" (I have only one and it's on the top shelf where I can't reach it).
He got the vase down. I was so confused....I trimmed the roses so they'd fit...I didn't know what I was doing. I carried it to the sink...
I stood there, just lost... and Cindy said, "Cold water, honey. On the right." I laughed at myself, with a shaky laugh.
Finally as things settled a little more, we sat in the living room. I sat in a chair, Bill sat on the floor next to me, his arm resting on my lap. Cindy made dinner (a fantastic dinner), and Ron, Bill and I sat in the living room. I was just stunned.
"These are good memories," Ron told me. "These are the ones you hold onto."
Everything seems to be a blur, until we sat down at the table to eat, though none of us were really hungry! We were so overwhelmed! But dinner was fantastic and as we sat there, Bill said...
"Now that we're all together, Mr. and Mrs. Kuptzin, I would like to officially ask your permission to court your daughter."
My mouth fell open. Literally. (thankfully there wasn't any food in there)
"Absolutely!" they said, almost in unison.
Then at some point Bill gives me a box - a little white box - and he says, "I'm sorry I didn't have time to wrap it." I open it and it's a silver and gold butterfly necklace. So beautiful....
I was also given a pair of butterfly earrings from my canine sister - Bailey - as well as a new office chair from my parents.
I cannot adequately put into words, how astonishing this birthday was. It is very difficult to surprise me, but this past few weeks have been full of surprises.
Thank you...thank you Ron, Cindy and Bill for the most incredible, memorable, unforgettable, fantastic birthday I could ever have dreamt of.
I'm still reeling.
Bill leaves Wednesday and I will be so, so sad...but I have until then to enjoy the best birthday present I have ever gotten.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
In or Out
What a horribly difficult and trying several days. Hurricane Sandy came in to visit. I was so mixed up over this...part of me was ready to take over and jump but part of me was crushed by memories of the last storm - Irene. I thought of Gary...thought of Tony....cried... questioned my own ability to do this right, so that Trevor would be safe and taken care of and fed.
The storm was supposed to hit New Jersey sometime Monday but Friday, preparations were already underway. They were telling us it was unprecedented and we faced days to weeks without power. There are many trees around my apartment and I was going through worse-case scenarios in my mind, wondering, questioning myself, "Can I do as good as Gary? Can I keep Trevor safe? What if a tree falls through his bedroom window?" (I moved his bed away from the window). What if one crushes my car? What if we go weeks without power and have no food and no transportation? Who would I call? Hah!
Nobody.
They're all probably over at Gary's house enjoying the provisions afforded by owning a boat. Propane stoves, ice chests galore, etc.
But that's not all.
Friday night, I received a text from an 18-year-old girl. She's been an online.....protege' if you will, for almost a year now. We grew very close because of our incest stories and other issues that are very similar.
Friday night the text reads (paraphrasing): "I am going out tonight so I won't be around much. Just wanted you to know so you wouldn't worry."
"Okay," I say, thinking nothing of it. Great! She's going to a party.
Ten minutes later, another text. "I'm nervous."
Oh shit.
"Why?"
And we played this little guessing game where she kind of beat around the bush which she does quite often (Understandable - I used to do the same thing at her age) until I finally figured out she was going to a place where she'd been drugged and raped before....and not long ago, either.
Now, as I explained in therapy today, we all have our own frame of reference. We can only see, truly, things through our lenses of experience. My experience has been - in such situations - horrendous terror, dissociation, anger, you name it, depending on the situation and the perpetrator.
Being surrounded by a group of pimps ("The Goodson Brothers" - they even had business cards. Get that!), locked in a room with a two-way deadbolt lock and tortured all night by several men. Unable to cry. Unable to feel anything except the thought - I must escape. Which I did. Under the guise of having to go to the bathroom. They wouldn't give me my clothes, just a blanket, so I wrapped up in the blanket and jumped from the second-story bathroom window. Not an easy feat.
Having a teenager pull a gun and point it straight at my face as his friends stood around and say, "Fuck this shit, I'm gettin' me some white pussy!"
"Then you better shoot me mother fucker, because that's the only way you'll get it."
He was tackled by his friends and they admonished me, saying he was about to shoot me because he was on whack (pcp).
Whatever. I didn't care.
These are the images I get when she tells me she's been raped or she's putting herself in a position to be raped.
I don't fault her for this - these self-destructive behaviors are actually common. One of the bases of our relationship was that there was never any judgment. I've been there. I know. I don't judge.
However, I have also repeatedly tried to explain to this young woman whom I've grown to truly admire, that I am not a therapist. Yes, a life coach, but no not active and I, too, am struggling on my journey. I, too, am trying to heal from the mental and emotional hemorrhaging that comes from so much trauma.
But me being the "motherly" type, I have grown and I am wiser now, than I used to be so the "situations" I get myself into are a bit more precarious and pose no physical threat. Mostly just emotional threats, dependency, etc.
A bunch happened that night. Some things just didn't add up and for the first time in our relationship, I didn't believe her and I was devastated.
Why? Why would she deliberately hurt me that way?
Obviously she doesn't know what images it conjures up for me. The demons it shakes, threatens to awaken. The pain and suffering I went through, that I've yet to confront....and am not yet ready to, either.
She says she didn't lie. Swears she didn't.
So ...okay she didn't.
Why the texts? Why worry me, just after you've said you didn't want me to worry?
All while questioning my capabilities as a mother with Trevor, getting through this storm, the pending holiday (which I HATE and spent in the dark the entire time), not knowing where my son - Tony - was, nor if he was somewhere safe.
Did I get enough water? Did I get enough food? I don't think I did. I have to go back to the store. I need to stock up on gas and cigarettes. Oh, and beer of course. Cuz God only knows how long we'll be without power.
And my birthday is Saturday. I don't like my birthday because it's uncomfortable to receive gifts. Another thing on my plate.
Too much at once....and then this? In the middle of all of it?
It may sound small, but So many rapes...oh God...dear god so many rapes and beatings....being awakened in the middle of the night by at least ten men ripping your clothes off, holding down your arms and legs, as one sits on your chest, attempting to shove his penis in your mouth. Yes these are the images she brings to me and I don't want to touch them. Can't yet.
I can't take it... and she's never even known.
In or out. That's how it is. You're either in or out. In my life or out of my life and by "life" I mean, access to my weaknesses and vulnerabilities, my efforts and trials and errors and my fears and all the things that I hide from view.
Once you're in, you're in and it takes a lot to be pushed back out, but once you're pushed out, it's hard as hell to get back in. I have very few people "in" - she was one of them, to a degree, given her age. I tried to be a nurturing figure for her and now I'm seeing this as a mistake, when I should have just been a friend, even though I understand that insatiable hunt for a mother....for a family.
I've said, I need time....I just need time.....
That's how I work.
The storm was supposed to hit New Jersey sometime Monday but Friday, preparations were already underway. They were telling us it was unprecedented and we faced days to weeks without power. There are many trees around my apartment and I was going through worse-case scenarios in my mind, wondering, questioning myself, "Can I do as good as Gary? Can I keep Trevor safe? What if a tree falls through his bedroom window?" (I moved his bed away from the window). What if one crushes my car? What if we go weeks without power and have no food and no transportation? Who would I call? Hah!
Nobody.
They're all probably over at Gary's house enjoying the provisions afforded by owning a boat. Propane stoves, ice chests galore, etc.
But that's not all.
Friday night, I received a text from an 18-year-old girl. She's been an online.....protege' if you will, for almost a year now. We grew very close because of our incest stories and other issues that are very similar.
Friday night the text reads (paraphrasing): "I am going out tonight so I won't be around much. Just wanted you to know so you wouldn't worry."
"Okay," I say, thinking nothing of it. Great! She's going to a party.
Ten minutes later, another text. "I'm nervous."
Oh shit.
"Why?"
And we played this little guessing game where she kind of beat around the bush which she does quite often (Understandable - I used to do the same thing at her age) until I finally figured out she was going to a place where she'd been drugged and raped before....and not long ago, either.
Now, as I explained in therapy today, we all have our own frame of reference. We can only see, truly, things through our lenses of experience. My experience has been - in such situations - horrendous terror, dissociation, anger, you name it, depending on the situation and the perpetrator.
Being surrounded by a group of pimps ("The Goodson Brothers" - they even had business cards. Get that!), locked in a room with a two-way deadbolt lock and tortured all night by several men. Unable to cry. Unable to feel anything except the thought - I must escape. Which I did. Under the guise of having to go to the bathroom. They wouldn't give me my clothes, just a blanket, so I wrapped up in the blanket and jumped from the second-story bathroom window. Not an easy feat.
Having a teenager pull a gun and point it straight at my face as his friends stood around and say, "Fuck this shit, I'm gettin' me some white pussy!"
"Then you better shoot me mother fucker, because that's the only way you'll get it."
He was tackled by his friends and they admonished me, saying he was about to shoot me because he was on whack (pcp).
Whatever. I didn't care.
These are the images I get when she tells me she's been raped or she's putting herself in a position to be raped.
I don't fault her for this - these self-destructive behaviors are actually common. One of the bases of our relationship was that there was never any judgment. I've been there. I know. I don't judge.
However, I have also repeatedly tried to explain to this young woman whom I've grown to truly admire, that I am not a therapist. Yes, a life coach, but no not active and I, too, am struggling on my journey. I, too, am trying to heal from the mental and emotional hemorrhaging that comes from so much trauma.
But me being the "motherly" type, I have grown and I am wiser now, than I used to be so the "situations" I get myself into are a bit more precarious and pose no physical threat. Mostly just emotional threats, dependency, etc.
A bunch happened that night. Some things just didn't add up and for the first time in our relationship, I didn't believe her and I was devastated.
Why? Why would she deliberately hurt me that way?
Obviously she doesn't know what images it conjures up for me. The demons it shakes, threatens to awaken. The pain and suffering I went through, that I've yet to confront....and am not yet ready to, either.
She says she didn't lie. Swears she didn't.
So ...okay she didn't.
Why the texts? Why worry me, just after you've said you didn't want me to worry?
All while questioning my capabilities as a mother with Trevor, getting through this storm, the pending holiday (which I HATE and spent in the dark the entire time), not knowing where my son - Tony - was, nor if he was somewhere safe.
Did I get enough water? Did I get enough food? I don't think I did. I have to go back to the store. I need to stock up on gas and cigarettes. Oh, and beer of course. Cuz God only knows how long we'll be without power.
And my birthday is Saturday. I don't like my birthday because it's uncomfortable to receive gifts. Another thing on my plate.
Too much at once....and then this? In the middle of all of it?
It may sound small, but So many rapes...oh God...dear god so many rapes and beatings....being awakened in the middle of the night by at least ten men ripping your clothes off, holding down your arms and legs, as one sits on your chest, attempting to shove his penis in your mouth. Yes these are the images she brings to me and I don't want to touch them. Can't yet.
I can't take it... and she's never even known.
In or out. That's how it is. You're either in or out. In my life or out of my life and by "life" I mean, access to my weaknesses and vulnerabilities, my efforts and trials and errors and my fears and all the things that I hide from view.
Once you're in, you're in and it takes a lot to be pushed back out, but once you're pushed out, it's hard as hell to get back in. I have very few people "in" - she was one of them, to a degree, given her age. I tried to be a nurturing figure for her and now I'm seeing this as a mistake, when I should have just been a friend, even though I understand that insatiable hunt for a mother....for a family.
I've said, I need time....I just need time.....
That's how I work.
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