I recently had a harsh reality slap my face. I am not sure what hurt most...that I fell for this incident or that I came to a solid conclusion as a result or that I ..........
I was so hurt; used by someone to hurt someone else.
The kicker was this: I was helping because I was asked to. Someone I've never really known as a mother, reached out to me. I felt like I had a chance to prove myself to her. That's the truth.
That's the truth.
Then I did what I was trained to do as a life coach. I asked the proper questions so she could find her own answers. I was honest with her and I felt proud that she was recognizing me - ME - of all people as some source of help when my entire life I've been nothing. Less than nothing to her (despite her claims otherwise. Actions speak louder than words and her actions have contradicted her words for my entire life).
I fell for it.
Being used to hurt someone else I love, made me very, very angry.
It also fortified the disdain I've felt for this stranger I'm supposed to call "mom" or "mother."
But in the end, the worst part of it was the realization of my desperate need to have been loved and nurtured and worth something to her. I didn't know that need was there and had dismissed her entirely as a broken, manipulative user - someone I would never be.
I did not like her. I definitely didn't love her.
But I guess deep inside somewhere I never touched, I needed her to love me and I needed to matter but when I was two years old she left and we (my brother and I) were in foster care. Didn't know where she'd gone. My father was in prison. Family tried to locate her but she was nowhere to be found.
To hear her tell it, completely different story in which (of course) she's the victim but I know she was on drugs. I've heard many things about that time but I do know my brother and I did not experience the nurturing and love we should have. A lot of drugs. A lot of sex as infants.
The truth is out and has been, but I've not been surprised.
What surprised me most was the realization I needed her acceptance.
Now I am confused and floating in this space of uncertainty.
"When all that I've known is lost, and found..."
That's it. Limbo. Or, according to my therapist, "liminal space"
When I was little, I revered Florence Nightingale. I wanted to be her. I spent hours in front of anatomy charts and I remembered every bone in the body. I started learning every muscle, too.
I read her books. I wrote. I got published. "Mom" missed all that.
I had little to no encouragement for my passions. I was a walking zombie. Devoid of any direction except to be good. "Be good."
I wasn't "good."
I never was good.
Nor was I ever good enough.
This is called a "breakthrough."
And it hurts like a javelin shoved through my skull, from head to toe, split in half.
It also makes me afraid to move forward, but I know I will.
This was the least of my pains. The other stuff....I am afraid what "breakthroughs" will be there.
Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Tenderness
I suppose you could say I'm kind of writing to write. Sort of stream-of-conscience. But not really.
Through most of my life, a tender touch always made me cry. Always, without question and often to the point of shoving the tenderness away, until my later years. I suppose I calloused myself to it, though I still hold a weakness for certain touches (the face, particularly).
I've always maintained my favorite English word is "whisper."
Today I sit and listen to Rain by Patti Griffith.
Rain is a silent, private tenderness. Delicate. I've never done "delicate" very well. A tough girl. A tomboy. Dresses make me feel like an alien (except during my promiscuous period, during which time the higher the heels and the tighter & shorter the dress/skirt, the better). Still even then I was seeking that tenderness that I almost always rejected. Strange oxymoron, I know.
Whisper....whisper is soft, like the breeze...I always envision it riding on the wind, sailing across the world, over oceans. Whispers of wishes and dreams and broken hearts.
Tears....tender.
So hard to cry...can't stand that tender part of me, that cries from some place of deep wounds and darkness. I can cry angry tears because anger is not tender, but tender tears are.
Tenderness is so hard to take...to accept. To be understood and validated hurts more than anything else because it's so foreign. To be accepted hurts because it's not believable.
To trust......all the years I've spent thinking I was trusting when, in truth, I've never trusted anyone completely. There are still secrets, dark ones where I can't let tenderness invade. Places of my own torment that - ironically, out of tenderness - I don't want others to see or experience.
Tears, rain, whispers, winds. Things that fade, but hurt so much because they touch something I avoid and always have.
That's why tenderness hurts.
Through most of my life, a tender touch always made me cry. Always, without question and often to the point of shoving the tenderness away, until my later years. I suppose I calloused myself to it, though I still hold a weakness for certain touches (the face, particularly).
I've always maintained my favorite English word is "whisper."
Today I sit and listen to Rain by Patti Griffith.
Rain is a silent, private tenderness. Delicate. I've never done "delicate" very well. A tough girl. A tomboy. Dresses make me feel like an alien (except during my promiscuous period, during which time the higher the heels and the tighter & shorter the dress/skirt, the better). Still even then I was seeking that tenderness that I almost always rejected. Strange oxymoron, I know.
Whisper....whisper is soft, like the breeze...I always envision it riding on the wind, sailing across the world, over oceans. Whispers of wishes and dreams and broken hearts.
Tears....tender.
So hard to cry...can't stand that tender part of me, that cries from some place of deep wounds and darkness. I can cry angry tears because anger is not tender, but tender tears are.
Tenderness is so hard to take...to accept. To be understood and validated hurts more than anything else because it's so foreign. To be accepted hurts because it's not believable.
To trust......all the years I've spent thinking I was trusting when, in truth, I've never trusted anyone completely. There are still secrets, dark ones where I can't let tenderness invade. Places of my own torment that - ironically, out of tenderness - I don't want others to see or experience.
Tears, rain, whispers, winds. Things that fade, but hurt so much because they touch something I avoid and always have.
That's why tenderness hurts.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Only One
I've had about 30 hours of sleep in the last 36 (thank you Nyquil). The few hours I've been up, I've been lost. I took the Nyquil after deciding last night that I was going to commit suicide but then, using a tactic I've used before, told myself I would wait until tomorrow and if I still felt the same, I would do it then. As I lay down, restless, anxious, angry, hurt....I fantasized about ways to do it. I have a lot of pills I can take. I sometimes hoard them...."just in case." But I know from experience, that overdosing doesn't really work and best scenario you end up with smiley shoes on the fourth floor of some cold, God-forsaken hospital for three days until you say the right things to get out. So I thought of other ways, in addition to the pills. I thought of the order in which I would take the pills. I thought of ways to build a "tent" for carbon monoxide poisoning. Perhaps a bag over my head, too. I would close the bedroom door. Trevor would never know. Nobody would find me until I was gone. Maybe I'd use my old, illegal, beat up car and drive somewhere and hide. But then I thought maybe the cops would see me and pull me over. Then I'd really be screwed. I even tried to figure out ways I could smuggle in my meds in case I did get arrested but that wouldn't work either: The meds would need time to kick in, plus they'd find me before I could die. I fantasized about using a big black sharpie to write "DNR" all over my arms and chest and even my forehead. I figured I'd probably have to do it on paper and then trace it since doing it in the mirror could prove difficult.
Every purpose I had to live, is leaving or dying. My fault for putting purposes on people, instead of myself, most would say.
But most wouldn't know I am no purpose. I have no purpose. I know, I know....and I've heard it all. My existence alone, changes the world. Yada...yada...yada...
Appeasement does not work for me.
All the work I've done on myself has been so honest and intentional.
But for naught.
I still have my pills hidden. (I hid them in case my therapist instructed my friend to hide them from me). I still have not gotten them out. I still haven't entirely changed my mind.
I have therapy tomorrow.
I have almost nothing to say.
I am so numb. So, so numb.
Voiceless, wordless, needless.
Nothing. Obviously.
Every purpose I had to live, is leaving or dying. My fault for putting purposes on people, instead of myself, most would say.
But most wouldn't know I am no purpose. I have no purpose. I know, I know....and I've heard it all. My existence alone, changes the world. Yada...yada...yada...
Appeasement does not work for me.
All the work I've done on myself has been so honest and intentional.
But for naught.
I still have my pills hidden. (I hid them in case my therapist instructed my friend to hide them from me). I still have not gotten them out. I still haven't entirely changed my mind.
I have therapy tomorrow.
I have almost nothing to say.
I am so numb. So, so numb.
Voiceless, wordless, needless.
Nothing. Obviously.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Pink Dresses, Baby Dolls and Christmas
Tough session today - tough in the sense that I had to open up a little...more. It hurt.
Last night, I cut again, though not as bad as last time. I was just so angry.
I went to my session with a sense of trepidation. I had emailed her last night. It was sent at 12:45 a.m. and it said:
Hate sending this to you.
So angry.
Want to cut.
Lost most of Christmas Eve.
Melt down Christmas Eve night - remember only part.
Want to cut so bad. Punching myself, furniture, so I don't cut or destroy things.
Heavy night.
Sent from my iPhone
And at 10:52 this morning:
I'm sorry. I was really upset last night. Stupid to email you. I don't know why I did.
-C
Sent from my iPhone
Not sure when it started. Christmas was on a Tuesday - this I know. That's the "anchor" day. I can count forward from then, but not backward - at least not without help and prompting.
Christmas Eve is a blur; as I explained it to my adoptive father, it's kind of like my memory is a set of piano keys. There are white keys and black keys and the black keys are the parts that are missing. I awoke Christmas morning feeling as if I'd just returned from someplace I didn't know I'd gone. Everything was off.
Talking with Michelle tonight, I was half in, half out the door. Part of me felt like the teenager who was so long ago abandoned and who abandoned. The young girl who ran away.... and kept running.
Hasn't really stopped running.
So many questions. So many uncertainties. So much confusion and anger. I look at a pair of pants (or even just envision them) and I think, "I can't wear those. They're stained with this night or that night," or "I can't wear that shirt ever again because it is saturated with the day this-or-that happened. Need to throw it away."
Running. Even from my own clothes.
Running from my thoughts and beliefs. Running from people. Running from myself.
Running, running, running. Always... and I'm so tired.
My shoulders ache.
The session was all over the place, really.
"Christmas is hard for me," I told her.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I think maybe because it was the first time I ever met Daddy. And I was god-awful sick that year," I recalled. It was a hard Christmas and it was a door that was opened that I was shoved through, into a world of terror, unpredictability, insanity, violence.
And then.....it bubbled up like lava, searing my throat.
"And...and..."
She sat in her chair and just waited while I tried talking through unfallen tears that were choking me.
Finally, the familiar sting of warmth down my cheek. I saw the drop form on my eyelash, felt it drip, and then they came.
I didn't use the tissue I'd grabbed from the box she gave me. I only grab the tissues out of etiquette anyway. I prefer my sleeve.
This time, I let them roll down my face, beneath my chin, and drop on my breasts. I didn't care. I was speaking to darkness. Even though Michelle was there listening, I was seeing a different time. Darkness.
"I was so cold," I said bitterly. "I would be huddled outside, alone and...and..."
It seemed she wasn't even there, and I was back in time.
"...I would look in the windows and I didn't see Christmas trees or lights or anything. I just saw warmth. I wanted to be warm."
Instead I would find a big box that I am sure a large gift was delivered in and I would use it for shelter against the harsh St. Louis winters.
I couldn't call home.
I couldn't call the police.
I couldn't be seen.
I simply hid.
Sometimes urinating on myself, making me even more freezing because of the biting cold.
There was nowhere to go.
As I emerged from my reverie, she sat watching me, listening intently... my tears still falling like angry little pebbles of fire.
"And I fucking hate Easter," I said through clenched teeth.
"Why do you hate Easter?" she asked simply.
I gathered myself. I said, "Well, some of it, now, has to do with my spiritual beliefs..." but then I trailed off.
"Daddy used to trick us into thinking he could see the Easter bunny," I told her, not with anger but with nostalgia.
"What is your memory of that like?" she asked, probably trying to gauge if it was an abusive time or not.
"It was exciting," I told her matter-of-factly. "He would take us to the sliding glass doors where--" and I paused, shrugged, my voice lifted slightly, "where the 'family meetings' took place, and he would say, 'There he is! Did you see him?!'" and my brother and I would bounce up and down and crane our necks to see where Daddy was looking. We were excited.
Then, I was at Grandma's house and things were different.
"I had to wear a stupid dress," I told her. "A stupid fucking dress. Pink."
I told her how Grandma would give me dolls or - one year a little stuffed lamb came in my Easter basket and I only know this because I have seen a picture of it.
"We would sit at the kiddie table," I told her. "But I didn't fit in, so I just tried to."
"What do you mean you didn't fit in?"
"Because of what Daddy did to me," I told her.
She nodded her understanding. I continued.
"One Easter, my wrist was broken and the kids were all playing and I went inside and I said something like, 'I can't play because of my cast,' and all the grown-ups went 'Awww' and it was the worst sound in the world to me."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want their fucking pity."
"What did you want?"
"I don't know," I answered honestly, giving it no more thought.
There was a silence.
"I would play with the baby dolls because Grandma got them for me. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but I hated them. I hated the tea sets. I hated all of it. Mostly, I hated the dresses. I didn't belong in a dress."
Silence.
"Grandma's house was like two worlds - inside and outside."
"Yes, you've mentioned that," she said, and I remembered telling about it. "Were you safe there?"
"Inside, yes. Outside, no. Well, they weren't nurturing, but they made sure we had all we needed. They did the best they could, I guess."
I told her of the two times Pop hurt me (or almost hurt me) "but that was it," I told her.
But when I went outside, it was different.
"It never occurred to me that I would have gotten the attacks and cat calls whether Daddy had molested me or not," I told her, speaking strictly from my intellect. "I guess I just thought I had this scarlet letter and all of them could see it."
"What was the scarlet letter?"
"I was dirty. I was soiled."
Then came the incident of last night, the reasoning behind which I hadn't known, until this session.
Bill and I sat together on the couch. We were discussing superficial things because I was still weighted down by the shame I felt over Christmas Eve. It was the elephant in the room and Bill wasn't saying anything about it.
"Were you angry that he knew and remembered and wasn't telling you," Michelle asked.
"No. No, I wasn't mad about that. I remembered enough."
I finally brought it up - at least, as good as I could. I said something like, "I know something happened the other night. I don't remember all of it, but I remember some."
It was my lame attempt to get him to talk.... to open it up, pop this blister that was suffocating me.
But he said little, just nodded.
I don't remember the order of events last night. But I do remember that we talked about business and, having been with Gary for five years, I learned a lot about business and how to start one and tips and tricks to making it successful.
I offered these up to Bill.
"I will never be Gary," he said.
As I retold this to Michelle it occurred to me why I became so painfully, bitterly angry last night.
I was angry at myself - and I knew it at the time, just as I knew it today.
"I was stupid," I told Michelle, half shocked by my own realization. "I shouldn't have said anything...."
I paused and I thought a moment.
"...I should have just kept my mouth shut. How stupid of me."
I was flooded, then, with the same feeling from last night. This rage within me, anger at myself for saying or doing something stupid.
"I have a meditating frog," I told Michelle. "My coffee table candle burned up so I had to put something in it's place so I put the frog there and I remember just staring at it and wanting to grab it and throw it. I wanted to take all my stupid books and just throw them all, break things, hit things..."
I was crying now. "I should have never said anything."
My voice...
My voice is stupid. My thoughts are stupid. I am stupid. I can't do this. I can't say anything. I shouldn't say anything. Who am I to say anything? You can't say anything! You don't know if it's the right thing to say! YOU'RE STUPID!
And I was angry at Bill for thinking I was saying something I wasn't intending to say, yet I couldn't find the words and, instead, just turned everything inward...burning.
Angry because I had one side of my brain needing to be comforted, while the other side was chastising me, telling me KEEP THEM AWAY! KEEP THEM AWAY! ALL OF THEM!
Spare him. Don't let him see this. Don't let anyone see this.
Don't let anyone near.
"When," I sobbed, "will this be over? When does PTSD go away? When will I stop having these goddamn dreams of Gary every....single...night. Every single fucking night?" I was aching and I could tell Michelle saw my agony.
She was honest. She told me she has no answer to any of those questions.
There was much more said in this session. I felt more in this session than any past.
Why did I cut last night?
So I wouldn't hurl the frog at the nativity set or the curio, for the satisfaction of hearing glass shatter, as I was inside. So I wouldn't rip apart every book I could see - books that I cherish - but which, at that moment, felt fake and fraudulent. So I wouldn't hurt anything else. I would never hut anyone else, but I wanted to break something - anything.
Instead, I was broken.
I feel hollow now.
I am afraid to speak. I am afraid to move. I am afraid to believe anything.
The floor could crumble any time.
I know this.
I know this.
Last night, I cut again, though not as bad as last time. I was just so angry.
I went to my session with a sense of trepidation. I had emailed her last night. It was sent at 12:45 a.m. and it said:
Hate sending this to you.
So angry.
Want to cut.
Lost most of Christmas Eve.
Melt down Christmas Eve night - remember only part.
Want to cut so bad. Punching myself, furniture, so I don't cut or destroy things.
Heavy night.
Sent from my iPhone
And at 10:52 this morning:
I'm sorry. I was really upset last night. Stupid to email you. I don't know why I did.
-C
Sent from my iPhone
Not sure when it started. Christmas was on a Tuesday - this I know. That's the "anchor" day. I can count forward from then, but not backward - at least not without help and prompting.
Christmas Eve is a blur; as I explained it to my adoptive father, it's kind of like my memory is a set of piano keys. There are white keys and black keys and the black keys are the parts that are missing. I awoke Christmas morning feeling as if I'd just returned from someplace I didn't know I'd gone. Everything was off.
Talking with Michelle tonight, I was half in, half out the door. Part of me felt like the teenager who was so long ago abandoned and who abandoned. The young girl who ran away.... and kept running.
Hasn't really stopped running.
So many questions. So many uncertainties. So much confusion and anger. I look at a pair of pants (or even just envision them) and I think, "I can't wear those. They're stained with this night or that night," or "I can't wear that shirt ever again because it is saturated with the day this-or-that happened. Need to throw it away."
Running. Even from my own clothes.
Running from my thoughts and beliefs. Running from people. Running from myself.
Running, running, running. Always... and I'm so tired.
My shoulders ache.
The session was all over the place, really.
"Christmas is hard for me," I told her.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I think maybe because it was the first time I ever met Daddy. And I was god-awful sick that year," I recalled. It was a hard Christmas and it was a door that was opened that I was shoved through, into a world of terror, unpredictability, insanity, violence.
And then.....it bubbled up like lava, searing my throat.
"And...and..."
She sat in her chair and just waited while I tried talking through unfallen tears that were choking me.
Finally, the familiar sting of warmth down my cheek. I saw the drop form on my eyelash, felt it drip, and then they came.
I didn't use the tissue I'd grabbed from the box she gave me. I only grab the tissues out of etiquette anyway. I prefer my sleeve.
This time, I let them roll down my face, beneath my chin, and drop on my breasts. I didn't care. I was speaking to darkness. Even though Michelle was there listening, I was seeing a different time. Darkness.
"I was so cold," I said bitterly. "I would be huddled outside, alone and...and..."
It seemed she wasn't even there, and I was back in time.
"...I would look in the windows and I didn't see Christmas trees or lights or anything. I just saw warmth. I wanted to be warm."
Instead I would find a big box that I am sure a large gift was delivered in and I would use it for shelter against the harsh St. Louis winters.
I couldn't call home.
I couldn't call the police.
I couldn't be seen.
I simply hid.
Sometimes urinating on myself, making me even more freezing because of the biting cold.
There was nowhere to go.
As I emerged from my reverie, she sat watching me, listening intently... my tears still falling like angry little pebbles of fire.
"And I fucking hate Easter," I said through clenched teeth.
"Why do you hate Easter?" she asked simply.
I gathered myself. I said, "Well, some of it, now, has to do with my spiritual beliefs..." but then I trailed off.
"Daddy used to trick us into thinking he could see the Easter bunny," I told her, not with anger but with nostalgia.
"What is your memory of that like?" she asked, probably trying to gauge if it was an abusive time or not.
"It was exciting," I told her matter-of-factly. "He would take us to the sliding glass doors where--" and I paused, shrugged, my voice lifted slightly, "where the 'family meetings' took place, and he would say, 'There he is! Did you see him?!'" and my brother and I would bounce up and down and crane our necks to see where Daddy was looking. We were excited.
Then, I was at Grandma's house and things were different.
"I had to wear a stupid dress," I told her. "A stupid fucking dress. Pink."
I told her how Grandma would give me dolls or - one year a little stuffed lamb came in my Easter basket and I only know this because I have seen a picture of it.
"We would sit at the kiddie table," I told her. "But I didn't fit in, so I just tried to."
"What do you mean you didn't fit in?"
"Because of what Daddy did to me," I told her.
She nodded her understanding. I continued.
"One Easter, my wrist was broken and the kids were all playing and I went inside and I said something like, 'I can't play because of my cast,' and all the grown-ups went 'Awww' and it was the worst sound in the world to me."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want their fucking pity."
"What did you want?"
"I don't know," I answered honestly, giving it no more thought.
There was a silence.
"I would play with the baby dolls because Grandma got them for me. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but I hated them. I hated the tea sets. I hated all of it. Mostly, I hated the dresses. I didn't belong in a dress."
Silence.
"Grandma's house was like two worlds - inside and outside."
"Yes, you've mentioned that," she said, and I remembered telling about it. "Were you safe there?"
"Inside, yes. Outside, no. Well, they weren't nurturing, but they made sure we had all we needed. They did the best they could, I guess."
I told her of the two times Pop hurt me (or almost hurt me) "but that was it," I told her.
But when I went outside, it was different.
"It never occurred to me that I would have gotten the attacks and cat calls whether Daddy had molested me or not," I told her, speaking strictly from my intellect. "I guess I just thought I had this scarlet letter and all of them could see it."
"What was the scarlet letter?"
"I was dirty. I was soiled."
Then came the incident of last night, the reasoning behind which I hadn't known, until this session.
Bill and I sat together on the couch. We were discussing superficial things because I was still weighted down by the shame I felt over Christmas Eve. It was the elephant in the room and Bill wasn't saying anything about it.
"Were you angry that he knew and remembered and wasn't telling you," Michelle asked.
"No. No, I wasn't mad about that. I remembered enough."
I finally brought it up - at least, as good as I could. I said something like, "I know something happened the other night. I don't remember all of it, but I remember some."
It was my lame attempt to get him to talk.... to open it up, pop this blister that was suffocating me.
But he said little, just nodded.
I don't remember the order of events last night. But I do remember that we talked about business and, having been with Gary for five years, I learned a lot about business and how to start one and tips and tricks to making it successful.
I offered these up to Bill.
"I will never be Gary," he said.
As I retold this to Michelle it occurred to me why I became so painfully, bitterly angry last night.
I was angry at myself - and I knew it at the time, just as I knew it today.
"I was stupid," I told Michelle, half shocked by my own realization. "I shouldn't have said anything...."
I paused and I thought a moment.
"...I should have just kept my mouth shut. How stupid of me."
I was flooded, then, with the same feeling from last night. This rage within me, anger at myself for saying or doing something stupid.
"I have a meditating frog," I told Michelle. "My coffee table candle burned up so I had to put something in it's place so I put the frog there and I remember just staring at it and wanting to grab it and throw it. I wanted to take all my stupid books and just throw them all, break things, hit things..."
I was crying now. "I should have never said anything."
My voice...
My voice is stupid. My thoughts are stupid. I am stupid. I can't do this. I can't say anything. I shouldn't say anything. Who am I to say anything? You can't say anything! You don't know if it's the right thing to say! YOU'RE STUPID!
And I was angry at Bill for thinking I was saying something I wasn't intending to say, yet I couldn't find the words and, instead, just turned everything inward...burning.
Angry because I had one side of my brain needing to be comforted, while the other side was chastising me, telling me KEEP THEM AWAY! KEEP THEM AWAY! ALL OF THEM!
Spare him. Don't let him see this. Don't let anyone see this.
Don't let anyone near.
"When," I sobbed, "will this be over? When does PTSD go away? When will I stop having these goddamn dreams of Gary every....single...night. Every single fucking night?" I was aching and I could tell Michelle saw my agony.
She was honest. She told me she has no answer to any of those questions.
There was much more said in this session. I felt more in this session than any past.
Why did I cut last night?
So I wouldn't hurl the frog at the nativity set or the curio, for the satisfaction of hearing glass shatter, as I was inside. So I wouldn't rip apart every book I could see - books that I cherish - but which, at that moment, felt fake and fraudulent. So I wouldn't hurt anything else. I would never hut anyone else, but I wanted to break something - anything.
Instead, I was broken.
I feel hollow now.
I am afraid to speak. I am afraid to move. I am afraid to believe anything.
The floor could crumble any time.
I know this.
I know this.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Relationships and Reenactment: I Married My Father
My name is Cristina D. Johnson
For decades, I've wanted to write a book. This is not some fantasy. This is a lifelong dream of mine. Having a 7th grade education makes that a bit difficult, though. Still, I worked my way up and landed a job as a journalist. I faked my way through it. I watched like a hawk. I could always write well - intuitively - as a child (I don't say this to boast. Just to merely point out that even as a child, words and sentences; grammar and punctuation; the way these strange characters on a page came together to create something new and remarkable that made sense, was fascinating to me).
At least, it started off as wanting to write "a" book. It's morphed into wanting to write articles, papers and several books. But for now - as I go through this process I never saw myself having to experience; this process of "healing" - I kind of "wish-write."
That is, I write in my head. Often I even say to Bill, "I'm writing in my head."
I've started "a" book, many times - always for a different reason but never with a different foundation: child abuse. I suppose at first it started off as a way to 'get even' or vent, then it gradually began to mature into something healthier going from that angry, bitter young woman who was pissed that Oprah wouldn't listen to her story, to where it is now.
Which leads to the "wish-writing" I've been doing lately. The mind-writing. It goes like this:
"Where does my story start?"
"Where does it end?"
And this is repeated in my mind, but not without silent, cognitive (and even sometimes emotional) responses.
I once told Michelle (my therapist) that I've had two lives. She did a double-take.
"What do you mean, 'two lives'?"
"Daddy, and then the rapes."
"Oh," she nods...I know she doesn't quite get what I mean but I do. I understand it.
Problem is splitting everything up since then: my two marriages; my children; my work; my relationships; my family; my many lives.
So here I am now, it seems, standing on a wire. It could go both ways.
Where does this story - this moment - end and the next story begin?
Was Gary the end of the last story? Is Bill the beginning of the next story?
Some would wisely say, "No, they're all chapters in the same story" but that's not how I view it.
It's segmented. Fractured.
First I must talk a little about reenactment.
When I was 16 and married, my drunk husband of 22 almost killed me by shoving me out of the second-story window. That was when I left him. If his mother had not come up, screaming in her native Puerto Rican language, "Siéntate! Siéntate!" at me, I would not be here today. It wasn't the first time he'd beaten me, but it was the first time he nearly killed me. There were times, as well, when I was terrified he would kill our child. For the first time, I defied my mother-in-law (of whom I was deathly afraid) and said, "No. No mas. No mas." and I cried as I walked out the door. No more.
A child, with a child and that story took a long time to end. That life was several lifetimes ago.
When I was 17, I met my (then married) future-husband. Of course, I did not know he was married. He was strong, cocky, arrogant and sexual. Very sexual. At 17, though, you don't really know (at least, I didn't, because of my past lifetimes), that if they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you. So he, too, became an emotionally and mentally abusive partner, controlling, dominant and I feared him. I also feared losing him. For 15 years (and with two of our own kids), I endured the pain of constant belittling, arrogance and infidelity. I felt I deserved it. I felt it was the best I could ever get. I should be grateful.
He, like my first husband, was very much - in many, many ways - like my father but it was so cleverly veiled, so ingeniously disguised, that I never saw it. I wouldn't have seen it if it were a flashing neon sign. I would have kicked the sign out a bitter, angry roundhouse and swore at it, "But he loves me!"
But after 15 years, that lifetime ended. Pretty much.
Then began a different lifetime - one with Bill. That was in 2002. This lifetime was frightening. He was nice to me. He made love with me, instead of acting as if he was doing me a favor by allowing me to do/say/be things I never wanted to do/say/be anyway. In fact, he wouldn't even accept them and even made me uncomfortable doing what I'd always done: Being promiscuous. He didn't take me for granted. He listened to me. He didn't just listen to me but he heard me. At times, back then, sometimes I'd be on the verge of tears and he would hold me and he would say, "It's okay. Let it out," and as soon as he spoke the words, my insides froze and the tears went away. I couldn't possibly cry. I couldn't let him see me unless it was the way I wanted him to see me. I needed control. That way if he changed (and surely he would; certainly he'd at least yell at me, if not hit me, rape me, or cheat on me or something. Anything), at least I had some semblance of control over it. At least I could say I asked for it. I deserved it. I have always deserved it because that's the way all men are.
I left him. He never changed, hit, screamed, yelled, cheated - hell, he never stopped opening my car door for me. Not one single time. He never denied me, always listened to my songs, always read me like a book.
I left him. I didn't believe him. I didn't deserve him and I didn't know how to be with someone like that.
Please get mad at me. Please stop being so open and honest. Please stop being so goddamn perfect for me.
I left him because I couldn't handle being loved. Not truly, authentically loved, despite the many, many tests I applied to the relationship - like all relationships I've ever had. Every one. He passed every test. How? He was consistent. He was always, always consistent. And me, well, I have an Eagle's eye for inconsistencies.
Which leads to the next lifetime.
Gary.
Like my father; my first husband; my second husband (and that one boyfriend I had between my second husband and Bill, Mike): He was emotionally unavailable. Perfect.
Me too.
By now I was in my 30's and I had developed my intellect enough that I knew I could survive on it alone, which was important in this relationship because - like my exes - Gary had a constant tendency to put me down and attempt to make me look stupid. He was constantly condescending and I fought back - hard. Never again would I depend on a man. Ever. Never again, would I open up emotionally. Ever.
What I would do, though (because I know so well how child abuse works), is I would nurture and be a motherly figure for him because of the emotional suffocation he suffered as a child. This, too, worked to my favor. I could keep my emotions in check. I had to because, truly, I did love him, despite our many differences and despite how little attention he paid to me. Really paid. He couldn't tell you my favorite color, gemstone, song(s), movie(s) and the only reason he knew the name of my childhood cat was because it was the answer to one of my banking security questions. He didn't know much about me at all. He was also - like my father and the men before me (Bill excluded) - sexually perverse. He'd been much more so in his past, but there still lingered with every touch, an absenteeism; no warmth, no love, no affection. Just this purpose that needed to be served and I was to serve it.
I was, after all, the woman (and Gary has zero respect for women).
So I played the role. Four years. Played the role - lived Gary's life. Got sucked into his way of living. Friends? Nope. All his. Places? Nope. All his. Whatever we did, whoever we did it with and wherever we went, it centered around Gary and his image, what he wanted, what he needed and what image he wanted to project. Which meant I had to be something I was not.
Which was okay, since my emotions were bundled up tightly inside.
Until that fifth year....When we talked and when I began to grow (going through Life Coach Training which Gary was adamantly opposed to but for which Bill enthusiastically footed the bill) and I realized how unemotional our relationship was - how unemotional I was.
I was encouraged by Gary to pursue therapy and I did, in earnest.
He promised to be there; promised to support me; repeatedly swore that he wasn't going anywhere - even on public forums. Reassured me frequently, even as I began to become more and more immersed in this unfathomable pain and darkness.
Despite his words, I felt alone. I know, now, that this is because he - like always - was incapable of emotional attachment (although I do believe that some part of him did love me).
However, the profundity of what I was experiencing was too much for this man who "loved" me and he, in turn, began abusing me in exactly the same way my father had.
I'm not going to rehash it, except to say that day by day, I got worse. Things got worse. I was inconsolable. I was out of control. I was drained, exhausted, terrified. I was having flashbacks and I was drinking to numb the pain I was going through. I was losing people I loved (my son, specifically, and my granddaughter) on top of the EMDR treatment I was going through in an effort to "heal" with essentially no help.
I had Gary and I had "Dee" (who has asked that I not use her real name): Both of whom did not and probably never will have the fortitude to endure the process I have to experience. This lifetime.
After two suicide attempts, a new lifetime began...
Or, re-began.
Bill came.
He came to see me. He saw me. And in his own words, "had never seen me that bad."
It sickens me now, to think about it. It hurts. It twists my insides. It sets me on fire - my skin literally feels alight.
Rage, anger, pain, torment, torture, uncertainty, fear....fear....fear... oh my God fear.
All of these things that I've never felt towards my father, step-father, brother, uncle, kidnappers, rapists, pimps, gangsters and thugs - all of these things that I have never, ever felt - I feel now, because of Gary. And because of "Dee."
Gary: the father, rapist, womanizer, woman-beater, pimp, wife-beating, abandoning, drug-dealing, ex-convict child molester.
"Dee": The mother, "poor-me" victim, I-don't-care-about-your-story, talk-behind-your-back, drink-myself-stupid (always with a great excuse), poor, live-vicariously-through-some-other-means, nobody loves me, I have no friends or money...
I do not say these things to imply that Gary and "Dee" are these things. I say these things because finally, finally I understand these intense emotional reactions I have to them. I drive by "Dee's" house every day. It's taken me months to not sneer down her driveway and wish harm to her. Wish her to feel the pain she caused me. The truth is, she's a fun person. Intelligent. Witty. Actually, very intelligent. But she, like me for years, has not yet found herself, so she lives whatever she supposes she's supposed to.
And Gary is, I suppose, a good man - though his flaws are many. I still loved him. He's not a child molester or woman-beater (although he did abandon me and he was horribly mentally abusive).
So that lifetime is ...ending?
And now Bill is here - consistent as usual. Same Bill, only this time I'm a different Cristina and I don't know what to do or how to be or how to act because I have my experiences with Gary and "Dee" to look back on and know - without a doubt - that I do not want to be that "fake" person I was required to be. Problem is, what am I now, in this lifetime?
And even though Bill has never been in any way, shape or form, anything like any of my former abusers, what if he does? What if I'm reenacting again, and I don't know it, and it doesn't happen until I get further into this crazy ass psyche of mine? What if ...what if.... What if I let go of control?
Will he let me run into a tree? Fall of a bridge?
I know, somewhere inside, that he won't but he treats me too good and he treats me too right and he's too nice to me and he pays attention to me and he reads me like a book. He shares all my interests and he makes me laugh he's good to my children and he is everything a woman could possibly want. Why would he want me?
And Cindy - my adoptive mother - how do I know she won't hate me? Hurt me? Betray me? Abandon me?
Making new friends. I don't understand. It's like talking Chinese. I don't understand this language or this foreign place, where I am supposed to just be myself (whoever that is), and be accepted and loved for who I am. I don't understand.
Shouldn't I be being abused right now?
One thing I should thank Gary and Dee for is this: making me feel these intense, painful, agonizing emotions that have kept me captive my entire life. It's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Michelle, but it's an important one. So though I hold such deep humiliation, anger, hurt and feelings of betrayal for the wrongs, I suppose being hurt, betrayed and abused (particularly by Gary), was a necessary evil.
It brought me to a new lifetime.
For decades, I've wanted to write a book. This is not some fantasy. This is a lifelong dream of mine. Having a 7th grade education makes that a bit difficult, though. Still, I worked my way up and landed a job as a journalist. I faked my way through it. I watched like a hawk. I could always write well - intuitively - as a child (I don't say this to boast. Just to merely point out that even as a child, words and sentences; grammar and punctuation; the way these strange characters on a page came together to create something new and remarkable that made sense, was fascinating to me).
At least, it started off as wanting to write "a" book. It's morphed into wanting to write articles, papers and several books. But for now - as I go through this process I never saw myself having to experience; this process of "healing" - I kind of "wish-write."
That is, I write in my head. Often I even say to Bill, "I'm writing in my head."
I've started "a" book, many times - always for a different reason but never with a different foundation: child abuse. I suppose at first it started off as a way to 'get even' or vent, then it gradually began to mature into something healthier going from that angry, bitter young woman who was pissed that Oprah wouldn't listen to her story, to where it is now.
Which leads to the "wish-writing" I've been doing lately. The mind-writing. It goes like this:
"Where does my story start?"
"Where does it end?"
And this is repeated in my mind, but not without silent, cognitive (and even sometimes emotional) responses.
I once told Michelle (my therapist) that I've had two lives. She did a double-take.
"What do you mean, 'two lives'?"
"Daddy, and then the rapes."
"Oh," she nods...I know she doesn't quite get what I mean but I do. I understand it.
Problem is splitting everything up since then: my two marriages; my children; my work; my relationships; my family; my many lives.
So here I am now, it seems, standing on a wire. It could go both ways.
Where does this story - this moment - end and the next story begin?
Was Gary the end of the last story? Is Bill the beginning of the next story?
Some would wisely say, "No, they're all chapters in the same story" but that's not how I view it.
It's segmented. Fractured.
First I must talk a little about reenactment.
When I was 16 and married, my drunk husband of 22 almost killed me by shoving me out of the second-story window. That was when I left him. If his mother had not come up, screaming in her native Puerto Rican language, "Siéntate! Siéntate!" at me, I would not be here today. It wasn't the first time he'd beaten me, but it was the first time he nearly killed me. There were times, as well, when I was terrified he would kill our child. For the first time, I defied my mother-in-law (of whom I was deathly afraid) and said, "No. No mas. No mas." and I cried as I walked out the door. No more.
A child, with a child and that story took a long time to end. That life was several lifetimes ago.
When I was 17, I met my (then married) future-husband. Of course, I did not know he was married. He was strong, cocky, arrogant and sexual. Very sexual. At 17, though, you don't really know (at least, I didn't, because of my past lifetimes), that if they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you. So he, too, became an emotionally and mentally abusive partner, controlling, dominant and I feared him. I also feared losing him. For 15 years (and with two of our own kids), I endured the pain of constant belittling, arrogance and infidelity. I felt I deserved it. I felt it was the best I could ever get. I should be grateful.
He, like my first husband, was very much - in many, many ways - like my father but it was so cleverly veiled, so ingeniously disguised, that I never saw it. I wouldn't have seen it if it were a flashing neon sign. I would have kicked the sign out a bitter, angry roundhouse and swore at it, "But he loves me!"
But after 15 years, that lifetime ended. Pretty much.
Then began a different lifetime - one with Bill. That was in 2002. This lifetime was frightening. He was nice to me. He made love with me, instead of acting as if he was doing me a favor by allowing me to do/say/be things I never wanted to do/say/be anyway. In fact, he wouldn't even accept them and even made me uncomfortable doing what I'd always done: Being promiscuous. He didn't take me for granted. He listened to me. He didn't just listen to me but he heard me. At times, back then, sometimes I'd be on the verge of tears and he would hold me and he would say, "It's okay. Let it out," and as soon as he spoke the words, my insides froze and the tears went away. I couldn't possibly cry. I couldn't let him see me unless it was the way I wanted him to see me. I needed control. That way if he changed (and surely he would; certainly he'd at least yell at me, if not hit me, rape me, or cheat on me or something. Anything), at least I had some semblance of control over it. At least I could say I asked for it. I deserved it. I have always deserved it because that's the way all men are.
I left him. He never changed, hit, screamed, yelled, cheated - hell, he never stopped opening my car door for me. Not one single time. He never denied me, always listened to my songs, always read me like a book.
I left him. I didn't believe him. I didn't deserve him and I didn't know how to be with someone like that.
Please get mad at me. Please stop being so open and honest. Please stop being so goddamn perfect for me.
I left him because I couldn't handle being loved. Not truly, authentically loved, despite the many, many tests I applied to the relationship - like all relationships I've ever had. Every one. He passed every test. How? He was consistent. He was always, always consistent. And me, well, I have an Eagle's eye for inconsistencies.
Which leads to the next lifetime.
Gary.
Like my father; my first husband; my second husband (and that one boyfriend I had between my second husband and Bill, Mike): He was emotionally unavailable. Perfect.
Me too.
By now I was in my 30's and I had developed my intellect enough that I knew I could survive on it alone, which was important in this relationship because - like my exes - Gary had a constant tendency to put me down and attempt to make me look stupid. He was constantly condescending and I fought back - hard. Never again would I depend on a man. Ever. Never again, would I open up emotionally. Ever.
What I would do, though (because I know so well how child abuse works), is I would nurture and be a motherly figure for him because of the emotional suffocation he suffered as a child. This, too, worked to my favor. I could keep my emotions in check. I had to because, truly, I did love him, despite our many differences and despite how little attention he paid to me. Really paid. He couldn't tell you my favorite color, gemstone, song(s), movie(s) and the only reason he knew the name of my childhood cat was because it was the answer to one of my banking security questions. He didn't know much about me at all. He was also - like my father and the men before me (Bill excluded) - sexually perverse. He'd been much more so in his past, but there still lingered with every touch, an absenteeism; no warmth, no love, no affection. Just this purpose that needed to be served and I was to serve it.
I was, after all, the woman (and Gary has zero respect for women).
So I played the role. Four years. Played the role - lived Gary's life. Got sucked into his way of living. Friends? Nope. All his. Places? Nope. All his. Whatever we did, whoever we did it with and wherever we went, it centered around Gary and his image, what he wanted, what he needed and what image he wanted to project. Which meant I had to be something I was not.
Which was okay, since my emotions were bundled up tightly inside.
Until that fifth year....When we talked and when I began to grow (going through Life Coach Training which Gary was adamantly opposed to but for which Bill enthusiastically footed the bill) and I realized how unemotional our relationship was - how unemotional I was.
I was encouraged by Gary to pursue therapy and I did, in earnest.
He promised to be there; promised to support me; repeatedly swore that he wasn't going anywhere - even on public forums. Reassured me frequently, even as I began to become more and more immersed in this unfathomable pain and darkness.
Despite his words, I felt alone. I know, now, that this is because he - like always - was incapable of emotional attachment (although I do believe that some part of him did love me).
However, the profundity of what I was experiencing was too much for this man who "loved" me and he, in turn, began abusing me in exactly the same way my father had.
I'm not going to rehash it, except to say that day by day, I got worse. Things got worse. I was inconsolable. I was out of control. I was drained, exhausted, terrified. I was having flashbacks and I was drinking to numb the pain I was going through. I was losing people I loved (my son, specifically, and my granddaughter) on top of the EMDR treatment I was going through in an effort to "heal" with essentially no help.
I had Gary and I had "Dee" (who has asked that I not use her real name): Both of whom did not and probably never will have the fortitude to endure the process I have to experience. This lifetime.
After two suicide attempts, a new lifetime began...
Or, re-began.
Bill came.
He came to see me. He saw me. And in his own words, "had never seen me that bad."
It sickens me now, to think about it. It hurts. It twists my insides. It sets me on fire - my skin literally feels alight.
Rage, anger, pain, torment, torture, uncertainty, fear....fear....fear... oh my God fear.
All of these things that I've never felt towards my father, step-father, brother, uncle, kidnappers, rapists, pimps, gangsters and thugs - all of these things that I have never, ever felt - I feel now, because of Gary. And because of "Dee."
Gary: the father, rapist, womanizer, woman-beater, pimp, wife-beating, abandoning, drug-dealing, ex-convict child molester.
"Dee": The mother, "poor-me" victim, I-don't-care-about-your-story, talk-behind-your-back, drink-myself-stupid (always with a great excuse), poor, live-vicariously-through-some-other-means, nobody loves me, I have no friends or money...
I do not say these things to imply that Gary and "Dee" are these things. I say these things because finally, finally I understand these intense emotional reactions I have to them. I drive by "Dee's" house every day. It's taken me months to not sneer down her driveway and wish harm to her. Wish her to feel the pain she caused me. The truth is, she's a fun person. Intelligent. Witty. Actually, very intelligent. But she, like me for years, has not yet found herself, so she lives whatever she supposes she's supposed to.
And Gary is, I suppose, a good man - though his flaws are many. I still loved him. He's not a child molester or woman-beater (although he did abandon me and he was horribly mentally abusive).
So that lifetime is ...ending?
And now Bill is here - consistent as usual. Same Bill, only this time I'm a different Cristina and I don't know what to do or how to be or how to act because I have my experiences with Gary and "Dee" to look back on and know - without a doubt - that I do not want to be that "fake" person I was required to be. Problem is, what am I now, in this lifetime?
And even though Bill has never been in any way, shape or form, anything like any of my former abusers, what if he does? What if I'm reenacting again, and I don't know it, and it doesn't happen until I get further into this crazy ass psyche of mine? What if ...what if.... What if I let go of control?
Will he let me run into a tree? Fall of a bridge?
I know, somewhere inside, that he won't but he treats me too good and he treats me too right and he's too nice to me and he pays attention to me and he reads me like a book. He shares all my interests and he makes me laugh he's good to my children and he is everything a woman could possibly want. Why would he want me?
And Cindy - my adoptive mother - how do I know she won't hate me? Hurt me? Betray me? Abandon me?
Making new friends. I don't understand. It's like talking Chinese. I don't understand this language or this foreign place, where I am supposed to just be myself (whoever that is), and be accepted and loved for who I am. I don't understand.
Shouldn't I be being abused right now?
One thing I should thank Gary and Dee for is this: making me feel these intense, painful, agonizing emotions that have kept me captive my entire life. It's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Michelle, but it's an important one. So though I hold such deep humiliation, anger, hurt and feelings of betrayal for the wrongs, I suppose being hurt, betrayed and abused (particularly by Gary), was a necessary evil.
It brought me to a new lifetime.
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