Lost in moments

My skin is on fire, just as surely as if lava ran through every capillary beneath it. Everything is loud; ten times…no, a hundred times more than normal. My stomach is in my throat, upside down. I want to vomit. I can’t stop shaking…this bizarre shaking… my hands tremble but it feels as if every cell trembles, every muscle and bone, everything inside.

And it’s so simple, really. Just a compilation of things.

Today I played games online - games from my childhood: Pacman; Donky Kong; Donkey Kong Jr.;  Frogger; Space Invaders... so many... I was keen to note the dates they were released. I was trying to find some place in  time in history. Some kind of validation or verification of times and ages and dates that are lost in my mind. This need is always there. This need to know, where was I when this happened? Where was I when that happened? What age was I?

Seemed harmless at the time.

But then things started to happen and, one by one, they began to build until the weight crushed my stature.

Memories. Unable to separate past from present, even though my mind consciously knows the difference.

Still, I was swept away to points in time when living was unsafe, unkind...

The kitchen was tiny. So small. No bigger than a prison cell. 

In it was a stove and a small two-top table, wedged beneath a window (I think), and next to the stove, something I can't recall. A spice rack, maybe? A tiny little group of shelves? A little bitty pantry? A small microwave stand? I don't recall.

The story is more complex but tonight, I was standing at that stove, my back to the little two-top. I was wiping down what I'd already cleaned, desperately avoiding looking at my step mother who had come to sit at the table behind me.

"I don't know what to do," she said.

I said nothing. I was in fourth grade. For most of my life, I'd believed myself to be 12 at the time but I know now that I was in fourth grade - Bethany school in Summerfield, N.C., so I must've been nine or so. Ricky McGeehee was the most popular boy in school. Tracy was the most popular girl. It must have been around 1979.

I was terrified. I just nodded at the stove, kept wiping.

"He [my little brother] says your father molests him," she said, with her gentle Bostonian accent.

I felt my body freeze, my head spin, my tongue couldn't move. I stopped so briefly ...didn't want her to notice, so I quickly continued wiping. There was nothing to wipe clean.

"I don't know what to do," she said again. 

She must have pondered the truth of my brother's statement out loud because I remember looking down at the stove and quietly saying, "He's telling the truth."

I heard her ask, "What?"

I turned, looked at the floor and repeated. "He's telling the truth."

Later that night, Daddy tried to get to me after he punched several holes in the walls. He screamed at me: "Tell her the truth! Tell her you're lying!" and she got between us; saved me from him.

Tonight, I went there - to that moment in time. I thought I could handle it. I shoved it away. Pushed it back.

Went back to cooking.

Began cleaning. Cleaning.... cleaning...

Heard banging, felt the energy shift. The irritation. The frustration. Felt it as if I caused it. Believe I caused it. Felt responsible. Frantically searched for anything I could clean.... Gotta clean.... gotta do something.

My hand burned and I was six.... again....

I was six and I couldn't move my hand because it was so badly burnt but I tried to hide it. I was terrified when they said they were  going to call my parents because I couldn't write. It was my left hand - my dominant hand - and I couldn't write in school. I pleaded, "Please, please I'll use my right hand! Please don't call them!"

They assured me it was okay and I wasn't in trouble, but that they needed to call my parents.

They didn't understand.

I was beaten for that.

For a moment, I was there again..... in the classroom, people were looking at me, looking at my hand. I didn't want them to look. I wanted them to leave me alone, to let me try to do my work with my right hand. Please don't call Daddy....

For a moment, I was with Gary again.... he was yelling....he was slamming things, kicking things, throwing things, cursing at the dog, the kids, anyone....

And, in that, for a moment I was with Daddy again; he was kicking things, breaking things, yelling, angry. Then he was kind, benevolent. Then he was angry again.

That's when everything  got really loud.

I tried to escape.

I couldn't.

And now I am here

My skin on fire. My stomach in my throat, upside down, choking on memories I am trying to swallow, trying to put into their rightful place.

But my hand - as I burnt it, washing things in the hot water - was no longer my hand. It was the hand of a six-year-old girl. The counter was no longer the one in my apartment. It was the stove I cleaned with my back to a loving and courageous step-mother. The restlessness, irritation, irritability was no longer my friend; it was Gary. And that was ultimately Daddy, yelling in a rampage.

Unpredictable, frightening. So frightening.

So goddamn frightening.

Unable to talk, accused of sulking......

Unable to talk.

What is today?

The time is close.

Inside Out and Backwards

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Another nightmare... about Gary.

Times like these I wish there were some way to convey how deeply he hurt me, to him. I know - or I have to believe - that he's not an all-out monster. I want to believe that it would somehow matter, that he would somehow "get it" and.... I don't know.

Easier, I suppose, would be convincing a rock or talking to the cat who would undoubtedly turn abruptly away and shove her backside towards me in an urgent call for massage.

No, he'd never get it and I don't suppose he would ever want to. I suppose if he ever really wanted to "get it," he would have when we were together.

I know a lot of this is transference. He happens to be the poor sap who simulated my father so well in so many ways that my brain has these wires crossed now, and I can't figure out how to uncross them.

Mixed messages. He gave me horribly painful mixed messages and that is why these nightmares won't go away. That, and he verified a truth for me that hurt, even though I know it to be true and always have: there is an "us versus them" in this world. And it's immensely painful.

With the typical interaction, I am safe behind my wall, viewing very cautiously with an Eagle eye, watching every single move, motion, word, action, reaction, expression.... everything. I seek inconsistencies. I look for reasons not to let people in. I do not do this with malice; just self-preservation, like a deer who runs into the woods, so as not to be seen or a bobcat who peers every direction before coming into the open.

I spot inconsistencies like a hungry wolf spots a rabbit and this keeps me safe. It works in two ways:

One, it tells me with pinpoint accuracy who to trust and not trust.

Two, it makes the blows of that person(s) anticipated and, so, they don't hurt as much. I can - for the most part - let their angry, judgmental, uninformed, unkind words/actions roll off my back like water on a duck.

But then there are the less-than-a-handful of people who I allowed "in" and when I say less than a handful, I am not exaggerating. I can think of only four who were so close to me, they were beneath my skin, running in my blood. I saw no wrong in them. I trusted them with my entire being.

The first was my father. Naturally.

Also my ex-husband and my oldest son (long story) and, finally, Gary.

These people managed to come behind the curtain. I embraced them and trusted them.

My father's transgressions were many but my love for him never died. My adoration and need for him survived the pain he caused. Today, there is still a sickening need for his love.

My ex-husband did a number of hurtful things to me. He was (and still is) a very cocky, arrogant man; the kind of man who is unkind to waitresses and poor people. A stereotypical southern man's man. Years of infidelity, abuse, and a host of other toxic elements of our relationship did not sever my love for him. It was not until - just like Gary and my father - I realized he was deliberately hurting me, just to get a reaction, that something inside of me broke. I could almost feel it physically - like the snap of a rubberband that's been stretched too far. Just snapped shut. He knew, that day, it had happened. He knew me so well, that just by the look on my face, my cold countenance and the way I looked at him and said, "You deliberately hurt me," that it was over. Our marriage was over.

My son... as a child bride, I had a painfully inaccurate and askew view of him. He was a protector, rather than my son. I would be remiss if I did not say I know this is wrong and inappropriate and in my conscious mind, he was my child - someone to take care of and teach and guide. But subconsciously, unbeknownst to me, I had developed a dependency on him and through years of turmoil (his and mine), he never failed to be loyal. When he grew to be a young man, things changed and he began to make mistakes that - at least once - garnered my rage at the many pimps, gangsters and rapists I grew up with. This was transference, again. Wreaking havoc in my life. But like the son he always was, he took my heated words and let them scorch him, without saying a word back. When the day came that his loyalty was tested and he left, I was devastated beyond words. This was the same betrayal I felt from my father.

And finally, Gary.

I didn't let him in right  away. It wasn't for years, actually. And, in truth, I questioned whether the relationship was viable in the beginning. But my determination won out and I stayed, telling myself - and him - that my past did not affect me any longer.

At the time, it was true.

In the end, when he urged me to seek help through therapy, I was leery, but I was also weary and I agreed. I went to see his therapist. Mistake number one, I suppose.

Ultimately, after months of swearing he loved me and would never leave me, it happened. I was in utter disbelief. But that's not what causes the nightmares.

The nightmares come from the correlation between the way Daddy hurt me, then loved me and the way Gary hurt me, then loved me. I begged him - Gary - not to do these mixed messages. If our relationship was over, fine but please....no mixed messages, no deliberate hurt. Please.

I may as well been begging the sun not to rise.

I can't know what his reasons were but for whatever reason(s), he needed to be in charge, needed the power to hurt me, and needed to use it. I don't know what he gleaned from it except to save his own skin. It went like this:

He would come home, be nice to me, then suddenly kick me (figuratively speaking), walk away and leave me there crying over what'd just happened, then go out and tell others that he didn't know why I was acting the way I was acting.

Over and over again, day in, day out, night after night, this happened until the mere sound of his footsteps caused me so much anxiety that I would gag (which eventually turned into vomiting). I felt like a prisoner. But then he would do something kind - and make sure everyone knew he'd done it - only to turn around and kick me again.

Mixed messages. For someone with PTSD and DID this is horrendous. But for someone with PTSD and DID who dared to let you in and trusted you, this is beyond horrific pain. It's astonishingly unbearable. It was very much like being raped over and over again. Like being locked in that basement when I had nowhere else to go and tormented. How much this resonates with my childhood abuse cannot be overstated.

I tried explaining, but he didn't care.

I didn't understand and I am still in such guttural pain over it that nightmares pervade my sleep.

Disbelief and pain; anger and fear.

Some might ask: What about Bill?

I've never let him in, because of the phenomenal person he is. Paradoxical, I know, but true. Why let someone as wonderful and beautiful as he, in my ugly world of muddy water, gutter snow, biting cold and darkest dark? Why subject him to it?

He's been the best friend I've ever had. Why risk losing him? Why risk showing him?

Everything is backwards. Everything is inside out.

My tears fall inside. Tears over Gary and what he did to me. This wound he ripped open even further and now it hemorrhages and I can't stop the bleeding, no matter how hard I try.

I am not angry at him, though I am angry at myself.

With him, I am hurt and confused. Shocked.

Scared.

When will these nightmares go away or, at least, move aside so the true shadows, ghosts and demons can be released?