Film

A film of self-defense
self-denial
Denial altogether
covering the lenses
of eyes that never cried
denial of the inside
the red heat of self
dark cataracts to reality
cauterizing release
blocking the view
of wounds that
never healed
blackened and charred
the chips fall away
like obsidian teardrops
tiny shadowed tears
This film covering my reality
a lifetime
of denial.
A lifetime of unknowing

Bloody Salt

Unheard and unheeded
Lonely drops of salt
Turn inward
To tears of fault
Turning to blood
Infused with toxicity
Self-loathing
For unknown
Reasons, beyond understanding
The unspoken need
For love
Never received
Constant need
For worth
Proof of worth
Beaten and swallowed
In salty blood tears
Never revealed
Unseen...
By the very one who cries them

Ouch...

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Today was a tough, tough day.

I even considered voluntary hospitalization today because I was so afraid and because I literally felt as if I was losing my mind. For those who know me, this would tell them I was in a really bad place today. Hospitalization is an abhorrence of mine. I have been traumatized via hospitalization too many times to count. To consider it voluntarily, is like moving the Lincoln Monument.

Today, I came up here - to my writing room - and I cried. I came up here so nobody would hear me and because there was nowhere else to go. I felt ashamed. Today I came up here and I cried a deep, aching cry. I needed Michelle. I dialed her number several times and hung up. Finally, up here, I dialed it one last time and I heard her voice - her voicemail - and I left a message.

Although I felt such shame for such a heart-wrenching cry, I calmed a little after hearing her voice, even if only a recording.

Yesterday's session left me rattled and shaken. Today, I watched Law and Order, Special Victims Unit, Season 9, Episode 15.

That was it.

I have never, ever had a problem watching violence and rape in movies. I mean, there are some things that are too grotesque for me to watch, but violence and rape, I have always been able to handle. It's never made me emotional.

But this episode, well...it was chock full of triggers.

rape
child of the system
arrested for drugs without actually being involved
abuse of authority
lock up
orange jumpsuits
big, thick, brass keys
woods
machete's
the showers

I can't even describe how many things were there...how true this episode is to the experience.

However, that said, I watched the whole episode untouched, unmoved.

Disconnected.

Until the end. The very end.

The victim - an SVU detective - is asked, directly, "Did he rape you?"

and my soul felt like it was shot out of a canon into and through moments in time...dozens or hundreds of times when I couldn't answer that question.

The assault scene was difficult, but I managed it.

It wasn't until that question was asked: "Did he rape you?" that I was hurled into a blackened, charred history of uncertainty, childishness and terror.

And I felt it.

For the first time in my life, I felt these bizarre feelings. These intense emotions and I was bombarded with the question of "Why?"

Why? Why? Why?

I think about others and I think about children and child abuse and I am astonished by what is done to them but never have I been able to look at myself and feel, "Wow, that hurt. Ouch."

I wish I had written earlier but my mind was shattered. I wish I could have seen Michelle earlier. I wish I could have talked to her. I was riddled with emotions that were pulling me so deep, so deep. Deep into something I have never felt and it frightened me.

Bill and I talked the other night about how frightening out-of-body-experiences (OBE's) are, and it was like that today. Exactly like that. I felt like I was losing myself. Drowning. I couldn't see. I couldn't think. Every bump made me jolt in my seat. I was terrified. I fantasized about going to my neighbor, going anywhere...but then it felt like my body was tied down to an anchor and I couldn't move. I was crushed and crushing...I was immobile and absolutely confused and terrified.

I ran through my mind so many different times in my past. Was that rape? Was this rape? Was it rape if I didn't say no? I didn't say "no" because I knew I couldn't say no, but does that mean yes? Is that rape? If he didn't penetrate me, is that rape? Did I ever fight back that hard?

I bent my brain desperately reaching for memories, trying to recall moments when I fought. There are times when I know I did. Times I remember.

The man who nearly strangled me to death. I remember I must have fought because he wouldn't have strangled me if I hadn't fought, right? I don't remember how I came to be at the place where we were. Was it a motel? An apartment? I don't remember a kitchen. I remember the television and the nightstand and the rotary phone. I am confused. I thought - because I was street smart - that he was one of those that was full of piss and wind and he wouldn't kill me. I could mock and intimidate him. I could beat him at his game and he wouldn't hurt me.

I thought...

But he almost killed me.

In the end, he didn't (obviously) and in the end, I was right: he was malleable. I remember laying there - I was around 13 - and he was limp, flacid. Pre-semen hung like sinew from the head of his dark penis and I knew he was infected. I made fun of him and told him he couldn't rape me because he couldn't even get it up because he was diseased. I knew, somehow, this would work.

And it did.

I remember I tricked him. I convinced him that I cared about him and that I would come back when he had healed himself of his disease. Probably syphilis or gonorrhea. These were rampant in those days.

And...I remember that I fought the men off who attacked me when I slept.

Did I scream? I don't remember.

I know as one sat on my chest, his testicles against my neck and he kept  trying to shove his penis in my mouth, the rest were ripping off my clothes and I was kicking and fighting and I didn't mean to but I kicked on in the nuts and he said to me, "Don't ever kick my nuts you white bitch!" and he slammed me in the mouth with his fist. They threw me out into the snow and I was wearing very little. I was frozen. I was 12 or 13.

I must've fought, right?

There must've been sometime in the past when I fought....

I said "no" to Daddy twice...twice...

The first time, he hurt me sexually. The second time, he smothered and choked me.

Did I learn to not say no?

I am so confused and hurt and bewildered.

The feelings I felt as I sobbed, briefly, today...I should say "allowed myself to sob" today...

These feelings were too much. Too hard.

Too much.

I wished Michelle were here. I wished she could see it so she could tell me what was happening.

I wished I could just do it all right then in that moment. I thought, god please let this be all I need to feel, to heal.

But I knew - and I know - that wasn't it.

There is more.

I shut it down. I am good at that.

This pain...this is worse than anything I have ever known, yet it is the track on which my train travels and I cannot move forward, without the track.

I won't get off track. I may stop or stall, but I will not get off.

It kills me - some part of me felt stolen today - but I will stay on track.

I will do this. God help me, I will.

Regret

It's chilly up here - but it's clean. There are no cigarette ashes everywhere. It smells of the hazelnut candle I lit an hour ago, and the opium incense - my personal favorite - that I lit about thirty minutes ago. The windows are pathetically "covered" - that is, the plastic I attempted to cover them with for the winter, is now hanging down, loose from the top. The blue painter's tape I used in an effort to save the paint on the window frames, didn't do the job. But it's dark - the lights are off - and I cannot see this eyesore.

It's solitary here. I have the door closed and I hear nothing but my edited version of ATB's "Trinity" on repeat. I made it repeat the woeful center part over a dozen times. I was proud of this, actually. I'm good at editing videos and music and photos. I'm actually better than your average person.

The song suits me right now. I am sad.

Not sad. Sorrowful.

I think there's a difference. At least, it feels like there is. Sad is, I suppose, something you feel when something happens. Sorrowful, for me, is this feeling inside that aches so deeply and causes these tears that aren't blatantly sad. They just  fall, each one as if it has a story to tell and - if the story isn't told - then perhaps the next one that falls, will tell it. They keep coming and, with them, flashes of regret, pangs of pain, dulled only by my own self-criticism.

So the tears stop - just for a moment - until the ache pushes them up and out again.

I think....

I think about how afraid I am to go out.

and why

Why?

Why.... because maybe someone will see me. Maybe someone will see me. Maybe they'll see this horrible ugly I hear and see every day.

I've learned over the past few months that I - in my life - have had two choices: I could pretend this horrible ugly didn't exist and I could fight (in any way possible or necessary) anyone who called me out on it (ie "classless cunt" as my ex referred to me [yeah, pretty classy, huh?] or "white trash" or "trailer park trash" or other derogatory comments) or I could hide behind a mask. Either way, I was in denial of these self-loathing whispers, constant in my ear. Constant in my mind. Constant in the mirror.

Thinking...

I can't please anyone.

Nobody.

I don't know how.

I thought I did......

I thought I knew how but now, that's stripped from me in so many ways.

Now I know that sex doesn't get you love, even if my mind tricks me into believing it again and again and again. Being a good cook, doesn't get me love.

But my mind tricks me over and over and over.

Laundry and being a good mom. Cleaning.

Being quiet. Subdued. Unspoken, really.

But not enough to let on, that you really are unspoken and silent.

Just enough.... just enough...

But nobody will ever be ..........what I've always looked for.

I am 42 years old.

What a sad joke that my life is right now. I feel old and tired. Exhausted, really. Too tired to lift anything. Too tired to go anywhere. Too afraid to talk about it. Who do I call? Who do I talk to? Who do I tell all this to?

These secrets.... they're mine.

I know I'm not alone. I know others have exactly these same secrets. Secrets about themselves, about men and relationships, sex, love.... love....

Shame....

Thinly veiled....

I wish.... so much.

wish he knew..... wish he knew.... wish he knew..... and him and her and him and them...

Wish they knew.....

Oh how I wish....

Another tear.

It's full of regret. Full of shame. It hits my stained white t-shirt, that I wear only when I know nobody's coming around and I'm going nowhere. Usually when I clean.

It hits a half inch from where the last one fell. And the one before.

I am afraid to be thankful, so I stand back and stare in awe, without touching. Without tainting. I want it to stay perfect, so I don't go near.

I hide.

Like a coward, I hide. Unlike the tough girl I've always been.

I hide.

But I feel and I've felt.

So deeply that it feels like gouges in my soul, filled only with confusion and disorientation and uncertainty.

Regret.

It feeds that voice that says, "It's your fault. It's all your fault. Nobody can love you."

I did everything wrong. Always. I always do. I push them away. I hurt people.

Yet..... I cannot fathom hurting anyone.

Never. God.....

I never want or wanted to hurt anyone.

And yet, I feel like a monster.

So I cannot be seen. I don't want to be seen.

Let the tears come here - in the attic, amid the scents of hazelnut and opium, behind fallen plastic and haggard painter's tape. Here, up high, where nobody can see.

Tomorrow I will be fine.

Tomorrow I won't cry.

Tomorrow, I won't wear a stained white t-shirt.

Chaos and Panic

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

I have PTSD and DID but I am not defined by them. Rather, I am temporarily impeded by them as I walk through this painful journey of self-discovery and introspection; memory-recall; re-learning; therapy and guidance.

The biggest inhibitor of these disorders, for me, is  the unpredictable nature of them. For example, the other night during a Christmas gathering, someone mentioned a single word and once the word was spoken, flashes of my father - my first and most brutal abuser - began flickering in my mind, like those old-time reels of film. Click-click-click-click, as I felt warmth spread through my body. But because of where we were and because we were so surrounded by people, some "part" of me, held me together and I breathed through the moment.

Strange things cause these outbursts, whether expressed or internalized. When internalized, it feels like a pressure cooker; When externalized, it's like the lid has blown off the pressure cooker.

Occasionally, the lid is gently removed, to let off some of the steam and during those times, there is a moment of relief, immediately followed by (sometimes days of) regret, fear and intimidation. "Oh God I've said too much...I've revealed too much."

White vans; the scent of Vanilla; burgundy vans; holidays; the way someone holds their cigarette; certain words/phrases; smells; telephones; vehicles; certain styles of a moustache; guitars; playgrounds; strangers; some Latinos; grocery shopping....

These and other things set me off and I don't even know it.

Bill unwittingly sent me spiraling into panic one night when he said, "If you're too hot, you can turn the heater down," as we were in the car. I was immediately thrown back into the cab of a truck where - countless times - I was raped and/or beaten as a child.

This was following a phone call from my therapist, which followed a troubling trip to the grocery store. It piled up until finally I was shaking and scrambling for a Risperdal in my purse, dropping my cigarette, discombobulated and all I could do was keep telling myself, "It's okay - it's Bill. It's okay - It's Bill..."

I don't like phones or phone calls and I never (or rarely) answer any phone call that shows an unknown number.

I know where this comes from, but that's another story.

Friday night, Bill and I were up until past 5 a.m. just sitting at the dining room table, talking and having drinks. It was nice. We played spades (he won) and we talked about all manner of things - which we often do. We are good together in that way. We've always had great conversations.

I lit several incense. I love the incense, plus I got a bunch of new incense and burners for Christmas. I was so tickled.

I received a text as we were heading to bed from our neighbor. "Could you guys please chill out with the smoke/incense? It's going through the walls. Thanks."

I panicked.

I felt horrible. I apologized profusely. I heard nothing back.

That was Friday.

Saturday I awoke still semi-panicked. Afraid to do anything. Very jumpy - constantly on Trevor to be quiet, stop talking so loud, stop slamming doors, stop this, stop that. I, once again, hid inside - away from the windows. Time came to cook dinner...

I was slicing the zucchini and squash and it seemed like every time the knife slid through the vegetable and hit the cutting board, a bomb was going off. "Be quiet!" I kept hearing in my mind. "STOP BEING SO LOUD!" I chastised myself. Oh I was so afraid. I didn't want to upset the neighbor.

As I was cooking, my cell phone rang. I looked - it was the landlady.

I felt a punch to my stomach. The fear  that ran through me transformed into trembling and terror.

"Do you want me to answer it?" Bill asked.

I nodded, wordlessly.

Oh God. Oh God.

Bill talked with her as I added the vegetables with mushrooms and onions to the pan. I was trembling so badly that it  felt as if I was shaking both inside and out. Like my blood was rumbling beneath my skin, my bones were shaking, at the same time that my hands and neck and head and my body was shaking. My legs were weak. I wanted to cry.

This is it. This is when she tells me it's not going to work out and we have to leave. Leave this apartment. Move away.

Please...please...please....

As I stirred the vegetables, I heard Bill say, "She's right here, she's cooking actually," and I thought, "Oh no! She wants to talk to me!"

Bill held the phone down. "She wants to talk to you about plowing."

(We have a long driveway that is shared by the neighboring house and usually the cost of plowing of the driveway is split three ways between that neighbor, and me and the neighbor I share the duplex with).

I spoke with the landlady. My voice was shaky. I tried to control it. It was a lot like holding your breath as long as you possibly can. I was holding my breath. Waiting to hear of a complaint the neighbor had given.

No such thing was said.

When I hung up the phone, I exhaled - figuratively speaking - and my body seemed to deflate. Bill, thinking ahead, had lit a cigarette and brought it to me. I ran into the dining room with it. "Can't let anyone see!"

I fixed dinner; couldn't eat. Tried.

Drank my milk.

Tried distracting myself with a movie about a Mayan elder (www.shiftoftheages.com) but this did nothing to stop the turbulence inside.

After, I logged Bill into his FB account so he could play a game that I play. There was a message for him. It was from his sister. I had to show Bill how to get to it but everything got confused and maybe I didn't handle it right or explain it clearly enough but he clicked the little red "1" on the messages balloon and I saw the first line of her message - it was clearly some kind of criticism. Without asking, Bill said he didn't want to read it and he went to the end of the pop up and clicked "See all messages" and when he did that, I saw a (presumably) old message from Gary - unread. Saw his face.

Bill threw his hands up. "Get me out of here," he said as he leaned back against the couch.

I felt I'd done something(s) wrong...again.

We went to bed. I laid down and was overwhelmed - "flooded" as Michelle calls it - and my mind would not stop chattering. I became afraid and I didn't know what I was afraid of. I started to cry. I didn't know why I was crying. I tried talking to myself within my mind and there was nothing but chaos, confusion. Pictures, images, flashes, memories. Gary, Daddy, the neighbor, homelessness, bills, "Dee", Trevor....so much...too much. I couldn't quiet my mind and I just surrendered. I felt I was being battered from inside my skull.

I sat up and took two klonopin, smoked half a cigarette, laid back down. Bill cautiously asked if he could lie close to me. "Yes," I said.

He moved closer and put his arms around me, and I cried. He kept telling me, "It's okay. I'm here. I've gotcha. You're safe." And I just cried some more, feeling foolish. Kept trying to breathe, kept counting my breaths, trying to focus on anything but the noise in my head.

It sucks to live every day in fear.

Worse, before it's Better

As Michelle (my therapist) has pointed out, the closer we get to the underlying issues and memories I have, the closer we get to the emotions. This is turning out to be painfully - excruciatingly - true.

I find I am far more sensitive now and more easily triggered. I want to cry more often. I ache more often. I am confused more often and I shut down more often. I am overwhelmed far more easily and I panic more often.

When she called me yesterday to cancel our appointment for today because she's been recruited to help counsel those involved with the Newtown shooting, I was immediately panicked. Not just because of that, but because I'd just gone to the grocery store and it started then. I was getting some groceries with Bill and I began to feel things closing in on me - the walls began to close in, the people got closer and louder and I was starting to get confused. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

We go to the car and I lit a cigarette with slightly trembling hands.

"It's okay, honey," Bill assured me.

As we drove to the gas station, my angst grew and I was trying desperately to do the "belly breaths" and calm myself down. I wasn't sure entirely what was causing my anxiety but Bill got out of the car and it got worse. Part of me was glad he wasn't there to see it. It is embarrassing to be so visibly helpless, to feel so afraid.

I jolted when my phone rang. Ironically, I just downloaded a new ringtone - something melodic and calming. Still, the sudden shatter of the quietness in the car, startled me.

The name was my therapist. At first I was overcome by a fear that I'd done something wrong and she was calling me to tell me I was bad. I know this is irrational, but this was my instantaneous first thought. "Oh God I did something bad and now she's going to leave me!"

I answered the phone. "Hello?"

I heard her familiar voice, "Cristina? Hi hon. How are you?" she asked, probably detecting my unrest. She is exceptionally perceptive.

"I'm - I'm okay," I stammered. "I just had a minor panic attack that's all. Just let the grocery store."

"Oh no, take some deep breaths," she reminded me gently. "You're safe now."

I tried. God I tried but then she said, "I'm calling because I have to cancel our appointment for tomorrow," she said calmly and apologetically. "I have been recruited to go help in Newtown," she explained.

She's leaving me! She's leaving me!

I was immediately trembling ten times worse. Not only because she was cancelling, but also because it brought up the Newtown incident, which - for me - brought out a whole slew of irrational emotions that have been holding me down since I wrote about them.

"Okay," I answered, shakily, trying desperately to hide my fear and disappointment.

She assured me that we would be in touch and do our regular session on Thursday and I told her good luck, before hanging up.

Unable to control my pulse, the heat of my skin, my trembling and the nausea, I grabbed frantically for my purse, reached inside for a Risperdal disintegrating tablet. I was glad the windows were fogged up and that Bill had not yet returned to the car.

When he finally did, he took my hand. He asked me if there was anything he could do. I shook my head, no and pulled my coat closely around me, frustrated by the seatbelt that was serving as an inconvenience to the task.

We had to go to the laundromat. I didn't want to go in. "I don't want to be seen," I told Bill after he asked me if I would like for him to put the clothing in the dryer.

"But I have to do it," I said.

I blocked out everything. Turned everything off. Just shut down and did whatever I had to do, still a little jumpy; Everyone in the laundromat seemed suspect. They were all staring at me. I felt small - so small - but defiantly (as I was when I was young) continued with the laundry chore.

"Do you want to go back out to the car?" Bill asked. Yes... Yes, I need to get out of here.

Everything is a little bit of a blur. We came home. I made dinner. Bill stayed with me the whole time.

My thoughts race. My heart pounds. My decisions are difficult. Sometimes I just wish I could go to sleep and not wake up.

Character Flaws

My Name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Had therapy today - she made me cry. The discussion was about me asking the question, how come all of "our friends" see what he's done (or know what he was doing) and they still just want to hang out with him, and haven't even reached out to me?

"I don't understand," I lamented.

"What would understanding, do for you?" she asked.

This is a question I took in and really thought on.

"That's a very profound question," I answered, as my eyes began to tear up. It brought up such immense pain, that I stuttered out the answer after a few moments of silent tears.

"Understanding why....would help me to know I'm not ugly or dirty or unworthy," I choked out.

Why? Why didn't anyone check on me? This has plagued me for months. I wondered, how could people want to be with someone who was so hurtful, so insensitive to me - their "friend" - in desperate need of help and compassion. How could they all abandon me in favor of someone who did such detrimental things to me at such a critical time? Why?

I couldn't understand it and it's hurt me.

"Has it occurred to you that it's not you, but them?" she asked.

No...it hadn't because of all the things he said about me. People just took his word for it and I know the picture painted of me would look like a painting dropped in mud. It hadn't occurred to me that the problem may be theirs.

"Relationships end," she said matter-of-factly.

I hadn't thought of that.

"Clearly [he] didn't have the tenacity to help you through the pain you're going through," she said, adding, "and maybe those 'friends' don't either. That's their problem - it's not your problem. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you," she said. "Perhaps it's just part of their character flaws."

"Two suicide attempts is hard for some people to take," she said. Which I acknowledge, but have made as many apologies as possible for.

She remarked on Bill and Cindy and Hannah, saying how these are the kinds of people I need in my life: supportive, understanding, compassionate, patient.

"Bill is the kind of guy you need," she said. "He obviously truly wants to see you healthy and independent and he's proven it."

This, too, made me cry and I admitted to her that I - for a brief moment the other day, after blogging about him - allowed myself to believe I deserve to be treated the way he treats me; with kindness and consideration and respect and genuine love.

I have an event coming up. We talked about it briefly....I am a little nervous about it. She suggested, "So don't do it?"

"I already said yes," I responded.

"So why not back out? You've done it before with [Dee] and with Tony. Why not now?"

I began to cry again.

"Because if I step outside of my box, and my comfort zone [of conformity and complacency], then people will leave."

"So you're afraid if you step out of your box, people will leave you?"

Yes. If I don't do what I'm supposed to do, people will leave me.

What a terrible way to live...a terrible way to believe.

And that's how I've always been.