I’m not ok, I’m not ok, I’m not ok… all I can think is I am so broken and ruined and worthless.. Life isn’t supposed to be this way. I am in so much pain. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to think, how to feel. I think I am going crazy! I can’t get my thoughts together. Please help me…
Strange how when you hold me tight it doesn’t feel invasive and confining anymore.
Strange how quiet and peaceful I feel with you here with me.
Strange how I look toward the future with hope and not doubt or fear.
Strange how your love has changed me.
So many unspoken words…
I refuse to let them haunt me.
I don’t know what to say here
I have no comfort to offer…
this pain is overwhelming.
Numbness would be nice.
I felt the temptation to cut again yesterday stronger than I have in years. It’s so frustrating… I thought I was past this… Some days the pain is just too much and I want some relief. The thought of a sharp blade was so comforting and alluring…like a siren’s song. I don’t want to go down this path again. I decide my future, and my future is not drowned in numbness-walking through life like a zombie. I want to feel and be alive and real. I want a life of honestly dealing with my emotions not running from them to booze or blade or drugs or sex or danger. I want to breathe in every second of this precious life – even the parts that are painful or frustrating. I want to be alive. Please, God, help me…
I smile politely at you
and let you assume I agree.
In reality I am fuming
at your words.
I hide behind good manners
never letting you see the discord.
I don’t know you anymore
-don’t think I ever did.
It’s all smoke & mirrors anyway
this thing called friendship.
Calmly I offer you
pieces of my heart,
tenderly chosen-
which you accept
with a smile
then toss away,
crumpled.
Just another piece
of unwanted garbage-
for which you spare
no thought.
In a torrrid sea of faces
and voices
I cling to you.
Fighting violently
I resist the pull
of my old life…
of lies and pretending
of repression and unspoken violence.
I don’t want this anymore.
I crave peace,
unending.
So today I figtht
so that tomorrow
I may heal.
3-20-11
Talking to my mom today sent me into a tail-spin. I hate that I am so afraid of being “found out” like I am doing something wrong and have something to hide… I hate that just speaking to my family on the phone has the power to make me doubt my past and begin to see it through their eyes. I came from a family of “brush it under the rug”. They are great at pretending that everything is ok and we’re not really broken in the extreme. Most of my life my dad yelled and screamed and belittled all of us and my mom just took it and let us take it.
I remember one night when I was a little girl, my parents had put me to bed. I got up to get a teddy bear off my shelf to sleep with and had curled up in bed and was just drifting off to sleep when my dad burst into my room, angry. He asked me if I had gotten out of bed and I told him I had gotten up to get a bear to sleep with. He asked me if I had left the room and I hadn’t. He then accused me of sneaking out of my room to watch through the cracked door as my brother changed clothes. He was crazy angry and accused me of lieing when I denied this. He beat me with a belt so badly I had whelps from the backs of my knees to the small of my back. He was in a blind rage. My mother came in afterword to ask me if I had done this and I told her the same thing I told my father. She told me it would make things better if I apologized to my father and just said that I had done this thing he accused me of. So I did and my dad pulled me into his lap and hugged me and told me he loved me. I don’t even know why, to this day, he would think I would be watching my brother dress or undress or why it would have been a big deal as we were both very young… I was about 6 and my brother was about 9-10.
When I was a teenager I confronted my parents about this and they both denied the whole thing and told me I must have imagined it. My whole life they have managed to make me feel crazy… Now I just want to live in truth and not brush anything else under the rug. I am through pretending. I long to walk in the sunshine and feel the warmth on my skin. I long to live in truth. I may not be perky and happy all the time, but I am real and alive, and that is so much better to me.
I will spare only one tear for you. I dare not open the floodgates of my emotion lest the onslaught destroy me in a vortex of fear and self-loathing. You are naught but a ghost. I killed you that day. I watched you die. In desperation, I drove the knife home and I watched you writhe in agony with a bitter smile on my face. I strove to destroy you, dear child…but not without reason. I destroyed you to save you, that perhaps some small remnant of the girl you were could survive, pristine.
I was a fool to attempt this. I will never escape you. You are soiled and ugly. You are a protector of wrong, defender of evil. You cause hurt to come upon others. You have no pity. Stupid child. Pitiful creature. To know you is to loathe you. To despise your very existence. Whore that you are, finding joy in your torture, enlisting the pity of others to aid in your healing. You will never be free. You live only to suffer, die only to rot.
I did not bury you that day. I torment myself with the knowledge of my deed. My failure to eradicate you will haunt me forever. You are the ghost that haunts my dreams. You are the demon who terrorizes my waking hours. You are my hell, my prison I have created and I cannot break free. I hate you, unclean thing that you are. I am locked in here with you-my tormentor.
I shed only one tear for you. You will spend my whole life dyeing. I spare only one tear for you because you will rape my soul forever. You will rape my soul forever.
I was taking a shower today and staring at the shower head thinking about the time we had to change it. Then I suddenly remembered that there was a huge gaping hole on the other side of the wall. Changing this shower head was supposed to be simple… just unscrew the old one then screw the new one in place. Like most things in life it got complicated quickly. After trial and error we had to cut a large access hole into wall in the adjoining room to repair the problem. These repairs were taking place at about 9pm on a Sunday which meant we didn’t have much time to get the job properly done before we had to give up on it for the night and just rig it up and go to bed. Well now a month has passed and I had managed to completely forget that this huge hole existed. As long as the shower functioned properly and I didn’t have to look at the hole it was not a part of my reality. This became a metaphor for my life… I find that as long as I am functioning on a day to day level – as long as I can go to work, pay my bills, put dinner on the table, clean my kitchen, spend time with my husband – as long as I can do these things I fool myself into thinking that the gaping hole in my chest doesn’t exist. Then something horrible happens… something wonderful… my husband looks at me and says, “You don’t have to pretend here.” And I am suddenly aware of this wound. I feel it and allow myself to be broken for a moment. Just that small reminder that I am seen, that I don’t have to hide… It’s painful and wonderful at the same time. I usually don’t allow myself to feel this pain. I just gloss over it and pretend to be ok, to be happy. Something amazing happens in the middle of it all, though… Through the safe release of this pain… I find that under it I really am happy… that I really do believe everything will be ok eventually and I don’t have to rush through this healing process… I can give myself permission to be. There is so much grace in that realization.
captivatingbitter 