Depression?

On Wednesday I had  my obligatory annual physical exam. The nurse took my vital signs and went through her series of customary questions in preparation for the physician's exam.

...Do you have headaches?
...history of this?
...history of that?
...Depression?

"I see someone about that", I replied, not wanting to discuss it any further.

"Do you feel like you don't enjoy the things you used to enjoy?", she continued.

"There is someone I see about that", I insisted (hint: We are done talking about this!!)

"In the last ten days, have you...?"

What the fuck?!!! In the last ten days, I have refused to go to sleep, so as to not have to find the morning again. In the last ten days, rising out of bed in the morning brings with it the acrid dread of being alive yet another day. In the last ten days, I have fought with the demons that tell me I must harm myself in order to feel relief from my now chronic pain.

During the past ten days, I have wanted to drive my van right off the road on the nights that I drive home from work alone and in darkness. I have scoped out sections of the road where I might just punch the accelerator and drive off the goddamn face of the earth.

Of course, I did not say these things to her.

"'Some days are good, some days are bad", I offered, "It depends what is going on in my life. It's mostly situational, and I'm seeing someone about it"

"So I should just answer no to this then?"

"Yes, you can just say no to that question."

...and don't ever ask me that again. I have this situation under control, and I don't really want to talk to you about it. I have never met you before. You are my physician's new nurse. What trust have you and I built? I have someone I trust, and I tried to tell you that I will only talk to him about this. Yes, I am living in a hole whose walls get taller and whose light gets dimmer. I walk the thin tightrope between life and death. Support from my family and blog readers and sitting with my therapist keep me from losing my balance and plunging to my death.

...but this is none of your business, and you should just have let it go.

Sleepovers and Fathers

There is a possibility that I may be oversensitive and overprotective of my daughters around men (specifically other kids' fathers). I simply don't know what is normal. I have no reference point. All I know is that a man who was not my father and who should have cared for me and protected me began to molest me when I was ten years old...my older daughter is now ten.

At this age there are many invitations to spend the night at friends' houses, and sleepover birthday parties are quite popular. We have one rule: You will not spend the night at anybody's house unless you have already been to that house for a play date. Basically, the first time you go to a friend's house will never be to spend the night. I will use drop-off and pick-up time at the play date to get a feeling for the family and the general environment of the house. Consequent to this rule, sleepovers have generally been limited to those friends whose families we have known for quite some time. I believe this is good sensible parenting, independent of my childhood trauma.

Today, my daughter had an invitation to one such sleepover birthday party. The birthday child is a girl who dances with my daughter and whom she met last summer at camp. We have never been to their house, and her mother and I chat very briefly as we are picking up the girls after dance class. Needless to say, when accepting the invitation, I had no problem letting her know that my daughter would be happy to join the others for all aspects of the celebration, but she would not be able to spend the night. The mother was quite understanding, and the plan was that I would meet her and the others at the nearby movie theater, they would watch a movie and then she and her husband would drive the six girls back to her house for the remainder of the party. At around 9:30 pm, I would pick up my daughter, before they started to settle for bed.

Everything went swimmingly. When I arrived at the house with my younger daughter, she and her husband were in the living room, while the girls were in a bedroom watching a movie. My youngest disappeared into the bedroom with the girls, while I chatted with the mother and played with the dogs...and sometime during all that, the father disappeared too. When I went in to gather my own girls, I found him in the room among all the girls.

This is where it gets confusing for me. The bedroom was set up with various beds and mattresses to accommodate the young overnight guests. Some girls may have already been in their pajamas. I saw him stepping over the mattresses so as to move from one side of the room to another. He may have gone in there just to get something, but I did not see him come out of the room.

"What is he doing in there?", was my first thought. Then, "I certainly made the right decision by not letting her spend the night here. This is not a house were she will be allowed to spend the night!"

I felt very uncomfortable with a man hanging out in a room of ten year old girls in their pajamas. I don't know if this is normal or my abuse talking. I have hosted sleepovers at my own house, and my husband has always made himself very scarce. He is sure to be present at dinner, the cake cutting and breakfast in the morning, but you will never see him anywhere near ten year old girls dressed in nightgowns and pajamas. But is there anything wrong with a father joining his daughter and her friends to watch a movie at her birthday party? I don't know. All I know is that I got that familiar feeling of panicky anger when I saw him in that bedroom with all those girls. My imagination was a runaway train, envisioning all kinds of creepy scenarios that might occur throughout the rest of the night. I was quick to get my girls together and leave the house.

Am I crazy? Oversensitive and overprotective? Was this man really just a harmless dad celebrating with his daughter? Am I right to act on just my gut feeling that something just doesn't feel right here?

The Priest Dream

I had a disturbing dream the other night. I dreamt that I went to see my priest again. I was trying to talk to him but was having a difficult time getting the words out. The next thing I knew, he was lying top of me, and I could not push him off me. I felt suffocated and betrayed. After his kind, gentle and compassionate manner during our last meeting, he became just one more man who hurt me and whom I could not trust.

I have never been one to interpret dreams...I usually just don't know what to make of them, but this seemed just too real for me. The fact is that I have been considering going to talk to my priest again, and that my husband has been particularly physical lately. I don't know how one became the other in my mind that night, but suddenly, I am not interested in seeing my priest at all.

I Can't Go Home

(This was hand written earlier this morning...when I did not happen to have my laptop with me.)

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm

"Please forgive me. I double-booked the pharmacy. Collect your millage and you may go home", I was told when I arrived at work today...but I can't go home.

I bought new blades yesterday at work...along with Bandaids. It must have been a sight - the pharmacist is on her dinner break, but first she must stop at the front counter to purchase a little box of blades along with some Bandaids to go with it. She will be having her dinner in the third row seat of her minivan...or whatever she does, if you can put two and two together.

I did not cut last night. During dinner, I emailed my therapist instead. It took almost all the strength that I had and a monstrous work load not to run into the bathroom with a blade in hand and slice my wrists. I craved the momentary numbness and electrical sensation in my brain that a crisp sharp cut would bring.

I did not cut in the solitary comfort of my room after I arrived home last night. I called my therapist during the drive instead.

Today is different. A morning home alone awaits me, and I can't do it. I simply do not trust myself...so I don't go home. I stop at a local bookstore, buy a journal and a cup of tea and write my guts out.

I could have a lovely day at home...if I did not feel so poorly about myself...if I didn't feel like cutting is what I deserve...if I didn't feel like trash...if I didn't feel like cutting a line across my wrist for every time that I have felt like a bad mother for wanting to break up my family. Likewise, I would cut a line across the other wrist for every time that I have felt that I allow my husband to disrespect me and force himself upon me simply by remaining in the relationship. I would have cuts all the way up both arms, and I would hurt...but then I would wear my pain on the outside. Then, I could touch the pain; it would be plain and visible, not this deep and hidden pain that wants to be touched but, alas, is so unreachable.

I can't go home, but I must.

The Puppies

I want to run away from my life today. About five minutes after settling into my therapist's office this morning, I wanted to bolt. I wanted to leave...to go somewhere far. I had tears and screams trapped inside my throat. I could not acknowledge them. The urge to cut, to punish and hurt myself haunts me again. Even this I could not speak, and I felt that I was losing myself. My body was sitting in his office, but I was leaving...quickly falling into my own bitter darkness, a place others cannot reach. But just before I slipped away, I called out in a seemingly strange but rather helpful way.

If I could just hold the Puppies, I thought, then I could speak. They seemed so far away...at the back of the table, not at the edge where I had previously left them. "My baby has been asking about the Puppies", a safe thing to say, "You know she named them", I added as I reached for the little stuffed creatures and held them...and I was able to speak.

"I want to cut..."

"I feel trapped...like a child..."

Holding those little Puppies on my lap, I could say these words and save myself from the fear, pain and solitude of that place in my soul where I am lost and unreachable.

A Safe Place

I sat in his waiting area on the third floor of the old house looking out the large window and inhaling the comfortable smell of books and wood...I was safe. He was in his office with another client. I didn't see him, I didn't need to. I just needed to be under his wing...safe...like a father.

After spending the day fighting my husband for my physical and emotional space, I ran to a safe harbor - my therapist's office. Here my physical boundaries are always respected. The word no coming from my lips can stop a train in it's tracks. Here I have the freedom to be vulnerable, knowing that my words will never return to hurt me. Here no one will hold me against my will.

Yesterday, my husband and I were home alone for a considerable amount of time. We could no longer put off our tax preparations and decided to take advantage of the time off together to take care of this task. I don't know how to explain what it feels like to have someone physically touching you at almost every turn you take. He blocked every way that I needed to pass, so that I either had to try to push through him or give him a kiss in order to pass. He kissed me constantly...even as I pushed him away. He held me...even as I tried to pull myself free. As I looked for important papers, he placed himself between my work and me...always touching me...his face always too close to mine.

When I pushed him away and told him that I don't want to be with him or near him, he insisted that I do love him. In fact, he told me to make love with him. "Not in a million years", was my reply. He demanded kisses from me, forced his lips upon mine. This went on for hours.

I felt trapped. Is there no law against this?  I wondered.  How can this be allowed? If an adult does this to a child, it is child abuse. If a husband does this to his wife, it is...what? I wanted help from someone, because my voice alone had no power. A million times "STOP!" had no effect. A million times "Get off me!" had no meaning. Why was l living through this hell again? I am no longer a child, and he is not my stepfather, yet it felt painfully similar.

I wanted to call the police...or my mother...or anyone to make him stop. I found myself confused between the present and the past...feeling the same despair, yet aware that as an adult I am responsible for defending myself. After having spent the morning doing so, I felt exhausted and defeated. This was when I called my therapist and asked if I may come by and sit in a safe place.

To Cry in Poetry

In the past, I wrote poetry. I wrote in this form, because I could hide behind the rhyme. The meaning was always hidden. Anyone reading would have to interpret deeply in order to know what I was feeling.

When I was about thirteen, fourteen and fifteen, I hid in my room writing these coded verses...spilling my pain out in free-form stanzas. I cried in poetry. This was my world, and no one was invited.

Once again, I want to return there. Somehow the pain has to find its way through the fear and out into words. I long for the verses of my youth...telling the truth so frankly and completely to those who could break through the symbols.