I Stopped Reading After Newtown

When a friend texted me last night to share some information on the demographics of the victims of the recent Orlando night club shooting, I was amazed to find that I had known practically nothing about the details of this deadly tragedy. All I knew was that another motherfucker went crazy and shot a bunch of people in Orlando...again.

It's not that I don't care... I do. It's just that Newtown broke me. And it keeps breaking me. Every time another one of these shootings happens, I break again. I go back to Newtown, to twenty first graders and their valiant teachers, and wonder what in the world went wrong that these children weren't enough to change things in this nation.

So I had to stop reading and listening after Newtown. When I hear of another shooting, I find myself putting up my shield again...and thinking of the children...and breaking...and wondering what the fuck? I don't attack the web for details and information. Knowing everything doesn't change anything...at least not for me...not during these times. Sometimes I catch something on NPR, and I might let myself listen...a little...an interview with a mother...who is now broken...forever.

The gunman keeps winning.

Can I be Home Alone?

The kids will be at the beach with their father for the rest of the week. Towards the end of the school year, I expend much energy and focus on helping them wrap up their year as smoothly and stress-free as possible. I will be able to spend much needed time focusing on my needs and perhaps a little self-care.

...or so I thought. After seeing my therapist this afternoon, I treated myself to a fantastic dinner at a gem of a local restaurant which I had been wanting to try for quite some time (the chardonnay tasted exactly like an oak room!). It was after leaving the restaurant that it hit me that I did not want to go home...that I was afraid to go home. I was afraid of being home alone and being depressed and just spiraling down. I was paralyzed in my van...in a parking spot...on the street...in front of this restaurant.

I decided to email my therapist and then set my GPS for home. As I was waiting for his phone call, I drove following the directions from Ms. Google and not thinking that I was driving home. When I arrived, I went in the front door straight through the back door and sat in the back yard to write this post.

After talking with him, I knew that he was right. I am going to be OK. I have been in this place before, and I have risen from it. I am different now...stronger. I will not harm myself, and I will not sit paralyzed in a room thinking about it. I will do something good for me. In fact, I already did.

In the past, I have sat on the floor talking with my therapist on the telephone. He would urge me to go outside, to leave the house. At that time, I felt that nothing could be more terrifying. Today, I didn't even give myself the opportunity to go there. I went straight outside, picking up my laptop in stride, and wrote.

I'm going inside now, as confident in myself as my therapist said he was in me. I'll be OK. I can do this. I'll be OK.

Free Write

Today I'm writing just because I know it's good for me...like eating your vegetables (except writing tastes more like fruit). "I have nothing to write about", I thought...but I reminded myself that it just takes a few words to get me going...like the free-writes that my high school English teacher taught us to do.

I have two brutal shifts this weekend - two back-to-back 8AM to 8PM shifts at a store high in volume and low in staff help...and invariable someone always calls out. This is the kind of weekend that requires a lot of self care.

My discomfort started as I walked into the pharmacy yesterday and saw a box cutter that was careless tossed on the robot counter (yes, it counts drugs for us). It was  nobody's fault...busy store...no time to properly put things away...they don't have my problem...seeing a blade like that may not take them back to darker times of self-harm like it does me. I left it there and proceeded with my tasks of opening the pharmacy.

It bothered me the entire day, my mind flashing back and imagining the cutting. It was such an arduous day, I thought I could cut...but I didn't. I've come such a long way. I've been in this spot before, and the difference is that this time I knew that I wouldn't. At the end of the day, I went home, took a warm bath in chamomile-scented Epsom salts, took some ibuprofen for my swollen and aching body, read a book and got a good night's sleep.

...Self care.

You Don't Own Me

I sat with my therapist this morning just feeling sad...talking about my STBX and feeling sad, like I hadn't in months. Talking about the words he had texted me and feeling sad. Talking about his bold disrespect for my boundaries this morning, and just feeling sad...on the verge of tears.

But when I left his office, I wanted to write...but not at home. For the first time since I left my husband, I did not feel safe in my home...and it made me angry. It's not that I felt he would break in or anything, but I felt that he could come by and ring the bell and want to come in. I would not have to let him in, but I would have to deal with him emotionally. My writing would be interrupted and I may or may not be able to return my focus to where I had left off.

So I came to a coffee shop like I used to do when we were still together, and I wanted a private place to write. A place that he would not frequent and that is completely devoid of any reminders of him.

Sometimes it's like that. I simply need to erase him. It's like that now. His words were so vile that I just want to erase him and anything that reminds me of him from my memory. Why does he think he can still touch me? I want to spit flames from my body when he comes near me. I wish I had flames to burn him whenever he touches me.

There is nothing that I can say or do to make him understand that he doesn't own me, but I've been told this is not where I need to expend my energy. I need to continue to set up my wall...but it's fucking exhausting. I mean, how do you make a man understand that he cannot just touch you at will? At what point does a woman just file a restraining order?

You don't own me
I'm not just one of your many toys
From You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore

The Power of Words

Sometimes the power of words can linger even if I don't want it to. Sometimes, I remind myself over and over that there is no truth in those words...and I am fine, I am strong, I believe my truth.

Other times, the words sneak up on me, and I wonder which part of them may be true...the sharpness of their knife cutting me the way they were intended.

Say Thanks, and Write On!

Sometimes I don't write because I don't have the time or the energy (that happens a lot). Sometimes it's because I don't want to deal with what it is I need to write about. Other times I just don't want to remember. Today, I know it's not the first reason. Today I know I need to thank reasons two or three for their good work in trying to protect me, and I need to just write.

Recently, I have been basking in the pleasure of busy yet light and upbeat days. Meanwhile, I have been looking back on the shadow of my depression throughout the last Christmas season and feel like I have risen through that. In other words, I know that I am OK because I am far from feeling the way I felt then.

And then I started reading a memoir again...another story of abuse and courage. And I feel my mood is slipping. Cognitively, I think I should just stop reading this stuff...but emotionally, I feel like I want to remember. I read other people's stories in order to remember my own. But is it necessary? Do I need to remember everything? I don't know. I know that I don't want to fall back into depression again.

Closing Unit 927

What do you want from me when I just wanna restart
You keep coming back for me when you're the one who tore us apart
And the truth is I'm better on my own
And I'm the one to leave it apart
So let me restart

(from Restart, Sam Smith)

Today, I was finally ready to close Unit 927 and bring all my belongings home. I had originally planned to use it until I moved into my own space. It's been just over two years. At first, I kept it because the first house I moved into after leaving my husband was somewhat small, and I felt I still was not organized enough to find places for the items that were in the unit. That was true, but so was the fact that I just wasn't ready.

When I moved into my new bigger house last fall, I knew that there would be plenty of space for all our belongings and that I would truly be able to close the unit...but I still didn't. That was when I realized that I was simply holding on to that precious space, that first step into the fresh air that I so courageously took.

I still liked going in there and feeling bold and independent. Often, I went in to retrieve items in an effort to empty the space as gradually as I had filled it. Every month I went in to pay the bill in person, and I never again saw the kind woman who so empathically assisted me through the process of opening a storage unit. I understood that she was there precisely when I needed her.

Today, when I went in to retrieve the few remaining items and sweep the floor, I was so different from the day I first opened the door. In the past, I had been quiet and inconspicuous...afraid of being seen...afraid of being noticed. Today, I drove around openly. I left the music on in my van as I worked and was able to say goodbye and thank you to this almost sacred space to the tune of "Restart" and "Defying Gravity". I was happy, open and relaxed. There was no more fear.

Perhaps I am one who holds on too long and too tightly to things and places that must be released. I take my time...when I am ready...and I am now ready to emerge from the frightened fugitive into a courageous woman standing on her own two feet.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes... and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I am defying gravity
And you won't bring me down!

(from Defying Gravity, as performed by Lea Michele and Chris Colfer, Glee)

Reading Terror

I picked up Sue Silverman's book a few weeks ago...by "pick up" I mean started reading. This is her memoir, her ride on her own memory train of sexual abuse and survival. The title is Because I Remember Terror, Father I Remember You. I call it Terror for short.

You must know that I bought this book some years ago along with Fearless Confessions, her guide to writing memoir. I thought it would be helpful to read her memoir along with her writing guide, since she makes references to sections of her own book as examples.

I'm not sure what lead me to believe that I would be ready to read such a story at that particular time in my life. I'm not sure why I thought I was prepared to enter someone else's nightmare while I was still in the midst of my own. I realized that I wasn't when, after reading the Preface, I closed the book and didn't open it again until now. Shortly after I closed Terror, I also stopped reading the memoir writing guide.

I don't know what prompted me to find that book again a few weeks ago. It was a feeling, it was an urge that told me I must read the story. I must go back there. I must read her memories so that I could discover mine.

The book was buried in a box that was buried in a room that is buried in more boxes...but I went to it. I was drawn to this particular spot in this particular box as if by internal GPS. I retrieved it and began reading right away. One page at a time, I told myself...but before long, I found myself woven in the fabric of her horrific childhood.

As I read the details of her memories, I realized what my fear was. I feared remembering all my own details...and I feared not knowing all my own details. As I read Silverman's story, I became aware of how many details from my own past I do not remember. I remember feelings, both physical and emotional, but there are so many details that I don't remember...and that scares me...as much as it scares me to remember them.

I am afraid that I have purposely forgotten much of my childhood in order to protect myself. I am afraid to know what all the details were, but I am also afraid of going through life not knowing what the details were. But who remembers their entire childhood...good or bad?

I Know Why I Sleep on My Stomach

It was back to EMDR today. I had not gone there in so long that I had almost forgotten how to do it...but a session was necessary.

I started out with the image and the feeling of my STBX hugging me just to say hello or goodbye but then pressing his erection against me. An image, of course, leads to a memory and a memory leads to another. Inevitably, I ended up as a child in my bedroom trying to hide and protect myself from my stepfather. The memory was visceral, and I felt both fear and disgust like an electrical current all across the front of me including my genital area.

I know why I sleep on my stomach, I thought, and I was suddenly angry. Not at my stepfather or even STBX. I was angry at the chiropractor who made the recommendations that I recently read in an article online. It frowned upon stomach sleeping. The article itself was completely benign and intended to help people improve their posture and relieve neck and back pain. But during this morning's session, I remembered the article and I thought angrily, how dare you? How can you tell people not to sleep on their stomachs, if you don't know why they sleep on their stomachs in the first place?!

I know why I sleep on my stomach! I need to feel protected and safe! I need to cover myself...I need to keep my stepfather away. I thought he couldn't touch me if I was rolled over on my stomach...but he found me anyway...he touched me anyway, He always did. There was nothing that I could do to keep him away...NOTHING.

So during my session, he did find me, and he did come in, and he did touch me and roll me over. And during my session, I didn't want to know what he was doing...but now I know what he was doing. I just don't know if it's better to say or not say. There is nothing I can do about that scene anymore. I will never undo it. I can never even ask him why...what the fuck possessed him? He licked my genitals like I was his fucking tramp on the side. There, I said it, but I don't know if it's any better. But he acted like he was offering me some of the good things in life. He proceeded as though he were teaching me the facts of life. He was doing me a favor...enriching me. I was to see him as my teacher and not my abuser. I think I'm still confused.

Can you see why I didn't want my husband's face in my vagina?

From Me Time to Girl Time

The first time that I went out after separating form my husband was the time that I wrote the post In High Heels and Makeup and Mint Green . I had dressed to the nines and gone out alone to try out my new life and enjoy my own company. I had a fabulous evening.

Since that lovely night about a year and a half ago, I have enjoyed other similar outings, some less glamorous than others...all alone. Recently, I had begun to worry about myself. Was I enjoying my time alone so well that I was not making space for the company of friends? I truly felt like an evening out alone was just as enjoyable as being out with others...but still. Even I was beginning to feel that it was a little bit odd.

That changed this past weekend. Upon learning that I had a rare Friday night off work without the kids, a good friend of mine casually tossed that we should do something together. I thought about it, hesitated slightly before I tentatively offered that maybe we could go see a movie. It will probably not work out, I thought.

...but it did...and we went...and we had a fabulous night! Cocktails, dinner and a movie...the same night that I would have had alone, but there was something rich about sharing it with a girlfriend. There was something that told me that I was growing, making progress, that those baby steps were going somewhere.

The night that I set out in my high heels and makeup and mint green, I knew that it was my first step and that I would have to proceed one step at a time. I knew that it would take some time before I would be ready to share an evening with another adult...man or woman. I knew that I would first have to discover how I am alone. And then, I knew that my next step would be spending time with women. I think that's where I am now. It might be where I stay. I still feel like I will never trust a man again. I will always feel like his real beast will always emerge as soon as the novelty of the relationship wears off.

I'm OK with girls' night out forever.