Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget...truly, I forget. This happens when I am talking or writing...when I am on the verge of speaking or writing something painful or otherwise difficult. When I finally organize my thoughts and build up the courage enough to expose my pain, my thought swiftly disappears. I can almost see and feel it drifting away from me...leaving my mind like a beautiful soul would leave a dead body. I am left alone and bewildered, knowing that seconds ago the memory was mine to reveal. I appear to be lost in thought, but really I am grasping the empty air for that lost idea. "How is it possible?", I think, "that I cannot retrieve the words that were so ready to flow just seconds ago?"

When this happens, I feel robbed and, yes, crazy. I know that the more I try to retrieve the words, the more my mind will shut down and refuse to yield, so I have to leave it alone. I sit silently with my therapist, or I close my blog post and leave it as a draft, hoping one day the memories will feel safe enough to emerge out of dark silence.

Does anything like this ever happen to anybody else? I would love to know how others handle this kind of phenomenon. I imagine it is some kind of protective or coping mechanism. I know that stress can affect memory, and I have certainly been experiencing this lapse more frequently of late. Still, it makes me feel crazy, and I would hate feel like I am the only one on this bus.

How Do You Get to Heaven?

Save me from this prison
Lord help me get away
'Cause only you can save me now
From this misery
'Cause I've been lost in my own place
And I'm gettin' weary
How far is heaven?
And I know I need to change
My ways of livin'
How far is heaven, Lord can you tell me?

Tu que estas en alto cielo,
Echame tu bendiciòn
 

(from Heaven, Los Lonely Boys)

 

"How do you get to Heaven?", inquired my six-year-old, "Like which part of you goes?"

"Your soul", replied her ten year old sister confidently, as if she had learned all that along with her mathematics and spelling words.

I fail to grasp how they can intrinsically understand such an abstract concept, yet I cannot explain to them how the amount of hurt that their father has caused me precludes me from ever loving him again. Yes, it means that I have to leave him. I can no longer live with him. This life is now a lie, and one can only live a lie for so long before one dies. How do I explain to them that I need to live the truth, and that does not include him by my side?

"I don't want you or Daddy to leave. I don't want anybody to leave. I'm afraid you guys are going to get a divorce", my ten-year-old told me as we finished our run yesterday. "Mommy and Daddy both love you" and "None of this is your fault" can only go so far. How do I explain a truth that she is entirely too young to hear?

His Help

I apologize to those who have left comments to which I have not been able to respond. I have had a difficult past few days and have had to kind of "check out" for a little while. I will be back.

I kept my appointment with the lawyer yesterday...and that was monumental. Although from the outside it may seem obvious that if you are seeking a divorce seeing lawyer would be a positive step to which you look forward, for me that step has been accompanied by complicated emotions and conflicting actions and attitudes. This past weekend was particularly turbulent for me, culminating in a Monday morning that almost brought me to my knees. Self-hatred and self-punishment were at a high, paralyzing me from accomplishing any preparations required for my afternoon meeting.

After communicating my state of mind to my therapist, he called me to see him for a short while before my appointment with the lawyer. For this I was grateful. For this I got up from the floor and left my blade, showered and became presentable and dared to drive away form my dark house into the uncertainty and the fear of the day that awaited me.

In an email that morning, I had asked for his help in being strong...in not harming myself. When I walked into his office, he was prepared with help but in a manner that was completely unexpected for me. He asked me to pull up my sleeve and offer him my wrist...I balked.

"No", I said and turned away from him.

"Yes, Rising!", he replied in a loud and firm voice...sounding exactly like my husband. I couldn't believe it! I hardly recognized him. He was insisting, like my husband...the way he insists on doing things that I do not feel comfortable with. The way he insists that I kiss him even when I don't want to, the way he insists that I lie back against him or that I hug him.

I took some time to grasp reality, and then I heard him asking for my trust...asking, not demanding.

"Please trust me on this", he said. As I became aware that he was not my husband, I remembered that I had asked for his help...and he was offering it. I turned around, rolled up my sleeve and allowed him to help me.

Afterwards, he prayed with me. Although my therapist is an ordained minister, in over ten years that I have known him, we have never prayed together. I was deeply touched.

I never told him that during my drive to his office that morning, I came to the conclusion that the only thing that could help me would be prayer...and that I would ask him if he would pray with me.

"Indeed there is a God!", I thought when he extended this beautiful and touching gesture. How could he have known that it was exactly what I needed?

I Can't Cut

I CAN'T CUT!!!

...because in just a few weeks, I will be chaperoning an out of state field trip with my daughter. My cuts don't heal that fast, and the scars tend to linger. I have considered cutting more concealed areas, but the sensation just would not be the same. I like to cut my wrists. I want to cut my wrists.

I want to numb myself. I want to forget that today I see the lawyer. I want to forget every word that he said to me yesterday...every "I love you" and "I need you". I want to go numb, because right now, I am doubled over in pain

...and I don't want to feel. The blade is my drug. I crave it...want it...need it. I imagine myself high on the sting of a slice...and then another...and another. I want to be oblivious to the world that is around me and the mess that is my life.

Why I Write

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to.

(from Breathe, Anna Nalick)

This is why I write. Sometimes I don't know what I want to write about, just that there is something inside of me that must come out. There is a valve that needs releasing. There is a river that needs to flow. There is a scream inside my throat.

Today is one of those days...actually the past few days have been this way. I keep starting posts that don't know which way to flow, so I leave them...because why force it? But still, I feel that inner voice crying to be released. I am intranquil, trapped inside my own mind and my own emotions. I fall deeper, feeling like my cry for help cannot be heard.

The writing is my voice. The "Publish" button is my speaker, augmenting what I have to say and spreading it out to all who will listen. It is the rope that I use to reach out, spreading the circle of help large and wide.

When I write, the dragons are no longer inside of me. They are spelled out clearly for me to analyze and tame. Sometimes the writing is brutal and somewhat hard to take. Those days, the writing is simply the raft that keeps me from perishing in the violent rapids of my emotions and my memories. I write for survival.

Sometimes I cry out when I write. I am sinking so deep that I fear not being able to pull myself out. I may just want to talk, but at 2 AM there is no one to talk to...so I write.

I Will not Sleep

I am afraid to lie down again...afraid of the flashbacks again. I am not sleeping in the nightgown tonight, yet I am still afraid. I started to write about the nightgown but stopped when I reached the flashback. I could not bring myself to write about it.

"Just turn out the lights and go to sleep!", I tell myself, but I simply will not do it. I know that when I do lie down, I will cross my arms over my chest and pat my shoulders...protecting and comforting. Still, I am frightened of that terrible moment when I feel small, vulnerable and oppressed.

Uggghh! I remember him on me...slipping under my nightgown...and his semen...his sticky disgusting semen...always on me...smelling of dirty man.

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.