Resting Pines

I checked myself into a psych hospital on December 13th and was discharged today - 21 days later.

Thinking

I can't help but wonder when I will wake up from this hellish nightmare. The days keep stacking up on top of me and there is no place safe for me to run to. It's just me. Friends I thought were friends really weren't friends at all.

Too many years of stuffing down my feelings has made me emotionally numb. Until today I didn't know what to call it - emotionally numb - it fits like a glove.

An excerpt from a Psych Central blog about Childhood Emotional Neglect:

7 Signs That You are Emotionally Numb (Jonice Webb PhD)

1. At times, you feel experience a physical sensation, especially in your belly, chest or throat (but can be anywhere in your body, of emptiness.
2. You sometimes watch yourself going through the motions in a situation, perhaps even when you know you should be feeling happy, sad, connected or angry. Yet you feel nothing.
3. You frequently question the meaning or purpose of your life.
4. You have suicidal thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere.
5. You are a thrill-seeker. Thrill-seeking is often an attempt to feel something.
6. You feel mystifyingly different from other people. The lack of connection to your feelings does set you apart. You may feel like other people are living a more vivid life than you are.
7. You often feel like you’re on the outside looking in. Your emotions should be connecting you to others, and instead, they are holding you separate.

FINALLY a person has summed up these things I have been thinking about for years.

Emotionally Numb. Feeling Nothing. Thinking Everything. Hating myself more and more every day.

Playing the victim? Nope. Everything, every decision, every act, every word belong to me and me alone. I blame ME, hands down. Did other people contribute to the hatred I have for myself? Only inasmuch I internalized everything going on around me. 

I am by far my worst enemy.

My stepmom likes to tell me to stop blaming my mother for everything wrong in my life. If it didn't piss me off so badly to hear her say that - it turns into something laughable later on - I would tell her this:

I don't blame my mother for ANYTHING wrong in my life. She's a lying whore and she didn't factor in my life at all because she wasn't around enough to bother with me. End of story.

My mother will spend the rest of her pathetic life knowing what my brothers did to me and because she refuses to believe it, she will NEVER have any sort of relationship with me. Ever.

I called her a few weeks ago to tell her what was going on with Matthew so she heard it from me first and not my pathetic siblings. She thought, at first, that it was a social call. "Oh, honey, it's SOOO GOOD to hear your voice! How are you doing?" I shut that shit down right quick.

Instead of hearing what I was saying to her she was asking me questions about my life. I kept steering her back to the topic at hand. I finally hung up on her. Fucking. Clueless. 

Decision

I have finally hit bottom. That's not true. I have been on the bottom for quite some time, I am just finally admitting it out loud.

I am going to go away for awhile.

Lifeless

Through this world

I walk alone

I have no love

I have no home.

What it was

Now what it isn't

There is no past

There is no present.

Suffocating in the sun

Dying now

Can't be undone

You will never know.

Tainted

A dear friend of mine is bubbling with excitement as her son and daughter-in-law are expecting their first baby - and her first grandbaby.

While I told her it was such a surreal experience, I couldn't tell her about the first time I saw Matthew hold Xavier and how happy he seemed. I couldn't tell her about the first photograph I captured of father and son. I couldn't tell her that Matthew stayed home with Xavier for almost his first 6 months and how proud I was to see him embrace fatherhood with such gusto. I couldn't tell her that Xavier was head-over-heels crazy about his Daddy and how much fun they had together.

Nor could I tell her about all of the photographs I have of Matthew and Xavier and how I can no longer look at them without feeling sick and angry. So, SO angry. 

All the wonderful memories I have of Xavier and Matthew together has been decimated by Matthew's actions. All of my memories of Matthew are just as pulverized. 

Everything about my life is one enormous lie. 

Just like I am not good enough for anybody else, I am no longer good enough for me. I have NEVER been good enough and I cannot stand just existing in this world any longer.

Plans

Matthew is, for now, sending emails to me. We've decided not to discuss my "conspiring" against him, which is absurd to even think I was against him. 

This year has taken a lot out of me: physically, mentally, emotionally. I feel like a ragdoll the dog's been constantly chewing on and finally spat out.

I have purposely distanced myself from my dad. Not because there is anything wrong, because it has been so gut wrenching to witness his declining health. He is 79 years old and I know that eventually he will die and, as ludicrous as it sounds, if I push him away now it will hurt less later. Which is utter bullshit because I'm really not fooling anyone with this method.

I feel as though I'm at a crossroads in my life and I don't know what to do. I know I should just accept that having a relationship, even remotely resembling a marriage, with Henry will never happen and that I should just get over it and move on. I also know I must accept that Hunter and Connor will never need me in their lives and I must also move on.

I will never have a relationship with my mother. Ever.

After not speaking to her for 3 years or so I called her recently to tell her about Matthew. "Oh, honey! It's so good to hear your voice!", she exclaimed. "Ummm this isn't a social call", I mumbled into the receiver. "Oh, honey! How are you doing?", she asked. "I called you for a reason!", I snapped back.

In the midst of telling her about Matthew, the evil little bitch in me asked her what she would say if Xavier walked up to her one day and said, "My daddy made me suck his penis before I could go outside", would you believe him? Those words were still hanging in the air when I told her not to answer that question. Just think about that for awhile. What would you do?

Silence.

Brazenly I told her about specific things my brothers did to me. 

Dead. Air.

I hung up the phone.

Drop dead, mommy dearest. Please. Just. Drop. Dead.

That would be one funeral I would NEVER attend. Well...maybe. I was kicked out of Tim's funeral for no reason whatsoever. I would experience way too much pleasure in giving the family damn good reasons for kicking me out. I'm pretty certain the cops would be involved - yet I wouldn't be the one wearing handcuffs!

Reflections

In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. After that, all bets were off because people lost their fucking minds.

I have very few memories of my mother before the age of 10. It was that summer when she told me she was taking my sister and me away from my dad because she was divorcing him. I didn't question anything about her at that time. I thought the things she told me about my dad were true because I had nothing with which to disprove her incessant ramblings about what a bastard my father was. I had already been fighting for my own survival for more than five years and what she was doing to our family didn't register because I was already living in my own hell, all she did was change the location.

Before my mom left with Penny and me, my dad worked long hours and would sometimes be gone for days. He went wherever there was construction to support his family while my mom stayed at home. Except she didn't stay at home. I can remember getting off the school bus and running up the long driveway to...nothing. I have no memories of her being there to greet us. She wasn't a milk and cookies kind of mom. I remember almost nothing about her, only little snippets.

I remember being taken from my bed by the eldest brother and put in a dark closet so he could get a blowjob. The carpeting was black and felt like steel wool under me. I remember the second eldest brother taking me into the bathroom for the very same reason. Except he took it further by taking me into our parent's bathroom and forcing me to shove a tampon into my vagina. The carpet was pale blue and felt soft like cotton under me. I remember the third eldest brother dragging me into his bed to hump up against me. The abuse by all three brothers continued for years and before I turned nine. The second eldest boy also physically and verbally abused me all through junior high and high school. The third eldest had sex with me when I was 11 or 12 years old. Then it stopped.

No, it really didn't.

The brothers had friends and many sexually abused me too. My mom's boyfriend made a few unsuccessful attempts with me, yet his adult son raped me when I was around 15 years old. I felt like a prostitute that worked for free.

I grew up with an extremely warped sense that all of this was normal and, because of that, was reflected in all the relationships I had as an adult.

Many girls dream about falling in love, getting married and having babies I, however, was not one of them.

I was hyperfocused on getting away from all the people who hurt me yet I couldn't run fast enough or far enough to break free of my past.  I spent so much energy and time in bad relationships/marriages that it took years to find my center. I had no idea what a healthy marriage/relationship was, except for my paternal grandparents, and it was something I would have to figure out on my own.

Everything about me and my life changed on May 12, 1999 -- when Henry walked through my door. EVERYTHING.

Restless

Slowly consuming me

I fight to remember

All the reasons

Why I should stay

I find none

Distancing myself

From people and things

That I can't hold onto

For more than a minute 

I can't breathe

Closing my eyes

My brain screams

For what I can't have

To hold me together

My heart stops

Listen closely

To what I can't say

Because you will

Always remember

The silence

Before I slip away

A last look around

The nothingness

I fell into

Without you

I tried not to

Love you and

I tried to

Let you go

I couldn't

Pushing you away

Brought you closer

To the edge

On the other side

Of my life

Reaching for you

Everything in me

Fell away

While the walls grew

Too tall to leap over

Hold out your

Hand to me

Together

We can jump

Into the abyss

Home

Kissing

Mouths

Passionately

Open

Firm

Hands

Pulling

Holding

Entangled

Bodies

Thrusting

Deeply

Rooted

Mine Rides

You will never be

Where I am in my head

Right now because

I didn't walk away from

Nor did I give up on

You.