Pandora's Box - Fear

My therapist has asked me to write about one of the emotions that has been holding me back. I fear that if I dig deeper I will find that I'm an imposter and that I'm really not bipolar. That I'm making things up.

I know I'm broken, but I fear that I will find that I'm more broken than I expected. That no one will ever see past my brokenness to love me.

I fear I will always be alone. Alone like when I was pregnant and fell violently ill. When I told my son's father that I was pregnant, he never touched me again. Not so much as a hug. 

Women's bodies are strong, but pregnancy is so mysterious and confusing. You inhabit a body that becomes quite foreign. There were times I thought I was miscarrying because I had no idea what was supposed to be normal. I needed someone to hold my hand, even if I wasn't going to be alright. I wanted someone to hold me. 

I was so lonely, sick, and frightened.

I had to drive myself to the ER three separate times because I was so violently ill. My ex couldn't be bothered to drive me. 

The first time I was admitted to the ER, a tube was shoved down my throat and the vacuum switch thrown. The nurse left the room. I was alone watching the blood that had pooled in my stomach come flying out into a container on the wall. The machine should have been switched off after 2 or 3 minutes, but the clock in front of me showed each painful minute that went by. When the nurse finally came back in 10 minutes later, I was hysterical. She offered me a sedative but I refused it afraid that I'd caused so much damage to my unborn child, he probably couldn't stand the extra stress on his system.


I was sent to the high risk maternity ward where I promptly forgotten. No breakfast or lunch was delivered to me because no one remembered I was there. No one remembered me. The buzzer was broken so I stumbled down the hall, dragging a long empty IV bag behind me. The doctor didn't come until the evening of the second day because no one had told him I had been admitted.

In those three days I was in the hospital my son's father visited me once for an hour before stealing a box of gloves so he could paint his model figurines.

I had the love and comfort of friends and family at that time, like I do now. But you can't curl up at night in your friend's bed. And I stopped seeking refuge from nightmares in my parent's bed by the time I was 7.

Jeremiah's first Christmas. All six pounds of him.

I want someone to love me, someone who wouldn't be repelled at hearing the words, "I'm pregnant." Someone to talk with, to laugh with me and at me. To argue with. Someone to say, "I love you and I want to be with you."

But I fear that I will never hear those words. I am afraid that my illness will prevent anyone from ever loving me.

I was robbed of a happy pregnancy. Yes, I was fortunate to have a great joy once my son was born. My life was forever changed. But that vast loneliness was so painful.

It sounds strange and a bit perverse, but on some level  my ex's repulsion of me was more painful than my rapist's obsession with me. At least he had the courtesy to stalk me for 4 years.
I fear that I will always be alone.
My fear isn't irrational. I was left alone once. I fear I will be left alone forever because I'm not fixed. 

Sending the Enemy Within, Out

Over the past two days I have worked out a lot of stuff with my therapist. I cried a lot in session yesterday, sobbed myself to sleep, and proceeded to cry a lot in session today. I'll probably cry a bit more tonight, but it's a good thing.

What I've been working on is this: For years, more than I can count, I have viewed myself as a burden to others. I have convinced myself that friends, family merely tolerate my presence because I believe that I bring so little into their lives.

Time to move out, Dwight.

I have always felt like I've been in debt, that in the balance of life I was severely in the negative. To most everyone. Not that anyone has ever told me I'm in their debt. It's my messed up head telling me that I will never be able to help out as much as others have helped me.

Up until about 5 this afternoon, I had convinced myself that in the race of life all my friends were winners, with their happy families, steady incomes, settled emotional issues, and me, well I was the big loser.

But I found peace today, as I sat in a stuffy room pretzeled up on a chair that was probably swiped from the waiting room of Purgatory.

There's no monetary measurement in friendship. And with my shrink's help, I have realized that I do bring some good things into others lives.

Making a SNAP Decision

My shrinky-dink says that I needed to write out my (numerous) problems because as a writer, I process things once they are written down. I have difficultly judging things that are free floating in my head. This is what came out last night. I put my thoughts out into an open forum where anyone can read because I believe that a burden shared is a burden halved. Even if no one really comes to read this.

It's 11:45pm and I'm writing. I should be in bed, but I've put this off all day as I didn't want Jeremiah to see me upset should I lose control of my emotions. Here's what today looked like: I fixed three meals and washed up after those meals. I folded a load of laundry, did some school work with The Kiddo without him devolving into self-injuring because of an incorrect answer, took him to the park to run out all his pent up nervous energy, and then got him an Epson salt bath so he could detox from the meds he is on. 

In addition, I wrote a letter to his father.

It took me four hours, sometimes I was interrupted by Jeremiah and sometimes I surfed around on Facebook and Buzzfeed because I needed a break from what I was doing.

I was having to swallow my pride and ask Jeremiah's absent father if he could "out of the goodness of his heart" do something extra to help out with expenses. I'm embarrassed because I recall a person telling me, "You really should not be dependent on him or child support. You should be making enough to take care of yourself. You chose this life, not him."

Also yesterday, I started an application for food stamps. And I am filled with so much shame. "[It's pathetic] that you are living on handouts and food stamps."

Have you any idea how degraded I feel? I am doing my best to take care of my son, a child that I never expected, was scared to have, was afraid that I couldn't love. A child that has turned my life around.

Jeremiah is a child with special needs. No, he's not in a wheelchair or is undergoing horrible rounds of chemo. He has an invisible illness. No one sees him freaking out when I move the dish drain to the opposite side of the sink. No one sees him screaming when he encounters bugs or his inability to vacuum because the loud noise hurts him.

He is a child that is constantly worried, no matter how much I try to calm his fears. He always announces when he goes to the bathroom, can hardly stand to have me out of his sight, who tonight worried that he had committed a mortal sin. He still won't tell me what it is that makes him think that because "it's stupid and embarrassing and I don't know how to say it and never mind I'm just a stupid idiot."  This coming from a child that can give you an accurate synopsis of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Winter's Tale.

This is not a child that I can toss into school for 8 hrs a day while I work 40 hrs. Sure, I would be making more than enough money to pay all the bills, but at what cost? Him being bullied about his bug problems? When a friend babysat him last summer while the cicadas were out, a girl his own age threw dead cicadas at him for an hour. When I picked him up, he was twitching and stuttering. He said he wanted to punch her but knew that you can't hit girls and he was too scared to tell the adults in charge because "sometimes they yell at their kids and I don't want them to yell at me."

Maybe I should let him punch himself in the face every time he messes up a workbook problem while I photocopy memos. His OCD demands that he do everything perfectly the first time around. He has trouble making simple decisions, like what he should eat for breakfast, because he's "afraid of making a mistake."

So I try to work from home or pick up odd jobs. I probably spend 75% of the day worrying how much money is in my account, but I can take solace knowing that Jeremiah is in a safer environment.

So I have to sacrifice my pride and deal with some extra anxiety to take care of my son. Isn't that what parenthood is about? I do my best to keep him out from knowing about our money issues.

I know as I write this I am saying it for my benefit alone, that I am trying to reassure myself that I am making  the right decision. So why does it still hurt?
 
Why do I feel so much shame, disapproval, and judgements when news reports showcase people like California surfer and aspiring musician Jason Greenslate. Greenslate, drives an Escalade and frequents strip clubs, shows how he supports his beach-bum lifestyle with food stamps, while dismissing the idea of holding down a regular, steady job. I know I'm not that person.

Media Matters reports:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, the fraud and waste rate in SNAP is roughly 1 percent, contrary to recent Fox claims that the program is rife with fraud.

Unlike Greenslate, 41 percent of food stamp recipients live "in a household with earnings," and use SNAP benefits to supplement their primary source of income. Furthermore, the USDA reports that most food stamp recipients stay in the program for only a short period of time:

Half of all new SNAP participants received benefits for 10 months or less in the mid 2000s, up from 8 months in the early 2000s. Single parent families and elderly individuals tended to stay in the program longer than did working poor individuals, childless adults without disabilities, and non-citizens. Seventy-four percent of new participants left the program within two years. This is an increase from 71 percent in the early 1990s.

I work. I pay taxes. But why do I still feel like a failure in my own eyes?

It's 1:15am and I'm exhausted.

This fucking sucks. 

Humbled

My phone has been crashing a lot, due to the fact that there is little to none internal storage and I don't feel like hacking the internal memory space to flip files over to the external storage as my phone JUST NOW started reciving and sending picture messages. I'm certain one thing has nothing to do with the other, but it'd be just my luck.

So in order to free up memory space, I un-synced one of my email accounts.  It's usually just filled up with spam so I look at it infrequently.

And I noticed today that 6 days ago a wonderful person dropped $100 in my PayPal account. 

And I feel LIKE THE BIGGEST ASSHOLE AROUND!

I've chatted with her, bitched about my life, and not once did she say, "Uhhhhh, why don't you STFU?"

For this I'm so sorry.  And humbled.  And touched. 

I am so grateful and blessed to have people in my life who help me out when things look bleak to me.

Today. It Sucked.

     "I see you like to color coordinate.  Does the carpet match the drapes?"


   "I like when women say whatever they want.  I might be married but I enjoy 'interesting" conversations."

  "Caroline, LinkedIn thinks you should connect with X (your rapist).

The P in PTSD is post.  As in after.  There is no time limit to how far removed this post situation might be.  It could be 14 years later when a deep-seated fear and hatred is triggered.

You don't expect an inappropriate remark to detonate a well of emotions that leaves you silently crying for 2 hours while you drive up and down I-95, while your child plays Angry Birds, fortunately unaware of the crazy train sitting in the driver's seat.

I don't put much effort into my looks.  Besides coloring my hair blue (which I realized today is nothing but an attempted security blanket), I don't style it very often.  I rarely wear make-up.  Now that the weather is warmer, I'm wearing long, flowy skirts that aren't all that flattering, but I feel comfortable in.

I don't set out with the intent on appearing like I'm sex on a stick.  I don't bathe in milk and honey.  I don't roll in pheromones.  At this point I would be a better spokesperson for The Cheesecake Factory than Abercrombie & Fitch.

Yet, I wind up in situations where complete strangers say the most inappropriate things to me.  And it terrifies me.  It makes me so angry and sad.  Like the only thing this person sees before them is a sexual object.

Once, I was nothing but a sexual object for someone, for 5 miserable months.  "You're incapable of having an intelligent conversation with me, but your body makes up for it."

I've admitted previously that I struggle with self-harm.  One of the reasons why self-harming is such a struggle for me to stop is because I secretly believe that the cuts, welts, and scars will be such a turn-off that if a person is really interested in me, it will be because of my sense of humor, my intelligence, or my inability to laugh silently.

For the love of God, I don't want strangers to assume that I'm comfortable with sexual innuendo because my bra cup overfloweth.

I'm so scared and so low right now that if acid were splashed in my face right now I'd probably be happy.  I feel like I'm 18 all over again, trying to believe that I am more than a hole for someone to fuck.  

I'm trying to tell myself that I'm not a bad person, that I wasn't asking for it then as much as I wasn't asking for it today.  And it's really hard to listen to it.

I can't get a hold of my therapist, so writing it out will have to do.  I haven't hurt myself in the last 2 hours, yea, so there's a win I suppose.

It's gotta be better tomorrow.  Or at least I'll fake it.  My little karate kid is going to test for his yellow belt and mommy's anxieties don't need to overshadow his big day. 

Off to the races

My mind is racing. My heart beat is Mach 5. Rotten dreams stirred up fears and emotions that I long ago processed.

I want to run until I'm tired. I want some sort of physical activity to break the chain of thoughts.

I'm supposed to be heading to Mass, where in the still and quiet, I should be able to speak to God from the depths of my soul. But I'm afraid I'll sob in front of my child.

A child who doesn't need to know the pain running around in my head. This is the time when it gets dangerous for me. I want to hurt myself, just to let my brain find some other source of pain to cling to.
My shrink tells me to write it out when I get like this. That bringing this insanity out of my head and on to paper for others to see will help. That bringing this shame out of the dark and into The Light will give me more control. That sharing this secret might help me conquer this silent shame.

For almost 20 years I've subjected myself to pain that has left my body riddled with scars. It's time for me to face this, grab this demon by the hand, and force him to march alongside me. So I can show this demon that he can't hide inside my head any more. That others know about my secret.

And that I'm going to fight this out instead of hiding and hurting.

*Whovians will understand this reference. A friend sent it to me. Seems there is a Doctor reference for everything in life.

If Wishes Were Horses

Tonight I would give my left foot just for someone to hold and hug me while I cry.
I haven't slept well in days.
Stress has piled up: money issues, car accident problems, trolls and high school drama, doctors bills, health concerns, not making a sale at work yet, Jeremiah's schooling.
I know I have some wonderful friends and I am truly grateful.
But tonight I'm tired of having to depends on myself. And I'm tired that there's no one here to share the burden with me.
I hate being alone in this bed tonight.

I Will Not Break

Disclaimer for trolls reading this post: 

My writings tonight are not

 (nor have ever been) a cry for pity or sympathy.  

It's just me talking about how my fucked up head 

deals with stuff that happens in my life. 

 That's how I've always intended this blog to be.

I started hurting myself again tonight.

I lost two friends in the matter of 3 days.

I was publicly stomped on by a troll, but when I dared to defend myself, my now use to be friends advised me to stop writing for the public to read, that I should take down everything I've ever written about my ex.

Yesterday I was numb, today I was beating myself up.  Could there be things so awful that I had written that I don't recall?  Am I really so angry that I fail to realize that everything I write is about him?

So tonight as I realized I needed to write out my pain, rather than try to bleed it out of myself, I dove head first into the search engine on my blog.  I needed to see how many times I had allegedly  "misrepresented (my) ex-fiance."

You know how many times I made barest mention of my ex?  3 times.  In the span of 186 posts.

• engaged and ditched at the alter,
• I'm doing TONS better about the whole ex-fiance thing.  It's not like ending a relationship with a boyfriend, for heavens sake, I was ready to pledge my live to him!
• I hate that when my fiancee dumped me at the alter, claiming that I was not trustworthy and would probably have an affair, still angers me.  He came from a broken family, which saddens my heart.  He had problems that he was unable to see, but I still loved that foolish boy.  I know that I would not make the same mistakes and get involved with someone so damaged, but I am still afraid of trusting someone again.

For the love of cookie dough, I didn't even devote an entire post to him!  These are the only things I've publicly shared.

I'm not a bad person.  Looking at it now, I don't think I'm that angry about that relationship either.  If I were, shouldn't more of my writings be devoted to my angst/torch bearing to my ex, as I was accused by the troll.

I'm sad all this unnecessary drama has been stirred up.  I'm sad that a poisonous troll had such power over friends who have known me for over 13 years. 

I'm sorry that my words, spoken in confidence, where used against me.

So no, I won't stop writing.  I won't make my writings private.  Because I said nothing wrong in the first place.

Now I just need to convince my brain to let go of the hurt so I can stop the bleeding on my skin.