Life, how fragile a thing
Disease it gnaws at innocence
Lost
All too fragile
Ever too frail
Sitting on the edge of a precarious wing
Love and longing
Pages are burning
Of a book that has yet to be written
Sweetness taken
Our souls forbidden
To hold e’er near
The ones we hold dear

Revelations and reflections

Feeling quite introspective tonight. Had therapy earlier. I always have a hard time sleeping after therapy. I feel like I just have too much on my mind to go to sleep.

I’m having some revelations about my past. About my traumas, about my family, about my life… Realizing that perhaps my parents aren’t to blame in quite the same way I thought they were. Nothing is really that simple is it.

I was so naive. I was so young. I didn’t realize the things that were being done to me. I didn’t know they were bad, that they weren’t okay. All I knew is that something was wrong. And no one else seemed to notice. I have to stop blaming everyone else. Did people abuse me and take advantage of me? Yes. Are my parents completely to blame? Perhaps partly. But they didn’t know. They weren’t the ones abusing me. They knew I was having a hard time. They didn’t know why.

What do I do with all this? I want to climb a mountain and scream. Scream what? I don’t even know. But something.

All I’ve wanted my whole life is to be understood. I’ve never felt that anyone did understand me. Or at least not in the way I wanted to be understood… Perhaps I’m starting to feel this even just the smallest bit with my therapist. That perhaps someone finally understands. Or at least wants to understand. Is willing to hear my side of the story. To listen. Because that’s what’s truly important isn’t it? For someone to hear your side of the story? To not judge you. To not make assumptions. To still care about you despite all the shit you’ve told them about yourself?

I wish it were raining right now. That would fit just about right with how I’m feeling. Rain holds so many important symbols for me. And yet I live somewhere where it hardly ever rains. Go figure…

I’ve always made everything about everyone else. Why have I done that? When the reality is that it was never about anyone else. Ever. What do I do with that information?

God I wish it was raining. And I wish I had more wine. That would work out well just about now. I also wish I could put the world on hold for a little while while I try to process all of this.

Nobody is to blame.

My life is my life, no one else’s. And my life is sacred. I just wish someone could look into my mind once in a while. Then perhaps they could really understand. Because without being you, how can anyone ever really understand?

I’m feeling alone I suppose. But not in the catastrophic way that it usually is when I feel alone. This feels… quieter somehow. But also more tragic.

I long for so many things. So many that I know I don’t even know them all. I long for peace. I long for understanding. I long for restfulness, something I’m not sure I’ve ever truly experienced.

Sadness

Sadness hangs from me like overripe fruit from a tree. Why must we lose people. Thus leads to the question: what’s the point of it all anyway; if we lose everyone in the end, including ourselves, then what could possibly be the point.

Sadness. It overwhelms. I feel as though I’ve met my quota of loss for one life. I cannot possibly handle any more. And yet, according to statistics, I have over half (or possibly even two thirds) of my life ahead of me. Future loss of close individuals is inevitable. And yet, it feels overwhelmingly intolerable. I cannot lose another soul who I care about. Does this make me weak? Overly sensitive? Human?

Perhaps my heart is too fragile. More fragile than most?

Sadness. Runs down my sides like water from a beautiful fountain. And yet I’m not beautiful am I. And neither is my sadness. Cruel, perhaps. But not beautiful. And me? Just another casualty of an over-hardened world.

Please accept my apologies: I’m feeling a bit overly sensitive tonight. And, as if it weren’t glaringly obvious, weighed down with sadness.

Lonely Wednesday

Today I am feeling overcome with loneliness. I’m also having paranoid thinking that everyone who normally reads my blog (with the exception of one or two) has drifted off with the wind. That I have lost them somehow. This is probably not the case, but it’s something I am so fearful of happening that sometimes the fear bleeds over and threatens to make itself seem like a reality. Perhaps my regular commenters are just taking a little respite from reading?

Why does this idea scare me so. To lose my readers. I don’t know. And yet the idea absolutely terrifies me. Almost as though this is the only thing I have left, and if I lose this, I lose everything. Why should it matter though is what I’m wondering. Perhaps it’s days like today where I’m feeling particularly alone and vulnerable is when I feel I need my close-knit little support group near, cheering me on. And even saying this sends huge waves of guilt through me, because, how dare I want anything from anyone. How totally and completely selfish of me.

Ugh. So yeah. My mind today is presenting me with all sorts of fun challenges as you can see.

I think I’m having a day where I’m just feeling a huge sense of loss for all the people I have lost in the last few years, and it feels like quite a few. Several of those being people I could, at one time, call my closest friends. How is it that one’s closest friends can just up and leave. Fade. Vanish. Walk away and never look back. I don’t understand.

The pain in my heart of these losses is enormous. It makes me want to cling to the small handful of people I have left. And then I wonder how confident I can be that these people won’t slowly drift away either. Because that’s what people seem to do isn’t it.

Don’t mind me, my mind is just having one of its very sad and heavy days.

A fall-apart night

Yesterday was, what should I say… intense? I was tired, I was moody, the heat wasn’t helping. Also what didn’t help was going clothes shopping. Some people might enjoy clothes shopping. I enjoy the end result, but the whole process to me is just awful. Having to browse through the racks, all the people also browsing through the racks, trying to avoid eye contact, waiting for the dressing room, the dressing room itself, having to assess whether an item of clothing looks good on oneself… I was already in a triggered state when we left to go shopping, and the shopping only made it worse. By the time I got home, I was tired and hot and extremely moody.

The party was fine, although when we left I could tell something was wrong with myself/inner world, I just couldn’t figure out what. Anger was pushing up from inside but I couldn’t tell what was prompting it or where it was coming from. Screaming voices inside… Once home, I then got triggered when my partner turned off the fan and I asked her to please turn it back on. She said, “well, why don’t you take your long-sleeve shirt off first. Maybe you wouldn’t feel so warm then.” This triggered off inside the equivalent to world war III. Intense switching, then everything being stuck inside and body is paralyzed, then fuming anger, and then finally falling asleep in the living room on the couch. My parter came out and woke me up, at which point (and this is where things feel foggy and uncertain), I cried and sobbed for what felt like a long time. It was a bizarre experience though, because “I” didn’t feel sad, yet I was watching myself crying and sobbing. I also heard myself say, “My body was never mine,” and “I don’t even know what it’s like to have my own body.” Quite honestly, I’m not exactly sure why I was saying that or what I was referring to, although I imagine something related to the abuse. I know that I was in an extremely dissociated state. Not really sure if it was “me” talking or another part of me.

And then quite suddenly, almost like a genie being sucked back into a bottle, all the sadness and grief (?) got sucked back inside my body, I felt like I was back to myself (rather than watching myself), and I could quite literally feel the physical weight and pressure of the sadness and grief pushing up inside my body. I no longer felt the sadness as sadness (even though I’m inclined to say I never “felt” the sadness at all), I felt it only as an intense anxiety. The sadness and grief that had been pouring out of me with tears and sobs virtually disappeared in the matter of a few seconds, and I was back to being my typical numb and shut down self.

By this time, it must have been well past 2am, although I don’t remember looking at a clock through any of this, and finally we came back to bed and I fell asleep in my partners arms. Upon waking this morning, screaming, angry voices in my head. A typical start to a typical day I suppose.

I just wonder, if I could feel all those feelings of grief and sadness, without feeling the need to shove it all back inside like what happened last night (even though it felt like an unconscious process much more than a conscious process), I’m wondering if I would then heal? That the key to my healing is feeling the pain and sadness and grief from the betrayals of my childhood, both physical and emotional? Do I actually have to “remember the trauma” in order to heal? Or perhaps simply feeling the feelings and releasing them will release their hold on me? I really don’t know. What I do know is that I feel no better as a result of my hours of crying last night. In fact, it didn’t even feel like “me” who was crying, and perhaps it wasn’t. Where does that leave me then…?

I guess I am left with myself. The numb, emotionally shut down self. The functional yet dead-inside self. The fake, the phony, the fraud, the lie. The mask, the pacifier, the pleaser, the chameleon. The empty, hollow shell with nothing inside. That is me. Whoopee.

The building blocks of my despair

Things build on top of other things. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact root cause of my despair. Maybe it’s the body memories that have been eating away at me. Maybe it’s because I was unable to get an appointment at the free mental health clinic, and my meds are running low. Not having health insurance sucks. (Can someone say “understatement”?) Perhaps it’s because my partner is working long hours this week and that leaves me home alone, contemplating. Maybe it’s because I’m just feeling, quite simply, overcome with loneliness.

Whatever it is, I don’t like the thoughts that are trying to make their way into my mind. Thoughts of lost hope. Thoughts that it won’t get better. Thoughts of giving up.

When we are this down, how do we bring ourselves out of it? I just wish I knew. The world just seems so dark right now.

Looking for myself

I am looking for myself for I am lost
I can feel myself close
Just right around the corner
Or am I?
I can feel the anguish I am experiencing
I can feel my sense of fear
I can tell that I am scared
Being lost, and not able to find my way
I close my eyes and listen
I hear nothing but silence
Where am I
How do I find myself
And bring me home?

Where to now

When all is lost and all is forgotten,
Where to now
When hope has left and the house is now empty,
Where to now
When shattered dreams haunt your waking days,
Where to now
When everyone you’ve ever loved is gone,
Where to now
When loneliness shrouds your heart in darkness,
Where to now
When life has abandoned you again and again,
Where to now.

Tears

I’ve been sitting and reading my friends facebook. The one who killed herself a few days ago. It hasn’t been announced on her facebook yet. It was her birthday just last weekend. I’ve been reading all the birthday wishes that people posted on her wall. I wonder if she ever got them. Facebook is weird in that way. Someone can live on in the form of a profile. They are alive according to facebook but dead in real life.

My mind and emotions are a mess. I am supposed to go to my brother’s birthday dinner tonight. I haven’t got him a present yet. I don’t feel like acting happy. Or being social. Or seeing my family. I don’t feel like doing anything in fact.

My friend left her two dogs. For some reason that makes me the saddest of all. A part of me is jealous of her. Wants to do the same thing. To just end this life.

Don’t worry, I won’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t think about it or fantasize. Right now life is just feeling too big.

How am I suppose to live my life right now when a friend is gone. It just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right at all.

Tears, tears, and more tears. They don’t seem to stop.

This blog is my only connection with the world at the moment. So you all get to see my tears. To hold them. To feel them falling on you. There are just so many.

I’m not even connected to my partner at the moment. She’s off getting her hair cut, and we aren’t speaking because we got into a big fight this morning. I say a big fight, but it was over something so little and so dumb. But I had a full-on temper tantrum and ended up slamming the door and not speaking to her the rest of the day. And now she’s not here. I’m all alone with these tears.

I wish someone were here to comfort me. But then again, I don’t, because if I did I’m sure the tears would dry up as quick as you can say Sam. I don’t do well with letting others see my emotions; my pain; my tears, especially.

Perhaps someone can hold me. Even in their mind. No. What am I thinking. I cannot be held. After all, it results in just being dropped, does it not?

I suppose I will sit here, all alone, with these tears. Friend, wherever you are, I hope you are okay. I hope you are free from the pain of life. I hope you are happy. I hope you are in a better place. We all miss you.

 

Loss

As many of you have read, I have endured a tremendous loss recently of a friend. It was one of the most painful losses I have suffered, not so much because I have lost this person (which would be painful in itself), but how it happened. I have been trying to focus on myself these last several days, and I’ve really been trying to do things that make me happy. I went for a hike with my hiking group yesterday, for example. Then I came home and took a bath. These things made me quite happy. I also went to see a movie with a friend last night in the theaters. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie in the theaters, and it was nice having that sense of escape.

However, I very much still think about the person who was a huge part of my life these last six months or so. A whole mix of feelings have been going through me. Pain, sadness, confusion, anger, frustration, and helplessness to name a few. It is hard enough losing someone. But to have the rug of your friendship pulled out completely from underneath you, especially when you least expect it, well… that was the hardest part I think. Actually I take that back. That was hard. But then what transpired after that was even more painful. The angry words. The accusations. The meanness. It’s been really hard not retaliating. Holding my tongue. Taking a step back and telling myself that it’s not worth it. The friendship is over, so what would be the point of jabbing back. Of trying to defend myself and refuting everything this person is saying about me. There really is no point, and it would only make matters worse. It would only fuel the fire. That’s the last thing I want. I want to put out the fire, so that I can heal. I have to let her go. But it’s not easy.

My anxiety has calmed down quite a bit since I took a break from coming online and blogging, etc. I think that the internet, particularly places this friend visits, felt unsafe and was keeping me in this panicked state. I needed to pull back and let my body calm down and recover. By continuing to post and read her posts, I was keeping myself triggered and not letting myself get to another place with all of it. I was staying in the trauma of the dysfunctional relationship. Because I see now our relationship was dysfunctional.

Which isn’t to say that we couldn’t have fixed it, or at least tried to fix it. I think what was happening at the end was that the both of us were feeling like we had to be there for the other person 24/7, in case that other person needed them. It was a very co-dependent way of operating, and it wasn’t helpful (or health-ful) to either of us. What neither of us realized, I think, was that we were both feeling that way. That we were both feeling worn down. That we both were feeling overwhelmed by the friendship. That we were both feeling sucked dry. And yet this person, rather than deciding to verbalize how they were feeling, and ask for some space (or whatever it was that they needed), instead decided to end the friendship very hastily. And when I tried expressing my feelings of hurt about that, I was lashed out against and being accused of ignoring her feelings as well as playing the role of the “victim.”

I have had people verbally attack me in the past, and end friendships suddenly like this, but I have to say it has been many many years since something like this has happened. I have really made an effort to cultivate healthy and positive relationships, ones where people want to and are able to articulate the difficulties they are having with me, or with the friendship, so we can attempt to work them out. This obviously didn’t happen here.

I may not be posting as much, at least for the next little while, and I hope you can all understand why. I am needing to really focus on myself at the moment, and trying to heal the hurt from this loss, and it’s not going to happen overnight. I apologize for being a bit out of touch lately. Especially to those people who I usually follow and comment on your blogs. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just I need time to focus on myself right now. That is my priority at the moment.

 

 

I would like to share with all of you a flower that I found recently on a walk. It was just sitting there on the sidewalk. It had fallen from a bush overhead. These flowers were growing wild, if you can believe it. I just thought it was so beautiful, I just had to pick it up and take it home. This is something I’ve been trying to do lately: focus on the little things that I think are beautiful and that make me happy. Hope you can all appreciate this flower as much as I do.