Written Whispers

[Written on iPod during the blackout.]

Tonight I wrote about foster care.

I know. I’m as shocked as you if you know me well enough. I didn’t think I was ready, didn’t think I could do it and escape without the usual mental drainage and flashbacks- but I did. There were a few times I’d found myself starring off into space for some twenty minutes or more, my mind hazy with memories like smoke in a stoners attic.

But I still did it.

I wrote of abandonment, runaway, being taken away, misplaced, hunted like a feral cat by social service workers and nights not knowing what lurked in the dark as I slept cold and lonely- wondering if/when she would return. Certain in my heart she would but just as certain in my head that she would not.

I opened my own book with the stroke of a pen beneath candlelight. Writing about days when that was the only light. My stories and the stories of others- stories that left me gasping as they resonating with the sting of my own. Beautiful and broken like bloody glass under the sunset.

I wrote them.

I wrote them and my stitches didn’t rip. Scars held with the forever reminder of pain buried deep within my marrow. They held and though I knew what it felt like to bleed, though I remembered how they trickled, I did not.

I just remembered.

I didn’t relive.

Thank you, goddess keeper of sacred inks, provider of convenient paper, walls, napkins, and skin for my stories. Thank you.

Can’t sleep.

Nope. I’m lying.

I could sleep. It’d take me a couple of hours but I’d eventually get there.

The truth?

I’m afraid to go to sleep.

Sounds almost silly, doesn’t it? But it’s true. I had a few nightmares when I was younger but few were truly bad. Usually involving crocodiles and snakes or people I know being put into foster care. Now though, it seems as an adult my nightmares have grown along with me.

Pets, friends, and family dying. The smell of burning flesh. The boom in my ears as a car crashes and the leaden feeling in my limbs as I try to stop us from falling further back. Great towers all aflame falling onto people, the heat on my face. People happily allowing themselves to be electrocuted. Waking up to find my beloved unbreathing or my cat still on the floor. Finding myself trapped, alone, or being hunted.

I wake up wanting to cry and vomit. Often both.

So vivid. Always with just enough truth to pull the acid up from my stomach, sometimes revealing things I had forgotten, sometimes forcing my focus to thoughts I can’t think in the waking world, and always playing on my deepest fears:

I’m going to be alone. I’ll be betrayed. They’re leave. They’ll be taken. I have no control. I can’t feel love. My soul is dying.

It rips me apart and while I know I can survive it- have survived it for so long, I’m awfully tired of it being normal for me.

I’m tired of waking up every four hours or so- a compulsion I can’t control, to make sure everyone is still there and breathing, that I haven’t been left alone. I’m tired of having to make myself go to bed. I’m tired of laying there, unwilling to let my mind shut off even when I want it to because I know what comes next. I’m tired of finding myself caught up in another world far too real to my senses. I’m tired of feeling dread. I’m tired of jerking awake and forcing the contents of my stomach to still. I’m tired of laying there with a pounding heart afterwards and boycotting any form of sleep or idle thought for the rest of the day.

I’m tired of repeating it all the next night.

And the next.

I’m tired.

[Is timeline one word or two? Two of three dictionaries say two words, Google seems to think it can go either way.]

So, my therapist asked me to write a timeline of my life- just to outline those greater events that stick out in my memory. I said sure, it sounded like a perfectly easy project to me.

Holy crap. I could not have been more wrong.

Without details my ‘timeline’ is roughly four pges long and as I look over it… hell, as I wrote it, I had to pause for a moment to really appreciate what’s been going on in my head lately.

A therapist once told me, some four or five years ago, that she was amazed there wasn’t more wrong with me. Looking at my list I find myself more and more inclined to agree.

There are times I don’t feel like an abused kid. I don’t focus on it every moment of my life and when I do I always have this perfectly logical voice in the back of my head saying it was nothing big, you survived it and others have been through worse. When I tell people about the things in my past I speak with that same voice- it happened, it’s over, and here I am today.

But all things are a coin.

Sometimes when I get caught up in one really strong memory or another I feel… so much. I’m small, the event big, and the universe suddenly has a lot to answer for. Then the memory ends and I’m at peace with it again.

Looking at my timeline though, it’s like I can see both sides at once. I can see that compared to others it wasn’t so bad, but more so- I can see how truly screwed up my whole life has been. It’s a frustrating feeling to know I’ve survived it but I don’t feel like I have either because I’m too far away from it mentally (dissociation) or because I’m trapped in the moment again (flash backs).

It’s unfair that my perception is so screwed up.

There are people I love… and I look at this list of events and can’t help noticing how many horrible things have been done to me. There are people I don’t like- at all… and I can’t help noticing how much it’s justified. There are categories of ‘wow, that sucks’ that I never put myself into… but I could very well fit if I tried.

I’m not explaining myself right. I’m already going through a little bit of eye opener on certain things and I’m really wishing this list didn’t help because it eats away at my heart. Overall though, despite the tears and brain junk going on I’m happy. I want the world to be clear to me, my world at least, no matter how brutal it is.

So, for part of my therapy I’m supposed to be taking specific not so great memories and writing one fact per line about that situation. Just the black and white facts without the emotions and drama. Then I take them to my next appointment and little by little we’ll add the other- more painful, parts like feelings in. The idea is that I’m exposing myself to the crap and then working through it and reprocessing the memories (because trauma memories are stored in a different part of the brain).

I’m not explaining it very well but it does make to me.

It’s taken me till tonight to even think about working on it- I think a short story idea of mine brought on some specific thoughts that just kind of rolled down hill from there. I don’t really want to work on it… for my own reasons but now that I’ve done one memory I’m tempted to take on another though the darker places in my mind caution me against getting drawn in too far.

I had two choices, I could work on my earliest memory or my worst. Taking the easy path I chose my earliest because there was no way, or I hadn’t thought there was, for me to pick one thing out of the jumbled knot and say it was the worst.

Until I thought about it.

And then it was easy.

The writer in me would love to share it here just because it’s fresh in my mind and my fingers are on the keys ready to go- but,… I’m not going to. I don’t want to travel down that path knowing that if I fall off in one direction or another I don’t have any kind of safety net ready to grab me.

That and it’s not precisely content I would wish on any frequent reader of mine let alone someone who might be passing by.

My head is full of thoughts tonight.

I am remembering things. Fractured sort of things that leave a bitter, burning sensation in my stomach. It’s like walking in a spider’s web full of broken glass. I can’t help but get caught in sticky silken threads, following one or another until I brush a sharp bit of mirror or window. Sometimes the pain of the memory redirects me to another, sometimes I find myself transported at random, and sometimes all the broken glass just forces me to try another thread- wading through ghosts of the past till I find my way out.

I sat down and told myself I’d go around and leave comments on all my favorite blogs- as I’ve been muchly lax lately, but alas I’m tired and all I want to do is write so I can get some sleep tonight. I have some thoughts I need to deal with and as therapy is… on the fence right now I think I’ll stick to trusted and true as far as venting goes and just make a post about it.

I’m not sure I’m doing alright.

I’ve had these weird crying fits the past three nights. The first night I was listening to my MP3 player- just some soft music to help me wind down, and then suddenly I was half paralyzed with things I was afraid of and circular thoughts that wouldn’t let me go. I think I cried more out of frustration than anything. It was just a brief quiet sob to myself to let some of the pressure out and then… well, it didn’t make me feel better. It clogged up my sinuses but I kept flipping through my music till I found something monotonous enough to lull me to sleep.

The next night was probably my fault in some sense. I was mentally working on some story ideas- again, lying there to go to sleep, as I tend to do some nights when the creative juices are flowing exceedingly well, and I’m pretty sure I stumbled onto a trigger (for those who don’t know, a trigger is something, anything, that ‘triggers’ traumatic memories or PTSD episodes). Suddenly I found my brain going back and forth- for a moment my mind would be on the emotions my character was going through and then I would be transported back to my own past for a moment. Another second later and I’d be working on the character again.

I don’t know how to explain just how weird it was but I honestly couldn’t escape the little cycle. I knew my own thoughts were hurting me, that working on that bit of that story was hurting me but I couldn’t turn away from it or focus on anything else. My brain was playing ping pong and going back and forth so fast I couldn’t do anything but hang on let alone try to figure out how to stop it.

I think part of it has to do with my old habits of self punishment- where I felt I deserved to be in pain. The memories I was having had to do with that- the times I was trying to be good by punishing myself. It was like reliving it all over again and that horrible despairing feeling, and worse- the acceptance on such despair, was enough to make me cry again. When I was done with that bout of silent sobbing I was so tired I just laid there kind of numb until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

Last night was different. It was a few hours before I even planed on sleeping- I was in my shower and then I just started crying suddenly. It was so weird I stood there in shock for a moment before asking myself out loud “What am I crying for?” The more my mind reeled the more the tears came. After that my poor husband had to spend about an hour and a half convincing me I didn’t get nearly as much sleep as I needed earlier (so exhausted from the previous night I had to cat nap) and should go to bed.

I don’t know why I kept trying to stay up. I mean I have plenty of reasons to choose from but I’m not really sure if those are ‘the’ reasons. I don’t mind crying. I believe there’s nothing wrong with a perfectly good cry- provided my sinuses are up to the extra abuse so I know that’s not the reason. I get some pretty horrid nightmares sometimes but this doesn’t feel like the anxiety I have for sleeping that comes after a particularly terrible one.

The more I think about it the more I think it has something to do with that moment of ‘empty space.’ To clarify- before I go to sleep, during my showers, and a few other unguarded moments in my day I have little going through my mind. I’m relaxed and there’s all this free space for me to think about different things. I can avoid that when I’m wide awake. I’ve learned how to read a short story, listen to some new lyrics, keep up with a television show, hold a chat conversation, mentally work out some codes for a new web design AND play Tetris all at once. This is the equivalent of my moment by moment every day lately. I can’t not be busy because my mind takes off without me and once it’s gone so am I.

*sigh* I’m tired right now. I’m half falling asleep right now but something in me is tempted to write some more about the specific memories from the other night though I think that’s part in procrastination and part in self harm- neither of which are good for me so I’ll just end this post here.

I wish I understood.

Not doing so great at the moment. It’s starting to happen more and more often. This feeling of being absolutely terrified for no reason. My heart rate jumps. Adrenalin pumps into my veins. My stomach burns and it’s like I can’t keep still. I’m not shaking but it’s… it’s weird. I can’t sit still. I just can’t.

Last night I lay next to my husband, the two of us trying to sleep and about half an hour into my ‘lay there for three hours and try to fall asleep’ ritual it started. I don’t actually shake but I do jitter. I tap my fingers and toes and I flick my wrist- I do that a lot when I get agitated. The shaky feeling, it’s like I’m shaking inside. I feel like something awful is going to happen or like I’m about to be chased and it’s horrible. Looking back over the nightmares in my life the ones that lingered the longest were the ones where I was being chased.

I can’t stop it and I can’t really explain it. Not to my own satisfaction.

It’s worse when I’m alone. Most of my… stuff, for lack of a better word, centers around being alone. It’s a huge trigger for my PTSD which is a bit extra sucky because I rather like my quiet life but at the same time it offers so many opportunities for those dark things to sneak in.

Lately some of the stuff has been happening even when I’m not alone. We’ll all be sitting there watching a movie and then bam! It starts. The movie doesn’t have to be related to any of the past stuff either. I think I might have figured some of it out though just like I figured out that the ‘mental-whispers-of-doom’ start just after severe flashbacks or when I’m alone I think the jitters and feeling of something horrible about to happen starts whenever my mind isn’t occupied enough.

I’ve been trying, hard, to keep myself busy but it’s so easy to pick a task and then set your mind on autopilot while your body moves to complete it. It’s not even something conscious. I try to work on my stories all the time but I’m not one to chance a burn out. Mental puzzles, anything to take up all the empty space within. Where there’s space there are memories or nameless shadows gasping at me from some deep dark crevice.

*sigh* Anyways, I think the writing of it has helped me. Time to work on one of my projects.

Stop.

Stop it.

Sometimes too much. Sometimes so little I convince myself it’s not. I’ve become superstitious to the thinking that if I ever once have hope it’s gone- it will come back thrice as badly. Sometimes that’s how it seems to work. The shadows are gone and as soon as I bask in the wonderful feeling of being without an echo in my thoughts… they return with a force I’d rather not think on.

Sometimes I find myself sitting in a quiet place just so I can hear myself say ‘Stop it’ aloud to all the noise between my ears. Sometimes I find myself repeating these words over and over again as if to reaffirm that I, who wields words as a shield and sword, still have power over my own little mental universe. I can’t let anything convince me otherwise. I can’t let the everything make me lose hope.

Even if I’m afraid of being the trickster locked in the mirror behind my eyes.

Stop.

Stop it.

Be gone.

[Replying to comments as soon as I catch up on my venting. ;)]

Just a rant. Read at your own risk.

Today sucked.

There really isn’t more to it than that. I’m to the point where I’m not putting my all into my job anymore and I’m not sure what I’m disappointed in more- myself for burning out or them for just being the way people are. Either way I know I can’t continue on with the way things are right now. I’m supposed to be relaxed or ‘de-stressing’ as I’ve been told and while it is possible at work it’s just not happening right now. People have gotten used to me being the reliable one and as much as I’m proud of that title I’m tired of getting stuck with all the crap work.

I’m also tired of people lying to me to get me to do what they want. I’m a good worker and I’ve proven that fact time and time again. They know all they need to do is ask me and I’ll do what I can but no. Instead they lie as persuasion and as far as telling my ‘boss’… well, his response to my ‘complain’ came under the lines of ‘So?’

Yes. I’m supposed to be relaxing.

Yes. Relaxing excludes dealing with the normal every day stresses of life that can’t be avoided.

Unfortunately for me the stress that’s happening every day isn’t on normal levels.

One of the things I hate the most about what’s going on inside my head right now (flashbacks and mental screaming aside) is the way even little bits of stress suddenly effect me like big bits of stress. For example, Kei and I came in at our normal time and set to working on our stuff right away like we usually do. We don’t goof off and then settle into our routine unless someone has taken off with the radio again.

Well, not even five minutes after we were all set with what we were doing one of the cooks asked me to peel 220 potatoes. Okay, that’s actually not bad. I like prep work personally. It’s a change of pace and I love working with food even if it’s only that but we had two functions (main restaurant buffet of 111 people and a wedding reception next door for 110) going on and we still had stuff on our station that needed to be done. We always have a full counter of stuff to do before the other kitchens start calling us away but to have to help someone else with their stuff too… it gets a little hard when there’s only Kei and I. We’re expected to help everyone else out but no one comes in and helps us do our job which is understandable- cleaning, running, washing, fixing, and finding is tedious and occasionally disgusting work no one wants to do.

So I told the cook he’d have to wait until we were caught up but he still persisted. Eventually I got him to wait till Kei and I were halfway caught up and then one of us would come peel while the other kept up the kitchen but then she got called away to the wedding reception and I was left by myself to peel the potatoes and do the dishes. I kept telling him I needed to go take care of my dish room but then he had to tell me he needed all those potatoes within an hour and a half.

So… I peeled potatoes because it’s in my nature to feel sympathy for people in a pinch. I would have helped anyway but it would have waited till I actually had time.

An hour later he told one of the servers he told me it had to be done in that time but it really didn’t have to be done till tomorrow. I was so upset and then all these people started running in and telling me they were all out of plates and I could literally hear the things stacking up in my dish room but he still wouldn’t let me go back saying ‘oh, it won’t be that bad. You’ll catch up.’ and I tried explain to him how I’m so sick of people asking me why I’m always at work so late at night but he kept saying it wasn’t that bad- keep in mind he was standing where he could see my dish room while I was barricaded with boxes of potatoes where I couldn’t.

Then him and another cook both splashed me in the face with potato water (unintentionally though they way they laughed about it was irritating as hell) one right after the other and kept trying to make absolutely useless conversation with me. No, I don’t give a crap that you had to fix your van radio!!!

Normally when I have days like this I grit my teeth and bear it. Complain to the proper people when I get a chance i it’s worth it and then trudge through my work no matter how late it takes me till. I might be grouchy and mentally cursing but I find a way to get through it without too many curse words or thrown pans. Today was different. Today, five potatoes left and four different people needing my attention I just stood there and started crying.

If only because I couldn’t scream.

It was ridiculous. This was pretty normal as far as bad days go but I literally just broke under all of it. I’ve cried before under stress, not too often but a few times but usually I can keep it under wraps until I’ve gotten a decent distance away from people even if it means I need to walk away while they’re talking. This time I was down and out before I even knew it and I had to run upstairs to the locker room and ball for a good ten minutes- literally just sobbing against the wall like it was something so much more than 200 some odd stupid potatoes and a bunch of potato-brained people.

Usually I can take a deep breath, remember some Tao, or quickly imagine the most absolutely rude thing I could say to them to make it up to my angry inner child but this time I just couldn’t shut it off and afterwards I didn’t even feel better. Instead of crying being a release I felt even worse; numb, cold, shaky.

I don’t know what’s going wrong with me but I need to fix it soon. Something has to give or change or just flat out stop because I don’t know how to handle any of what’s going on with me anymore and I’m sick of ‘okay, now take a breath’ because that doesn’t work anymore. It’s worked for years but right now my brain is just seriously malfunctioning.

That brings me to another thing. When I talk about constantly seeing and reliving the past to the point where I’m crawling the walls within my own skull- I get awfully sick and tired of hearing people say ‘leave the past in the past’ because you know what? I did and it followed me. I can’t turn it off. I’m not just ‘thinking’ about it, it’s re-happening to me over and over again.

I want to scream.

I want to shiver.

I want to cry.

And too many times I want to lie down and let it all suck me down but none of that will make me feel better. I know. I’ve tried it all. I just need an off switch for things within that are beyond my control. These little malfunctions and shorts within the wires of my brain just need to stop. I need to be able to think clearly again and feel like my head is my own.

Well, I went to see the peoples at mental health clinic today and received the ‘offical’ diagnosis of -gestures with wild vagueness- all this stuff that’s been going on in my head, the not so normal (for me) cloud that’s been infiltrating my every thought. Honestly, I’m not as surprised by it as I could be.

My biggest concerns were- in this precise order, that whatever it was would cause me to lose sense of my self and the world around me and secondly that it would be one of the things that contributed to my bio-parent being the not-so-great person she is- that I would have one of the same disorders she did. Fortunately neither are the case. I could still lose sense of myself if I was in bad enough shape to allow it to happen but as I am right this moment I’m not going down without a fight. I’d have to be stressed, depressed, and a lot of other things for that to happen. As it stands I’m just thrilled it’s not one of the same things my parent has.

Though,… she is still in a large part responsible for it. Turns out I have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) that is or has possibly developed into something more severe recently. Both the lady at the clinic and my Hubby think a lot of why it’s worse right now than it ever has before is because right now, in this stage of my life, is the first time I’ve ever really been without the trauma which is why it can be worse even when I’m really happy.

Memories flooding back constantly… I can’t help but cringe. I’ve always been one to live in now- survival depended on it but it’s not just that. Life is just happier if you live in now. Living in the past doesn’t change it. That’s what I’ve always believed but now I can’t turn it off. It doesn’t matter if I’m not thinking about it. The flashbacks and other things still come to haunt me, tearing at my inside with invisible and greedy claws, seeking purchase in my unwilling being.

Like I said, I’ve always lived in now but it’s like trying to sleep when someone keeps turning on this huge television with an obnoxious sense of volume. I can relax, tell myself I can make it through it and let the sound pass around me, but it still effects me. I can cover my ears and eyes, scrunching my every sense closed- but it just doesn’t work and so I’m going to go in for counseling. I don’t want them to fix the PTSD- that’d be nice but I know enough to know that’s not how it goes, I just want to learn some better coping skills for the new things that are attacking me from within.

I’ve been anxious and afraid as long as I can remember. Even when there’s nothing to be scared of I can’t help but tense, still I’ve always had a sense of adventure. I seldom socialize to the extent that most people do, starting a conversation frightens me but I’ve always done it anyways because I know once I start it and the boulder is rolling down hill I’ll be fine and the anxiety will go away but now this new anxiety which is much the same (always constant for no reason) is on a much more extreme level. I know how to handle the little bits I’m familiar with but not this new stuff.

Same with the flashbacks, memories, and nightmares. I’ve had them all my life but not to the extreme of now. I could handle them before but I don’t know how to handle them when they’re getting in the way of work, home, and just general life. Then there are the ‘brand new’ symptoms… the swirling mass of demented figments inside my head. I have no idea how to even begin dealing with that.

The lady at the clinic suggested I consider medication but I told her no- for now. Just like the last time I decided to seek help for something. I want to try to learn how to cope with it on my own. If I can’t then I’ll take that last step but the world is already too vastly medicated and I know what kind of stuff they want to put me on. They used the same exact pills to control us in my early foster care years and they come with some pretty nasty side effects even nowadays with the proper usage. I’m not interested in being a zombie, going through seizures or anything like that. While they might make this one issue of many go away they’ll also steal some of my ability to perceive the happiness around me and I refuse to give that up. Sunshine in my life has been too few and far between to waste it even when I have the star itself in my possession.

Post traumatic stress disorder. Wow. I wish I could say I’m surprised but I don’t feel it. Either way it’s nice to have confirmation. It gives me a name for the darkness and as I name it so can I fight it. As a writer I can give it form through my words- taking the intangible smoke from my mind and then slay it with my pen.

You may have snuck up on me, Darkness, but you forget that when you enter my mind you’re in my world with my rules. I might not know how to dispose of you this precise moment but without the battle what’s the use of rewarding myself with ice cream at the end?

Maybe nervous is the wrong word. Afraid, no- terrified feels more accurate. My second appointment is in five hours and I’ve yet to even go to bed. It’s still more sleep than last time but… and perhaps this may sound strange I’d rather go in on less sleep than more. Why? Well for starters, the more tired I am the sooner I’ll fall asleep so my mind won’t be left with too much time to wander. Wandering brings images and sounds to my troubled mind that I just don’t have as much strength to bear as I use to.

The other reason I’d rather not have too much sleep is because when I’m fully awake and around strangers I might censor myself- even without knowing it. I’ll also be more jittery. If I’m tired I won’t be able to hide things. I’ll just blurt it all out which is what I need right now.

*sigh* I just don’t know what to do. I want to pretend nothing is wrong. Sometimes it really seems like nothing is but… it’s those moments between that tell me all is not well.

…

I want to growl and curse, and possibly bang my fist against a wall. Questioning myself… it was all part of the training.

I have so much more I want to say but I can’t right now. Typing hurts me as much as thinking for this small moment. Goodnight.

Not doing so great at the moment- I say moment because I know it’ll get better but in this very second it doesn’t feel that way and the knowledge doesn’t really sooth me. It’s like knowing a burn is going to heal. It doesn’t stop it from burning.

The nightmares are getting ready to make a come back. I’m still keeping a dream journal though most of mine are too long to bother posting but… blurg… I can’t keep a single train of thought but last night it was like I could feel things crawling on my face. I’d wake up at least once an hour to either poke my Hubby and tell him to stop snoring (sometimes when he wasn’t because I think it started to incorporate into my dream scape) or to just think, but either way each time I woke up and went back to sleep the dream began where it left off.

There were all these things crawling all over my face. I could have sworn I really could feel them because I kept waking up to wipe my hands over my face… or maybe that’s while I was sleeping too, it’s so hard to tell at this point. Anyway, they were all over my face and then they were peeling bits of my skin off and once the first layer was gone they were digging deeper and eating the flesh right off my face.

And that’s all.

The nightmare in and of itself wasn’t so bad but all the thoughts that circled inside my head like depraved little parana were, well, they sucked. Let me forgo the fancy fluffy words for a moment and just repeat that.

They sucked.

It’s not fair. It feels like each time I start to find my balance again and the tsunami in my brain calms down it all goes to hell again. The very second I hear myself saying “Maybe I’m getting better” or “Maybe nothing was wrong after all” or my favorite “Hey, maybe it was just a fluke” then everything comes back to prove me wrong. No, the nightmares aren’t so bad- it’s the thoughts, the silence between, and the non-silence lurking in every open crevice waiting to infect wounds that should have been long healed over by now.

Perhaps,… and this is just an odd thought from a sleep deprived little Spirit, mind you, but mayhaps it’s like my scars are going backwards. My Hubby and I have discussed it and we both theorize that a lot of this stuff is coming because I’m finally in a safe place where it can, so- here’s how I see it. See, I feel safe and happy. The happier I feel the worse the inside of my head is (nightmares, flashbacks, etc). So, in order to heal the scar has to go backwards. The scab has to come off and the liquefy back into rolling blood, and back, and back, and back until the moment when the wound was made. Only then will my brain make piece with it and finally allow it to sit safely in the back of my head.

Unfortunately, remaking a wound, even if it’s only on the inside of my head, hurts a lot. Have you ever broken a bone in the same spot twice? If you have you know the more times you break a bone in the spot the more it hurts and the weaker it becomes over time until finally it just can’t heal anymore. Even if it’s for the process of healing- it hurts and I feel like it’s doing me more harm than good. I’m to the point where I don’t want to heal, I just want to live out my days with the happiness I have.

I wish sometimes I could turn my own mental voice off inside my head. The other voices aren’t great but I don’t have any control over them and I don’t personally expect control over them but my own voice- I expect some form of control. I expect to feel alright inside my own skull but the problem is I don’t. It’s like the whole piece of mush is misfiring and malfunctioning.

Once again- it’s just not fair. Anyway, I ranted, not quite about what I wanted to but maybe it’s enough for me to get some sleep tonight. I’m not thinking it is but *shrug* you never know until you try.

Peace out and happy writing everyone.

[I wrote this a few days ago, just didn't feel like it was the right time to post it.]

Last night was… not my best.

Keep in mind as you read this that I’m in a great mood right now. Today was wonderful and full of awesome things that I’ll touch on in a little bit. Right now is, well, right now. I need to write about this while I’m not in the moment but also before I lose the vividness of it- you know what I mean?

Work was tough, frustrating at best.

I got home and things perked up considerably but my brain had been through the wringer and I wasn’t entirely myself. The little tricks ingrained in my mind like Pavlov’s dogs working their moves on me and I was just so tired I wasn’t able to really hold them off like I usually do. Usually I’m pretty sharp, quick to wit and sly with methods to get around those tricks within but not last night.

My mind started wandering down the bad path and it was something like a mud slide. I’d see myself slip a little, catch myself and be sturdy for a moment before slipping again. Rinse and repeat until I started sliding faster and could no longer rely on myself.

It’s amazing all the different forms a sword and shield can take, sometimes sharing the same incarnation like, say for example, my Mp3 player. If you surge just the right kind of music through your ears you can disrupt all the silence in between- one of the few good things my bio parent taught me that I still find myself using today.

But last night it wasn’t good enough. I started thinking the bad thoughts, thoughts I knew weren’t true, thoughts I knew would depress and frighten me, and thoughts that just belong inside a person like me. I’ve got a good life surrounded by good people, I should be happy, but instead it’s my happiness that makes me sad as I cringe every single moment of every single day, worried without resolve that it will all vanish and I will never again be able to fall into the bliss of now that I had never before been able to imagine.

If even a single one of you says ‘think positive’ or ‘you’re being negative so it’s your own fault you feel that way’ or any variant on those… I’ll make sure you’re spammed like heck for the next year and a half and if you don’t believe me… :) then you don’t know me very well. I’m generally a very positive person, I pride myself on being able to change the way I see things, getting a different view that others may not have thought possible. It’s a cool way to be but when I’m having these feelings… I can’t just turn it off.

It just doesn’t work that way.

I would start thinking thee bad thoughts, physically shake myself out of them- tell myself they’re not true and remind myself I know. Bring up a list of ‘proof’ of why these thoughts aren’t true, distract myself, play music, meditate, run in a damn circle. It doesn’t matter, any second I let my guard down and there they are waiting to ambush me in the dark recesses of my mind.

Like I said above, usually it’s no problem. I can see it coming and take preventive action but after working five banquets, a wedding, and buffet (with a moron I might add) my brain just can’t respond that fast and even if I see it coming… Have you ever tried to something that required a lot of focus or a bit of skill after skipping a whole night of sleep? Even if you’re practiced at it you can feel when you’re at that point where you’re quite as quick- even reflexively. Your mind takes a bit longer to make conclusions and neurons don’t always connect. I was at that phase only the problem I was dealing with that required both focus and skill was inside my head where the sleepiness was most troublesome.

Eventually I was able to shake off the bulk of the bad thoughts, bringing myself back to fairly normal levels of paranoia but if I knew what kind of effect such repression would have on me later in the night… I would have just locked myself in the bathroom and let the thoughts take control, pacing back and forth and crying over things that weren’t. Get it out of my system, berate myself later, deal with the shame of falling into an episode and then repeat it all over again when the stress from aforementioned shame eats me into another one.

Isn’t a beautiful cycle?

That’s sarcasm folks and if you didn’t see it coming you’re not reading enough.

So, I pushed back the thoughts but at a price. Keep in mind I only just realized there was a price at all or else I wouldn’t have done it. It’s not worth it, I’d rather repeat the cycle of panic attacks then give up my already precious few hours of sleep.

I’m no stranger to nightmares. I’ve had them all my life, usually on an off, never more than a few in a row. They’ve never been brought on by horror movies or anything of the sort and fortunately for me most of them don’t deal too obviously with my past though the bulk of them are connected in some way or another.

When I was younger, well, actually throughout much of the I lived with her, my bio parent would occasionally take me to see her therapists (I think it was cheaper or something) and insist I was having nightmares- I say insist because she was telling a therapist for crying out loud. She was telling them as if it was a problem but the thing was I never saw it as one. I only had one once in a great while, not even once a month.

I’m getting off topic. Woops. Anyway,…

So, I don’t have nightmares very often. A little more so since foster care but that’s to be expected. Now though, well, in the last few months, I’ve had several a month. That’s a few a week, sometimes a couple of nights in a row. Worse, I’m not talking about the average nightmare- or maybe I am. I’m not familiar how other people feel when they have nightmares but usually I’m fine afterwards. Wake up, heart pounds for a bit, listen to some music or work on a story until I’m ready to go back to sleep usually within a half an hour if it’s really upsetting.

Now, though, things are different. These nightmares are horrifying. I wake up in cold sweats with a silent scream upon my lips. This morning I woke up and nearly cried. My heart pounds like it all really happened and there is no getting back to sleep- at all.

Before any of you say it, I’m not drinking caffeine before I sleep. I don’t drink any caffeine- ever, even if I joke about it. I don’t eat/drink much sugar on a daily basis either and I don’t do drugs or drink alcoholic. In fact, I’ve never done drugs.

I have noticed a disturbing pattern- last night’s vivid imagery being the point at which I saw it. I have the nightmares when I’m trying not to hear the bad thoughts, when I manage to distract myself, or even go from negativity to optimism. I also have them when I block out the things… in my head.

It’s not fair. The things I’m blocking out are the things I rightfully should be blocking out (ignoring). I talk about them, I write about them (like on posts like these or in stories others may never see), I vent and vent and vent, but it makes it worse. The venting makes them stronger, the bad thoughts, because I’m giving them more of my time so I fight not to give them any time and boom! They send me nightmares that would frighten a soldier.

It’s not like I watch gory movies, my paranoia isn’t that creative, and I’m not sadistic but the things I have going on in my mental midnight television are frightening and painful. They leave me shuddering…

I’m a bit scared of the things going on in my head right now.

Actually,…

If I’m honest with myself- I’m more frightened than I’ve ever before admitted and since I have a habit of telling too much of myself… that’s saying something. At first I suspected the worst but then I calmed down and did some research and now my outlook has improved but not greatly. I think I’ve narrowed it down but I refuse to self diagnose if I can help it- that’s just dangerous especially with stuff like this, but at the same time, I NEED a name for this. I can’t fight the enemy I don’t know and knowing the name is a pretty good start in my mental world.

Hmm. I still have so much to say about this but at the moment I’ve run out of words and will to express it. Hopefully this will have gotten it out of my system.

Back. In this sort of writing sometimes I really get into the moment and work myself up into a frenzy. I’ll explain that later, anyways, now back to the story.

I walked from the loading dock with my music blaring in my ears. It would be about twenty minutes before my Hubby and sis arrived to take me home. I couldn’t stand the loading dock, it was all closed in and it smelled thanks in no small part to the dumpster and the trashcans I wasn’t strong enough to dump inside.

I went out to the place my sister and I usually waited when we worked together, both parts of my mind reminding me that it was well lit and in a wide open space where I could see everything around me without fear but that was the problem as soon as I sat down on the curb not too far from either of the buildings in a perfectly empty and silent parking lot. There was a lot for me to fear and none of it ‘was.’ (more…)

[Note: I just spell checked it, nothing more. Bound to have errors along the way what with all the emotions tied in but I'm a writer not an editor.]

Balancing the counter balance. A concept within the mind to frail to grasp- like a living butterfly, far too easily crushed under hand and yet… the less I hold onto it the more I understand. My brain is full. Constantly thinking, thoughts flowing in and out as easily as air into my lungs and words from my pen though faster and less quaintly structured. This is normal but these aren’t what makes my head so full feeling, it’s everything between my thoughts. Things that are mine and yet aren’t part of the me I am. Silence and screaming, interchangeable though completely opposite in composition.

There are many of me. Many names all wearing the same face, walking the same path in different directions in a haze of guises that even I, who wears all and none, cannot hope to follow them in the luckiest and most functional of moments. (more…)

Ah, lots of little fishies swimming around inside my head. Some are story ideas, ranging from big to small and often brightly colored. Others are daily thoughts, mostly the same color as the rest of the water inside my brain and hardly giving me any reason to notice them more than the usual. There are memories, some dark with sharp teeth and others full of light, following up closely behind the former to repair any damages they might cause.

Others still are ‘random’, sticking out oddly in the usual school of mental wildlife and catching my usual inattention roughly. This last breed of fish troubles me the most. Wherever they swim the tides within me are disrupted and turned, all my other little fishies following heedlessly whether I bid them to or not and sometimes I don’t even know they’ve changed direction.

It’s very disturbing but the more I look at it the more all my other little fishies are swimming around trying to rationalize whatever they can and incorporate these random fish into the usual swing of things. And as much as my more logical fish are working with common day methods and perfectly square theories to fit this other species in, the fish that contain my more spiritual thoughts are also working hard. Instead of bending the random fish to the tides they’re changing their own course to match that of theirs without actually following in their wake.

Two separate halves of my reasoning, spirit and logic, trying two different methods to conquer this mental infestation of things beyond my conscious control. It’s like I’m watching a war unfolding inside my head and though I know it’s happening, it’s like another part of me is on the sideline of my thoughts- watching it all happen in real and lagging time.

I feel separated, split.

All these broken shards that I never knew were so far apart until they started piecing themselves back together and the glass begins to grind on all the many sharpened sides. The fish swim in and out, regardless. All of them. They don’t care what part/shard of me they are sifting through, my thoughts are my thoughts but like stained glass in a church- the sun is still the sun but it can take on so many different colors depending on what precise bit of glass the rays are being seen through. My mental fishies are the same way. Still mine but so different as they pass through all the facets of me.

The random fishies, the new species, are the only ones out of place as they try to force the shards apart. They’ve always been there but it’s like the ocean. Just looking at it you don’t see the fish. But take the ocean and shrink it while leaving everything within the same at the same size… suddenly you’ll see the heaps upon heaps of fish.

My head isn’t shrinking but as the bits of broken glass come together, reforming the fragile thing I once was… they’re no longer spread apart. They take up less room within and so as they come together I suddenly see all the things that have taken up residence in the cracks- those other fish who’d rather I not disturb their home.

I was broken a long time ago. No one person or event broke me, though I do have my suspicions, but I still fractured into a bunch of dazzling pieces like a vase that started to chip until it was too frail and was eventually bumped off the table by consequence. Since then I have been picked up- my pieces arranged on the table for me to see as the special people in my life came through one right after another, each taking a shard and putting it into the proper spot.

Only time and my own willingness can fit me back together so each piece remains where it is on the table. It’s where it needs to be and I can see the design of who I’m supposed to be clearly but no one piece is close enough for me to glue it into place yet- ready for the final placement to make me who I need to be- the beautiful fragile vase we all start out as regardless of cracks and chips and the bits that can never be put back together.

I want to be that vase but the fishies, the ones that don’t belong are getting in the way. The closer the glass comes to being placed the more obvious they become. The safer I feel the more afraid I realize I am and the more whole I become the more broken I realize I’ve been. The knowing in itself is what threatens to tear me apart.

The more I know about the new fish, the more my other fish see them and spread the word like wildfire through the tides, the more chaos there is. It’s like an infection. Every mental fish of mine carries some knowledge, interpretation, idea, suggestion, opinion, or perception of the new breed. It’s everywhere and I can get it out of my head.

Part of me is trying to trick me, maybe it’s the random fish or maybe it’s one of the more cracked shards of myself. Either way I find myself going back and forth on an issue that rather complicates things. Some of my fish, trained by the tides of my past are worried that my perceptions are wrong, that I am wrong, and that I am constantly lying to myself. These are of course the same mental fish who made me sit with chest pains for hours before telling my Hubby something was wrong only because I didn’t know if it was a trick I was playing on myself or not. These fish I call doubt, preprogrammed by those who so often told me it was day when it was night until I started to believe I was the one who was wrong.

These doubt fish try to tell me I’m perceiving things wrong again even though I know I’ve seen and heard these other newer fish. I’ve felt the effects they have on me and they’ve frightened me. It’s like they tell me I’m imaginarily frightened of a figment of a fear though I know I’ve felt the fear.

It’s all so confusing.

I doubt any of this made sense to anyone but at the same time I don’t care. I’m not sure if I was trying to make sense or going for vague, maybe both made their way through. Anyways, I’m done for the night.

I wrote this in Borders the other day while waiting for my Hubby to get out of class. I sat there for about three and a half hours pouring this out, only getting up for one thing or another three times. What I have to say isn’t just for my own sake, I hope it helps others too because in a way that would be the greatest help to me, to know that humanity can learn and change through experience.

This is only the first half of something bigger but I need… to re-gather myself before I can come to terms with the second bit. All will be explained sooner or later if you’re interested enough to follow me along on this journey.

Warning: For those of you are sensitive to it- there is mention of self harm, teenage drinking, something on the verge of mental illness, and borderline (depending on what you compare it to) child abuse. This version has been edited and names/places/and minuscule details have been changed to protect privacy.

-

It’s been a very long few weeks. If you’ve been keeping up with my most recent posts so far then you know I’ve been vague,… almost shy about what’s been going on with me which isn’t normal. Writing here like this is my therapy- my crusade and my therapy but that’s another story. Mostly it’s my way of cracking my head open and seeing what will fall out onto my keyboard when I tip it over. A way of trying to understand myself because a long time ago, or maybe not so long since I’ve lead such a short like, I realized I knew nothing about the person I was or the person I wanted to become.

I started journaling regular during my last stay in foster care with several failed attempts beforehand. I don’t really remember what spawned it precisely, the very moment I started, only that I had a notebook and nothing more to express myself with. My spirituality was repressed, my views harshly looked down upon, and my wings clipped in more ways than the average person can imagine.

I had all but given up creative writing- being so depressed at the time that my characters had started trying to commit suicide and since my stories always followed what was going on in my life in one way or another… I’m sure you get the idea. In a way I’d also given it up as a means of punishing myself, something that I’m not about to explain in detail just this moment. Long story short- I didn’t think I deserved the little escape I had created, full of people who cared about my alter ego in a world that didn’t exist.

So, I stopped playing make believe.

Still, I have never not written in all my life. It’s not merely the flow of words but the art of telling stories that really gets me- it’s like the act of breathing. Inhale the world and exhale a couple dozen pages about it.

On top of that I had no one to talk to. Given, I’d never been very talkative, but in one short year beforehand I’d gotten used to always having someone around who was ready to listen when I just needed to let it all out. When I re-entered foster care my first and foremost demand was a therapist because I knew I would need someone I could trust but then my Medicaid was cut (I was labeled as a runaway for over a week and the system didn’t think they’d see me again) and I couldn’t see her for months.

I didn’t speak to the other foster girls at that point. I’d tried before but they always broke my trust, we were just too different and I made a really good target. I couldn’t speak to the foster parents who’d recently turned the other girls against me when I tried to secretly report things that don’t need to be mentioned here.

My social worker was a bitch and if you know me then you know I don’t say that lightly. I absolutely despised the woman who thought the best thing for me was to put me back with the mother who’d grabbed me by the throat in front of half a dozen witnesses before exclaiming it happened every full moon. When I requested she not, under any circumstances, give my new address out to her because there had been stalking issues the year before- she did any way and I received a letter from my parent full of guilt trips and a second from a little girl I used to babysit- written because my parent had asked. Fortunately I suck at replying to letters, guilty about it or not.

I was alone. Completely and utterly in every sense of the word I could fathom. The people around me, the adults who were supposed to care for me and the girls who were constantly in my presence would all tell me that I was a liar every time I tried to tell the truth about the house we were in. It was so similar to when I was living with my bio parent that I found myself thinking, doubting, that they might be right and that there was something wrong with me.

So, I started to keep a journal. It went everywhere with me, a simple spiral notebook with faded stickers on the cover. I always had it, even when I sat at the dinner table, when we watched movies, and beneath my head when I slept. I trusted no one with my thoughts because I believed I was a horrible person and the things I would write would prove it- just as my characters had continuously proven my mood.

Not only did it go everywhere with me but I wrote everything down in it. Everything. For every single thought that crossed my mind I would write the equivalent of one of my blog posts and not just once a day but several times. Every few minutes in fact with the time printed neatly in the sidebar; 11:45 PM, 11:56 PM, 12:10 AM, 12:23… and so on and so forth.

I wrote down the things I ate, when I was sick, little things I thought I should remember and the things I saw happening around me but most of all- I wrote about what was going on inside my head, trying to understand what everyone else seemed to think was wrong so I could fix it. I hardly ever let myself believe that they were the ones who were wrong because, surely if so many people were telling me I was the one who was lying then it must have been true. Only a small handful of people in my entire life had ever told me I was a good person and, though I had a few quirks to keep an eye on, I was a lot better than the people currently surrounding me.

Eventually, as my spirituality began to suffer under the watchful gaze of wannabe Christians who told me I was going to burn in hell for a number of thing (believing in faeries, not going to church, happily calling myself a neo-pagan, daring to think it was okay to be bisexual, etc), I started writing each entry in my journal with ‘Dear Angels,’ in the upper line. I told them my every thought and concern, knowing they didn’t care what religion I followed, what I believed was right and wrong, or what I thought was appropriate expression of opinion for a child my age. In my mind (then and now) they just ‘were.’ In known history they precede all human beliefs and sociocultures and so they became my therapists, the ears I could always speak to because they neither judged me, condemned me, or told my vulnerable secrets and dark thoughts to others.

I felt that when I spoke to them, wrote them letters every single day, they would show me what I needed to see in my own words. I’ve always been a firm believer in helping yourself, you ask the universe to help you and they give you the tools you need to do it yourself and I still believe that till this very day because without what I saw in my writing- be it guidance from angels or just simple relief that I could keep some part of me open without it being gouged out by the world, I don’t think I would have survived.

-

This is the end of part one. I need a little break before I can go over part two- there are four, maybe five in total.

Should I or should I not?

Many I trust say I should, society says I shouldn’t. Words once spoken can never be unheard. Thoughts once voiced can not be forgotten. I’m losing ground, the bricks that make the path literally falling away beneath my feet.

Either way I risk losing a large portion of myself. Then again, maybe it’s not loss. Not in the same sense I’ve been looking at it as. Maybe it’s just change… Spiritually speaking it is just change and I should find a way to embrace it but I don’t particularly want to. I like the person I am at the moment, for the most part, and while I wouldn’t mind an opportunity to change some things… it’s the things I don’t have a choice about changing that have really gotten me.

But I want to be able to trust myself again.

Does that want outweigh the things that are going to change?

Part of me wants to say no but that part is the liar, the coward, and the stubborn child running around my mind. I want to trust myself again, everything will be so much better if I could do that. The parts of me that will change, the things I’m afraid of losing will be so much truer- so much more real and that’s a reward in itself.

Now I just have to take that final step. Goddess help me. This is the next trial in my life, there is no failure. I either turn one way or the other. Maybe I’m totally wrong about this but I want to do everything in my power not to go down the other path. Maybe it’s all in my head (in the turn of phrase sense and not the other) and I’m overacting about something but considering the chances for this happening and the incident the other night- why on earth would I want to take a chance. Better safe than sorry as the saying goes and in this case safe could be a life altering experience.

Still.

I want very badly to play the role of coward and pretend it never happened.

But I can’t.

I’ve been fretting on and off for years over this, knowing constantly it was possible and then to turn around and find out that it’s been under my nose all along… Very disconcerting.

There are other problems I need to take into consideration that are lingering at the back of my mind in a strange and lilting way. I don’t want to be labeled. I don’t want to deal with where that label could lead. I also have my pride to contend with- I don’t want to admit that something’s wrong or even more so that I’m slipping.

Should I or should I not?

You’d think with only two choices the question would be an easy one to roll with but that’s so untrue. Things are going to change whether I want them to or not. I accept that. Or at least, I’m accepting that. Still. I can’t not decide. The world and the path is going to keep moving whether I like it or not, whether I walk it or not. This is my chance to decide which way I’m going to go. If I don’t chose I’m letting that last little bit of power and control be taken away from me.

How could I surrender that easily?

I want to but I can’t. I refuse. I won’t become like her. I won’t continue this chain.

It’s not a question anymore.

It’s a plan.

It’s a decision.

Now I just need to pluck up my courage and do it.

If you’re new here and you’re wondering just what the heck I’m talking about- never fear. I haven’t told anyone else either. :)

Doing better today. Much better but still off balance a bit by a lot of newness that isn’t really new, like an observation about something that has always been so I had no reason to notice it before.

I’m still having trouble… discerning things. I’ve begun to distrust myself and that’s a huge thing. It’s happened other times thanks to ‘the parent’ raising me to think every word out of my mouth was a lie and that I was constantly being manipulative even though I didn’t know it- you try being 10 and having your parents tell you that, if you weren’t trying to be manipulative then it’s like every other time you’re not being manipulative and you think you are!

It’s not my fault.

This ‘thing’ that’s wrong. It’s not my fault. That’s not denial, it’s just the pure facts. It’s genetics and how I was raised and possibly the result of something else but it’s not my fault.

The only thing I can fault myself for is if I don’t do something about it. I have the option to make it all better- or at the very least set up set up roadblocks of supportive people to help me stay out of the depths of this problem. That’s what I can do to battle the darkness. It’s either that or I pretend nothing is wrong but I don’t see how I can.

Scratch that.

I see perfectly well how I can but I shouldn’t. I like to consider myself a very internally brave person, at least against the issues that are inside my head and heart, so I knew when I scared myself the other night that something was wrong and I couldn’t just ignore it.

Still, I’m worried that I’m manipulating myself. I can’t help but think that and I’m not sure if it’s… the stuff… inside my head or if it’s me…

I want it to rain. It’s hot, humid, muggy, and all that other good stuff outside- and inside and it’s just so bleh. This summer I do have to admit I was better prepared for one thing, my asthma. Last summer I was frantic over it and completely unable to gauge when I was about to have an attack or how bad and worse yet I didn’t even have the right inhaler and we didn’t know then that the problem wasn’t primarily in my lungs.

This year is different. I’ve gone a few months without too many breathing issues but this whole week has been a little tougher and I suspect it’s a combination of stress and humidity. I’ve only had to break down and use my inhaler once at work so far which is awesomely good but the bad news is I had to run off and use it during a very busy time. I tried to wait it out a half an hour till I could run off an wheeze in private but it didn’t work out so well.

Oh, well. That’s life for you. :)

Feeling better, wanting rain for so many reasons but I won’t get it till later. Maybe I’ll be better able to appreciate it then and give it more meaning, once again though that’s a thought I think only I will be able to interpret.

~ Peace, dearies! I work a lot this next week so don’t worry if many of you don’t hear from me, on top of some other issues I either might be blogging a crap load or little at all. We’ll see what the stuff inside my head has to say about that idea.

PS. That photo is mine, that’s me in the mirror, so please don’t rip it off even if it is pretty.

I’m not doing so good right now.

Given, I’m doing better than I was a few days ago, and I’m more in control of the entire situation than I have been this week thanks to some knowledge that I didn’t really want, but in the overall I’m not sure I’m doing so well. There’s always been something wrong with me, something I don’t talk about too often. It’s been under the surface for the most part, so hidden that I myself hardly think about it (and somehow that’s also part of the problem).

I thought I could keep it just below the surface forever, I now I can’t get rid of it- not completely, but under the surface was just fine. The only problem is, it’s not working anymore. I want to talk about it here but I can’t, not yet, which makes me sad. Usually I’m such an expressive person, I always feel this urge to share and make people understand what’s going on inside my head and heart but right now… I’m hiding things.

Let me write that again because it’s so important.

I’m hiding things.

I’m not entirely sure if it’s by my choice, my fears, or momentary lapse in stability that I do this or if this choice is being effected by the problem itself. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but if you knew what was wrong it would. Still, I can’t write it. Not here. I can’t say it aloud- to anyone. I’ve written about it in another place where people can help me or at least give me some experienced advice and I emailed two people I trust dearly who know my past without me having to explain a thing.

I’ve done that much but it’s not enough.

I’m hiding things and while this… other part of me is telling me it’s okay, that I just need time I know it’s lying to me. Lying, lying, lying.

I’ve had the problem all along but only in a few times has it become so obvious as for me to note it. Only the other night did it became so obvious that I had to admit there was something wrong. Seriously wrong. My control of the situation is being taken from me- no. Scratch that. It’s been being taken from me little by little all along and in the most sly of ways too. The other night though, it just happened. It was like poof! One moment all was fine and then the next all was tragically wrong with nothing to provoke it.

Yes. I’m being purposely vague, but that’s the only way it will let me be.

The worst part isn’t even my loss of control, it’s my loss of self. The problem didn’t cause it directly, in fact, it’s made me who I am but my knowing of the problem has shaken my faith in who I am and what I believe. It’s shaken my ability to help others, to help myself, and to express what I’m feeling in the most clear of terms.

I wish I never knew.

I’ve felt like this once before, when I found out most of my life was a lie, that ‘the parent’ was a drunk, and my whole world was turned upside down. I absolutely abhorred that feeling, despised it with a passion. The only difference between then and now is that no one has lied, no one has betrayed me, and past experience reminds me that I will make it through this one. I will survive but it will take time to break through the clouds to see the sky.

What remains the same is the confusion, the desire to have never known, and the fact that once again I’ve missed something so obvious if only because I was so used to it.

It’s not my fault what’s going on. I know and accept that.

What I can’t accept is the situation as a whole. It feels surreal. It ‘is’ surreal. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s real or if my mind is playing tricks on me again, but then if my mind is playing tricks on me- that’ll prove it’s still wrong.

What a loop! I want to escape it but I can’t, I just keep going round and round with these thoughts buzzing in my head (amongst other things) and I’m tired. I’m tired of thinking about it, tired of trying to discern reality from … whatever the current opposite is.

I know I should talk to people but I can’t. I won’t. Not yet. Soon, I’ve promised myself, no matter how many times that… other part of me says it’ll be alright and this is just a phase to pass, I will talk about it to someone but not yet. I’m still hiding right now, safely tucked away in near denial and silence. I’ve discovered too much in the past few days to do anything about it, I need time to absorb it all first. Absorb, contemplate, meditate, and then move forward because the world isn’t going to hold still for my mini, if extreme and sudden, mental chaos.

I will not let it have the power. I have seen darkness before and I will kindly flip it the bird long before I let it pull me back down again, this I swear upon my muse (and as a writer that’s a very serious thing!).

I think I’m going to go back and read an old post of mine, “Do you hear me, Darkness.” I need a taste of that kind of courage again and hopefully it will stimulate the rest of it that’s been laying far too dormant as of late. I really recommend reading it if you’re having a hard time of things and find the darkness trying to rule your life. A link to part two can be found at the end of part one. I’d love some comments on part two (might as well say it while I’m down here at the end of my post).