Sunday, 22 January 2012
Friday, 20 January 2012
Dear Silence
I am struggling.
I read recently that significant life events can cause people like myself (made vulnerable by chronic childhood traumas) to have psychological breakdowns such as severe depression, anxiety, or psychosis. Moving countries, getting married, buying a house, changing jobs, having a family, infertility, chronic illness, starting a masters, marriage separation... these are all of the significant life events I am currently trying to manage.
Thanks to my education (private and self), I have a lot of helpful knowledge about myself. I know, for example, that sometimes I experience unreasonable paranoia about others. It's unreasonable because the people in question will not actually hurt me. But it feels like they will. It feels like they will because I was systematically neglected and abused by other people, including my parents. I was a child and my brain grew in that environment. My sense of identity is torn between that reality and this new reality.
Sometimes I am dissociated from these memories. Sometimes I remember. And because I had no words for my pain as a child, I have no words for the pain today.
Remembering floods my brain, my new connections, and, because I didn't know what else to do, I let it. I let the despair, the fear, the nameless dread, soak into my new memories, my new relationships, until I fled them, like I fled myself.
This is my life. My mission, one I rarely want to sit with, accept, muchless observe. But the latter are my greatest weapons, and now I have one more: submission.
I submit.
I cannot cope with all of these significant life events. So I will simplify. Put on hold the things I can (school, marriage, having a family, changing jobs) and learn to cope with the responsibilities that I can't (owning a house, moving countries, chronic illness). I will say no to any further changes, unless they support me in this process.
I will take all the time I need to build my foundations. I will do this for me.
I read recently that significant life events can cause people like myself (made vulnerable by chronic childhood traumas) to have psychological breakdowns such as severe depression, anxiety, or psychosis. Moving countries, getting married, buying a house, changing jobs, having a family, infertility, chronic illness, starting a masters, marriage separation... these are all of the significant life events I am currently trying to manage.
Thanks to my education (private and self), I have a lot of helpful knowledge about myself. I know, for example, that sometimes I experience unreasonable paranoia about others. It's unreasonable because the people in question will not actually hurt me. But it feels like they will. It feels like they will because I was systematically neglected and abused by other people, including my parents. I was a child and my brain grew in that environment. My sense of identity is torn between that reality and this new reality.
Sometimes I am dissociated from these memories. Sometimes I remember. And because I had no words for my pain as a child, I have no words for the pain today.
Remembering floods my brain, my new connections, and, because I didn't know what else to do, I let it. I let the despair, the fear, the nameless dread, soak into my new memories, my new relationships, until I fled them, like I fled myself.
This is my life. My mission, one I rarely want to sit with, accept, muchless observe. But the latter are my greatest weapons, and now I have one more: submission.
I submit.
I cannot cope with all of these significant life events. So I will simplify. Put on hold the things I can (school, marriage, having a family, changing jobs) and learn to cope with the responsibilities that I can't (owning a house, moving countries, chronic illness). I will say no to any further changes, unless they support me in this process.
I will take all the time I need to build my foundations. I will do this for me.
A trained person could speak.
I don't really know how to explain it, but the best metaphor I can think of is this:
The threads that tie me together are woven very loosely. So, when I'm pulled in different directions (And oh, I am pulled), it tears at me. It tears me into pieces.
I feel torn.
I'm grieving. I know this feeling. Tides out, sadness. Tides in, despair. I need to make room for these feelings that are oh-so-present, because they are not always oh-so-present. This is painful. This is opportunity.
I didn't go to class. I dug into the corner of my couch, avoiding the other me that showered, dressed in trendy new clothes, and styled her hair in vintage curls.
Torn.
And I don't speak. I don't complain until it's all so overwhelming that I overwhelm you. Except I know it will overwhelm you, so I don't complain. I use words that are easier to say. Words that are easier to hear. You are relieved. We sit calmly. I am unseen. Safe, unseen.
A trained eye could spot it. A trained ear could hear what wasn't said. A trained mouth would ask. A trained person could speak.
But I have been trained in silence.
The threads that tie me together are woven very loosely. So, when I'm pulled in different directions (And oh, I am pulled), it tears at me. It tears me into pieces.
I feel torn.
I'm grieving. I know this feeling. Tides out, sadness. Tides in, despair. I need to make room for these feelings that are oh-so-present, because they are not always oh-so-present. This is painful. This is opportunity.
I didn't go to class. I dug into the corner of my couch, avoiding the other me that showered, dressed in trendy new clothes, and styled her hair in vintage curls.
Torn.
And I don't speak. I don't complain until it's all so overwhelming that I overwhelm you. Except I know it will overwhelm you, so I don't complain. I use words that are easier to say. Words that are easier to hear. You are relieved. We sit calmly. I am unseen. Safe, unseen.
A trained eye could spot it. A trained ear could hear what wasn't said. A trained mouth would ask. A trained person could speak.
But I have been trained in silence.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Nulligravida
Not a child
Not a mother
Not a life
Created for the January 2012 Expressive Arts Carnival. January's theme:
Not a mother
Not a life
Created for the January 2012 Expressive Arts Carnival. January's theme:
"Through drawing, painting, or any other visual means, create an image that represents a major obstacle facing you now. You can do this any way you wish. With your entry, please also include a couple of sentences saying what the process was like for you which will accompany your art."
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
Nowhere to go but him.
It was bedtime.
His light snores penetrated the Victorian plank floor. She thought of the cheque in the post, the leftovers sitting cold in the kitchen, and the way her parents looked right through her.
----------------
Can you write something under 100 words by Wednesday, 11 January?
Would you like a chance to help the charity One in Four?
Caroline Smailes invites us to submit writing inspired by the music of Youtube.
Me, I just like doing creative things with other people, for other people.
His light snores penetrated the Victorian plank floor. She thought of the cheque in the post, the leftovers sitting cold in the kitchen, and the way her parents looked right through her.
----------------
Can you write something under 100 words by Wednesday, 11 January?
Would you like a chance to help the charity One in Four?
Caroline Smailes invites us to submit writing inspired by the music of Youtube.
Me, I just like doing creative things with other people, for other people.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Monday, 2 January 2012
Language of Love #6: Do not eat your partner's biscuits
I gave him biscuits, amongst many other goodies, on my return from visiting the US, and then finished the biscuit package while he slept today. It was lunchtime. It was the last straw. He looked at me in disappointment, his defeated voice tinged with vulnerability.
I looked at the empty biscuit container and burst into tears, rambling about being ill and didn't he say he didn't like them anyway? I'm sorry. I wept. I coughed. I cried. I'm sorry. I'll get you some more. I'm sorry.
He didn't move. Was he even looking? I choked on my tears; my chest, weakened from infection, burned with each whimpering cough for air. Closing my eyes and putting my hand to the bottom of my throat, I kept his stillness, his emptiness, in mind and immediately thought of my often expressionless mum. My husband has withdrawn from the world. My husband is not real. Am I real? This isn't real. I'm not real.
I opened my eyes, grounding myself with sight of him.
I stared at his emptiness. And I realised: I am lonely. I am the same lonely that sat in the back of my parents' Audi on the drive up to SuperCity last week, as my dad, my brother, and my mum relentlessly exchanged familiar attacks of criticism, blame, and controlling silence. I took it in, like I've always taken it in, transforming our shared psychological pain into a sickness even the most emotionally-disabled can acknowledge and name.
Except even wrecked with the flu, I was still the same lonely. Even knowing I was rendered helpless by viral infection, no, BECAUSE I was so helpless, my parents avoided me. I cried myself to sleep the first night. When I finally saw my husband on Skype, he looked at me with a defensive precision and said kindly that he hates to see me ill. My mum came in the room the next day. "I hate to see you ill." They are parrots of each other.
"I wish I could hug you." His face looked strained with sympathy.
"Can I hug you?" My mum reached out her hand, as though she was afraid to break me.
"No," I said, looking away. My helplessness is as contagious as the flu, and it pains me to see them broken by this poisonous mix of narcissism, fear, and compassion.
I must be strong. In the same ways, in all ways, I let them be helpless for me. I let them be silent. I let them avoid me. I make excuses for their vulnerability. I write scripts in my head, fantasies that tell the story differently. I soothe myself. I fix my own problems.
I let them be helpless.
I let me be lonely.
My husband finally speaks, struggling over short phrases. "I don't matter to you." His eyes tear up. "I don't feel loved." He turns away, playing on his iPad, as I sit there staring at him.
I let me be lonely, as I softly ask my husband what we can do to make this situation better. My emotions are all over my face, and maybe that is why he can't look at me. Like my mother could not look at me, when I stumbled downstairs to ask for soup for dinner. I'm taking care of myself. I am letting myself be helped. I am compromising. I am caring. I am opening myself to you. I am making room for you. Come in, come in.
I wait for his reply. He is silent. I am hopeful. Please God, give him strength to act. Please God, let me matter enough for him to want to fix this with me. He still doesn't speak. My voice is almost a whisper. "Will you think about it?" About ways to fix this. About ways to make you matter. Another long silence. He nods quietly and returns to his game.
I ask him whether he read the article about 'language of love' that I sent him while I was away. Maybe, he replies. I ask him about his type. I lean forward with interest. You, husband, are in my mind; your reply matters to me. I wait for him to ask me. But he couldn't break the silence, nor take his eyes away from the game. The silence grows into night.
I am lonely, I say wordlessly, watching him. I am lonely and I ate your biscuits to fill me up. But you didn't ask why. Not then, not now, and probably never. The reason doesn't matter to you. I don't matter to you.
You don't matter to you.
He leaves the room. I weep; I write.
I looked at the empty biscuit container and burst into tears, rambling about being ill and didn't he say he didn't like them anyway? I'm sorry. I wept. I coughed. I cried. I'm sorry. I'll get you some more. I'm sorry.
He didn't move. Was he even looking? I choked on my tears; my chest, weakened from infection, burned with each whimpering cough for air. Closing my eyes and putting my hand to the bottom of my throat, I kept his stillness, his emptiness, in mind and immediately thought of my often expressionless mum. My husband has withdrawn from the world. My husband is not real. Am I real? This isn't real. I'm not real.
I opened my eyes, grounding myself with sight of him.
I stared at his emptiness. And I realised: I am lonely. I am the same lonely that sat in the back of my parents' Audi on the drive up to SuperCity last week, as my dad, my brother, and my mum relentlessly exchanged familiar attacks of criticism, blame, and controlling silence. I took it in, like I've always taken it in, transforming our shared psychological pain into a sickness even the most emotionally-disabled can acknowledge and name.
Except even wrecked with the flu, I was still the same lonely. Even knowing I was rendered helpless by viral infection, no, BECAUSE I was so helpless, my parents avoided me. I cried myself to sleep the first night. When I finally saw my husband on Skype, he looked at me with a defensive precision and said kindly that he hates to see me ill. My mum came in the room the next day. "I hate to see you ill." They are parrots of each other.
"I wish I could hug you." His face looked strained with sympathy.
"Can I hug you?" My mum reached out her hand, as though she was afraid to break me.
"No," I said, looking away. My helplessness is as contagious as the flu, and it pains me to see them broken by this poisonous mix of narcissism, fear, and compassion.
I must be strong. In the same ways, in all ways, I let them be helpless for me. I let them be silent. I let them avoid me. I make excuses for their vulnerability. I write scripts in my head, fantasies that tell the story differently. I soothe myself. I fix my own problems.
I let them be helpless.
I let me be lonely.
My husband finally speaks, struggling over short phrases. "I don't matter to you." His eyes tear up. "I don't feel loved." He turns away, playing on his iPad, as I sit there staring at him.
I let me be lonely, as I softly ask my husband what we can do to make this situation better. My emotions are all over my face, and maybe that is why he can't look at me. Like my mother could not look at me, when I stumbled downstairs to ask for soup for dinner. I'm taking care of myself. I am letting myself be helped. I am compromising. I am caring. I am opening myself to you. I am making room for you. Come in, come in.
I wait for his reply. He is silent. I am hopeful. Please God, give him strength to act. Please God, let me matter enough for him to want to fix this with me. He still doesn't speak. My voice is almost a whisper. "Will you think about it?" About ways to fix this. About ways to make you matter. Another long silence. He nods quietly and returns to his game.
I ask him whether he read the article about 'language of love' that I sent him while I was away. Maybe, he replies. I ask him about his type. I lean forward with interest. You, husband, are in my mind; your reply matters to me. I wait for him to ask me. But he couldn't break the silence, nor take his eyes away from the game. The silence grows into night.
I am lonely, I say wordlessly, watching him. I am lonely and I ate your biscuits to fill me up. But you didn't ask why. Not then, not now, and probably never. The reason doesn't matter to you. I don't matter to you.
You don't matter to you.
He leaves the room. I weep; I write.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)