Bad Bad Blogger
Okay, okay, I am sorry. I am sorry I haven't posted in an eon. Thank you to those who kept checking back and haven't stop reading me. But sometimes a gal needs a little space and a little room to think. Maybe reflect is a better word than think.
So, I haven't been sleeping. Except from sheer exhaustion when I collapse for a couple hours on Ralph, my couch, during the day. Why? A variety of reasons. But right now my anxiety is super high. When I lie down at night, I can feel my blood pulsing through every point of my body, raging against my veins. And then it starts. The thoughts start bouncing around my brain. It is like being stuck out in the rain without an umbrella. You feel one little rain drop fall from the sky. Then another and another. Eventually, you are running for cover, a shelter away from the storm. But inside my brain at night, there is no bus stop to hide under, no awning to deflect the rain. It is a load scary place. I can't seem to get quiet in there lately. I just want quiet. I just want to feel comfortable inside. Comfortable in my own skin. Not to shake, not to dread life without distraction. With distraction, I can forget the other stuff, at least until I try to sleep.
My mental health Mondays have been spilt into Mediation Mondays and Therapeutic Tuesdays. As some of you know, I am on stress leave, so it is easier to get into my psychologist on Tuesdays. I still go for acupuncture on Mondays. You know what's the worst part of going on medical leave? The damn forms you have to fill out. I arrived at my shrink yesterday in tears, frustrated at the daunting task of expressing myself on pages and pages and pages of forms. Forms to prove that I am not able to work right now. Just come and talk to me, I tell you, I show you why I can't work. They make it hard on purpose, I understand why. Insurance fraud is rampant. We finally got things sorted out although the stack are still sitting in my car. I just can't deal with filling the rest of them out today.
Every week, after about 20 minutes of talking, I do something we call "body work" at my shrinks. Yup, I actually lie down on her couch and focus on breathing. How cliched is that? In real life, in the dangerous scary place, I don't breath. Well, at least I don't breath deeply. In my shrink's office, it is safe and I can access the deep repressed feelings and memories. Yesterdays, I am fat and ugly and my mother never really loved me.
I never realize the importance of the mother-child bond. That is not true, I never realized the importance of the bond, or lack of bond with my mother. I always felt that nothing was ever good enough for my mother. I wasn't good enough. That sentiment still lingers today deep down inside. When you mother states "if I had to go back and do it all again, I wouldn't have children", those words stick with you. When your mother moves out your Dad the same weekend her new boyfriend moves in, it sticks with you. When your mother and your stepdad fight over the one "B" on a report card of 47 "A"'s, it sticks with you. When your mother allows you and your sister to be around her verbally abusive mother, and the father that sexually molested her, it sticks with you. It all sticks with you. It destroys your self worth, it rattles your confidence. Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming all of my problems on my Mom, but the childhood traumas don't easily go away. Especially when they have been bottled for years and years.
All these memories flooded back, flooded out as we were doing the body work. Them and many tears. I don't cry much, but I sobbed and sobbed yesterday. As I left my therapist said "Be careful today, you are very wounded. And you wound is gaping right now." The story of my life. I hope that wound is getting smaller. I don't think it will ever go away, but maybe one day it won't consume so much if my soul. That is the goal of all of this. To be me. And to be quiet inside.
So, I haven't been sleeping. Except from sheer exhaustion when I collapse for a couple hours on Ralph, my couch, during the day. Why? A variety of reasons. But right now my anxiety is super high. When I lie down at night, I can feel my blood pulsing through every point of my body, raging against my veins. And then it starts. The thoughts start bouncing around my brain. It is like being stuck out in the rain without an umbrella. You feel one little rain drop fall from the sky. Then another and another. Eventually, you are running for cover, a shelter away from the storm. But inside my brain at night, there is no bus stop to hide under, no awning to deflect the rain. It is a load scary place. I can't seem to get quiet in there lately. I just want quiet. I just want to feel comfortable inside. Comfortable in my own skin. Not to shake, not to dread life without distraction. With distraction, I can forget the other stuff, at least until I try to sleep.
My mental health Mondays have been spilt into Mediation Mondays and Therapeutic Tuesdays. As some of you know, I am on stress leave, so it is easier to get into my psychologist on Tuesdays. I still go for acupuncture on Mondays. You know what's the worst part of going on medical leave? The damn forms you have to fill out. I arrived at my shrink yesterday in tears, frustrated at the daunting task of expressing myself on pages and pages and pages of forms. Forms to prove that I am not able to work right now. Just come and talk to me, I tell you, I show you why I can't work. They make it hard on purpose, I understand why. Insurance fraud is rampant. We finally got things sorted out although the stack are still sitting in my car. I just can't deal with filling the rest of them out today.
Every week, after about 20 minutes of talking, I do something we call "body work" at my shrinks. Yup, I actually lie down on her couch and focus on breathing. How cliched is that? In real life, in the dangerous scary place, I don't breath. Well, at least I don't breath deeply. In my shrink's office, it is safe and I can access the deep repressed feelings and memories. Yesterdays, I am fat and ugly and my mother never really loved me.
I never realize the importance of the mother-child bond. That is not true, I never realized the importance of the bond, or lack of bond with my mother. I always felt that nothing was ever good enough for my mother. I wasn't good enough. That sentiment still lingers today deep down inside. When you mother states "if I had to go back and do it all again, I wouldn't have children", those words stick with you. When your mother moves out your Dad the same weekend her new boyfriend moves in, it sticks with you. When your mother and your stepdad fight over the one "B" on a report card of 47 "A"'s, it sticks with you. When your mother allows you and your sister to be around her verbally abusive mother, and the father that sexually molested her, it sticks with you. It all sticks with you. It destroys your self worth, it rattles your confidence. Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming all of my problems on my Mom, but the childhood traumas don't easily go away. Especially when they have been bottled for years and years.
All these memories flooded back, flooded out as we were doing the body work. Them and many tears. I don't cry much, but I sobbed and sobbed yesterday. As I left my therapist said "Be careful today, you are very wounded. And you wound is gaping right now." The story of my life. I hope that wound is getting smaller. I don't think it will ever go away, but maybe one day it won't consume so much if my soul. That is the goal of all of this. To be me. And to be quiet inside.
posted by Cascadia at 4:54 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Cass,
Molly and I were worried. I am glad you are on stress leave.
I can't begin to understand what you are going through re: your Mom, but I want you to know this...
Despite the fact that your Mom said if had to do it over again and her not wanting to have kids...
I would not be where I am without having known you... who knows where any of your friends would be without having known you. Look at Arnsdorf... He'd still be "top button golf shirt hair gelled down uber dorky" Arnsdorf...I know that I would never have lasted as long at that blasted CU without you! Even to this day, I learn from you and want to be a better person because of you...
You need to heal your relationship with your Mom, but until you get up the courage to do that, remember that people's lives have been positively affected because of you... and so even if your Mom SUPIDLY and selfishly wouldn't do it over again... some of us are very appreciative that you are here.
Again, just one gal's opinion...
Later
Hey sweetheart...
Not to compare wounds, but I know where you're coming from. It's also been a struggle in my life to overcome what my parents put me through and how they made me feel.
Like you, there were really hard times. I remember the day my mom told my dad she was having an affair... then told me to pack a bag. I was to move in with her lover, in an apartment on the other side of town. I would have to go to a new school now, no time to say goodbye to all your friends and p.s. you might not see your dad for a bit. Oh and while we're at it, your brother? He's only your half-brother (your dad isn't his dad). Parents do shitty shitty things because they're so absorbed in their own bloody little dramas.
You know what, Cass... we're never going to forget those moments... but it's our calling to move through them and on to the rest of our lives.
The best thing you can do is find out how it has made you strong... how it has made you a force to be reckoned with. Work through how it has hindered you and embrace how it has made you who you are... because who you are is who we all love.
I think it's normal to have your dark moments, but only so far as to find yourself again in that darkness, as a new incarnation. See, times like these... these are opportunities to take all that anger and bitterness and resentment and sadness and turn it into something beautiful. Maybe even ugly, but beautiful in it's ugliness.
Be kind to yourself, Cass... just be kind. Love yourself, know that you are loved deeply by all your friends... and try not to hold your breath so much, waiting for the other shoe to drop... because this time? It might not....
Love you sweetie,
D.
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