adult self:* *"Yeah,  I just wish I would have done something to stop everything from happening."
child self: "What do you mean?"
adult self: "Well, you know. The stuff with Father. I wish I would have done something to keep that from happening."
child self: "Like what?"
adult self: "I don’t know." I thought for a minute. "I just took it. I wish I would have stopped it all. I could have said something, told someone earlier. You know."
child self: "But how?"
adult self: "I don’t know! I’m not angry at you," I said quickly. *"I wish I’d have been stronger. I wish someone would have walked in on Father and me. Someone. I wish someone would have been there. Some kind of adult, someone who would have stopped it, or at least said to me, "It’s all right. It’s not your fault."

The contrast of shiny steel and dark crimson, the contrast of man and metal. Tonight the blade will once again free the blood that is restrained by my skin. Sitting on the floor, with my legs pulled close, I cannot wait to feel the rush of the calm. It is rushing through my mind right now, blocking out all other thoughts. The exquisite yet simple pain of the cold steel parting my skin. Watching the layers of my skin part under the pressure, feeling my pulse push the blood up through the cut. Then gravity pulling it down along my skin until it finally hits the floor. The calmness slows down time, giving me a chance to watch the blood drops form, then fall to the cold,hard floor below. The tip of a droplet hits the tile, the force of the impact creating a smaller ring of droplets that strain against the gravity, soon to be overcome, and pulled downward. The next drop contributing to the rippling pool of crimson love on the floor. I cannot pull my eyes away from the pool of blood on the floor. The drops now starting to fall faster, fast enough that I cannot see the individual drops, that I cannot distinguish them from the previous ones. Once the individuality of the drops cannot be seen, I cut no more. For now the angry creature inside me is spent, he has no more tales to tell. The drops start to come slower now, seemingly holding on to my body before they drop. As if, they know they are falling without reason now. Finally the flow stops, my pulse is slow, my breathing relaxed.

I have a terrible uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach this morning. I have tried to distract myself but it won’t go away. So I am now pretending I am invisible, non-existent. When I am invisible it’s easy to feel nothing…to be nothing. I don’t want to feel today. I want all of what I feel to fall into the Bermuda triangle never to be found again. I can’t even find safety in writing today. Today, even writing feels too vulnerable, too exposed. I feel that if I were to write my true feelings, put what’s really going through my crazybrain in words that they will be read by someone who will thwart my plans.

I have asked for help, I have reached out, laid myself bare for someone else to witness. I have sat in silence.  I have exposed the ugly truth of the past and the pain of reliving the past in the present…and still no one will help me with it. I have been vulnerable in the face of pain. I have screamed out loud and I have screamed silently inside my head. I have tried to express my feelings and needs in different ways. I have allowed myself to reach out in ways I have never done before. And yet here it is, the mess that is me…shattered on the floor in a million pieces, just as it was last month, last year, 10 years ago…all the way back to when I was an unfertilized egg.

I have listened and I have been open to new ideas and techniques. I have listened to someone condescendingly tell me, "I can only imagine the pain you feel" and tell me I have "courage" and "I am honored to be your witness" (all ******* cliché responses).  I’ve paid my hard-earned money for a therapeutic technique I knew would not work. I have tried to mirror the good and understand the bad. I have tried to nurture the little girl and soothe the angry one. I have distracted and half-smiled for over a year.  And it is all still here.  All of it...the nightmares, the SUI thoughts, the burning desires to SI.  

I'm tired of being told what I can and cannot do with my feelings while not giving me other options...words like "I see you struggling" mean nothing and are actually patronizing and demeaning.  Would you tell someone who was drowning the same thing? Or would you throw them a life vest?

I am no longer going to do it someone else’s way. No one listens to me so I am done listening to them. I am tired of trying to explain the reality of the ghosts who haunt and torture me and being met with only disbelief and “it’s not that bad”. So I have skillfully constructed my own plan and I have placed my carefully drawn plans into a black satin box and tied the box with ribbon the color of blood. And my plan will stay there, cushioned by the soft warm velvet until late this evening, when the moon is high and the night wind howls...then I will untie the ribbon, open the box, and expose the inside to the cruel reality of the world.

Dear Diary, can you see me?
Can you feel the pain I feel?
Can you feel the pain through my words?
Will my heart and soul ever heal?
Dear Diary, can you tell me,
Why I feel so sad?
Why my father did this?
Destroyed all I had.
Dear Diary, can you help me?
Can you erase my life?
Can you make me happy?
Erase all my strife?
Dear Diary, are you there?
Can you set my spirit free?
Can you **** me, Dear Diary?
Can you make it ok to 'be'?
Dear Diary, can you help me?

Dearest Therapist:
There is nothing wrong with me. I don’t see what you see. I feel fine today… it must have been a dream. I don’t know why I ever told you anything at all. I have no problems, there’s nothing wrong with me. How could there possibly be? I am the perfect girl. Things like that don’t happen to girls like me. I have the perfect life, with the perfect kids, the perfect friends, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect smile. There is no way I could have ever suffered something like that. I am not pathetic and sorry. Girls like me don’t have problems. Girls like me don’t feel pain. Girls like me have everything anyone could possibly wish for, and then some. There is nothing I cannot achieve. I am so sorry for wasting your time.*

WHAT ACHES TO BE SAID BUT WILL REMAIN HIDDEN BEHIND THE SMILE:
I am not that perfect girl. My heart and soul have third degree burns that cannot be repaired. It hurts so much inside that at times it is unbearable and I cannot remain here, housed in this body. I hide behind a smile because all I have left is a small amount of pride and a whole bushel of stubborn will. My life is one big lie. No one will see me with my head in the toilet or the scars on my arms that were once covered with blood. No one will ever know that the perfect girl is not real. The reality of it all is way too difficult to divulge and much less complicated to conceal. Tonight I cry alone but when tomorrow comes I will once again live that ‘perfect life’… the life of no pain, the life of no shame, and the life with no fear. And you will never know that when the darkness falls, and I am once again alone, I will feel the pain I push away all day long. And I will lock myself in the bathroom and I will sob on the cold tile floor. But I will do it in the silence of my bathroom, alone, in the darkness.

**You will never know….because I will not speak...I am not allowed to speak.

Tonight I want to express my gratitude but my words seem to fail me. The support I receive is part of the reason why I fight so hard. You send me strength when I have none. Even far away, you are still right here, listening to me, encouraging me, holding me, loving me, sending me hope. Shared history explains the how, but love explains the why. You, my guardian angels, carry me through, reminding me that my life is worth fighting for, that I am worth fighting for, I deserve to be here. That Nita can be saved.

Dear Tears,

How very sorry I am for what you have lived with.  You and I have not spent much time together.  I avoid you because I despise crying.  You avoid me because we are not supposed to cry.

So other than objectives, we have not known much about one another.  Sure, I've squeezed out a few tears here and there; but a sob?  Not really.  And those times that I have needed to cry, you stood by and fought a deluge at much cost to yourself.

Over the past few days I have cried.  And when I say cry, I mean real and bitter tears.  Tears stockpiled over years of pain.  Tears we both did not believe to exist.  As this happened I watched you through my blurry eyes, shaking in a corner.  You were waiting for him and he did not come.  We were both surprised.

No one hit us until we stopped crying.  No one ****** us until there were no more tears to cry.  Not once was the blood running faster than the tears.  In fact, there was no blood at all.  

Each tear, it did hurt.  Like crying razor blades.  But it was a healing kind of hurt.  To borrow a thought... it hurts a lot less to rip a band-aid off quickly than slowly.  Or not at all.  So I sit in my car and cry while I peel the neglected, crusty bandages of abuse away.  I do this while I worry about keeping you safe.  It's a role reversal of sorts.

Watching you with intent, I see that you are small.  You are a skinny  girl who is young, about five.  And now I am not seeing you through the haze of my own pain.   Without the need to dodge his fists, I see that you have glasses and black hair.  Your glasses are broken and behind the cracks you have no eyes.  No eyes that cry no tears.

No wonder.  

I can cry your tears now.  And it's OK if you never shed one of your own; that is not your job.   It's mine now and you know, tears are not that bad.

And neither are you.  So go and rest.

Today I am watching a loved one pass from life into eternity. My heartaches as I see the man whom I loved that was once so strong and full of life dwindling away. Wishing I could trade places with him. I would gladly give him my remaining days. He has so many that love him and rely on him.

Death I see you coming...I only wish it was for me.

Today I feel defeated. I feel like a small fish in the big ocean. Everything I do fails and at the moment my head is going full speed with "pictures" from my past. I call them pictures because that is what it looks like in my head. Like a slideshow. I think these pictures are eating me alive. It feels like there's a hole where my heart is supposed to be.

When I close my eyes I see darkness. A dark room. In this room is a crib, and in that crib there I lay. The crib bars surround me. I am crying. I cry because I am hungry or because I'm wet or lonely or maybe because I want my mother. I cry for all of the millions of reasons that babies cry. Until my door opens and the sound of his boots walking closer and closer to my crib gives me something else to cry about.

When I was born darkness cast its shadows over me. The devil himself kissed me on the cheek. That devil was my father.

I do not know how old I was the night that my father left my room but I know I was younger then two. This is the first memory I have of my life. I also remember his smell and his hands and that when he left I felt broken, hurt,shattered, exposed and confused. I do not know what he did to me exactly. This I cannot see. Maybe I am not ready to see it. But I know this incident changed who I was supposed to become.

This makes me angry! That my father the one who was supposed to love and guide me through life is the one who could hurt me in this way. When I see other girls with their dads, girls who complain about how "daddy won't give me money" or "my dad is so annoying" It literally makes me sick to my stomach. They have no idea what they have. I grew up with a dad who had two faces. He was charming and handsome and loving and made me want to be his daughter. Then night came and he was evil. Thinking of nighttime daddy makes my skin crawl. He played his game well and everyone was fooled. I was just a tiny bug caught in his web of lies. Only now 40 years old can I start to realize that what he did was wrong and was not my fault.

How could he look at me a small child and see anything ******? Babies are warmness, smiles, laughs, and play. What kind of person would want to destroy that? I guess no one can ever answer these questions for me. I have to accept this. Anyways explanations will not solve or fix what has already been done. Nothing will. I am a victim of ******. THERE I SAID IT. Acknowledging it makes it real. But that does not heal me. I am a broken bird with tattered wings.

How do I fix my heart with these huge gaping holes in it? Do I pretend I am okay and patch them up with fake smiles and laughter? What if the patches fall off and I am left feeling defeated again? Do I spend thousands of dollars talking to therapists about all of my many problems hoping that 10 years later I will somehow be "normal" whatever that is? I will go with the first option for now. Pretending I'm fine and putting a smile on my face. If I smile I seem happy and then no one will know the pain inside me. Some know what happened but think I am "healed" so they do not ask questions and smiles do not lie right?

Sometimes I wish that someone would see past it and try to save me. Take me into their arms and let me cry and give me what I crave so much. Human contact. The right kind of contact that reassures and tells you your safe and loved. I feel alone and without purpose. What I know is today I feel defeated. Today I feel alone. Today I remember things that I did not remember yesterday. Today I have flashbacks where I feel like a little girl again. Where I feel like his hands are rolling over my body now. His eyes creeping up on me now. But it is not happening now. It is not real. This is what happens today. Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow will be better.

I am trying to heal. I am trying to move on. This is a slow moving hard process.

During every stage of life
I am a failure
Stupid,stuttering child
Always messing up
Probably never going to succeed
Pointless to try anymore
Over life as it is
In a dark place
Never anybody's first choice
Totally incompetent
Miserable
Exiting stage left
Nobody cares
Time to quit.

I cried all the way home tonight. I kept repeating to myself, “It’s going to be okay…it’s going to be okay…you’re going to be okay…” But is it? Is everything going to be “okay”? I no longer hear that voice inside of me telling me I can do this~ that I have to keep fighting because I am worth it. I don’t know where she went but I have not been able to find her.

I am so tired of feeling this disconnected from, well, everything. Everything…it’s lonely…it’s scary how alone one can feel in a room full of people. It’s chilling how I can watch myself from outside my body as someone else ‘lives’ inside of it. Someone I am not connected too, someone I don’t know.

Tonight, as I was brushing my teeth, I looked at my face in the mirror. I leaned forward, as if to touch the reflection there ~ and I looked deeply into her eyes and I felt nothing. I was not connected to those eyes, or to that face…those eyes were empty and hollow. I did not feel empathy or compassion for her, that face, those eyes in the mirror…I felt anger and hate for her failure to feel alive, for her incapability to feel any kind of connection to anyone or anything.

I spit toothpaste right in her face! That daft woman in the mirror! I hate her right now! For everything she has been through, for all the pain she has made me feel. I am not her! Not right now.

I rarely inhibit her body now. I can’t. I am doing the best I can… I am doing the best I can right now. I do not have to be here right now. I can’t. Not now…not right now.  

I don't remember the last time I have felt this disconnected from everything.  
I am struggling.  I am afraid. I am lost.

I desperately need help right now but I am afraid to ask for help, or even accept help if it is offered...I don't know how.  I can't reach out because...yeah, all I hear: in those moments of tempting the face of expected rejection/abandonment...make a different choice.....I can't face anymore rejection or abandonment ~ not right now.  

I want to crawl inside of myself and just feel nothing.  
And I am sorry ~ I am so sorry.....

You don't know the real me. I don't know the real me. I only know the parts.

Do you know the part of me who has no feelings, who feels no pain, that part of me who does not love? Do you know that part of me who survives despite the struggle not too? She punishes me, that woman. She will take everything I have and make it disappear. She will take it because she knows I can’t be trusted not to cave in emotionally. She is empty and she wants me to be empty. She feels nothing, less, than nothing, and she wishes to disappear. She will hurt me but she feels no pain. She wants to hurt, to be hurt, because she deserves the pain – she deserves to be hurt. She takes care of no one and expects no one to care for her.

Do you know the part of me who is explosive & raucous? The one who speaks before she thinks? Have you met the angry girl who spews venom on the rest of us…unconsciously yet fortuitous like a loud crash? Her words are frenzied; they engulf and hinder, they get in the way. And yet she is full of them…poisonous words that she is unable to contain. Her lashing anger is knee-**** and reckless, her words cut like knives.

Do you know the part of me who has emotions so overwhelming that her very presence chokes the life out of me? The part of me who vomits to get out the feelings of dirt and shame…she pukes until she is empty and even when there is nothing left, she cannot breathe. She used to be the strong one, but now she is weak. She is easily overwhelmed and she cuts herself to feel her emotional pain in a physical way, a way that makes more sense to her.

Have you met the whiny little brat? The 5 year old brat who weighs me down, overwhelms me with her needy dependence…Her feelings consume me, envelop me, and I can no longer hear myself because she  GETS IN THE WAY!  None of the others like her. She just needs so much! She can’t even take care of herself. She wears her weakness, her sadness…like a coat of arms. She is pathetic! She is the reason we are where we are – because  SHE  was the weak one, the one who couldn’t resist him. This is all her fault!

I have been betrayed, abused, and broken. I feel there is nothing inside of me holding me up…soon I will crumble like cinders…***** worthless ash. Leave me alone because alone is where I am safe. Alone is where I want to be. Alone is where I can take care of myself. But the rest of you, the freaks inside of me?

GO AWAY!  All of you! Go away! You all consume me and I can no longer feel me. I feel like there’s a cord tied around my neck and each of you want to pull the noose a little tighter, drag me down. You want me to weaken, so you can control me. You are all like an Achilles Heel – you all drag me down until I can no longer breathe.

Please go away. Please leave me alone.

Tired, hurting, wanting to SI... just trying to get through the 'moment' and then the next one, and the next one....and on and on and on...and I find myself flat on my stomach, lying on the bathroom floor, lost and alone...

On the bathroom floor, with a razor in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, feeling no pain while watching blood drip down one's wrist...all while watching the scene take place while outside one's body.

I cannot figure out how to unplug the Emotional Pin-Ball Game.
And I am finished playing for now!

There are nights when I am absolutely afraid to move. Anxiety and fear ~ my current nemesis. Like, one night, when I was on the phone with the therapist and he was telling me to get up and do something, I could not do it. And it was not because I was trying (in that very moment) to be argumentative and defiant, it was literally because my body was frozen and I could not move. And he seemed frustrated, which I understand, as he was trying to help me, and it’s not like he could grab my arm and physically move me (not that he would do that in his office either, but I suspect it’s a little bit easier for him to deal with me in that situation when we are in the same room). It’s so difficult for me to communicate at that point.

Right now I am in this space where I really wonder how I can continue to live up to the person everyone thinks that I am. Who is this person that everyone has created in their minds with my name attached to it? This person that people are praising and say that I am doing great things…Why can I not see the Nita that they see?? I look in the mirror and see constant failure and disappointment.

And I have to say that I am not really in the position right now to be all warrior-like and face all of it head-on. It is really one of those days when I want to curl up in a fetal position with a heating pad and pull the covers over my head. Even though the therapist would say that isn’t a good idea for me to hide myself away from all human contact…I still want too. I don’t have any desires to hurt myself; I’m just tired and I don’t want to be all happy and sunshiny for other people right now.

My body hurts today. On top of my normal Crohn’s issues that I battle daily…my weak body has fallen to pneumonia. So for 6 days now I have been rotating from coughing to not being able to breathe…oh and let’s throw in a Crohn’s fare up at the same time. Way more fun than one person should be allowed to have.  

WAH! I’m sure it’s all “emotional” overload, right? I feel like a pin-ball machine…hit the emotional ball and see where it bounces around and what part of my body it hits! *Headache/dizziness: 100 points. Abdominal pain: 50 points. Nausea/vomiting: 150 points. Insomnia: 200 points.  Cramps/bleeding: 300 points. Coughing fit: 500 points. Uncontrollable shaking or inability to move at all: 1000 bonus points.

Trapped in this mind
An impossible box
No escape from the madness.

Tiny locks everywhere
None of the keys fit
Failed attempts at happiness.

Was I born with it?
Did it happen out of nowhere?
No answers to be found.

Every part of my being aches
An insatiable urge to end it
Sweet freedom escapes me.

Crying alone in the dark
No longer able to function
Hit the exit button now.

If there is a god
Surely a supreme being
Offers no punishment

No justification for being here
I am not the one who leaves
Always the one to be left.

They leave one by one
Some by death
Some by betrayal.

The space gets lonelier
It gets colder
It closes in on me.

Suffocating under the weight
Of a sadness that never ceases
Overtaking my heart and mind.

I’m sitting here and the last thing I want to do is write. Oh, that’s not entirely true. I have wanted to write…but I haven’t been able to do it. I have been aching to talk but unable to find the words. I have been silent. I know that. It was on purpose. My mind has been unable to take the myriad of fragmented thoughts and memories and put them down on paper in a way they will be able to be read and understood. My thoughts don’t form fluid complete sentences right now. They have no eloquence or beauty…perhaps they also lack the passion that was once at my fingertips – words begging to be written, screaming to be spoken out loud, even if only a whisper.

I am sitting here with my heart in my throat and I need to be here. I want to be here. I crave being a part of this community but at the same time I fear the judgment. I have felt so deeply absorbed in my own pain and yet wanting so desperately to express my thoughts and feelings here. Voices inside of me begging to be heard, to connect with someone who might possibly understand how it is I feel. I have poured my energy and channeled my anger into writing. The hurt, the sadness, the rage, the hurt, the shame, and my Lord, the unbearable pain…all made me write…and write…and write. I pour my heart, my soul, my very self out here and the sense of belonging and community here make me better. Even if only for a minute…

Sometimes it is just too heavy and I am having a hard time coping. With the crazyiness…with life. I move from wanting to change to giving up on myself constantly. I am not yet ready to explain what giving up feels like, but I give up. And I want you to give up on me too. I want you to be angry at me for giving up.

And yet I want you to care and I want your help. There is so very much to fix inside of my crazy-brain.

I began writing to express myself in the written word. To ‘speak’, in writing, of things from my past I was unable to speak aloud. Healing through writing... I needed a place to express myself that was not in a written journal that could be found by the wandering eye of someone in my real life.*

I reflect on the past year, and I do not reflect back with words of healing and strength and self-empowerment. Oh, I would love to write with the grace and eloquence of a woman who has gained the much sought after wisdom and perspective through this painful process, I thought that by now I could face and somehow outgrow the painful things that happened to me long ago.

I wanted to be able to look back on 2012 as a year of personal growth, from a place of asset and growth from my pain. I had wished that by 2013 I would have the ability to distance myself from this pain, that I could hold my pain and not let it consume me as it has for the past few years. But, regrettably, that is not the case.

But this year has not followed the path I had set forth, the goals I had set for myself remained unachieved. I did not want my writing to sound as pathetic as it does, I did not want to continue being buried alive in this pain, and I am so disgusted at the woman behind the mask, and I am filled with hate for little girl who aches with pain and continues to feel hopeless and alone.

Sadly, instead of feeling like I am on a ‘healing’ path, instead of being able to express myself in real life, instead of being able to take off my mask and be real, instead of being able to ask for help when I need it, reach out for help when I am drowning; I am now surrounding the brick wall I built long ago with barbed wire, and hired trained guards to patrol the perimeter, for reinforcement.

I wonder which side of the perimeter the therapist will end up on...I know he used to have the pass to enter into my world, but then a perceived breach revoked his credentials.  And I wonder when I will finally just pack it all up and just fade away. In a sense I have already done so emotionally ~ only the shell remains.  

*I am pathetic. I am last week’s leftovers that should have been thrown away long ago.  I am tired and I don't want to do it anymore. I am not the woman I wanted to become...not in person, not in written word. Tonight, I am wishing for something to turn me into dust and ******* away...

I feel like I am in constant state of falling. Like when you are having a dream and you fall off a cliff, and then you wake up kicking and trying to grab hold of something. That is how I feel when I am awake. The ground just suddenly shifts out from under me and I fall. I am constantly kicking and grabbing. Searching for something or someone to save me. But I just keep falling.

I am falling into a never ending tunnel. I am being swallowed up by the earth. These dark memories of him wash over me and I start to fall to my death. I am falling. As I fall I remember his lies. As I fall I feel his touch.  As I fall I see him watching me. As I fall I hear his voice making promises he could not keep. I am falling. There is nothing, no one to save me.
I am searching for something or someone to save me. But I just keep falling.

I am so tired of kicking and fighting. The constant searching for that thing to save me. What if I am wasting all my time and energy just grabbing at thin air? I wait and I wait and I wait for the end…the big SMACK. The sound it will make when I have stopped falling. Then will all this pain be over but that never happens.
I am searching for something or someone to save me. But I just keep falling.

Something always pulls me back up, briefly I regain my footing. But why? Why can the pain not just be over? What is saving me when I cannot even save myself? Why am I here fighting so hard every day, fighting so hard just to exist? Breathing and existing, carrying on in this world takes so much effort.
I am searching for something or someone to save me. But I just keep falling.

Why am I fighting so hard? What if forever I stay broken, hurt, sad, and unsure? What if this is my forever? Each day breathing and existing…carrying on only to have him come back and hurt me again. What is my purpose for fighting so hard? I wish someone could tell me….stop the perpetual fall.
I am searching for something or someone to save me. But I just keep falling.

Why am I fighting so hard? Help me understand. Tell me that one day things will be okay. One day I will be stronger, wiser, and braver.  And soon I won't feel like I'm falling anymore but like I am solidly placed in this world. That my life has a meaning, that all my fighting, and suffering, and searching, and agony was not in vain.
But for now I am searching for something or someone to save me…I just keep falling.

Fathers' Day is kind of a difficult "holiday" for me. In a lot of ways, my dad was a good dad. We were always fed and clothed, had a roof over our heads, and have plenty of good things to remember. This might sound horrible but sometimes I try really hard NOT to think about the ways he was a good dad, because it sort of makes me blame myself for the ways he was not. I think, "he has so many good qualities, it must have been something about me." In my mind, I know it wasn't my fault, but in my heart, it's a bit more difficult to "get it."

So this Fathers' Day I have decided to try to think about only the good things and not the bad, as far is my dad is concerned. And to pretty much just try to make the day about my children's dad and other dads I happen to know who are great, even though they might not be my dad.

I have been doing a lot of work with my feelings lately.  I have avoided them for most of my life because, well the bad ones outweigh the good ones.  

The rest of them were f@#ked or beaten out of me.

I have always believed that my feelings only led to trouble and pain.  A simple feeling stated as a child sent me tumbling down a rabbit hole of horrific pain.  An innocent smile was interpreted to be nothing but filthy desire.  A frown was nothing but blatant rebellion that had to be dealt with.

My thinking is extremely black and white.  Good or bad.  Right or wrong.  But what I'm learning is that feelings don't fall easily into any of those categories.  The classifications that I have used to reason my life into some semblance of order do not work for feelings.

So walking in this grey area is very difficult for me.  I cannot make much sense of what I allow myself to feel and if I do, I get stuck.  The detachment I have felt to my memories is slowly being bridged by the missing feelings.  And that is terrifying.

I have always been able to share, matter of factly, the details I have chosen to disclose.  And I'm very afraid that those details were the easy ones; the ones I could disconnect from and push the feelings onto someone else.

Remember those rabbit holes?  When I find the feelings associated with that pain it's like falling down that hole bound, gagged, and blindfolded.  My logic was my only means of control and I've lost it amongst the feelings.  The only way to climb out of that hole?  

Literally feel my way out.

Sounds good...they say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting...

Come and share with me, allow me to show you a piece of myself when I trusted another, and then a piece of me after that trust was broken, shattered. Come and experience the vulnerability, the body memories, intrusive thoughts, the isolation and hopelessness… and the shame! Imagine you have someone to walk with you, beside you, someone you have learned to trust and after  the two of you walk side by side for several long miles, you finally allow yourself to take off the mask and be who you are, you share pieces of yourself that you wouldn’t share with another, and you finally feel accepted.

Then, imagine one day that person is gone. Well, he is still there, but he no longer walks beside you, he instead chooses to walk on the other side of the street. But you don’t know why. Must have been something you did, you must have shown something of yourself that was too scary, too shameful. So once again you walk alone. Only this time, you are no longer searching for another to walk beside you. Your trust has been shattered and you are no longer willing, or able, to reach out. You realize now that he was right. No one will believe you, or understand you, or even try. Because you are bad, you deserve nothing.

You must move on, be grateful for what you learned in this relationship. You are happy and safe now. You must be grateful for the wine and liquor that has allowed you some clarity, allowed your brain to function once again. You are not completely hopeless or unstable…you are an adult once again. The fact that you are once again living in silence of your true feelings, well, that’s okay now, because you did the risk analysis, and it is 75% less painful this way. And you have had enough pain in your life.

Focus on the positives! You have learned to hurt in solitude. You thought you had forgotten! Once again, it is so easy to hide your true feelings, and emotions, well, what are those? You feel smug realizing the recent validation that you were right not to trust, and you know now…you must be vigilant, stay guarded, and never let your walls down. No longer does the scared and broken little girl exist, this is the “NEW” you…she is gone for good this time.

People are not like dogs, dogs are always loyal, always accepting, people will hurt you if you give them a chance. Do not ever turn your back for there is always someone lurking with a sharp knife. Lie, lie, lie…if you HAVE to cry, and I suppose everyone does at some point, do not ever cry out loud! Keep it inside…hide your feelings! No one should ever see your tears! And smile, don’t frown or act depressed...those traits show a lack of confidence and weakness…remember: you were designed more for public than for private.

Hope for nothing more than what you have…do not hope for love, intimacy, for someone to care…not about the ‘real’ you. Keep the real you in ‘solitude’ never to see the light of day, this is the only way you will survive. Sweep up the bits and pieces of yourself, and carefully put them back into the box and store the box in the darkest corner of the closet. Show no one anything personal about you, not the real you. The past no longer exists. You are a confident, successful, happy woman…and that’s all anyone needs to know about you. Keep the rest to yourself…didn’t I tell you that, like, over 30 years ago?

Forgiveness...sounds good...they say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting...

Each night the little girl builds a fortress of pillows and blankets to protect herself from the irrational fear and the very real nightmares that overtake her in the darkness.  She forgot to build that fortress last Friday night...and left the extra pillows on the floor and the bear she sleeps with in a chair.  The above facts were brought to my attention the next night as the hus was heading to bed.  As typical, he exits the man-cave and stands in the hallway and announces that he is going to bed (as though I'm unable to see him?).  Then he says, as he says every night, "Come hold me?"...knowing that I will say, "Sure, I'll be right there." but 'right' really represents several hours...  Last night there was a slight deviation to our nightly verbal exchange as he said, "Last night you didn't build your fortress and I don't know what was going on but I woke up at 2:30am and I had like 6 inches of space in the bed because you were so close to me."  Hum...I guess I took the "come hold me" phrase seriously on Friday night.

I don't know why the deviation from my normal set up...but I do know that there is this desperate little girl inside of me who longs to be held, but other, more 'grown-up' parts inside of me who know we're supposed to be beyond that now and it will never be - nor will they ever allow that to happen.

I also know that a lot of the time it's difficult for the hus to understand where I am and what's going on with me...I can't even begin to explain it to him when I often don't know myself.  So I tend to air on the side of "quietness" in my communication with him too.  In other words, I don't often take off the mask in front of him, or ask him for help.  Part of me feels bad for him…I recognize that's it's difficult to have a relationship with someone with my history, and I can be more than a handful (understatement...understatement...) and it isn’t easy for anyone to stick with 'us' through the bad times...the really bad times.  I get that - and not just with him.

That's why I pull away instead.  It's difficult enough for me to deal with all the different and conflicting parts of me - how can I expect anyone else to do it with me?  The one who aches for reassurance and care, the one who sabotages any attempts to act like a sophisticated adult with her fears and desperate and confusing needs.  The one who aches with the desire to be loved, saved, fixed…on a never-ending search for something to make her feel whole, safe, "unmolested".  The sophisticated adult…the professional cold grown woman who hides her insecurity by pretending to be self-confident...some even call her 'stuck-up'.  The party girl who can only react to situations with humor and laughter even in the most inappropriate times.  The little girl who desperately wants to be held safely by someone who will not hurt her.  

How can anyone else get through to all of that?  I can't do it and believe me, I've tried.
Today, the sophisticated adult is holding steady at the helm...on 'therapy' day, which typically means she will act as though everything is great with the world, even though inside, everyone else is screaming and suffocating under the weight of the fear...sadness...anger...shame... hopelessness.  And it is virtually impossible to break through that exterior because she holds the key to lock others out...particularly the therapist because she needs no one, and that holds double for someone who told the 5 year old to "deal with it" because she is busy...and "make another choice since it's after 10 and the closed sign is out"...after being there way after 10 for the little girl for 2 years.

And then, late tonight, when the wind howls, and the snow begins to fall, and the coldness seeps inside of this body and weaves its way up my spine, the desperation will begin, followed by the crying...then the overwhelming fear and hopelessness that will be unrelenting and she will be inconsolable until she cries herself into a restless sleep and wakes up tomorrow with a migraine and swollen red eyes.

You might be thinking, "Nita, if you KNOW that's what's going to happen then can't you stop it?  Can't you make a different choice and let the therapist try to help you?"  

I don't know why it all seems so out of my control - I can watch it play out but I cannot intervene or stop it.  I wish I could...she won't let me use the key either to unlock the door.