Losing sight of that thing that made me smile. Forgetting what it feels like to laugh without explaining the punchline. Stopping to remember how the littlest of things brought a smile to my lips. Quitting on myself when everything I wanted out of life became out of my reach.
Defeated…
Ignoring the words that cut deep inside my heart. Dismissing the aggressive passivity when actions hurt my flesh. Denying the truth when it flashed directly passed my eyes. Lying to myself when I said I wasn’t hurting.
Destruction…
Picking myself back up after the seventh time. Learning that I cannot love too much. Deciding to stop going back to something that remains broken. Choosing me over all else for the very first time.
Selfless…
Mattering more than anything Being exceptional Never being perfect Being exactly who I am
If this is the only day I have, this 24 hours to make choices, to live and to breathe, I think I better choose wisely because tomorrow I may be in a different place.
Today is my day to do what pleases just me. No one to answer to, no one to selflessly serve, no one to have expectations strictly placed on me. What a freedom to breathe, to feel and be still.
On the 3am hour I awoke, just opened an eye to see the clock. Lying there in the dark, I smelled the fresh air drifting in my open window. I heard the rustling of a critter in the crispy leaves below. There was an occasional car passing by the road down the drive. It made me wonder where they were off to, but only for a moment. Suddenly the hoot owl began talking to me too. I drew my attention back to the stillness, to the quiet, peaceful little haven I call mine. Inhaling easily, I relaxed into my freshly fluffed pillow. With the next exhalation I chose to rise and have coffee in my semi dark room and embrace this alone time.
My thinking was remaining in slow gear. This day belongs to me. I asked myself, how do I want to spend it? With another sip of my delicious hot cup of creamy caffeine, I began to think about my life, as I often do. I picked up my phone for a few minutes and scrolled mindlessly through social media for all of 2 minutes. What am I doing? This is never how I want to start my day and I was reminded of my recent, former life. It startled me going down that memory lane. I was reminded of the disconnect between us. His addiction to devices, that essentially was an accessory to the death of our relationship, or at least that was how the demise initially began.
As I allowed my thoughts to wander down that road, I could feel them in my whole body, the discomfort was ruffling while the anxiety tried to bubble up in my throat. Choices, I have them, use them wisely I told my inner being. I took those thoughts captive. I pushed them aside and proceeded to venture my mind down another path, remembering instantly where I was, right here and now, safe, in the presence of my own company, relaxed and breathing.
Taking my last sip I felt sleepy instead of awake. I think I’ll start my day over again. What a concept and, if want to, I can do this all day long. I’m only as happy as I make up my mind to be. (Abraham Lincoln) And with that, I shimmied down beneath my covers, feeling the cool air upon my face, I rolled over and closed my eyes. My mind floating off to a softness of memories. I hear my own voice talking to God, “it’s been awhile since I prayed about him. Won’t you please take the anger in my heart and make it more gentle? It’s only harming me.” Out loud in my noiseless room, I still hear the faint “who, who” from my feathered friend and I ask again why he hurt me, but no words came back to me, not even a small sense of relief, only more questions. This is not how I wish for my day to go. I began to write again while I took notice of my breath and I drifted off to sleep.
It’s a peculiar thing, the brain, how it can reach far back into the cave of darkness and still find the unwanted mess amongst the wet walls, dead lightbulbs and cobwebs. Who stores these things up so tightly and why? What purpose do they keep serving? I’ve convinced myself I need to remember so I won’t forget the wreckage that caused the defeating pain. Isn’t that how I learn my lessons? I’m beginning to doubt, yet here I am, keep on keeping on.
It’s in all the thinking, the clambering of thoughts wrestling around in my head that stirs up emotions from unresolved, unanswered questions, and so, I continue to ask and I continue to wait, maybe even hope for resolutions. Now the coffee kicks in as I stretch beneath my warm covers. A thought forms, the next part of my day emerges as a visual prop, get to the gym girl. Perhaps something revealing will shine down on me there. At least my focus will change with every rep and round…
There’s this thing I do when I feel afraid or alone and I can’t or won’t cope with what’s happening all around. I disappear. Not in the physical sense of the word, but into a place of secret hiding where I feel safe. It’s simplistic and calm, but especially it’s quiet. So quiet that I really can hear myself think and there isn’t anyone else there to rearrange those thoughts or disregard them. It’s just me and me.
I guess I started visiting this magical place when I was a young girl. I could walk along the cement pathway Grampa poured to connect my front door to theirs, walk through the front door and make myself at home. This became the space where I could just be. Where everything was in its place and everything had a place. You know, that sense of belonging? I was always welcome anytime I wanted. I knew I didn’t have to ask, but I did just to be polite. Once inside the only rule was, if Mama said no, just ask Gramma.
Their home was always a comfort of warmth, like a big cozy blanket I could cuddle up with. There were cookies in the Oreo cookie jar, usually sugar ones, but sometimes actual Oreos. The gum was double mint and waited for me on the second shelf of the pantry cupboard. Then my favorite and always just for me, was vanilla ice cream in the kitchen freezer with a backup in the deep freeze, with my own can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup waiting for me in the fridge. I’d grab my lap tray from behind the back porch door where it lived and settled in next to Grampa’s chair in the living room to watch whatever it was he had on tv. It didn’t matter to me, so long as I was next to him.
Some nights Gramma and I had our own special “shows” we liked to watch together and we’d spend time on the back porch laughing and having a snack together. Me with my ice cream and her with some popcorn and a pop. I cherished these times and often dreaded having to walk back across that long, cement pathway to the other house, but I got to keep this ritual until I was about 10 years old.
Midway through 5th grade, I was uprooted and moved clear to the other side of town. It may have well been in another state. Grampa couldn’t pour a path that big. My heart was crushed. My safe haven was out of my reach. This is when I learned to retreat inside of my own world where nothing bad could reach me or touch me. It became my new escape. My fantasy world.
I became a different girl when I’d visit there. That girl was fearless. She said what she wanted to say and sang at the top of her lungs. She was bold. She spoke words no one had heard leave her lips and she was loud enough to be heard. She was courageous. She tried things that frightened her out there, but in here, she conquered it all. She was confident. She walked with her head up high and carried herself tall and proud. She was fierce. She was strong. Then one day, she just slipped away. She didn’t know where she had gone or how to get back and she was alone.
Her safety net was shredded. Her life was unstable. She felt uncertain for the first time in this life and she stumbled and fell, forgetting how to get back up, she stayed down. Her light had begun to dim. Her tenacity had slipped through her fingertips. She was becoming invisible and slowly, she disappeared. Where had she gone? This bright light, exuberant young lady, with sparks in her eyes and fire in her soul, what happened to her she had asked, but she had no answer. She had become a shell of herself, the kind that’s kept upon a shelf.
Years passed by and she grew weaker in her heart that once was explosive with desire and hunger for love and for life. She evolved into some version of someone else to keep peace and harmony for others. She realized that the world told her she couldn’t, so she didn’t. She believed them when they struck her down, leveling her to their limitations of her. They put her in a box that they designed and there she would remain, unable to grow and be that little girl who once had everything in her possession.
Gramma and Grampa never knew of her disappearance or maybe they would’ve come looking for her. Rescuing her and brought her back to where she first knew of her capabilities, her worth and her sense of belonging. How she longed for the safety of her home with them. The smells of comfort of joy of connection of acceptance of love and that familiar sense of knowing where she belongs.
He got it in his mind that women are to be more than submissive, but subservient and assuringly beneath him. The desperate need of his that they worship him as if he were a God. We are easily used, regularly dismissed and always ridiculed as if we possess no value or worth to dane to be in his presence without his permission. The perversity and depravity in that statement feels like a knife twisting in my heart as I groveled to be that worthy girl in his deemed place of honor. Fuck that…
When I was 10, he showed me that same worthlessness and stole my youth with his control by devaluing me just as a professional manipulator behaves. I was being trained up to expect to be treated this way when I got older. The woman I was becoming didn’t matter and I deserved nothing more than what he gave and did for me or to me. Fuck that…
He drilled it into my brain that my thoughts were insignificant, my needs were as well. No one wanted to hear about what I wanted or how I felt about anything at all. Being objectified began when I started to “develop” into that blossoming young teenager. How does a grown man become this way? I couldn’t think in terms such as this when I was a mere teen. From those days forward my attitude was only, Fuck that…
I’ve learned to escape my body. To float up to the ceiling where I feel safely detached from whatever takes place in the moment happening below. I practice wading in the air as if I were swimming along a soothing stretch of the lake. From here I watch and wait and when everything begins to fade away and it’s safe to return to my body, I snuggle back in. Relieved once again, I can work to get myself to drift off to sleep where I can dream of a life that is calm and beautiful, free of the anxiety that wakes me most nights and even keeps me from that night’s sleep. I pray for freedom…
After years of this way of existence, I’ve been coming back to my body, slowly allowing myself to feel things I never permitted myself to when it was a dangerous place to be. Never had I imagined the destruction of detaching from my very own self. It was all I knew. It’s what I practiced for survival. It’s what kept me going. I prayed harder for freedom…
By retreating inside my own mind and hiding behind my fears of these monstrous sized men, I had developed a case of dissociation for my self protection. It became my only source of a coping mechanism that gave me the illusion of being bigger than those who were hell bent on creating my inferior self in order to feed their self created superior selves. When I could detach so completely from the situation, I became invincible as I checked out of the world for the terrifying moment I needed to escape from to be safe. Freedom was what I craved…
The demons are as real as the dragons I battle. Maybe things will be better in another life, as if I have more than one. What am I doing, still and again? Why am I intent to suffer so? I am on a treasure hunt to find the glory in my story. It’s time…
There came a day when I awoke after a decent night’s sleep. One where anxiety didn’t shoot me out of bed and my skin. This same night I hadn’t dreamed of my body floating up to the street light that sent a glow on the picture below as I often do. Instead, I was lying there, the light trickling in, listening to the hummingbirds feeding outside my window as Mr. Squirrel was playing like a monkey jumping from branch to branch and Mr. Monty the Rooster began his morning wake up call and it occurred to me… today is the day I believe I became sick of trying to make sense out of nonsense, so I just stopped. I truly felt more free. Suddenly, smiling to myself, I was reminded of the fable…
“The Scorpion and the Frog” A scorpion, which cannot swim, asks a frog to carry it across a river on the frog’s back. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung by the scorpion, but the scorpion argues that if it did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung him despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “I couldn’t help it, it’s in my nature”.
Feeling like her skin has been peeled back as the sun bakes down on her exposed flesh. She is burning from stripping the layers of denial off, leaving her with the searing pain of the truth. She relives every detailed moment of each incident as if it were happening right here, right now. She tries to outrun them, but she can’t escape the memories. Her dreams hold her captive and startle her awake at times, bringing her anxiety back until she can awaken enough to remember where she is and that she is safe in her space. She bolts out of bed planting her feet on the ground, gasping for a breath, just one will do, but it takes many minutes to fully inhale and exhale.
They never understood their breakups, the discards, and this time, they don’t realize how the trauma has bonded her so tightly and why she cannot just break free. Neither does she, but fuck, she tries hard to sever it, all of it. Those ordinary people are living a common, vanilla, flavored life. She is tormented by the years of the secret lifestyle suppressed by his every move, his very nature, his discipline, corrections and punishments and now she will say it out loud… his abuse. Her body has been keeping score with faint marks still remaining upon her soft flesh while the flashbacks in her thoughts trigger her. Hyper vigilance has become part of her everyday life. Her mind kept tabs that were deeply engrained, creating new pathways that would continue far past their innumerable separations, including their last, their final.
In their world, she wasn’t initially picked out of a lineup for her soul to be crushed, but that was what took place over a slow, calculated period of time. She was carefully selected by him because of her strength and confidence she exhumed. She would make an excellent supply source. He was drawn to that. She would be his. His clay to mold, his property to own, his body to create and modify. He wanted what she had for his very own undoing. It all went into the choosing process. She would become a kept woman and that would require a complete breakdown of her human spirit she once possessed in order for him to transform her into the little pet toy he wanted her to be, the one he needed her to become.
She feels the tightening of the straps that hold her tightly and the strike of the cane upon her tearing, searing flesh. The stings ignite her fresh wounds, feeling as if they’re on fire. Another one follows and she thinks the last will never come, but then he tells her to count them down. Sobbing, she is finally allowed to drag her snot filled nose across the tear stained sheets, then abruptly everything just stops. There are no more sounds. His voice was silent. Faint footsteps fading away is the only sound she hears over her own shallow, deep breathing.
The room went deadly quiet as he disappeared for a moment, emerging again with a bottle of soothing gel. At last he released the ties that bound her, literally, and she collapsed across the bed, shaking, trying to catch her breath, but all she knows is the relief of being free, for now. The hyperventilating subsided, but she can’t stop shivering. Then suddenly she feels him lying behind her, covering her with a warm blanket. He holds her tightly in his arms at last, her limp body whimpering in agony as he whispers softly in her ear, “good girl, suffering so beautifully for me. You know this makes you even better for me, right? That makes me so happy.” Her brain can’t engage or comprehend anything, only the warmth of him. She easily focuses on her broken, aching body and his words. The echoes of them run across her mind, jumbled and unclear, yet all she can do is sob and nod as he pulls her closer to him, stroking her hair, kissing her neck, “shhh, good girl.” Sleep now little one. Exhausted, she passes out.
She awakens what seemed like hours later. It was dark outside and everything was silent and eerie in the cold room where he tucked her in after, after… and then she remembered her punishment he had administered only an hour before. The sting was intense as she dragged herself up from the bed. She took her aching self down the hall where she knew she would find him, sitting at the computer, waiting for her arrival. “Hi baby girl, your’re awake”. Her eyes burning, her voice barely above a whisper, she nodded and he motioned for her to come closer. As she did, he pulled her to his lap, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently as he whispered his famous words, “it’s over, it’s done, it’s in the past”. She was quietly weeping and melted into him. This wasn’t the first time nor would it be the last…
His depravity haunts her still and she tries to outrun the affects, the visuals, the hauntings of what her life once was, but she always catches up and finds herself waiting there. Right where she left herself. Fuck, You again?
She was his kept little girl, as he addressed her as, his. The reality was, she was a grown woman with severe daddy issues and the coercion he was inflicting upon her, the brainwashing and gas lighting had convinced her that all little girls receive this kind of “love and attention” when a daddy truly loves and desires them. She didn’t have a daddy of her own and she’d been abused for so long by her step monster, how could she possibly know any different? She believed him. She trusted him.
She’d lay there at night, a tear rolling down her cheek asking herself questions. Questions she didn’t have the answers for and he’d pull her close to him, whispering, “shh, sleep now baby girl. Everything’s alright.” but it never was.
Why did this please him so? Who was he? What was happening? How did she get to this place? Where had she gone? The amazing power of denial and the complete destruction of control. TPE a total mindfuck…
When did I let cynicism invade my heart? When the emotional upheaval is in full force, does the bottom need to fall out or do I crawl up from the ashes? There’s a heaviness that accompanies heartache. My head and heart are in this non amicable long distance relationship where neither can agree upon things very often. My head can be like, “yeah, you Dbag, I’m done being hurt by you. I’m glad you’re gone. You did nothing more than suck me dry of everything from my soul, leaving my flesh raw, my heart shredded and my spirit trampled. So fuck you and fuck your… everything, asshole. You don’t want me? Fine, I’ll find someone who does”, screams my broken little girl from deep inside. Really I know I’m shouting out to my bio dad, where the core root of my hurts and hang ups live, but I have to start from my now and move my way backwards and you, present time folks, are the lucky recipients who will suffer my wrath.
I’m learning…
Then my soft, forgiving heart chimes in louder with empathy, “but he’s sick and damaged, we can love him through it, all of it, wait and see. Wait some more, keep being patient, he’ll see, his heart will engage with ours,” but it never does. “Be more for him, he needs more from you girl. I know he isn’t capable of being what you need, but it’ll be alright, stick with him, it’ll fall into place. I know it’s been years of accepting his small crumbs, but you can live off of those.” That’s the part of my bleeding heart that yearns to connect with that someone who will fill that void. I’m an empty vessel by now. One that’s been giving all and receiving very little in return. I have a God sized hole in my breaking heart that truly only God can fill, not another human and certainly not some man.
I’m learning…
It’s the unfinished business that stings the most. The loose ends if you will. The unspoken, unresolved, looming questions that desire and deserve to be answered to my satisfaction. I suppose this all began when my bio dad “left me” at the age of 2. His departure would later set the stage for my behavior in all my interactions with every male who walked into my life and then out again, leaving me to feel the sting of his absence all over again. I’ve asked him the questions and silence was on the other end of the answer as he turned and stayed away. We call this feeling, abandonment. The emotions that surround it can range from unworthy, unwanted, undesirable, unimportant, unloveable, discarded, disposable, dissatisfying, disobedient, disdain. I’ve experienced waves of all of these negative thoughts about myself. Of course, they would be reinforced for my lifetime by the partners chosen to bring me more of the same and the familiar. Like a magnet, I drew them in. I’ve created this habitual recognition.
I’m learning…
Abandonment has convinced me that, “everyone I love leaves”. As my bio dad was replaced one day by a narcissistic asshole to say the least, slowly over time, mom began abandoning me, emotionally. His hideous displays of abuse over her began spilling over onto me. I wished he would leave, but that was never granted. I was trapped, listening to the lies spouting from his vulgar mouth while I was getting crafty at sidestepping his creepy advances. I blamed her for not protecting me. I drew mentally closer to a dad who was gone. I chased after him for the love, attention and time I craved, but he never rescued me from the hell I was trying to survive. I didn’t blame him. I loved him. Needed him. I silently pleaded. I waited. I hoped. He proved me right about leaving.
I’m learning…
I’m such a copy cat and a fraud. I ignored the symptoms for years. In the beginning he lured me in with his sweet talk, his stories of feeling unloved by his own mother, the alcoholic abuse from his own father and the betrayals from his 2 significant relationships. Being the sought after empath I am, I bought every word. My heart cried for him and I would show him how lovable he is. He didn’t just need my understanding and support, he required it to breathe. Fuck. I wasn’t just repeating the same patterns I witnessed between mom and the step monster, I was living them and I was engaging in them, with him. It sickens me to have claimed “I would never live life like her!” and yet, there I was duplicating her life, abused, ridiculed, belittled, objectified and convinced I would never survive on my own as he discarded me like last night’s leftovers time over time.
It’s absolutely the stages of grief and they will repeat in no specific order. This is a loss of greater magnitude than anyone can ever imagine. For me it still comes in waves because the dismissal or discarding was so abrupt and it suddenly came out of the oblivious that it was as traumatizing as the day I got the call my mom was in a fatal car accident. There were no answers to all my questions, no preparation to brace my heart and absolutely no closure to be had yet leaving so much unfinished business and so many loose ends. It just hurts, but the healing will come with the processing and doing the work. It’s a daily practice for me.
I get it. I hear every hurt, frustration and disbelief. How could a person not feel betrayed and angry? How do we get to the final step of freedom called acceptance? It’s a slow, sometimes agonizing process, but only in the sense that we were so wronged, though we wouldn’t want to miss a valuable lesson along the road to healing. Anger keeps us safe, but only momentarily. It’s a very necessary piece. I know I couldn’t have gotten through many days without it as my driving force. I have less days like that, but it does bubble up here and there. I used to think I was being defeated, but really I’m dipping a toe into the pool of surrendering to acceptance. Be well, you are blessed and doing great, you are strengthened. Stop being in such a rush to complete the stages like an assignment. Feel everything as you walk through to the other side and remember, you will revisit all the emotions over again. Let that be ok girl…
Time to begin again. As I think, my mind ventures down a path of beauty where the air is clean, the trees are whispering affirmations in my ears while the birds are seemingly in tune and chirp above the sounds that become loud inside my very soul. I write these words for the extraction of the pain. It is such an imperative step towards healing.
Notice, just notice, where do I feel that emotion in my body. Check in with my brain, is this new? A lie? A fact? A trigger? A flashback? Let’s sit with it for a moment. Explore its validity, destination and root. Remember those breathing techniques they taught you? Practice them now. Remind yourself you are safe, this isn’t happening right here or right now. Open your eyes girl. Wider. Take another breath. Release the toxins on the exhalation and inhale the sweetness of the aromas as they sweep across your face. View the beautiful sights of creation.
That is all you are ever intended to do as more has yet to be revealed. Keep walking. That next step belongs solely to you child. You may choose to look back to see how far you have come, but remember, it’s just a glance measuring your progress. Staring isn’t serving you anymore. Take your stride as slow as you need. No one is rushing you. The push is in your own mind. Time is measured by the hands on a clock and the days on a calendar. Oppression was your enemy that caused stagnation, complacency and even paralysis, all of which led to those feelings of unworthiness, self doubt and certainly fear. As we walk along this newly, still uncertain path, it is leading us to the freedom we’ve desired, to the truth that is gently nudging those feelings. They are not facts, so just let them come. Greet them like a sweet friend who reminds you that you are alive. Allow them to wash over you and fade as quickly as they came. Keep what belongs to you and release the rest. Breathe again and again and again until it becomes natural, yet again…
This is me, not a version of, a small fragment or even a shell, but who I’ve always been, authentically me. The former human I belonged to was not the first, nor the only man to dominate me, exercise power, exert control, overshadow, diminish my essence, cast painful words and cruel intentions directly into my personal being, but he will be the last. I have new beginnings and they are mine for the taking.
Thank you grand teachers for without whom, I would be a far different human than the one I have become. My empath journey has gone from believing I was living a bad dream that I couldn’t awaken from, to the reality that this life has been a journey of lifelong lessons, all of which has created my character. Bestowed upon me have been gifts and blessings for a deeper sense of self, compassion, empathy, clarity, peace, joy and above all else, love, for me.
Blame has no place in my house of flesh. Shame has been cast out as my voice becomes clear and a grander understanding that my words have always had value. Beliefs are mine to own, to embrace and to change. I welcome a hunger for knowledge without starvation and a thirst for information without dehydration. There will be no more lack, only abundance. From this day forward, it will begin with me, muther fucker…
The Whole Cookie 